Captain Dr John Painter PhD, ND, etc, etc

[John Painter]

I am really too busy most of the time to surf and read posts on these forums. You guys seem to keep really busy giving me lots of free publicity. A great promoter said once, "I don't care what you say about me just be sure to spell the name right." This is because in the end most people forget if the press was good or bad they just remember the name they heard over and over again. So thanks for all the recognition good and bad.

I know it is a lot of fun to sit behind your keyboard, run people down, and make yourself feel important. I know that to some of you many of the pictures of me in the military and police uniforms seem silly. That is fine it does not change the fact that no matter how silly you think it is I am doing something positive for our country especially since 9-11.

As president and yes Captain of the American Rangers Martial Law Enforcement Training Institute (ARMLETI) I feel proud to be giving my time and services to our country. ARMLETI was recommended by the US Marshals service to work with the Federal Air Marshal Service. ARMLETI currently has had our methods of PKC for law enforcement based on Baguazhang taught to well over 30,000 police, DPS, Sheriff’s and other law enforcement officers in the United States.

I am proud that a guy you all feel is such a big fake and showman has been selected to instruct the trainers of the Mansfield Sheriff’s office in Ohio who are responsible for teaching the court bailiffs and corrections officers who have to deal with violent inmates in prison settings without weapons.

I will also be attending this month a ceremony for the opening of a new law enforcement training facility in Ohio under the direction of Sgt. Rick Krausman defensive tactics trainer for the Mansfield Ohio sheriffs department. The new facility will be open to all law enforcement officers and I am proud to have been able to do something practical and patriotic with my Baguazhang no matter where or from what lineage it came from.

In the end it does not matter if one got the art from a secret note in a Cracker Jack box or if it came from Dong, Hai-Chuan in a dream or in a direct lineage as so many wish for. What matters is that you have a method and it works and you can use it and you do use it to the benefit of others and your country.

So while so many of you sit out there and try to pick apart my website, the photos and history I ask you why not spend more time doing something for the country that allows you this freedom. Why not help others instead of tearing them down?

If you want to know anything about me then come see me in person. We can talk, exchange ideas or play and I will be glad to visit with you so long as you are polite and use good wude.

Thanks

John P. Painter

[John Painter]

Posted This Earlier but thought it fit here also.

I know it is a lot of fun to sit behind your keyboard, run people down, and make yourself feel important. I know that to some of you many of the pictures of me in the military and police uniforms seem silly. That is fine it does not change the fact that no matter how silly you think it is I am doing something positive for our country especially since 9-11. As president of the American Rangers Martial Law Enforcement Training Institute (ARMLETI) I feel proud to be giving my time and services to our country.

ARMLETI was recommended by the US Marshals service to work with the Federal Air Marshal Service. ARMLETI currently has had our methods of PKC for law enforcement based on Baguazhang taught to well over 30,000 police, DPS, Sheriff’s and other law enforcement officers in the United States. I am proud that a guy you all feel is such a big fake and showman has been selected to instruct the trainers of the Mansfield Sheriff’s office in Ohio who are responsible for teaching the court bailiffs and corrections officers who have to deal with violent inmates in prison settings without weapons.

I will also be attending this month a ceremony for the opening of a new law enforcement training facility in Ohio under the direction of Sgt. Rick Krausman defensive tactics trainer for the Mansfield Ohio sheriffs department. I am deeply honored that in the new facility will also be included the John Painter’s Garden a defensive tactics handgun training area based on the use of the nine posts Bagua training methods to develop footwork in gun battles. The entire facility will be open to all law enforcement officers and I am proud to have been able to do something practical and patriotic with my Baguazhang no matter where or from what lineage it came from.

In the end it does not matter if one got the art from a secret note in a Cracker Jack box or if it came from Dong, Hai-Chuan in a dream or in a direct lineage as so many wish for. What matters is that you have a method and it works and you can use it and you do use it to the benefit of others and your country. So while so many of you sit out there and try to pick apart my website, the photos and history I ask you why not spend more time doing something for the country that allows you this freedom. Why not help others instead of tearing them down?

If you want to know anything about me then come see me in person. We can talk, exchange ideas or play and I will be glad to visit with you so long as you are polite and use good wude.

Thanks

John P. Painter

thegompa@aol.com

[Three Harmonies]

Painter Laoshi
Well written. I already respect you more (not that I did not before) for your polite way of stating the facts. Too true. Unfortunately your words will most likely fall on def ears on this board.
I have a seperate thing I would like to ask in response though....and feel free to PM me if you do not wish to waste time hear (understood).
I was wondering how you feel about teaching law enforcement in general? I have some reservations about teaching "cops" (instead of writing out law enforcement everytime). The overwhleming majority I have ever been around (not on the receiving end BTW), and the ones I have trained with have been nothing short of egotistical, napoleon complex ridden, bullies. I used to work many different facets of security (Best Buy Loss Prevention ****, bouncer, etc.) and talked as well as worked with everyone from Marshalls to beat cops. This attitude was prevelant. That is not to say that our others that are different, but the numbers in MY EXPERIENCE are not favorable.
My point is this, I do not feel comfortable teaching techniques that can surely injure, possibly destroy someones life, to someone with the posistion of power and control such as cops. Many teachers have argued that they teach these so the cops know how to safely handle a situation with minimal damage to everyone, but that has not been my experience. I have been struggling over whether or not to teach someone in such a posistion for quite sometime now, and so far I have not had to face the problem, but I know someday I will.
What are your thoughts and feelings on this? Any insight would be appreciated by me. THank you.

Hands folded in respect,
Mr. Jake Burroughs
three_harmonies@hotmail.com
www.threeharmonies.com

[John Painter]

Dear Sir,
Thank you for your kind response. Teaching offices and military are two different ball games. Police officers often develop some "attitude" especially when dealing with the dregs of the public for so long. It is also the fault of many departments who underpay our officers so much that the job attracts only those who want to carry a gun and play Dirty Harry. They are not all like this but I agree some are. With training law enforcement especially city police we have to be sure to teach them to do what their job is really about. Find the person suspected of committing a crime and take him to the jail or court house for processing with out damaging him and according to the ACLU without offending his sensibilities or messing up his hair.

Seriously cops have very few tactics that are left to them to keep them from being beaten or sued. The public does not like them much, the bad guys hate them and their own departments will cover their own rear ends before they will support the cop in trouble or suspected of crossing the line. In most municipalities the cops are very poorly trained and have little real skills yet they must often face guys who as Phil Donahue said when I was on his show talking about the Rodney King incident, “are capable of violent acts in response to a fare thee well.”. In other words these guys have to try to keep from getting killed while trying not to harm the guy killing them! A tough job at best and most fail at it due to poor training. That was why the started the American Rangers, which by the way the major rank and file trainers are made up of officers with years of practical street experience from all branches of law enforcement.

Lots of martial artists brag about teaching the police and military. My experience is that most who brag about it don’t really do it. Oh they may have done a demo or shown some officers a few tricks but that it different from a full tactical CQB program designed from hand to hand to firearms based on a martial art. The reasons most martial artists do not really train offices are many the first of which is that most cops don’t trust anyone but another cop so it is tough to get their attention. Most of them do not want to train, unless they had the stuffing beaten out of them a couple of times and then they are all for it and also there is not much money in it.

As I see it my job is to teach the trainers who train the officers. We want to help the officer or jailer learn how to use the rules provided for him by his council of governments and survive long enough each day to go home to his family that night and hope that he has the best of intentions and if not that perhaps those who train him can inspire him by example.

Thanks

John P. Painter
PS
If you want to write me off line we can discuss your ideas of training officers. Big difference between military guys we train in Israel and the local USA police departments.

[rogue]

The skill of deflecting a punch and causing the person to fall away from you is sometimes often called “target replacement” and is well known by many martial arts experts in Chinese, Korean and Japanese disciplines. No it does not have to be one of your students or some dupe you paid to do it, it works with almost anyone and is a result of a matter of timing so as to lead the persons mind and body in a way that is not apparent to them, yet guides them away.

Mr. Painter, I had a sensei that could do that and he also said it was just tricking your opponent. Do you have any links to online videos showing this?

Thanks

[SiuHung]

Originally posted by John Painter
I am really too busy most of the time to surf and read posts on these forums. You guys seem to keep really busy giving me lots of free publicity. A great promoter said once, "I don't care what you say about me just be sure to spell the name right." This is because in the end most people forget if the press was good or bad they just remember the name they heard over and over again. So thanks for all the recognition good and bad.

I know it is a lot of fun to sit behind your keyboard, run people down, and make yourself feel important. I know that to some of you many of the pictures of me in the military and police uniforms seem silly. That is fine it does not change the fact that no matter how silly you think it is I am doing something positive for our country especially since 9-11.

As president and yes Captain of the American Rangers Martial Law Enforcement Training Institute (ARMLETI) I feel proud to be giving my time and services to our country. ARMLETI was recommended by the US Marshals service to work with the Federal Air Marshal Service. ARMLETI currently has had our methods of PKC for law enforcement based on Baguazhang taught to well over 30,000 police, DPS, Sheriff’s and other law enforcement officers in the United States.

I am proud that a guy you all feel is such a big fake and showman has been selected to instruct the trainers of the Mansfield Sheriff’s office in Ohio who are responsible for teaching the court bailiffs and corrections officers who have to deal with violent inmates in prison settings without weapons.

I will also be attending this month a ceremony for the opening of a new law enforcement training facility in Ohio under the direction of Sgt. Rick Krausman defensive tactics trainer for the Mansfield Ohio sheriffs department. The new facility will be open to all law enforcement officers and I am proud to have been able to do something practical and patriotic with my Baguazhang no matter where or from what lineage it came from.

In the end it does not matter if one got the art from a secret note in a Cracker Jack box or if it came from Dong, Hai-Chuan in a dream or in a direct lineage as so many wish for. What matters is that you have a method and it works and you can use it and you do use it to the benefit of others and your country.

So while so many of you sit out there and try to pick apart my website, the photos and history I ask you why not spend more time doing something for the country that allows you this freedom. Why not help others instead of tearing them down?

If you want to know anything about me then come see me in person. We can talk, exchange ideas or play and I will be glad to visit with you so long as you are polite and use good wude.

Thanks

John P. Painter

Mr. Painter, I have not connection to Bagua whatsoever. However, I've seen your videos and the material within is much better than 90% of the crap people try to pass off as internal martial arts. I really enjoyed the applications shown. Good work on the law enforcement training, we in CMA need more people willing to teach the goods to those who really need them.

Funny how people have no problem slamming someone online, basing thier opinion from a tiny video clip or out of context quote...Sometimes it's easy to forget that lineage and history mean nothing if you don't have the hands to back them up.

[Three Harmonies]

Painter Laoshi
Thank you for your quick and honest response. I can see that you do not enertain the BS many have found in the field of law enforcement, yet you raise some good points in regard to the police officers working in John Q. Public! I may criticize, but I would never wish that job on anyone.
I shall PM you soon. Thank you for your offer.

Jake

[Buddy]

I have had a couple of email conversations with Mr. Painter and found him to be a gentleman. I met him once many moons ago at a tournament in San Francisco and he showed (albeit briefly) a firm root and a good push. That he takes time to answer this continuing line of bull**** shows his character, I think. TWS, you obviously know little about bagua stepping but that has been sufficiently pointed out. In Gao style bagua we have: chicken step, crane step, mud step, and the small fast walk (done heel/toe). Most of Yin Fu style I have seen uses heel/toe.
Mr. Painter has gone on at length elsewhere about his theories of IMA to good review. Perhaps if you were polite you might get a schooling. And as others have said, if you have a question, step up to the man himself and ask. Just don't let your feelings get hurt if the answer is painful.

[Samurai Jack]

I have video of Sun Lu Tang's daughter stepping heel-toe for Pa Kua stepping. I studied Liang Zhen Pu for a time and we always used the muddy stepping (it's great for staying balanced on an icy street by the way). All sorts of stepping patterns are used in Pa Kua. Gao style even dispenses with circle walking, yet it's still considered a good style of Pa Kua.

[John Painter]

Originally posted by SiuHung
Mr. Painter, I have not connection to Bagua whatsoever. However, I've seen your videos and the material within is much better than 90% of the crap people try to pass off as internal martial arts. I really enjoyed the applications shown. Good work on the law enforcement training, we in CMA need more people willing to teach the goods to those who really need them.

Funny how people have no problem slamming someone online, basing thier opinion from a tiny video clip or out of context quote...Sometimes it's easy to forget that lineage and history mean nothing if you don't have the hands to back them up.

Dear Sir,
Thank you for the kind comments. Here is a piece I posted on our Yahoo club I hope it helps to clear up my motives and goals.
The True Self
By: John P. Painter

Over the years I have been criticized by many for what they see as seeking fame in the martial art world, by delving in self-promotion through appearances in magazines and videos. There are those that claim my goals are to promote myself only for the sake of money and acclaim. Those who make such accusations are people who do not know me or understand my motives.

We all want to be recognized, it is human nature. It is true that I have sought to promote the arts I was entrusted with and as such for more than 20 years I was the only one with developing skills in these methods. So I was the art, at least the physical manifestation of it as it arises from the internal to external form. There was no one else to do it so the task fell to me as spokesperson. I did not and still do not feel worthy or interested in the attention, but if the public cannot give a face and name to an art it is only a dream on paper. You can build a better mouse trap but no one will buy it if you live in the desert so you starve.

From my career in show business as an actor and professional magician I had needed to feed my family by my talents which were useless without developing skills in advertising and copy writing. When I left the night club circuit and later Six Flags as head of the western stunt show and began teaching what I knew of my teachers art for a living it was necessary to find students. A teacher with no students is just a man in search of an audience. So I taught myself to write magazine articles and set out to promote and teach the methods shared with me by the Gong Fu teacher of my youth. My goal was to have people know and enjoy this art. I believed then and now that it is something that will help me and others.

My efforts attracted students, fans and critics. At times I succeeded and at times I failed. There were many mistakes made but each time life knocked me down I got back up and went at it again. Through it all if it were not for my morning practice it would have been easy to loose sight of the goals and give in to basking in the short lived limelight or wallow in the pain of mean spirited allegations. It is very difficult to attempt such a journey without a firm grounding in the reality of who one really is.

I get this grounding each morning at 6:00 am when I sit before the ancestors place in our school to face the true face in deep meditation. Here in the quiet of the dawn the mind can become reverent as the spirit seeks for the internal that is the nucleus of all things. Here it is possible to know that publicity and fame are not the true self. One can discover that technique, forms and external tricks are not the true art or the true self. Here the ego can dissolve and joys, pain, frustration, elation can all rise up and then slip away leaving a quiet unknown by many.

Here there is no seeking of Qi feelings, microcosmic orbits or inner powers, no desire for ability or skill just a humbling knowledge that one is a tiny infinitesimal part of a much greater web that is the universe. Here there is no fame or blame only quiet. For me it is this quiet that brings an inner core of peace that even in daily life cannot be easily disturbed by the external winds of others opinions.

The outer face each person sees of John Painter in magazines, websites or even this article is really not the true self that is John Painter. It is two things the face I choose to show and the interpretation you put on it. How can we possibly know someone else?

You reading this know that you have a secret inner you that no one else knows. It is here that our goals and desires are manifest. It is also this secret inner side that we project into our assessment of others. Such an assessment is most often a reflection of our own fears, desires, or unrealized goals and does not reflect an understanding or knowledge of another person.

In my world I believe that all contrived techniques, exercises and external training in martial art spring from an inner source. I also have come to accept that pre-conceived attitudes spring from unsophisticated desires and that accommodation of these desires is essential only for those who have not faced their true self in the quiet of the dawn and learned to understand the root of these desires.

When one has done this many abilities and skills will manifest in life and martial arts. That is not to say that we do not have to build a foundation and structure to manifest our martial abilities, we do and this is the external part of Gong fu (hard work over time). Yet if we want the deeper knowledge that transcends form we must come to face and to know the true self. If this is done abilities and skills come and go as needed like the rain with no thought of how or why. This is the highest level of martial arts. I am not claiming to have reached it but after many years I can see a light at the end of an interminably long tunnel.

When we have come to know the true self and allow our desires for fame and fortune to dissipate the ego becomes less. It is then that striving ceases and things come to us with much less effort. It is then that we can move closer to the Daoist ideal of water. Water can take many forms, liquid, steam, clouds, rain and ice. So it can appear to be many things yet its essence is always water. As a warm sea it can be restful, yet as a tsunami it can be terrifying.

Using this model in public life we do not need to be untrue to ourselves but at the same time we can choose to wear whatever costume or masks we choose to manipulate life around us and we do it with the full knowledge that this presentation may be necessary to help those looking for some perceived goal to avail themselves of what you have to offer. We still know that these masks while honest are not the true self and so long as it is an honest representation of skills and abilities we possess it is honest and sincere. In other words as the great sage Jonathan Winters once said, “We don’t get to believing our own stuff!”

So I wear Chinese Zhifu (uniform) when I teach traditional Chinese martial arts to provide the flavor and feel. I wear a business suit when I fly, BDU’s and tactical gear with all the accoutrements when I train the police and military, and jeans and T shirts when going to the grocery store or the movies. Each morning I am in my Daoist robe when I meditate and walk the circle. It pleases me to do so. The real I is all of these but the true self is naked before God, the only entity that you and I really have to answer to.

Find your bliss.

John Painter

[IronFist]

Is he the guy who had all those pics on his website of him photochopped into pics of famous Chinese masters? Or was that somewhere else? I thought there was a discussion about this in the Internal forum a while ago. I know someone did that but I don't remember who. I don't want to start rumors if it's not true.

[MonkeySlap Too]

Um, what's wrong with being motivated to make money? That's how you feed your family. As long as a person is honest about what they are selling, it's no big deal. Honestly, if it's how a teacher makes a living, they should charge what the market will bear. How dare anyone presume they are owed your knowledge and skill that you sacrificed to develop. The hubris of some people just amazes me.

Of course I teach for free, but that's just so I don't have to put up with those a$$holes.

[lkfmdc]

I am not a Ba Gua guy, don't run in those circles, LOL!

That being said, I personally watched Shihfu Painter tie into knots a certain "well known" Chinese Ba Gua "master" at one of Jeff Bolt's events years ago... my group stood and watched and died laughing... Go Dr Painter!!!!

We actually need more cut the bull/get to the substance kind of guys around

[rubthebuddha]

wrong, ross, wrong wrong wrong. we need the stinky stuff -- it makes meat shake smell decent in comparison.

[TaiChiBob]

Greetings..

Jake, It has been my experience that training members of the Law Enforcement Community provides us with an excellent opportunity to negotiate the "attitude" you mention.. it is surprising to see the receptiveness when officers are presented with alternatives to raw force when dealing with uncooperative citizens.. at the same time, we are obligated to offer them tools for self-preservation.. that is to say that, when necessary, they should have a discipline of trained responses that decisively controls a situation. The single most obvious deficiency i have noticed when dealing with Law Enforcement Officers (LEOs) is lack of awareness of surroundings, they don't recognize secondary threats due to concentrated focus on the immediate threat. Even such things as traffic stops need careful attention to threats like other traffic.. it is amazing to watch, even in training, as a LEO steps back into moving traffic when a suspect becomes threatening.. I am fortunate to have a senior Ninjitsu instructor working out of our school, they are intensely aware of their environment. But, to make a short story long, i wouldn't hesitate to train LEOs, but be quick with your evaluations of character and intent and work diligently to mitigate "attitudes"..

To echo some sentiments, thank you Mr. Painter for your candor and disciplined display of linguistics.. thanks also for your expressed intentions, it demonstrates character and a willingness to look for solutions where others seek conflict..

Be well..