Is Shaolin-Do for real?

[shen ku]

he is one of the best overall masters in the system,,,,, thats just what i think. he is a great man and has a love for his training,,,,,,,,,,,

BUT ,,, he does not do the teaching there anymore it is one of his students... but from what i know of the master i would bet on the student being a very good teacher

[tattooedmonk]

Hello all,

I apologize for the off-topic post but I don't know where else to put this.

Does anyone have any experience with Master Mingione's school in Indiana? If so please pm me, I am looking to relocate in the near future and have a few questions about the school.

I heard he is a bad mofo, exceptionally good at Chue Pa Sien, Drunken Eight Immortals.

[brucereiter]

5.you know how many students the csc in boulder and denver had? not to mention they had sd guys from different parts of the usa stopping in to train i didnt see any difference from the sd practioners from anywhere else

you must be interested since you keep posting here. i offered you videos of me doing several internal styles i learned from the csc in atlanta. if you were to take the time to watch you would find it is different than what you may have seen in other schools.
i am not saying i am better or worse than anyone but i do have a "understanding" of the material that some may not.

go to a library or internet cafe or try one of many computer stores who have their display models connected to the internet if you cant see it on your computer.
http://www.youtube.com/user/brucereiter

i have visited about 20 shaolin do schools around the country and have seen massively different variations of yang tai chi chuan (that is my "speciality") so that is the art i will address. i have seen some good and some that made me want to poke my eyes out. your statements are from a vary limited exposure.

this is not to say the system does not have many problems (its history!!!!)

knowledge is power.
educate yourself and then make comments. even better ask questions.

[kungfujunky]

Elder Masters David and Sharon Soard,

This letter is to inform you that we, a group of concerned instructors, are disassociating from the Chinese Shao-Lin Centers. It is with sadness that we have witnessed the dissolution of a community that all of us have cared for deeply, but we feel that the recent legal charges against Elder Master David and your business practices with the coalition of schools leave us with no other viable option.

We see loyalty to the principles of Shaolin and loyalty to individual instructors as two different things that often, but do not always, coincide. Our primary interest is to uphold the values of the art of Shaolin Kung Fu as we transmit it to another generation, which we believe your actions have compromised our ability to do. Based on the mutlitple charges of non-consensual sexual contact against Elder Master David, as well as business practices such as a lack of openly addressing serious issues in your organization and required visit hosting with an unsustainable financial model for the hosting schools, we believe we have no choice but to cease our relationship with your system of schools in order to maintain our integrity and the sustainability of our schools.

We are forming an alliance of independent Shaolin Centers. We will no longer be financially or otherwise supporting the CSC system and will no longer host Elder Master visits. Please remove us from your Chinese Shao-Lin Center websites. We will be deleting the names of the Chinese Shao-Lin Centers under your management presently.

This choice was not easy to make. Your instruction and our involvement with the CSCs has been a positive influence in all our lives. Our actions are not motivated by any malice toward you, but by our passion to preserve the true spirit of Shaolin and improve the development of both ours and future generations' quality of training and skill. Studying Shaolin is not about becoming living encyclopedias of Shaolin material, it is about developing as human beings. As we add stripes to our belts, we are also striving to add honesty, courage, generosity, patience, humility, compassion and a calm decisiveness in the face of challenge to the way we relate to our communities. To us, this is the true, balanced aim of our training, and one which we are excercising in this decision to separate from your system of schools.

Sincerely,

Master John Keller
Head Instructor Boise, ID Shaolin Center

Thad Wong
Head Instructor New York, NY Shaolin Center

Russ Lesko
Head Instructor Caldwell, ID Shaolin Center

Joe Wieland
Head Instructor Portland, OR Shaolin Center

Chris Peterson
Head Instructor Emmet, ID Shaolin Center

Associate Master Matt Small
Head Instructor Las Vegas, NV Shaolin Center

Laura Adams
Jacob Rydberg
Head Instructors Phoenix/Tempe, AZ Shaolin Center

Sarah Yoffe
Head Instructor Seattle, WA Shaolin Center

Chris Zurich
Head Instructor San Jose, CA Shaolin Center

[goju]

it is heres comments form the web on sd schools outside of colorado

posted by davey bones

Shaolin-Do has a very dodgy rep. There were a couple of members who practiced it (Socrastein comes to mind), and they said the atmosphere of the school is very cultish. No outside training, no outside training materials, and some of the upper belts have a cult-like adoration for the head honcho. There is also a lot of concern about the validity of the style, some say it's a mish-mash.

I'd check it out if I were you; thus far, Shaolin-Do seems to have a very bad rep...

Originally Posted by Skummer

Sadly, I must agree. Though I believe Sin The claims to have recieved GM status in his late 20's.

I have a peculiar perspective on this issue since I was a shaolindo student for a few years. During that time I learnt very little actually useful things, but I did learn lots of forms. I became fed up with unrealistic training, so I put a notice on the bulletin board at the school asking for people to spar and/or practice technique in a realistic manner. One black belt said he'd push hands with me, and that's it. 2 weeks later I quit and started judo.

I'm torn here because, while I agree the lineage is bogus and the training is less than adequate, I grew to enjoy the company of many in the system. The sifu at the school I attended is of the highest character and I consider him a friend. It makes me very sad to boldly say the system is bogus since he and others love & devote so much time to it.

[goju]

hedge hogey

"The Austin, TX school were doing nothing but forms and very light contact sparring when I visited them, when they weren't kiddy fiddling."

artard
edit: I also wouldn't dispute that from the limited contact I've had with him that Sin The seems to be a pretty big wanker and also a pathalogical liar, but I left that out of my original post because I was trying not to be too inflammitory (at least at first).

:Originally Posted by garbanzobean

Listen to this guy. I live in KY, which is basically the origin of the scam. Both of my roommates were/are taken in by it. Both are black belts, I believe. THE ARE TEH DEADLY. All I hear out of them is "This is a war art, you would never use this on a person unless you wanted to kill them . . . " how they know this is beyond me, as NO ONE EVER SHOWED ME ANY PROOF OF PEOPLE DYING BY GETTING OPEN-HAND SLAPPED IN THE RIBS.

[BoulderDawg]

Elder Masters David and Sharon Soard,

This letter is to inform you.......................

I've read the letter. I guess the question is "Now what?" Of course the Soards are not going to be able to staff and open nine schools all at once. I'm guessing this wil take a while and probably not all schools will reopen.

I guess a larger question is "Will Sin The' bow to the pressure of this group and allow it to exist under his name or will he do like he did in Phoenix and kick the instructors out and send them cease and desist letters......stay tuned folks!!!!!

What I found interesting here was the complaints about the business practices. The instructors knew full well what they were getting into before they accepted the position. Granted the excitement of running your own school makes you a little blind about money but you still have to do things like pay the rent. But I guess if you're going to complain now is as good time as any.

Also, what's going to happen if The' says "Fine you guys can break away". Well for one thing the schools that are left, unless they just absolutely worship the Soards, are going to want the same deal because of the money involved. For all intent purposes if The' allows these school to separate from the Soards that will, more or less, be the final nail in the coffin for them. They cannot survive with just the Boulder and Denver schools. Especially now that everyone in Colorado knows they are ran by a convicted sex offender.

[Tao Of The Fist]

When I was a member of Shaolin Do, I loved being with the people at the CSC here in Vegas. Everybody was very nice, very friendly and almost like a family. When we got together for testing or a seminar (festival, whatever they called it...) we always had a good time. My best friend I met there.

However, like he said, the training never satisfied me because it never felt authentic, and sometimes it was very cultish. Veganism was a major thing that they encouraged, almost to the point of subliminal messaging ( "So when you perform this techique [support PETA], make sure you bend your knee [meat contains cow crap and plutonium] in a 90 degree angle..." )

[goju]

tamim ka
I an also say that I interviewed Master Sin for a school papaer in HS, and ask him about many of these thngs. For photos and some form of proof. He fained indignant, but then admitted that his knowledge of Grandmaster Su came primarily from stories told him by Grandmaster E. So he may be a victim of the myth himself. Yet, it doesnt explain where the photos come from....

tamim ka
I was a Shaolin-Do shodan who trained with Master Bob Green. I also had questions about the Great Grandmaster Su. In an article in Black Belt mag about Sin The, a comment was made by Jane Halloway that the tie Su is wearing looks more from the 40's to 50's. I can also tell you that Grandmaster The had quite a reputation in Lexington. He was known for his big living. He got in trouble with the authorities for filling his wave pool at his Sportscenter (which filed bankruptcy in the late 80's) with illegal water he obtained from a fire hydrant. His brother and he had a major falling out, and most of Sins students despised him as ****y anyway. e used to bow to people by flicking his pencil. (Told to me personally by one of the Masters.)

[goju]

zapatismo
i joined shoalin do when i was a pre teen and the whole atmosphere sucked me in and i fell for all thier b.s. i found out the hard way that shaolin do wasnt that effective tho because i walked around with an inflated sense of skill and this made me arrogant i ended up fighting a wrestler cuz i thought wrestling was b.s. and couldnt stand up to shaolin do long story short i was wrong. next i got in a fight with a boxer and i thought cuz it would be standing that i would win cuz i knew kicks i got koed in prolly half a minute (lucky i didnt get seriously injured from both altercations). those two experinces got me thinking seriously about joining boxing or some more competiton oriented styles.
after a couple more scraps i noticed that these "skills" werent helping at all and i started boxing a couple weeks after my 14th birthday. /rant
im glad i found this thread and am not surprised that it is here i also noticed a couple posters on here that i know. im glad that there are people here exposing this stuff it definetley gave me some closure on this.

kicker64
Just as a side note to the way things work. You'll rarely see anyone stay very long who gets very close in rank to Leonard. His ego is too big. If their ability is a threat, they'll be gone long before that. He controls Sin's rank advancements. The only reason Dave and Sharon and some of the other came as far as they did is because of the size of their schools. They essentially "bought" it. The threat of them pulling out of SDA outweighted Leonard's objections to their rank advancement. They are by no means "worthy" of 8th degrees in anyone's book.

[goju]

stony
I began Shaolin-Do in the early 1980s when I was 13. Living in Kentucky, even then, SD seemed to be everywhere. I trained until I was about 20 and then re-joined for about 4 months several years ago. What possessed me to re-start in SD amazes me. In the interrum, I had trained some in Goju-Ryu and Shotokan, and after experiencing more authentic instruction SD was like the Twilight Zone. I think I felt I just wanted some exercise, and I did not care really whether any of it was effective. I was wrong. The crap level was so high, it was amazing. Most of the folk buy wholeheartedly into the Sin The is a great, living treasure of knowledge. I attended one of his special "forms" seminars a number of years ago. The man stopped repeatedly to check his notes, made errors that he then brushed off by laughing about, and clearly did not know the material. I have had personal training in the classes of Sin The, Master Leonard, and many others, from their schools in several places around the country. The style is pathetic.


*

[brucereiter]

goju,

some of the people you just quoted we 14 years old. you should get some more first hand accounts. from what i have seen even from the worst shaolin do schools there are a few people who shine and seem to get it in spite of the history and the massive number of forms etc. even at my old school here in atlanta you have a wide variation of how things are done. there are several people here in atlanta who i think have some pretty good tai chi chuan skills and if you put them side by side to do the form if there are 5 people there you will see 5 different forms that are all good, at the same time there are people who have no clue about tai chi who have done it for years.

what is your point?
what is your goal here?
why do you care about shaolin do?
.

[goju]

Yeah they were fourteen years old when they started sd they are adults now Not to mention most people start in their teens so i dont see your point unless your trying to claim they couldnt possibily know anything because of their age which of course is just rediculous As for first hand accounts i studied sd myself and i highly doubt these people i quoted simply made this up because they have some grudge against sd

My point is its not just the soard schools who have had these complaints its all of them so the claims that the csc is simply the only branch of sd that is giving it a bad name are false they all have come under the same scrutiny in fact many of the biggest complaints come from people who used to study there

My point is sd is baloney, they are robbing folks of their money, and to scam people using the shaolin name is sacreligious(and this is my biggest problem with sd)

my goal is to warn anyone who is about to happen into the sd world about what they are getting themselves into

[kwaichang]

Goju who stopped and made you God? No one. You have posted maybe 10 peoples negative coments of all the SD people training and that is less than .01% so you have very little effect or influence. SD didnt have what you want so you are upset and feel like you wasted your money. Thats OK. But for you to be so closed minded. Any business is going to have complaints, any style as well. I have heard the same comments about GoJu , Shotokan Wado TaeKwon Do and others. Your ajenda isnt new it is quite old.
I agree with what the instructors are doing to break away from Soard is the right thing I too am watching the outcome of this, I feel GMT should recognise the instructors as a new entity my self. KC

[tattooedmonk]

why do you guys even bother with this douche bag?? Are you that bored???