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Thread: Green Dragon Studios

  1. #151
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    In all honesty, I thought thier Tai Tzu forms were really, really bad. They were very off balance, and the body structure was horrific. As bad as I am, they were far worse than me. There was no sign of tucking the tail bone, keeping the spine straight, rounding the shoulders, and sinking the chest. Infact it was just the opposite. The butt was out, back was arched, shoulders were pulled back, chest puffed out.

    I can see why they need to put such an emphisis on strength, thier body structure and mechanics are so bad that they NEED gobbs and gobbs of raw muscle power to compensate.

    Now, if you are already a practitioner of a style they sell, you can get the tapes just for the choreography, but you'd better be WELL versed in your art as you will have to correct the stuffing out of what is presented.

    No offense meant, I just am calling as I see it, just as others were kind enough to have called me when I moved like that.

    I have to say though, I do like the way the vid was layed out and presented. It's easy to learn from. They break it down step by step, and from various angles.
    Last edited by Royal Dragon; 03-10-2005 at 08:30 PM.
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  2. #152
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    Hi,

    Why has Green Dragon not got a website and why arn't the forms put out on DVD yet? I would love to see them and other NTSC tapes but with conversion charges etc. its just too much for a poor English man!

    I have read articles overr the years from Sifu Allen and they are very interesting.

    Paul

  3. #153
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    I've never heard how well they can fight.

    I heard they do not spar.

    I like the way they present the techniques, and they do have the strength, but I dont think someone who does forms and doesnt fight will fight very well. I have met people like that before, they looked incredible in drills and forms, but put on gloves and they didnt have the other skills to put it all together.

    I did Stone Warrior for a while but it's nothing compared to lifting weights.

    Same here, its cool to do an acient (or old chinese) program, but I do get more from weights. I did Stone Warrior for about 8 months, it was time consuming and while I did get results I do get more from weights.


    No offense meant, I just am calling as I see it, just as others were kind enough to have called me when I moved like that.

    Good feedback.

  4. #154
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    I heard they only spar once a year. I saw their northern leopard tape once, and as has been pointed out, there was no flavour and consequently it looked poor.
    Paul, I got an NTSC VCR in cash converters for £25. Most mid level up VCRs now play NTSC.
    "The man who stands for nothing is likely to fall for anything"
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  5. #155
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    Someone once told me that Green Dragon Studios is trying to collect as many forms as they can. That's why they offer a million from a ton of different styles. I dunno. If they don't spar that's kinda weird. Maybe not for a kung fu school. I dunno.
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  6. #156
    Greetings,

    I have purchased some of their stuff many years ago. I got the opinion that what they were selling, form wise, was not really their core curriculum. I think the plan to release the good stuff stopped after all of the contoversy about them came about.

    I also remember from their 6+ hour discussion tape that most of the students train primarily on their own. They get together once a week at the studio. Unfortunately, this offers a lot of time to reinforce structural errors. From what they do, I sense that they train more than once a day, racking up 3 to 6 hours of training time per day. If there is anything lacking in their movements it is the lack of torque, waist power; but that is a shortcoming that is not unique to them. It is almost pandemic in the martial arts world.

    He also had the goal of developing a large "cache" of forms from which to draw from. I don't think that they would ever deny "stealing" a form. Stealing a form can be a skill in itself and it is one of the reasons why many Chinese masters would leave out a move or two in public performance.

    Re Stone Warrior: While touted as the best all round strength development form, I do not remember John Allen ever saying in print that weight lifting was unnecessary. I think that he wrote that weight lifting was only allowed after a protracted period of internal development (Stone Warrior falls into that category). He even wrote that he lifted weights in addition to his other training when he was with Feeman Ong.

    Now how many purchasers of the Stone Warrior graduated to the point where they weight train in conjunction with the set (not consecutively of course). IronFist? Would you be willing to give it a try? I could not think of a better candidate.

    Just a few words,

    mickey
    Last edited by mickey; 03-11-2005 at 07:33 PM.

  7. #157
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    I have never done Stone Warrior, but I have done dynamic tension sets. I found that they are really good to do right AFTER traditional western weights.
    Those that are the most sucessful are also the biggest failures. The difference between them and the rest of the failures is they keep getting up over and over again, until they finally succeed.


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  8. #158
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    Oh, the 'good stuff.'

    Somehow I doubt it.
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  9. #159
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    Ditto

























    This message is too short
    Those that are the most sucessful are also the biggest failures. The difference between them and the rest of the failures is they keep getting up over and over again, until they finally succeed.


    For the Women:

    + = & a

  10. #160
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    Quote Originally Posted by Royal Dragon
    I have never done Stone Warrior, but I have done dynamic tension sets. I found that they are really good to do right AFTER traditional western weights.
    I'm not a fan of weights, but I've never tried my dynamic tension sets after lifting weights. Interesting perspective.
    Quote Originally Posted by Oso View Post
    AND, yea, a good bit of it is about whether you can fight with what you know...kinda all of it is about that.

  11. #161

    John Allen's Green Dragon School

    (Got this off another bb by some people who discuss their direct experiences training there and on the strength programs. I've been in the chinese arts a little more than a year and have learned the continuous palms set and goun gee kuen strength and power set from some of their tapes a friend has, looking back I found the March thread here about 'Green Dragon' and wondered if some people here might find some interest out of it, maybe not.

    This guy whose post I have pasted is answering questions from the other posters in that original thread from dragonslist. Had to post it in 3 parts because of length llimit and the old post being "invalid" (too old I guess)---lotus storm.)

    Lair of the Green Dragon

    part 1

    I found this old thread [re: Green Dragon School discussion] and got curious as an ex coworker of mine had used to train at the Green Dragon school so I did a little emailing and Google research, if anybody still cares.

    Anyone have any of Green Dragon's videos that they would like to sell? Anyone have their Iron Palm material?

    Apparently the herbs necessary for the Iron Palm training are no longer being made available---at last word---through the mail order part of the program. Too many hassles with customs and so on to be able to guarantee prompt delivery and deal with backlogs of orders. Could not find nor haven't seen notice of anybody selling their tapes privately for a long long time.

    Their friends at the Chicoine shuai chiao group in Ohio are still going strong. They seem to spend a lot of time criticizing other shuai chiao people, though.

    Well in Chicoine's view most of them deserve the criticism! The understanding I have (based on the word of a couple friends who live in that area and have trained under Allen or have friends who have trained at Chicoine's school) is that Chicoine sees it as his duty to uphold the traditions of classical shuai chiao and kung fu training as it was taught to him by the late Grandmaster Tung Shen Chang, who adopted him and taught him material shown to no one else (which, it is said, he can demonstrate), this is a point of honor with him and of respect for his teacher.

    For example, in an old issue of IKF (which I don't own, but have seen in Xerox form) a reader had written in questioning Chicoine & Allen's lineages as well as the source of the material they taught; suggesting that proper credit wasn't being given, in that case, to a Master Femon (spelling) Ong. Next issue or so, John Allen replied with a lengthy list of specific examples that pointed out that Ong was *not* responsible for the material in question, as well as some detailed history of his and Chicoine's past dealings with M. Ong as having been students of his (and why they left Ong's organization). Chang of course was one primary source of some of Chicoine's teaching material (also it was pointed out that Chang had had to correct much of what *was* attributable to Ong in order to make it work correctly); Allen had trained under at least 6 major Chinese masters.

    And the impression gleaned from that letter, in conjunction with several of the columns written for IKF by both Allen & Chicoine, was that the general "Americanization" of the CMA that has taken place over the years in various ways and for various reasons is not necessarily, in their views and according to some very specific reasons which they have outlined at varous times in the past (including on many of their videotapes), a (as Martha Stewart might put it) "good thing."

    I used to see them in the different martial arts magazines Inside Kung Fu, Inside Karate, Black Belt,etc....I thought they were fake because they would advertise every style of kung fu known to man even some very rare styles

    It comes up from time to time in various forums that anyone who claims expertise (or "mastery") in a large number of Chinese styles *must* be fraudulent in some way.

    But no one questions a pianist who has mastered the works of several different composers or a variety of diverse styles, such as rock, jazz, and classical; or a guitar player who can play rock, country, flamenco, jazz, and fingerpicking style with equal facility.

    In what some consider the more "Classically oriented" approaches to learning Chinese forms & styles, a student is properly taught to master the *principles* and fundamental building blocks (stances, punches, kicks, all the blocking techniques and etc) that make up *all* Chinese forms and styles, just as a musician learns scales & riffs & chord progressions. Then the differences, as well as the similarities, between the various styles, is ingrained as the student adds more and more forms from differing (sometimes starkly contrasting) styles to his or her repertoire (when such variety is available in the training). It is "mastery" of all the underlying Chinese fighting & training principles that is of supreme importance in this approach and which provides an important key to understanding such a point of view.

    I'm surprised that they don't have a website - in this day and age, a greoup with so high a profile and which is trying to market a product should have one. I believe they are still advertising their tapes in Inside Kung Fu magazine.

    They have gone back "underground" as far as the mainstream CMA community is concerned. They place a high premium on training in the "old ways" of the masters who taught prior to 1930, and have the training material at their disposal to do so. In the old schools this kind of demanding work washed out better than 99% of the people who wanted to learn the teachings, and according to those methods you do not "simplify" or "dumb down" the work for the beginners, it is up to them, if they are truly dedicated and interested, to rise to the level of the demands.

    Yes, I just checked and their ad is still in the latest (jan 05) "Inside KungFu."

    I aquired some Long Fist tapes of thiers, and was shocked at how badly their perfomance was.

    Not surprising. They don't do hardly anything the way the mainstream, sport-style schools do. For one thing, they believe (and it is said can demonstrate this) that the material they train on actually develops the chi in the body for application in fighting and power. And they don't maneuver (for example in fighting work) the way most schools do, either. What is seen on the tapes reflects such non-orthodox (but as taught by the older masters) approaches and works, in their paradigm, in application.

    Also, what were the specific tapes in question and who were the performers? I've seen roughly 40 or 50 of Green Dragon's tapes (including a couple on which Gene Chicoine makes a guest appearance as lecturer) over the past 16 years, give or take, and can't think of one where there wasn't a good reason (given and explained during the step by step teaching breakdown, btw) for what is seen during the opening demonstration performances (which, iirr, are done at "half to three-quarter speed" most of the time). Their tapes won several awards for excellence from some of the industry magazines & Allen has a reputation for setting, and adherence to, very high standards and being extremely detail-oriented in all areas of his teaching and tapes production. Therefore making the critique cited from the referenced post very puzzling, to say the least, unless it was made mostly from a conceptual standpoint, since their approach in that regard to CMA forms, programs, systems, teaching et al is, as pointed out, hardly conventional from almost any standpoint. Which is of course one more reason why they have generated so much controversy at certain times.
    Last edited by lotus storm; 04-14-2005 at 04:29 PM. Reason: fix spelling & minor clarifying changes

  12. #162

    The Green Dragon People

    Lair of the Green Dragon

    part 2 (of 3)

    ...In closing, I found this in a Google cache, apparently posted by another ex-Green Dragon student (from a "cyberkwoon" forum):

    First of all, remember that I am not a CMA instructor, let alone a Green Dragon instructor; nor do I have the slightest idea what your background is or your own personal goals. Ideally you should contact the Studio for answers to questions like yours; but as it can be difficult at times waiting on the mails, and as it seems the staff there isn't responding to letters these days, I'll give it a try. But keep very firmly in mind that my piddling overview in no way reflects what either Sifu Allen or a member of his instructional staff would say. In fact, you probably ought to consider everything I say kind of in the way of a 'generic' report on what the typical---if there is such a thing---aspiring kung fu student who gives such training an honest effort might expect from his or her efforts at tackling quality kung fu material as taught in the way Green Dragon makes it available in these tapes...

    Apropos of all that, consider that the way they used to tell you to do it was to submit more than one tape you're interested in when you ordered; to say something briefly about your training goals & background; and to politely and humbly request that Sifu Allen choose the set he feels would be your best option at the time from among those.

    Now, 'insights'? About the best thing I guess I could say from that standpoint is that, in my opinion, it's important to have a very thorough grounding in the basics if you want to be successful with this kind of material and the training time and effort required to achieve good results. Some of these things are quite difficult to learn off of a videotape if you can't discern what's going on with the footwork---and that usually relates to stances---or the routes the arms & hands should follow (all the basic blocks and punches, plus a grasp of how to apply isometric tension while moving in certain cases), especially as these upperbody routes RELATE to the footwork! (ie the maneuvering.)

    [NOTE: With all the material, there just aren't any shortcuts; and if you try to shortcut it you will eventually pay for such haste in the long run, in one way or another.]

    You also need to know how to breathe with the diaphragm. This is of paramount significance with respect to authentic, so-called 'Classical' Chinese Kung Fu training; as I understand it, none of this stuff will ever work correctly for you---especially anything in the way of the 'internal' aspects of a form or program---if you aren't breathing with the diaphragm. It takes some practice to be able to keep maximum tension on while doing strength work and still breathe easily using the d. muscle. But it is possible, and it is an absolute MUST.

    It helped me quite a bit to have had a pretty good indoctrination into doing Chinese sets based on having learned the Bok Pai over the course of several weeks' guidance at the Kent (State University) Club branch of the school, which carried over into my attempts to learn other fighting forms from the videos (I've often wondered if it wouldn't be helpful for Green Dragon to put out some type of video covering nothing but the subject of How To Learn Chinese Forms & Exercises From a Video, because my guess is that there are many students out there who could benefit from such a tape, and that would still include me). There's a pretty good likelihood that I would have failed miserably in attempting to learn this kind of material solely from a videotape format if I hadn't had such a 'hands-on' head start (but once again, that was me, and may not necessarily be the case for you or anyone else). So, I would tell anyone trying Green Dragon forms to take just one that really appeals to them and really take their time breaking it down into little bits & pieces, relating every move to the fundamentals like the stances used & the stance sequences, what types of blocks & punches the form is composed of, how the 3 gates are dealt with, and so forth. In other words, progress slowly and take your time digesting the multiple instructional segments (and don't forget the combat applications at the end! This is where most students, even some who've been in the arts for years, get tripped up. The Chinese don't fight the way sport-tournament fighters do; lots of the stylisms and techniques you see in the combat applications may not make a lot of sense to you until you begin to understand what is really possible in the authentic [the way the old masters did it] kung fu fighting arts; this starts to happen a little while after you've been training when it starts to dawn on you that this is one of the main things the strength programs are really about): you'll be rewarded for such an approach tenfold as compared with rushing along trying to gulp the material down (as I have tried to do on more than one occasion). Remember, if you're a serious student, this is something you'll be doing every day for the rest of your life; so be patient, and do your best to be thorough---it's a good habit to make right from the start.
    Last edited by lotus storm; 04-14-2005 at 04:23 PM. Reason: fix title

  13. #163

    Lair of the Green Dragon (conclusion)

    part 3 (of 3)

    Bear in mind that Green Dragon provides several tapes covering what they consider to be the 'Fundamentals' of authentic kung fu instruction; well, there's a REASON they do this! If you aren't understanding something on one of the advanced tapes, there's a good chance it's because you're trying to 'fly' before you learned the right way to crawl. Read the tapes brochure THOROUGHLY. Then, reread it. And again, after you've been working on a few forms, or even just a few steps from a form. Repeat as necessary.

    Also I found it helped a lot to have Sifu Allen's articles, written for Inside Kung Fu back in the late 80s/early 90s, to use as reference points (one example: to read about what the 'half-second paradigm' means as it relates to true Chinese-style fighting; another: what the significance of closing the centerline is). Probably not everyone who wants to will have those old issues at their disposal, but it's a big plus, in my personal estimation, if you can get them. They were invaluable to me; but it's also true that the content of several of them was somewhat 'controversial' in its impact on the MA community as a whole. You have to keep an open, 'beginner's' mind. It really wasn't until I spent time working on the Shaolin 5-Animals Strength & Health sets that I finally began to fully shake off my biases, about how to train daily & apply strength in unorthodox techniques, etc, biases which had been based on my background in various sports disciplines, for example; who knows what piece of material or part of a lecture will do that for you, if you even need such a conceptual turnaround in the first place.

    It helps to have someone to train with. Personally I've tried to find good training partners several times over the years, with little luck---few people ever want to stick with the work, particularly on a daily basis, once they see how much of a commitment is really involved (chi or no chi!) But if you have the option, try to train with someone else at least a couple times a week; yet also keep in mind that there will always be times you're just going to have to crawl up that big slippery wall with your own two hands, no one can do it for you. At many points in some of the strength programs you will have no choice but to face this harsh reality if you want to get through it; but it's all the more rewarding when you do. As Sifu Allen puts it on one of the tapes, these things will always give back to you far more than you ever put into them; and you can't say that about too many things in life (to paraphrase him). And in my experience, this has indeed proven out on several occasions.

    I don't own the Travelers Cane, so I can't say anything about it except that it comes out of White Lotus, and White Lotus is one of Sifu Allen's favorite systems; what better recommendation would you need I do own the Continuous Palms, and it's a fantastic piece of material; every other thing you'll ever work on in your kung fu will open up a new angle on what that set contains. Virtually inexhaustible, and a supreme example, as the brochure points out, of true kung fu circularity. Again, you must relate it to the combat applications provided, and these to Chinese fighting principles as a whole.

    What other tapes do I own? I honestly think the best way for me to answer that is not with a comprehensive, detailed list but instead to say that every single one I do own has provided something of value that none of the others did---even though I may not have appreciated it when I first started to work on a particular set. What's more interesting to note, from my perspective, is that after you've worked with a nice selection of a broad range of different types of material---some more linear, some more circular, something 'simple' as compared to something more highly complex, a beginner's fighting set of only a couple dozen or so moves as compared to a strength set that may have hundreds of steps, or something almost exclusively 'external' as opposed to something more exclusively 'internal'---you begin to note certain patterns that turn up time and time again; and after you work a while---several months in some cases, a few years in others---the significance of these patterns begins to dawn on you in a way you would NEVER have anticipated: and it's IMMENSELY gratifying when this happens. Just as it's immensely satisfying, even 'enlightening' to a certain degree, the first time you feel the 'chi' in the body begin to stir, and later to move, and later...Well, some things you're going to have to discover for yourself. And the key to this discovery is the fact that it takes work and sacrifice and discipline and commitment of a degree not often encountered in too many places anymore these days; but work, sacrifice, discipline, and commitment that are all well worth it, even when it might not seem that way on a particular day or during a particularly challenging session of arm grabs or Master Kao's stances, to name a couple of examples.

    To sum up: no matter which form you happen to be working on or learning at any given time in your training, never forget that it's just one part of a much larger whole; and this whole, in time (plus work plus forms plus repetitions), adds up to something far, far greater than the sum of these individual parts. You'll certainly have good days and bad days; try to keep this in mind when the going gets a little rougher than you may have anticipated; because the pay-off will be far more than you could have anticipated as well.

    Hope some small part of this was helpful.


    Likewise from this poster.

    (Ditto--lotus storm)

  14. #164
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    I was a big fan of Green Dragon southern shaolin, animal, and strength sets back in the early 90's. Those areas seem to be their specialties and if I was near them, I'd be seeking instruction from them in those areas.

    However, like any school that does multiple systems, the Green Draogn folks do some things well and others not so well IMO. For instance, I would never learn taiji or bagua off of their tapes because they obviously don't specialize in those systems. From the posts above, it seems the author is defending everything Green Dragon does as the "old way" of training but I would say that they just do some things well and some things poorly.

    I used to own the white lotus continuous palm tape and while I thought it was good, I was disappointed that none of the beginner Green Dragon tapes had prepared me for doing it because White Lotus footwork was very, very different from those beginner southern shaolin sets. If Green Dragon thought so much of the White Lotus system, then they should have at least released sets at the beginner and intermediate levels from that system. But then they don't seem to care much about responding to consumer needs.

    Dave C.

  15. #165
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    I've written some long posts on Stone Warrior. You can search for them using the search feature. I've never seen any of their form tapes, tho, but I've seen their "intro" tape or whatever where they demonstrate a lot of stuff.

    Can they fight?
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