New book on Chung Moo Quan/Ooom Yung Doe

[neilhytholt]

Since you put quotes around cult, you don't believe those groups were cults.

Reasons this group at the time of the book is nothing like those you describe(and how ninjitsu qualifies as a second group to ninjutsu escapes me):

1) Those groups don't choose your wife
2) Those groups don't keep you from taking vacations
3) Those groups don't require you to drop your friends
4) Those groups don't make you take public defenders so that the grandmaster can use money from the schools you run to hire lawyers while he tells you your defense is all taken care of, as happened to the ones who went down with Kim
5) Those schools don't have their grandmaster fleeing from an apparent accidental drowning and having his superiors ommiting this information from the police when they arrive
6) Those schools don't have people using the drowned man's license years later for unknown purposes.

I'm not saying people aren't duped, I'm saying you have less experience with this topic than you think, and the book is about what you don't know, not what you do.

The author was prime pickings, his whole family was dead by the time he was a very young man, he had no one to teach him these things that you expect him to be seen as a fool for not knowing.

Do you really see no cause for empathy for such a person?

Or interest in seeing such a person make good and speak the truth so that others don't get duped?

(Edit ... actually I don't understand how people get like that.)

As for the Ninjitsu / Ninjutsu, that's kindof a joke. We used to call it Ninjitsu but at some point Bujinkan I think called it Ninjutsu to point out they were different from the Hayes folks, I think. I have no idea.

Basically it seems like most people are sheep. They don't think about what they are doing. They don't use their brains.

So if a sheep is following Bush vs. Democrats vs. anything else, what's the difference?

If somebody's holding a gun to their brains, then that's a difference, I guess.

Anyways, whatever. Have I ever been duped in my life? Yes. Have I ever been part of a cult-like martial arts group? Yes.

I was brought up under fundamentalist Christianity, but it was obvious by age 12 that they were full of crap. I mean, where's the proof? There is no proof.

But it seems like what went on with this group was far and away the act of people not using their brains and walking away from a situation, which is what I don't understand.

I mean, did the guy walk on water or something? Seriously, I mean, would you do all that stuff for a stage magician like Chriss Angel? Because from what I've been told this guy did nothing but martial arts and people did all this stuff.

I just don't get it. It makes no sense at all.

But yeah, Ninjitsu / Ninjutsu wasn't as bad as what you're saying. I mean, there was pressure to give more $$$ for more training so the teacher could go back to Japan for more training, and they didn't always test their stuff against experienced martial artists, and at some point they started to force their version of religion, which is when I walked, but they didn't do the stuff you're saying.

But how would anybody buy the stuff they're saying? I mean, they're just a martial arts group. It's just too weird. I've come across a lot of other CMD stuff around and it's just like, "????????????????????????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????"

Jim Jones is the same thing. ???? What the heck? Maybe you have to actually be there in that group to understand what they went through, because the text descriptions sure don't describe it.

[IronKim]

hey who talkes about oom yung doe don't know ****....you don't know jack about martial arts you ****ing pedophiles

[neilhytholt]

hey who talkes about oom yung doe don't know ****....you don't know jack about martial arts you ****ing pedophiles

The best thing, though, was when I visited the OYD school a couple of years ago. They had this guy there showing basic chi-na type maneuvers, and he wasn't showing it right. What he was showing wasn't working.

So there was one junior student trying to correct another junior student, trying to work it out, and I'm just going. ??? WTF

So I don't mention it when he walks out. Instead, I go, "That looked pretty good. How long have you been studying?"

He goes, "Only 2 years. I'm the senior instructor here, though." All proud.

(Hehehehehehehe, reverse psychology).

So he walks out, tries to sell me, and I tell him, "I'm just here to see what you do. Will you show me some bagua?"

So he goes, "No, we won't show you any bagua." I'm like, "But then how do I know your bagua is any good?"

So he goes, "Iron kim this, iron kim that, iron kim ..." So I go, "Well, okay, if you're not going to show me anything, then I'm leaving now."

So he goes, "Have you ever seen a gua?" I'm trying to figure out, what the heck is a gua? He goes, "Here, let me hit you."

I'm like, "Okay ... weird ... but okay."

So he does something that looks like some really bad bagua and nails me right somewhere you shoudn't hit (I'm not even going to say because it's so dangerous). Not something you do on demos.

I almost broke his neck right there. WHAT AN IDIOT ...

Anyways, so I walked out, never to walk back. But students with 2 years instruction shouldn't be teaching.

[IronKim]

**** you you ****ing pansy he probably kicked your fat ass

[KC Elbows]

Joe explains the process quite easily. You have to understand, this belief doesn't occur from the presence of the leader doing amazing things, but the absence of it. I never once saw the grandmaster in seven years there.

The book does a great job in showing how everybody is kept so busy and frazzled that there is almost no time to worry about anything else.

Additionally, it's not the sheep complex on its own, the groups you're discussing aren't so severe as this, it takes a whole other mindset to tolerate it and not book outright. One of the guys running a region for CMQ cut himself a lot, another drank most of the time. I was at a disastrous point in my life, Joe was basically orphaned, for many a lot of circumstances that made having a built in "support network"(if a totally predatory one) seem natural.

Additionally, at the point I was in, there were a good number of guys with real athletic talent, and they were always put up front. Back then, a lot of the instructors were guys from physical labor backgrounds, the ones you saw in '99 would have been mostly former white collar folk, this has an impact on the feel of the school as well. In the time the book covers, a guy like you who came in to test them would have been triple teamed and beaten out of the school if possible, by guys who routinely behaved that way. The book covers exactly that conduct in a least two sections.

[neilhytholt]

Joe explains the process quite easily. You have to understand, this belief doesn't occur from the presence of the leader doing amazing things, but the absence of it. I never once saw the grandmaster in seven years there.

The book does a great job in showing how everybody is kept so busy and frazzled that there is almost no time to worry about anything else.

Additionally, it's not the sheep complex on its own, the groups you're discussing aren't so severe as this, it takes a whole other mindset to tolerate it and not book outright. One of the guys running a region for CMQ cut himself a lot, another drank most of the time. I was at a disastrous point in my life, Joe was basically orphaned, for many a lot of circumstances that made having a built in "support network"(if a totally predatory one) seem natural.

Additionally, at the point I was in, there were a good number of guys with real athletic talent, and they were always put up front. Back then, a lot of the instructors were guys from physical labor backgrounds, the ones you saw in '99 would have been mostly former white collar folk, this has an impact on the feel of the school as well. In the time the book covers, a guy like you who came in to test them would have been triple teamed and beaten out of the school if possible, by guys who routinely behaved that way. The book covers exactly that conduct in a least two sections.

You know, I really have no idea. Before I got married I tried to date a lot of women, and if you treated them well, they'd always run off to date some jerks. Then they'd run back claiming they were mistreated, and the first one actually I let back, but after that, that was it ... no more.

There's some messed up stuff out there psychology wise, I guess. I mean, I had a lot of run-ins with Army and Marine recruiters and they had this thing, like, "Are you man enough for us." ??? Are you man enough to take orders from some idiot and go out and get killed???

But evidently that sort of psychology gets a lot of people. I don't understand it, but it seems to be pretty popular. It's almost like people enjoy being abused.

I didn't go in to test them in 1999. I went there just to check out what they were doing. It was a couple of years ago when I went in there and the kid (must have been early 20s was teaching). I just wanted to know what their bagua looked like, if there was anything at all to their system. (I had gone through all the Internet stuff at that point).

You talk about visiting schools and everybody thinks you're going to test the school. Well I have tests for schools.

First test is if the instructor drops everything to talk to me. If they talk to me for more than a "Hi, you can sit here to watch the class," then I walk out the door. Because if they come to talk to any idiot and don't teach class, it's a waste of money.

You'd be surprised how many schools fail that test. OYD actually passed that test. But their techniques were flimsy at best.

I couldn't believe when the kid nailed me, though. Evidently they taught him something (very bad), but they did teach him something. Not the chin-na, though, he couldn't do that well at all.

[Judge Pen]

Additionally, at the point I was in, there were a good number of guys with real athletic talent, and they were always put up front. Back then, a lot of the instructors were guys from physical labor backgrounds, the ones you saw in '99 would have been mostly former white collar folk, this has an impact on the feel of the school as well. In the time the book covers, a guy like you who came in to test them would have been triple teamed and beaten out of the school if possible, by guys who routinely behaved that way. The book covers exactly that conduct in a least two sections.

What's wrong with white collar?

[neilhytholt]

What's wrong with white collar?

Nothing wrong with white collar, just usually they aren't as likely to start stuff and act rough, supposedly.

Although most all of my family is blue collar (construction, farming, etc.) and they didn't run around getting into fights and starting stuff either, so I don't know what the big deal is.

[KC Elbows]

What's wrong with white collar?

Nothing at all, and I didn't intend to make it sound like there was. It's merely a matter of, if you accept that hitting a bag all day makes you tougher, or lifting weights makes you tougher, that we're talking guys lugging around concrete, hands rock-like from driving a hammer, etc, BEFORE they even begin training.

Honestly, I've met guys in construction who have better iron hands than anyone I've met since, and zero training. Mind you, they also have tendonitis beyond belief, but that's later.

It makes a difference in the short term.

The culture is a bit different as well; while I've seen psychos at my later white collar job, they didn't have hammers. I worked at a shop where one guy was so bad, we all would grab pipe clamps, staple guns, whatever was at hand when he would have his temper tantrums, and he'd still come close to closing the distance.

Unload a flatbed full of 4x8 mdf by hand, and you get tough. Later you get injured, and if you let that stop you, then you get fired. Makes people a little more ornery, but in CMQ, the "routine behavior" I was referring to was based around the school's expectations, not their background, the background was a reference to what they were capable of physically pulling off.

[neilhytholt]

Nothing at all, and I didn't intend to make it sound like there was. It's merely a matter of, if you accept that hitting a bag all day makes you tougher, or lifting weights makes you tougher, that we're talking guys lugging around concrete, hands rock-like from driving a hammer, etc, BEFORE they even begin training.

Honestly, I've met guys in construction who have better iron hands than anyone I've met since, and zero training. Mind you, they also have tendonitis beyond belief, but that's later.

It makes a difference in the short term.

The culture is a bit different as well; while I've seen psychos at my later white collar job, they didn't have hammers. I worked at a shop where one guy was so bad, we all would grab pipe clamps, staple guns, whatever was at hand when he would have his temper tantrums, and he'd still come close to closing the distance.

Unload a flatbed full of 4x8 mdf by hand, and you get tough. Later you get injured, and if you let that stop you, then you get fired. Makes people a little more ornery, but in CMQ, the "routine behavior" I was referring to was based around the school's expectations, not their background, the background was a reference to what they were capable of physically pulling off.

It seems kindof interesting that these days there are many fewer men going to college and graduating than women. I run into all these young guys doing construction these days, just like most of my ancestors did.

On one hand, it's kindof nostalgic, like back to the old days. On the other hand, it's worrisome because there's all these college educated women around who don't seem to find these lower income construction type guys appealing.

It seems like an enterprising white collar type under 30s young guy with a BMW could really clean up in the ass department these days.

Anyways, sorry you all got messed up by CMD/OYD. I guess I don't really get it.

[Donkwoon]

This is an interesting discussion and from it, I'm able to glean that the CMQ/CMD experience differed some what depending on location. At least for me any ways.

(It's nice outside and so I'm going to be very brief)

When I showed up at the CMQ school I had had some experience with martial arts (mostly Karate). It never occurred to me that a martial arts school could be a cult though. I just liked the way the top instructor ran the school. Their was discipline and intensity. We would learn forms and then much of the time learn to apply the moves. I was very impressed with how well the head instructor could apply the moves and I couldn't get enough of the teachings. (He was an x instructor from the old Fred Vilari system and had basically developed his own way of teaching)

If things stayed like they were at first I might have remained longer.

I don't know how relevant this is but when they changed from CMQ to CMD things started to get really spooky....almost overnight. The head guy moved up to become some sort of regional instructor and was no longer there all the time. The new guys that came in to instruct were products of that system and you could plainly tell the affect that it had on them. Basically, they were atomatrons. They were all total zealots and some were bullies.
The nature of how the classes were run changed; No longer was there such a high degree of effort into understanding the application of the forms.

During CMQ we were allowed to free spar (light body contact, non to the head) and were encouraged to experiment with and apply the applications. When it changed to CMD the self defense aspect of the class was decreased considerably. We would focus mostly on brutal workouts (I must admit some of the best of my life) but only in the developmental sense. It was as though they wanted us to under go the rigors of martial arts with out teaching us the ability to apply it.

Of course after each workout, one of us would be called into the office to be told that we were not working hard enough to fork over all the $ that they wanted.

I could only take so much of this and so one day I showed up and told the head instructor at the time that I had had it and was leaving for good.

[KC Elbows]

This is an interesting discussion and from it, I'm able to glean that the CMQ/CMD experience differed some what depending on location. At least for me any ways.

(It's nice outside and so I'm going to be very brief)

When I showed up at the CMQ school I had had some experience with martial arts (mostly Karate). It never occurred to me that a martial arts school could be a cult though. I just liked the way the top instructor ran the school. Their was discipline and intensity. We would learn forms and then much of the time learn to apply the moves. I was very impressed with how well the head instructor could apply the moves and I couldn't get enough of the teachings. (He was an x instructor from the old Fred Vilari system and had basically developed his own way of teaching)

If things stayed like they were at first I might have remained longer.

I don't know how relevant this is but when they changed from CMQ to CMD things started to get really spooky....almost overnight. The head guy moved up to become some sort of regional instructor and was no longer there all the time. The new guys that came in to instruct were products of that system and you could plainly tell the affect that it had on them. Basically, they were atomatrons. They were all total zealots and some were bullies.
The nature of how the classes were run changed; No longer was there such a high degree of effort into understanding the application of the forms.

During CMQ we were allowed to free spar (light body contact, non to the head) and were encouraged to experiment with and apply the applications. When it changed to CMD the self defense aspect of the class was decreased considerably. We would focus mostly on brutal workouts (I must admit some of the best of my life) but only in the developmental sense. It was as though they wanted us to under go the rigors of martial arts with out teaching us the ability to apply it.

Of course after each workout, one of us would be called into the office to be told that we were not working hard enough to fork over all the $ that they wanted.

I could only take so much of this and so one day I showed up and told the head instructor at the time that I had had it and was leaving for good.

It sounds like you were in around the same time as the author.

[Donkwoon]

It sounds like you were in around the same time as the author.

If memory serves me correct, I'd say around 88-91 approx.

[KC Elbows]

If memory serves me correct, I'd say around 88-91 approx.

Then I was wrong, you were in about the same time as me. It was the doe/quan point that threw me off: in reality, the difference in titles was not uniform: the schools I attended never changed their name to chung moo doe, there was a school closer to the city proper that did.

Was Tom McGee the Regional you were talking about?

EDIT-- wait, I didn't notice where you live. They did all change to the chung moo doe name in New England, didn't they? One of the reasons the New England schools, and later the Florida schools, were often not as culty was distance from the Grandmaster- the guys running them had more latitude to behave normally because, as long as they sent their money in, they weren't bothered as much, unless the grandmaster became worried that they were getting too big in the organization. After the court case, TD and EZ made an attempt to reform the schools while Kim was in prison, tried standardizing the curriculum and requiring instructors to have CPR experience and stuff like that. The Grandmaster, from prison, had others undermine this plan with the so-called "international level training", an amusing name, considering that no one on the "international team" ever seemed to have anything to do with any other nations. TD and EZ were quickly smeared every way possible, though EZ would eventually remove most of his schools from the Kim organization.

[Royal Dragon]

I also know that on Florida, they were useing the OYD name in the early 90's. I remember being at the Roselle school and seeing a video of Jerry Barfeilld, and the flags carried on the beach was OYD.