Green Dragon Studios

[IronWeasel]

oh no... not going to be THAT kind of thread at all...

Please, enlighten me as to the content....where does it come from... ?... Who can attest to its legitimacy?...

What exactly can a person who starts studying with that gruop expect to learn?....

Well, I guess this is where lineage comes in to play. Sifu allen's teachers: Feemon Ong, Gao-dao Shang, Ark Wong, Chang Dung Sheng, etc. Ong seems to get some bad press on this forum, but all are credible sources of material and well known and respected. Do you agree with me that these are legitimate sources of Chinese martial arts?

A student should expect to learn the complete authentic material, combat applications as well as the ability to derive applications from other material on their own...just to scratch the surface.

[IronWeasel]

Bottom line about Green Dragon studios is ... why do you want to learn off of videos anyway?

Do you really think you can get forms off of videos, without the instruction of a live teacher and corrections and all of that?

Good point. I feel that a live teacher is critical to proper training and instruction. After a some years of learning forms, I have improved my ability to interpret the combat applications withinn them. I use a few of their video tapes to supplement the training that I have received in person.

As far as corrections...I know what to look for when I crtique other people, so MY performance shouldn't be TOO bad. A brutally honest critique once in a while WOULD be nice, though.

[IronWeasel]

They don't have all the corrections themselves anyway, so learning it from them live would be no different than learning from thier videos.

They don't have all the corrections, anyway??

You must be reading from the "Great Big Book of Kung Fu Corrections".
It tells you which 'corrections' that Green Dragon has and which ones they don't.

That way you can make sweeping generalizations on the internet and ACTUALLY cite a source!

Yer killin' me, man!!!

Seroiusly, R.D....help me to understand the weakpoints in my training. No bashing... If you have a criticism, be specific, so that the deficience can be corrected.

Thanks.

IronWeasel <--- goin' Christmas shoppin'. Wish me luck...

[Knifefighter]

....help me to understand the weakpoints in my training. No bashing... If you have a criticism, be specific, so that the deficience can be corrected.

After a some years of learning forms, I have improved my ability to interpret the combat applications withinn them. I use a few of their video tapes to supplement the training that I have received in person.

If you are spending your time trying to interpret movements from forms, that's exactly what is wrong with your training.

[Yao Sing]

As far as corrections...I know what to look for when I crtique other people, so MY performance shouldn't be TOO bad. A brutally honest critique once in a while WOULD be nice, though.

Have you posted a clip yet?

[lunghushan]

They don't have all the corrections, anyway??

You must be reading from the "Great Big Book of Kung Fu Corrections".
It tells you which 'corrections' that Green Dragon has and which ones they don't.

That way you can make sweeping generalizations on the internet and ACTUALLY cite a source!

I had a few of their videos that I bought off of EBay, but I tossed them. I don't really think they are useful. The apps they had were pretty okay, I guess, but not something I'd really want to study. The forms, were, well I don't think you can learn forms off of video.

One had a chick breaking a concrete thingey. That one was pretty good just in that I'd never seen a chick do that before.

[RAF]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1w8B_...elated&search=

I don't think Femon Ong's material ever had this flavor although his son Steven may have studied under Gao Dao Sheng. Gao Dao Sheng taught publicly in the park at Taiwan.

If you scroll down, you will see Tony Yang with Gao Dao Sheng. They taught next to each other in Taiwan.

http://www.wutangcenter.com/wt/photo...masteryang.htm

[Sal Canzonieri]

Well, I guess this is where lineage comes in to play. Sifu allen's teachers: Feemon Ong, Gao-dao Shang, Ark Wong, Chang Dung Sheng, etc. Ong seems to get some bad press on this forum, but all are credible sources of material and well known and respected. Do you agree with me that these are legitimate sources of Chinese martial arts?

A student should expect to learn the complete authentic material, combat applications as well as the ability to derive applications from other material on their own...just to scratch the surface.

Sorry for butting into this, but:
yes, they are legitimate sources of CMA, but all I or most people have ever seen of Green Dragon's forms is their videos, and unless they were deliberately done 'wrong' so that people couldn't 'only' learn the form from the video, these forms
are pretty terrible in the fact that they are mostly well known forms that look barely executed to standard.

I've judged tournaments for many years, etc, etc, and never have I seen these forms done so stiffly, so out of character with the styles that the came from.
That's my personal opinion.

I've shown the videos to people from those styles, and until I showed them the title of the form on the video, they could not figure out what form they were seeing.
For example, the Ba Ji Quan form, shows nothing of the flavor of any Ba Ji I have done or others I have seen do, all the GD tapes I have seen look like
Chinese forms done like Karate forms, with all the flavor, the body mechanics of karate.

Maybe Green Dragon school has fantastic stuff that they teach their students, the only thing I am saying is that their videos just don't show it and make poor ambassadors for the school.

[ginosifu]

Well, I guess this is where lineage comes in to play. Sifu allen's teachers: Feemon Ong, Gao-dao Shang, Ark Wong, Chang Dung Sheng, etc. Ong seems to get some bad press on this forum, but all are credible sources of material and well known and respected. Do you agree with me that these are legitimate sources of Chinese martial arts?

I live and teach close John Allens school. Every well known, well respected sifu in area has told me he either stole his form from video taping tournaments or bought videos and learned from them.
Now there's nothing wrong with learning from tapes.... if you're a form junkie. However, real CMA need a qualified sifu to show you the details, what type of jing or energy is used, whether you gong sao or yao sao, is the form supposed to move faster or slower etc etc..

I do not mean to bash anyone but, unless John Allen comes out and proves other wise... this what everyone is saying aound him.

Ginosifu

[ekaltenborn]

Very well said Ginosifu. Like i said in my original post, I have seen these guys around for years when I lived in Akron. They are very passionate about what they do. Theres no doubt they train hard. I just cant see the combatives... A very good instructor once told me, martial arts is something you do with someone (a sport).... combatives are something you do to someone... I just dont see the combatives there. I see a bunch of half baked forms... In short I agree with you, if Mr. Allen can show some legitimate kung fu, that he can effectively extract combative tactics out of and know what it means and does... I would love to see it!! Until that time, I guess my opinion remains that its mostly his interpretation of something he saw on video.

[Royal Dragon]

That way you can make sweeping generalizations on the internet and ACTUALLY cite a source!

Reply]
I am going off of the tapes that are put out, and I site myself and my 17 uears of experiance in the martial arts as my source.

>>Yer killin' me, man!!!

Seroiusly, R.D....help me to understand the weakpoints in my training. No bashing... If you have a criticism, be specific, so that the deficience can be corrected.

Reply]

I explained this before. Chinese martial arts round the shoulders, sink the chest, keep the back straight, and tuck the tail bone. Green dragon perfromers do the exact opposite, which is totally wrong for ANY athletic endeavore, let alone Chinese martial arts.

Instead of rounding the shoulders, they pull them back as much as they can. Instead of sinking the chest, they puff it out (Do you guys even know what sinking the chest is?) Instead of keeping the back stright, they arch it back, instead of tucking the tail bone, they stick the butt out.

All of thier basic FUNDEMENTAL body structure is 180 degrees wrong for Chinese martial arts. Even MMA guys get it right, and even the ones that don't get it right are at least neutral. Green dragon guys not only fail to hold the propper structure, but they go one step worse than most and actually exagerate the improper strucure in the wrong direction.

I have not even gotten into the Mechanics of thier movement (Which is based on the foundation of body structure) which is even worse.

And I don't believe that they do it wrong for the tape. It can be seen by how they move during unconcious actions that they have trained long, and hard to be this bad.

The one positive I can offer is that they did seem to be very strong, and highly condiditoned. But I do take offence with thier attitude that they are the only ones. I have yet to find a Kung Fu school without highly conditioned practitioners, especially amongst the seniors. Heck, even OYD has strong, highly conditioned practitioners thru out it 's ranks.

Face it, Green Dragon is just not *All That*

[Knifefighter]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1w8B_...elated&search=

I don't think Femon Ong's material ever had this flavor although his son Steven may have studied under Gao Dao Sheng. Gao Dao Sheng taught publicly in the park at Taiwan.[/url]

Does anyone really think that fighting will be anything like what was shown there?

[RAF]

No because Gao Dao Sheng is showing applications.

The flavor would look more like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZG3533Rktzg&NR

However, as Richard (****ie) Pitts once told me, his fights never lasted more 2 or 3minutes.

[Knifefighter]

The flavor would look more like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZG3533Rktzg&NR

Those techniques don't seem to be that much different than the "no power punches" that the guy who fought Kimbo was using... the ones that everyone is saying were completely ineffective.

[Ben Gash]

Does anyone really think that fighting will be anything like what was shown there?

Only you would rag on the fighting skills of a 90 year old man