Let's talk about PHONY KUNG FU

[Jimbo]

In Taiwan, my Mantis teacher, myself and some of my classmates once stayed after a 1991 CMA tournament ended to watch a qigong program/showcase that was to be held in the same arena. The whole atmosphere changed; a new audience arrived. A few of the participants from the tournament also stayed to check it out.

One by one, different masters went on the floor to demo to New Age music. When one guest master, an older, bearded man in a suit from Japan proclaimed he would send his chi up into the audience, many people in the stands started panting, shaking, convulsing, and some even fell and writhed on the floor like they were having seizures (or sex with an invisible partner). Some people started screaming and mumbling nonsensical gibberish. I felt absolutely nothing. My teacher was ****ed off by all of this. He started videotaping people around us who were acting weird, because he felt that nobody would believe it otherwise.

There was also a teacher in a park who claimed he could put a force field around himself for protection and knock people 30 feet away by lightly touching or without physical contact, but that it only worked against those who believed. I didn't believe.

I don't know if those things are still a thing in Taiwan, as I left there 24 years ago. But I saw more of that over there than in the U.S. I think those types of demos were big in China, too. People who wanted special abilities but didn't want to develop real kung fu through hard work and eating bitter. Or simply people with "issues".

I am open to the possibility of a lot of things in this world, but I also have a very good B.S. meter. None of the above-mentioned things passed my B.S. meter.

For a good example of such a demo in the U.S., check out the demo starting from about 49:08: