ussd claim they teach shaolin

[sk girl]

USSD claim they teach shaolin, but where is it?
I didn't know pinons and katas 1-6 were shaolin?

Two man fist set is an ed parker form which Fred Villari got back in the 60 training with him.

So where's the shaolin?
Is Charles mattera lying to all his students about what they are learning?

Then what else is he lying about?

[Songshan]

yea....so does other styles claim they teach shaolin or is shaolin. You never really know what you are geting into. All I can say research research research before you decide to join a MA school.

[Shaolinlueb]

well technically karate came from some form of southern shaolin and southern shaolin came form shaolin and ussd crap came form karate, so technically if you want to be a a dousche bag it is shaolin.

but we all know its karate or kenpo

[PangQuan]

well technically karate came from some form of southern shaolin and southern shaolin came form shaolin and ussd crap came form karate, so technically if you want to be a a dousche bag it is shaolin.

but we all know its karate or kenpo

lol


that was a good one

[TenTigers]

people claim alot of things. McDonalds says their burgers are 100% beef, yet when I make a burger at home, it doesn't taste at all alike.

[xcakid]

Well Mattera did change the Black Belt curriculum to a more Kung Fu style. More so than any other Shaolin Kempo styles out there(Emperado's Kajukenbo, Ralph Castro or Villari)

More like Won Hop Kuen Do style that Al Dacascos started when he split off the Kempo lineage.

USSD may suck at teaching the art cuase the business aspect dilutes it. However, the art itself is good IMHO. They just need to stop churning out "black belts" so that they can offer more schools. They need to stop letting 1st Degree balck blets issued after 2yrs of study, and no other prior exp in MA, be chief instructors.

Is it Shaolin? NO. In my experience of Shaolin, USSD's training method differs to that of Shaolin training. ONe in particular is that USSD does not emphasize stance training and proper transition drills. Is it Kung Fu? Not in the color belt stages. However, the concepts changes, which I believe confuses the heck out of any student if this was thier first experience in MA. Again another fault in teaching method. Anyone with any background with CMA will be able to pick up the transition. Other tend to do CMA using Japenese MA foundation.

As I have said before. It is as close as you are going to get to CMA with an American derived system.

If you look at the roots of the system, you can better understand it and what is being taught to you. The main person in this system is James Mitose. If you believe the story, his MA was handed down by family directly from a Shaolin Monk. Nevertheless it is Japanese MA akin to Shorin Ryu. He then handed this down to Kwai Sun Chow. Chinese decent with a background in Chinese boxing. His Shaolin link has been in dispute, so I am not even going to bring that out. But the man can fight. So there you have the Kung Fu/Karate explaination.

Fast fwd to the Ken(m)po contemporaries:

Ed Parker: Took out the circular movement, low stance, etc. that he deemed were to difficult for the American body to adapt. He added a bit of biology with rigard to motion and body mechanics into the art. It turned out looking more like fancy hand waving in my opinion.

Adriano Emperado et al: Took this art and added bits an pieces of other Asian arts that was lacking. Karate, Judo/Juijitsu, Kenpo, Chinese Boxing. There you have Kajukenbo. Later on Gary Forbach, who took over the reigns, when to China to study more CMA and incorporated it into the system.

Kwai Sun Chow: Kaharo Ho Kempo. This is probably the truest art of Kempo out there. Undiluted.

Then we go to offshoots:

Al Dacascos: Created Won Hop Kuen Do and added more CMA into the system. This is probably the most Kung Fu-like out of all the Kempo offshoots. If you ever see their forms in competition, you would swear it was modern Wushu.

Ralph Castro: Kept more of the American Kenpo of parker however, took in more of CMA into the system.

Nick Cerios: Instructor to Villari which, Mattera denies ever being a student of Villari but he was. Regardless, much like Castro kept the American Kenpo concept. He did change the forms however, more Karate in the color belts. And soft in the higher belts although still not Kung Fu.

He had 2 offshots. Villari and Mattera. Villari schools kept the Nick Cerios concept although Villari added a few forms. Matter broke off and kept much of the lower belt curriculum. Once USSD was established, he changed the black belt curriculum. There were a few black belt from other CMA arts and he assimilated their forms and concepts within the system. For example, I have a few forms I learned while there: Staff and Spear form from N Shaolin LF, Straight sword form from CLF and a broudsword form from N Shoalin.

Hope that explains it. I am by no means an expert. However, I have spent nearly 8yrs. in the Kempo world. Master Ralph Castro then Villari then eventually Mattera's USSD.

[Songshan]

Yea but therein lies the problem. Karate itself mainly derives from Japan. Kung Fu hails from China. Two different countries and in my opinion two different styles. Yea sure some can use the "shaolin blanket" that shaolin has influenced all other martial art styles but when schools go around saying they are teaching kung fu but wear karate gis and have a karate style ranking system is absurd.

I am not sure if I exactly agree with the mixing of MA styles. I think there are new fighting theories and systems that can be pioneered but when they are tossed out there and dubbed "shaolin" is insane.

[ninja matt]

well technically karate came from some form of southern shaolin and southern shaolin came form shaolin and ussd crap came form karate, so technically if you want to be a a dousche bag it is shaolin.

but we all know its karate or kenpo

Well ussd masters are dousche bags so the shoe fits.

[PangQuan]

USSD claim they teach shaolin, but where is it?
I didn't know pinons and katas 1-6 were shaolin?

Two man fist set is an ed parker form which Fred Villari got back in the 60 training with him.

So where's the shaolin?
Is Charles mattera lying to all his students about what they are learning?

Then what else is he lying about?

there may likely be shaolin material that is present somewhere in the curriculum...but you never know how much, or how much it has changed from when it was first absorbed, or when you will actually learn it.

if what you really want is shaolin, i wouldnt really be looking for it there. but i guess we are generally all stuck where we live so you have to go for what you have near unfortunately. there is plenty of shaolin in the states, you just have to be in the right area, or get lucky and find someone who has it but doesnt promote it so much.

personally i dont train ussd so im not too sure.

[ninja matt]

USSD claim they teach shaolin, but where is it?
I didn't know pinons and katas 1-6 were shaolin?

Two man fist set is an ed parker form which Fred Villari got back in the 60 training with him.

So where's the shaolin?
Is Charles mattera lying to all his students about what they are learning?

Then what else is he lying about?

Yes he's a liar. He lies to his students, instuctors all for the money.
If you went to an area that didn't have italian food and you started serving mexican food and called it italian but no one knew the difference you might get away with it for a while. Now we have the internet to exposed Mattera and ussd as the frauds that they are.

[sk girl]

Yes he's a liar. He lies to his students, instuctors all for the money.
If you went to an area that didn't have italian food and you started serving mexican food and called it italian but no one knew the difference you might get away with it for a while. Now we have the internet to exposed Mattera and ussd as the frauds that they are.

Yes Thank you. He lied saying we would make money from there schools. We only made money for ussd.
50 hours, $ 300 a week no taxes taken out sucks! Plus you can never own a school 100%
$250,000 for 33% of a school and all the rest of the money goes back to ussd! Come on how is anybody gonna make a living off that?
Plus a $1,000 a month for black belt manuals.
It would take 30 years just to get your money back from ussd.

[SenseiShellie]

heh...I remember having so many manuals from the 4 previous Chief Instructors of a certain dojo, which no longer exists, I could have built a second location.

[xcakid]

Yes Thank you. He lied saying we would make money from there schools. We only made money for ussd.
50 hours, $ 300 a week no taxes taken out sucks! Plus you can never own a school 100%
$250,000 for 33% of a school and all the rest of the money goes back to ussd! Come on how is anybody gonna make a living off that?
Plus a $1,000 a month for black belt manuals.
It would take 30 years just to get your money back from ussd.

Wow!!! Guess inflation has caught up with USSD. When I owned a school, the franchise fee for a turn key school was $80K.

There was also a group liaibility insurance paid qrtrly(This was minimal, like $200 for a $10Mil policy).
Plus minimum of 10 manual purchased every month($500)
Plus you had to buy all your gear at Bushido
Plus the annual charge for marketing(about $5K)
Plus give up on all the Brown and Black belt testing. 100% goes to corporate.
Plus an annual franchise fee(dont recall what it was, I believe it was around $10K).

And then of course I had to pay rent and utilities out of all the cash I give to USSD. Also I had to get my own health coverage. Nevertheless, I had control of what to charge. The DM for the area pretty much sets a minimum so that you do not undercut a franchise in your town. There were 2 of us in Mission Viejo at the time. But I could charge $200 a month if I wanted to. Or as little as the minimum. Of course if you did not make your fees, corporate had the right to bring in their own chief instructor and you would have to pay them a salary. As well as shut you down and you lose all your investment. I knew one instructor that just broke off and just went independent. He was then harrassed and ended up suing USSD and Mattera which he won.

After all was said an done I was averaging a take home of $3-5K a month pre tax. Of course I owned and taught myself. I had 2 asst. instructors that came in and I did not pay them. Basically just exchanged lessons and private classes for their time. One was a black belt and the other a green belt. The other good thing was if I wanted to take a vaca, there were black belts from other schools that would cover.

Guess they have re-structured it a bit since I left the system.

[sk girl]

Wow!!! Guess inflation has caught up with USSD. When I owned a school, the franchise fee for a turn key school was $80K.

There was also a group liaibility insurance paid qrtrly(This was minimal, like $200 for a $10Mil policy).
Plus minimum of 10 manual purchased every month($500)
Plus you had to buy all your gear at Bushido
Plus the annual charge for marketing(about $5K)
Plus give up on all the Brown and Black belt testing. 100% goes to corporate.
Plus an annual franchise fee(dont recall what it was, I believe it was around $10K).

And then of course I had to pay rent and utilities out of all the cash I give to USSD. Also I had to get my own health coverage. Nevertheless, I had control of what to charge. The DM for the area pretty much sets a minimum so that you do not undercut a franchise in your town. There were 2 of us in Mission Viejo at the time. But I could charge $200 a month if I wanted to. Or as little as the minimum. Of course if you did not make your fees, corporate had the right to bring in their own chief instructor and you would have to pay them a salary. As well as shut you down and you lose all your investment. I knew one instructor that just broke off and just went independent. He was then harrassed and ended up suing USSD and Mattera which he won.

After all was said an done I was averaging a take home of $3-5K a month pre tax. Of course I owned and taught myself. I had 2 asst. instructors that came in and I did not pay them. Basically just exchanged lessons and private classes for their time. One was a black belt and the other a green belt. The other good thing was if I wanted to take a vaca, there were black belts from other schools that would cover.

Guess they have re-structured it a bit since I left the system.

Hey xcakid,
I ran a ussd dojo for those monkeys but it was too expensive. Plus I was tired of the DM who hadn't ran a dojo in 10 years tell me how to run them.

Back when they ran dojo's it was 60 a month for groups not 200 a month.
They expected me to sign up 3 people a week for $450 the first month!!
My DM told me he had harrassed schools that break away.

Which city was it?
Where was your school? Did you sell it back to them?

[xcakid]

Hey xcakid,
I ran a ussd dojo for those monkeys but it was too expensive. Plus I was tired of the DM who hadn't ran a dojo in 10 years tell me how to run them.

Back when they ran dojo's it was 60 a month for groups not 200 a month.
They expected me to sign up 3 people a week for $450 the first month!!
My DM told me he had harrassed schools that break away.

Which city was it?
Where was your school? Did you sell it back to them?

Mission Viejo. USSD found a buyer to take over the school as well as another instructor.