Chicago's Green Dragon society

[Violent Designs]

There used to be a guy from the "Black Dragon" briefly at my BJJ gym and I guess everything was secret and he couldn't even say where the school was but who knows.....

Did he try to apply his qi powers to make you tap?

[cerebus]

The Green Dragon Society was an odd and interesting group. They claimed to teach the northern Chinese "Chi Tao Chuan" system, but their various manuals show something far different from a traditional Chinese system. There is alot of stuff much more reminiscent of Indonesian Silat, where one is possessed by the spirit of a chosen animal. Their Black Cobra manual includes meditational methods which could lead to various types of psychosis and mental imbalance.

There was alot of hard contact bare-knuckle sparring, or "blood-matches" as they called them, as well. Inevitably there was also alot of political infighting and abuse of power leading to much fracturing of the Society and now there are many different groups teaching the "Chi Tao Chuan" system.

[Faruq]

How effective was their system? How effective would you estimate in an actual streetfight against a reasonably skilled fighter, Cerebus? And have you traced their system to any actual place in Northern China? Or was that purely made up?

[Syn7]

yeah that was my question too... were they street kings or street clowns??? if they were effective, i guess it doesnt really matter where it came from, but lying about stuff like that is pretty dumb... especially if what youre doing is good...

people always go on about authentic this, authentic that... but there is tons of authentic crap... and there are lots of great new systems... i hate it when people assume something is great because its old... or that becausae it was once great, that it is now... and how people swear its the same as it always was... yadda yadda... why cant somebody create great styles now? new can be a good thing sometimes...

[cerebus]

Well, of course any system is only as good as the person training it. Having regular experience in full contact sparring goes a long way toward developing the mental toughness and skills which can work on the street.

There's quite a bit more about the GDS and their background in this book: http://www.amazon.com/Deadliest-Man-...9772285&sr=1-2

[Faruq]

Yeah cool, but from your previous post it sounded like you were there. Would you give us an opinion from your own personal knowledge or perhaps of friends you know who went there?

[cerebus]

No, I wasn't there myself, though I've known people who were members back in the '70s & 80s. They mostly commented on the secrecy that was such a big part of the GDS, needing passwords to enter the training halls, etc. I suppose the best one can do is to learn everything they can and draw their own conclusions.

The former head instructor who seems to have been the head of the whole organization (or at least it's US branches), Douglas Nowakunski, passed away a year or two ago. He may have taken the answers to the grave with him...

[Faruq]

The U.S. branches? What other countries was the art taught in? How did this Nowalkunski fellow come across this art originally? Did he ever say where he learned or who his teacher was?

Oh, and the real question I should ask is since these guys who went there were your friends, did you ever see any of these friends in a real fight, and if so how did they do? What did it look like?

[cerebus]

The U.S. branches? What other countries was the art taught in? How did this Nowalkunski fellow come across this art originally? Did he ever say where he learned or who his teacher was?

Oh, and the real question I should ask is since these guys who went there were your friends, did you ever see any of these friends in a real fight, and if so how did they do? What did it look like?

They claimed affiliation with an association in Macao. Nowakunski never publicly said who his instructors were. The people I knew who were members back then were getting kinda old when I met them around 2004 and had become Tai Chi practitioners so they weren't doing any fighting.

The book I posted the link to includes a better description of the art and includes some photos from one of their training manuals.

[Faruq]

The most outrageous styles always seem to have untraceable roots, and no proof as to their effectiveness on the street....