Is Erle Montaigue decent?

[IronFist]

>>>>>Yang Cheng Fu died early because he became obese by practicing Repulse Monkey too much which makes you gain weight, I can't recall the posture that makes you lose weight

Holy ****e, certain positions and forms make you gain weight? How is this? Do they mess with your chi and metabolism or thyroid or something?

That's messed up. There's a posture that makes you lose weight? Why don't they market it as a diet program?

Iron <<<<<

[Stranger]

I don't know enough about internal Chinese Martial Arts to comment on much of what is going on but...

brassmonkey,

You claim you are not attacking Erle, just citing the unique characteristics of his style. Dude, you obviously have an ax to grind as just a couple of weeks ago you made a troll post wherein you begged for help from Erle's students because you claimed that you shot up from 130 lbs. to over 500lbs. doing Erle's forms. Funny, I think the claim of your new weight is absolute BS. I defy you to prove that you weigh that much now.
If you want to attack the system, then have the sack to say that you are. Don't come off like you are just talking about unique characteristics with no attacking intentions, when you post unprovoked trolling threads on this very forum.

I don't get mad.
I get stabby.

[Nutt'nhunny]

Bull****, bull****, bull****. Erle is not the real deal. He knows some stuff, but there are way, way, way better sources. Some that have another main style like. I would learn from mike patterson before I learned tai chi from erle. He doesn't have a clue, no idea of the big picture. Lots of dubious trivia. Like Yang Lu Chan fat from doing Repulsive monkey? I don't think so. Thats a nice kidney massage and gives you a killer solid stance for fighting, especially throwing wthich is what that movement is all about, but not in the obvious way its presented. Getting fat has to do with GAS general adaption syndrome. You get accostomed to your workout and gain weight.

[patriot]

Erle would be a lot more decent if he covers up his bare feet.

[gazza99]

WOW,honeysmacks just made the most intellegent arguement!! Thanks for the enlightenment! I bet after 5 min. of training with Erle or one of his instructors your story would be different...
Gary

"Of course thats just my opinion, I could be wrong"-Dennis Miller
www.pressurepointfighting.com

[Fu-Pow]

Holding a Taiji posture cannot make you fat. Take it from me....B.S. in Biochemistry.

Fu-Pow

[joedoe]

I've heard mixed things about Erle Montague. Never met or trained with they guy so I can't really say.

cxxx[]:::::::::::>
What we do in life echoes in Eternity

[gazza99]

Honeysmacks you are a complete moron, have you ever trained with Erle?
"Erle is not the real deal"
Sorry but I know from personal experiance that Erle IS the real deal,
I suppose if you prefer david Caridine that is your problem. You have no right to speak so authoritativly about someone when you have such limited experiance yourself, Id wager Erle would wipe the floor with you and your sifu without having to put his morning coffee down.

So in summation go F##K yourself.

I appologize to everyone about the tone of this post im just a bit angry in general lately..
Gary

"Of course thats just my opinion, I could be wrong"-Dennis Miller
www.pressurepointfighting.com

[Nexus]

Gary, if you are angry, it is probably an issue you are having internally (ie. the mind). Taiji balances many issues, but not all. I suggest you consult some form of compassion meditation, as anger is associated with the "liver" but also counteracted towards when one is giving attention to the heart (energy) center. If this problem continues, you may wish to to do some 3-centered meditation, (sitting) that is, as one should not neglect the sitting meditation by just doing taijiquan (standing) all the time.

Just a thought, hope everything goes well for you physically, emotionally, spiritually.

- Nexus

<font size="1">"Time, space, the whole universe - just an illusion! Often said, philosophically verifiable, even scientifically explainable. It's the <font color="blue">'just'</font> which makes the honest mind go crazy and the <font color="blue">ego</font> go berserk." - Hans Taeger</font>

[dedalus]

Cheng Fu *was* a bit on the large side, but it was more likely from eating too many monkeys than from repulsing them.

[dedalus]

Incidentally, I doubt Erle would wipe the floor with anyone. For one thing he's too nice a guy, and for another he's already got children ;-)

[Guandi]

>Id wager Erle would wipe the floor with you and
>your sifu

I have not read anything from his sifu here in the forum, so I think maybe you should not expand your anger to his sifu. He has probably nothing to do with what honeysmacks is saying here.

Guandi

[gazza99]

Nexus,
you very right, I have been working entirly to much due to recent events and have negected my qi-gong.
Dedalus..Guandi, Of course Erle is to nice and would not consider it, I was just making a crude point.
But perhaps honeysmacks sifu does have something to do with it? It seems that teachers influence greatly how their students respect others. Well I suppose I can be an As##### at times, and ERle is totally nice, so your probably right :)
Gary

"Of course thats just my opinion, I could be wrong"-Dennis Miller
www.pressurepointfighting.com

[Sam Wiley]

Repulse Monkey treats the liver and gall bladder, and as far as I know is in no way connected to weight gain or loss. The posture Erle associates with weight gain and loss is Fist Under Elbow. Done the way it is done in Yang Cheng-fu's form, it supposedly helps you gain weight, and done the way it is in Yang Lu-chan's form, it supposedly helps you lose weight. However, it is not the the qigong itself that will make you lose or gain weight, according to Erle. I'm not sure how to explain this, except to say that doing it YCF's way can make some people feel very yin and make them not want to do anything, and that doing it YLC's way makes you want to go out and take on the world. My theory on this is that YLC's way raises some yang energy and you want to go out and do something active, and that YCF's way either does not raise the energy or calms it so that you are less active. Having practiced both ways of doing this posture, I can say I do indeed feel like going out and doing something active after doing the posture YLC's way and I feel like lounging around after doing it YCF's way. The only sure way to lose weight and keep it off is to get up and exercise. There is no way doing a qigong is going to make you lose weight on its own.

Yang Cheng-fu himself did not get fat just because he practiced it the way he did. There had to have been other factors. And to my knowledge Erle has never said that YCF got fat because of that.

Nor has Erle ever claimed to be the sole inheritor of true Taiji or anything like that.

Iron Fist,
In answer to your question, Erle is extremely controversial, and because of that his system is as well. He has stepped on people's toes so many times that many people have grudges against him. There are even some out there who have grudges against me because of some of the things I have said. I have even gotten hate e-mails from people because of some of them. Erle is, however, a decent person, and very nice to boot. There are sometimes when I am simply astounded by his generosity. For instance, at his last seminar in New Jersey, although it was supposed to be on a few specific things, he took the time to demonstrate the first third of the Old Yang Style, and thus answered many questions, both asked and unasked, including some of my own. He didn't have to go over that form, the seminar was not on it, but he demonstrated it at its internal level to give people something more than what they thought they were getting. And he often gives tapes away to people, sometimes several at a time, and usually volunteering them himself. That may not seem like a big thing to many, but he makes money with those tapes and his books. He does it because he wants people to get some good information, even if he has to give it away for free. (Actually, he used to teach for free.) And these are videos he has put a lot of time and effort into, putting things down in very minute detail. I guess what I'm saying is that yes, he is a good teacher, and yes, his videos are good. And having seen what he can do first hand, I would say his skill is good as well. There may be better teachers out there with better info, but I have yet to find them. :)

*********

[RAF]

In one of the older volumes of Journal of Asian Maftial Arts, there is a comparision of Yang Cheng Fu's earlier postures and his latter. In his earlier postures, he was as skinny as a rail. Without an autopsy one will never quite know how he died but there is a good chance he contracted Hepatitus of some sorts and had a liver failure. It was also reported that Chen Fake (Journal of Chen's Taichi) that died of liver cancer which also can arise from a hepatitus infection. No matter what you play, infectious diseases are tough to rememdy.

I don't think Yang Cheng Fu's weight had much to do with his taijiquan.