Spaztaztic Southern Mantis (Maybe)?

[MysteriousPower]

wanna tell me why simply because you are not aware of these people, that it suddenly qualifies (to you) as a cult?
nevermind. Don't even bother.

This is precisely why some people choose to remain out of the public eye.

There is a guy who is the CEO of an up and coming software company. It is claimed that he is well known in many circles. All that means is that he is known by few and not most. Do you know who Bill Gates is? Everyone on this board knows of him. He is well-known in all circles...and not just in a few.

I am not scrutinizing anyone in particular so turn your animosity toward those on this board who are making fun of the form and the guy doing it. I do not know the guy or the form. I do not think I have actually commented on the form.

The reason people choose to remain out of the public eye is because they will get challenged on their beliefs and will actually have to back them up to prove what they are talking about. This is what is happening now with Sam responding to others' posts. People choose to remain in secret so they can believe what they want to believe and never get challenged or proven wrong.

[TenTigers]

The reason people choose to remain out of the public eye is because they will get challenged on their beliefs and will actually have to back them up to prove what they are talking about. This is what is happening now with Sam responding to others' posts. People choose to remain in secret so they can believe what they want to believe and never get challenged or proven wrong.

I am not commenting on whether or not you said anything about the form, or the responses.
I am speaking on your blanket statement about people who stay closed door.

It is plainly obvious that you have never met any of these people, let alone trained, or touched hands with them. Clearly, your opinions are either out of your own head, or you are simply parroting what others have told you.

The question arises, why are you trying so hard to get your voice heard, and your point across? You must have alot of pent up anger twoards a past teacher whom you felt dangled a carrott, or misled you about his knowledge, thus painting everyone else with the same brush. No matter how much people with far more experience tell you, you still stamp your feet and stubbornly cling to this childish idea, and what is worse, is you try to get everyone to agree with you.
The truth of the matter is, nobody who has ever actually met,seen, felt, or trained with these type of people, will ever agree with you. They've been there.

there is also the db factor: forums, youtube, and other such sites attract them like flies to a dungheap. There is no winning the battle at this point.
"When you argue with an idiot, others cannot tell who the idiot is."

[sanjuro_ronin]

Sifu Cama does not have a cult, there is no cult and IF Sam is indeed Sifu Cama's son I can understand where he is coming from.
The whole cult thing in the MA is blown way out of whack, that is for dilusional people like HW8 and others.
Sam just seems to be sticking up for his father and teacher over a isunderstanding, that's all.

Sam IF you are qualified, I for one would love to hear your views and explanations on Sifu Cama's video clip.

[taai gihk yahn]

He is my papy.

thank you for clarifying the full nature of your relationship to Sifu Cama; now, you could have mentioned that from the outset, and it would have saved some nadwidth dancing around the issue
look, if he's your father, then obviously your perspective is skewed - since you love your dad, it is almost impossible to be objective about anything he says or does, and that's fine; in that sense, it on the one hand cuts you a lot of slack with anyone who knows that; but OTOH, it does somewhat disqualify you from being able to make any statements about how awesomezors he is without providing specific qualifications;

I only stated his credentials because there was a question if he's earned respect.

here's the thing: credentials are awesome, assuming that they are valid ones, meaning that there is some quality control: so for example, my credentials are as a NYS licensed PT - meaning that the criteria for getting those credentials are explicit and uniform for anyone else; as such, any potential patient can have full access to the inof regarding what qualifies me to treat them; now, as re: martial arts certificates, well, unfortunately, that is not the case: every organization / individual teacher has their own criteria for certification - some criteria are very exacting; e.g. - world judo org. has world-wide standards that have been explictly developed over the years by many different people and are applied uniformly via testing / competitions - as such, anyone certified as a judo BB through this org. is credible, bec. the criteria for that BB are well known, and revolve around consistent application of judo skill over many years; otoh, a certification from Peter Urban is, sorry to say, a bit more suspect: why? because first off, it was only Urban that developed the criteria; and second because Urban, as is well known, despite being a pioneer and a good MAist by reputation, also had a screw or two loose - which is fine, but it also lent itself to a not insignificant degree of inconsistency regarding whatever certifications he gave out of however many decades he did so; which again, is not to take away from your father's rank or achievements under him, but makes it very difficult to know the circumstances underwhich Urban gave him that rank - it's not your father's fault, it's Urban's personal inconsistencies that make it that way (and I personally have had extended interaction with one of Urban's long-term blackbelts, so I am not just making this up); now, again, this is not stating that your father is a fraud or lacking in credibility, this is just an example of how difficult MA credentials can be to take seriously in some cases;

now as to the respect issue; let's just assume that your father's credentials are all credible; what about respect: well, credentials dont' automatically conform that: for example, while my PT credentials are solid, they don't automaticaly confer respect beyond the acknowledgement that I did have to do some serious work to get them, (as I personally can appreciate was the case with your father as well - I personally believe, based on my own TCMA experience and knowledge of that community, that he did put in a lot of hard work and time to get where he got, and that based on his total body of certificates he is credible - but again, that's just me, not the general public or even this forum); the respect part omes from my ability to function as a professional, to help people and do so in a consistent and above the board manner; and while it certainly may be the case that your father is like this, most here have no direct way of knowing this: some may have had direct experience with him, others indirect (e.g. - know someone who has touched hands / worked with him or a senior student) and others by reputation and knowledge of the community in general (that would be me, for example); as such, the respect that you seem to believe should be uniform across the board for him really can't exist; likewise, for myself, while I have some former / current patients who would swear all day and night that I should be respected for my skills, others would say the opposite (yes, I've had my share of screw-ups), and others would have no basis to say anything; of course, some could read what I write and based on the content thereof reach a conclusion on eway or the other; so in the case of your father, I have listened to what he said as he teaches on the video, and, in general, feel enough respect towards him to engage in a reasoned discourse with you the individual presenting what he say, because while I disagree with some of it, I get where he is coming from on other aspects of it; also, having experience in TCMA "internal", I have enouctered others who have what I believe are simiar misconceptions based on what I feel are conceptual innacuracies that have been propogated based on the intrinsic difficulties with communicating these concepts: taking a highly subjective practice such as internal TCMA and trying to articulate it in a way that others can understand it intellectually is very challenging - wich is why it ften reverts to "you just have to feel it" or "it's a spiritual thing"; personally, I disagree, I just think that the so-called "western" concepts and terminology that do describe internal TCMA accurately are not known by those doing so, either because they are relatively recent and / or come from less well-known areas of so-called 'western" knowledge (e.g. - osteoptahy, tensegrit), and are often dismissed within the so-called scientific community because a lot of it is questionable (e.g. - osteopathy has some very well-described and valid concepts; it also has a lot of mumbo-jumbo subjective silliness for a variety of reasons, so discerning the quallity from the crapidity is a challenge; similar with internal TCMA - lots of good, lots of bunk - figuring out which is which is a real challenge!)

His teachers are some of the most respected men in the world.

well, if you find them worthy of your personal respect, that's fine; just generalizing that statement can be a difficult thing to back-up, for reasons discussed above; but anyway...

His students keep a low profile but have fought with champion full contact fighters when we trained in Bath Beach boxing gym as well as private gong sao matches.

ok fair enuf, but also to me, this is kinda like sitting on the fence here: if you are going to be hidden, stay fully hidden; if you want to go public, go all out - otherwise it's trying to live in two worlds that don't really mesh, and it's easy to justify one's shortcomings in the public world by retreating back to the private one...so for example, if you want to reap the notoriety rewards of fighting "champion ful contact fighter", then the simple question is - who are these fighters? if they are champions, then they certainly should be publiclly known; also, did your students win or loose aginst these fighters, and in what venue did they meet them? and as far as the "private" matches, well, if they were private, then you really can't use them in public to support much of anything, so may as well not mention them at all, since you can't provide details, right?

cont'd below....

[taai gihk yahn]

cont'd from above...

that all said, let me reiterate a few thing: first off, I have made no specific comment on the form that your father demonstrated, mainly because I am not particularly interested in it: IMPO, nothing too special there: while that particular form may have been keep under wraps for some time, it appears pretty much run-of-the-mill for what SPM and similar Hakka-like systems train; as far as your father specificaly, in my personal experience, I have never heard anything negative about him from anyone, he appears to be someone about whom a generally positive opinion permeates; of course, like anyone teaching over time, i am sure he has his detractors; and since I haven't touched hands with him or his students, I can't say about his skilss per se;
so, what I can and have commented on, are some of the statements he makes when discussing principles of his style, which are not dissimilar from stuff I have trained elsewhere that is similar to what he teaches (a little bok mei, a little I Liq Chuan, some other southern short hand stuff); I also draw on my background as an osteopathicaly oriented physical therapist for over 15 years; that said, I have tried to point out what I believe to be some innacuracies in terms of what he is stating when talking about his rationale for what he is showing: note, I do not say that what he is showing is wrong, but I believe that the rationale lacks specificity, which is a common failing of many TCMA systems: they attempt to translate direct experience and Chinese terminology into so-called "western" terms, and often do not quite get it right; as such, I have provided you with some explanations I believe are relevant and valid, and directed you to one article that I believe articulates very nicely a lot of what your father shows; for example, why he is able to generate power without having his feet fuly on the floor or on the floor at all would appear to be describe by the biotensegrity concept stated in the link: manily that the spine, which he likes to talk about it seems, it essentially a series of struts held together and functionally organized by the soft tissues around it (muscles, ligaments, loose connective tissue); as a tensegrity structure, it does not rely on any external support (the ground) in order to function as a discreet entity; nor does the bone marrow per se function as the organizing principle as he claims - the biomechanics of it are sufficiently explained without that aspect - and what seems to lend credence to this is that the kinesiological function along a set of principles not mediated by classical biomechanics, but by the tensegrity principles, which again, i strongly encourage you and all so-called "internal" TCMA practitioners to explore, as it provides a framework by which to explain what they are talking about that takes "internal" out of the field of mysteriousness and brings it into a much more easily describable and delineated context;

James Cama Jr. (Sam)

Sam, you seem like an earnest and somewhat thoughtful guy, but perhaps a bit young and a little unaware of some of the nuances of life in the public sphere; as such, if you do have plans to publicly represent your father and yourself, and especially if you plan to teach students (or if you already do), then if you can understand the impetus behind the above, I hope that you realize that it is not so much an issue about defending your father and what he states, but rather about you (and him by extention) being open to a new field of inquiry that potentially enhances what he is (and perhaps you are) teaching; if so, i welcome further dialogue; or not, you may of course choose to disregard this in its entirety, and that is fine as well!

best regards,
Chris Jurak, MS, PT
Dan Tao Certified Qigong Therapist

[MysteriousPower]

I am not commenting on whether or not you said anything about the form, or the responses.
I am speaking on your blanket statement about people who stay closed door.

It is plainly obvious that you have never met any of these people, let alone trained, or touched hands with them. Clearly, your opinions are either out of your own head, or you are simply parroting what others have told you.

The question arises, why are you trying so hard to get your voice heard, and your point across? You must have alot of pent up anger twoards a past teacher whom you felt dangled a carrott, or misled you about his knowledge, thus painting everyone else with the same brush. No matter how much people with far more experience tell you, you still stamp your feet and stubbornly cling to this childish idea, and what is worse, is you try to get everyone to agree with you.
The truth of the matter is, nobody who has ever actually met,seen, felt, or trained with these type of people, will ever agree with you. They've been there.

there is also the db factor: forums, youtube, and other such sites attract them like flies to a dungheap. There is no winning the battle at this point.
"When you argue with an idiot, others cannot tell who the idiot is."

The question should not be why I am trying hard to get my voice heard because this is a public forum and everyone's voice gets heard. The question should be why you are so sensitive to my posts.

I do not need to train with super secret sifus because the men I train with do not have to hide. They put the gloves on and hit me and I hit them. They are tough as nails and proven so(to me atleast) because they are not hiding away in some dark basement pretending to have powers that they will never show.

I have stepped away from the tcma world because of the bs that you are spewing. MMA provides a world where people actually train and do not pretend to know things that give them the upper hand on the rest of the world.

Keep training your "secrets" and keep your powers hidden for all I care. But do not berate me for voicing my opinion on the matter. If you have touched hands with these so called super sifus and have had benefit then fine. I am not asking you to challenge mma people but do not pretend that what you are learning in northern praying mantis is any better or tougher than what people are training in mma gyms across the world.

[TenTigers]

"The question should not be why I am trying hard to get my voice heard because this is a public forum and everyone's voice gets heard. The question should be why you are so sensitive to my posts."
I am simply correcting them.

"I do not need to train with super secret sifus because the men I train with do not have to hide. They put the gloves on and hit me and I hit them. They are tough as nails and proven so(to me atleast) because they are not hiding away in some dark basement pretending to have powers that they will never show".
Same here as far as the training goes, and the tough as nails part.
But... You seem to think that since they prefer not to deal with the egos, drama, pettiness, backstabbing and bull$hit, that they somehow are hiding in fear. Well, partly right. Fear of being as$ociated with people of that ilk.

"I have stepped away from the tcma world because of the bs that you are spewing."
Going by your opinions, I seriously doubt that you were ever actually in it to begin with. What is your experience?

"MMA provides a world where people actually train and do not pretend to know things that give them the upper hand on the rest of the world."
That soley depends on the teaching methods, not the technique. There are TMA schools that train the same way. It's the training methods. Why don't you get that?
thick, dude. real thick.

"Keep training your "secrets" and keep your powers hidden for all I care. But do not berate me for voicing my opinion on the matter."
If you are speaking not from any real experience, but out of your arse,and your own convoluted ideas based on your past traumas, then, yeah. You will certainly be berated.

"If you have touched hands with these so called super sifus and have had benefit then fine."
yes, I have,well, some of them.. thanx for that

"I am not asking you to challenge mma people but do not pretend that what you are learning in northern praying mantis is any better or tougher than what people are training in mma gyms across the world."
SOUTHERN Mantis, and nobody ever said one thing is better than the other, simply that they prefer and enjoy what they are doing. Nobody has a problem with MMA, in fact most TCMA Sifus that I know, embrace these training methods.
It is YOU who has a problem with TCMA, which seems to be very funny, since you seem to actually know nothing about it.
Why don't you go to a MMA forum and hang out there, rather than trying to throw tantrums here, where nobody respects or is interested in your viewpoints.

[sanjuro_ronin]

Here are some facts we need to remember:
Many systems in TCMA are family or village systems, it means they were/are passed down via family or close friends.
SPM is typical of that, it's not that it is the uber deadly, though some like that image to be there for them, it is just the way it was always taught, think GJJ before it went public.
EX:
I will probably never teach public, it doesn't interest me that much anymore, but I will pass what I know to my family and friends and anyone that asks to learn.
So yes, what I know will be "closed door" and "secret", not because it is THE DEADLY ( even though it is ) but because I choose to keep it private and not teach to the publc.
Lots of modern systems were like that for a long time, case in point:
GJJ
DBMA
Pekiti tirsia
Pak mei
SPM
Hung Kuen
Uechi ryu
Tenshen Shoden Katori shinto ryu
Etc, etc.

[Dale Dugas]

Paul,

great point.

I teach publicly as well as have private students.

I hold nothing back and will teach anyone who wants to learn.

Now of course once they see the amount of work they are going to have to do to gain success with what they seek, thats a whole other kettle of fish....

[TenTigers]

I did a search on that Uechi-Ryu Sensei who was holding the jars. In an interview, he was asked why he never opened up a dojo. His answer was that if he opened, then he would have to teach beginners to support his overhead. He much prefers to teach advanced practitioners in seminars.
Sensei Roy Goldberg of DaitoRyu does the same thing. In fact, styles like SPM and Bak Mei and Lung Ying were considered "polishing styles," usually taught only to advanced pratitioners. I recall one Sifu had a sign,"I don't teach students, I teach Sifus."

[sanjuro_ronin]

I did a search on that Uechi-Ryu Sensei who was holding the jars. In an interview, he was asked why he never opened up a dojo. His answer was that if he opened, then he would have to teach beginners to support his overhead. He much prefers to teach advanced practitioners in seminars.
Sensei Roy Goldberg of DaitoRyu does the same thing. In fact, styles like SPM and Bak Mei and Lung Ying were considered "polishing styles," usually taught only to advanced pratitioners. I recall one Sifu had a sign,"I don't teach students, I teach Sifus."

Absolutly agree.
No way I could have picked up what my SPM Sifu teaches without prior training, it's all about the feel and the touch and he uses lots of point of references from other MA.
Funny thing though, he said I will never have a pure SPM hand, I have too much ingrained form other MA, but he said that was a good thing.
I didn't get it when he said that after the first lesson he gave me, which involved me getting a nice old fashioned beating, but 3 years later I totally understand what he meant.

[David Jamieson]

Some people put more effort into being a good dog than being a good practitioner and student.

[MysteriousPower]

Absolutly agree.
No way I could have picked up what my SPM Sifu teaches without prior training, it's all about the feel and the touch and he uses lots of point of references from other MA.
Funny thing though, he said I will never have a pure SPM hand, I have too much ingrained form other MA, but he said that was a good thing.
I didn't get it when he said that after the first lesson he gave me, which involved me getting a nice old fashioned beating, but 3 years later I totally understand what he meant.

Since it was agreed upon that SPM is a polishing style than how can anyone have a pure mantis hand? No one can have a pure anything because we all take the same shapes and add our own flavor to it. One person might say it is supposed to feel this way and another might say he is wrong.

[MysteriousPower]

"The question should not be why I am trying hard to get my voice heard because this is a public forum and everyone's voice gets heard. The question should be why you are so sensitive to my posts."
I am simply correcting them.

"I do not need to train with super secret sifus because the men I train with do not have to hide. They put the gloves on and hit me and I hit them. They are tough as nails and proven so(to me atleast) because they are not hiding away in some dark basement pretending to have powers that they will never show".
Same here as far as the training goes, and the tough as nails part.
But... You seem to think that since they prefer not to deal with the egos, drama, pettiness, backstabbing and bull$hit, that they somehow are hiding in fear. Well, partly right. Fear of being as$ociated with people of that ilk.

"I have stepped away from the tcma world because of the bs that you are spewing."
Going by your opinions, I seriously doubt that you were ever actually in it to begin with. What is your experience?

"MMA provides a world where people actually train and do not pretend to know things that give them the upper hand on the rest of the world."
That soley depends on the teaching methods, not the technique. There are TMA schools that train the same way. It's the training methods. Why don't you get that?
thick, dude. real thick.

"Keep training your "secrets" and keep your powers hidden for all I care. But do not berate me for voicing my opinion on the matter."
If you are speaking not from any real experience, but out of your arse,and your own convoluted ideas based on your past traumas, then, yeah. You will certainly be berated.

"If you have touched hands with these so called super sifus and have had benefit then fine."
yes, I have,well, some of them.. thanx for that

"I am not asking you to challenge mma people but do not pretend that what you are learning in northern praying mantis is any better or tougher than what people are training in mma gyms across the world."
SOUTHERN Mantis, and nobody ever said one thing is better than the other, simply that they prefer and enjoy what they are doing. Nobody has a problem with MMA, in fact most TCMA Sifus that I know, embrace these training methods.
It is YOU who has a problem with TCMA, which seems to be very funny, since you seem to actually know nothing about it.
Why don't you go to a MMA forum and hang out there, rather than trying to throw tantrums here, where nobody respects or is interested in your viewpoints.

These super sifus that you touched hands with have accomplished what exactly? THE DEADLY challenge fights(undocumented and unverifiable of course) that occurred in China? I bet. It is easy for you to discount my views as from my own experience or out of my arse because you simply do not agree with them and they hurt your current world view.

I looked up some SOUTHERN praying mantis(your only valid correction) and it looks interesting but it seems that it only prepares a person for fighting people that are sticking to and twirling arms in a similar way. Kickboxing teaches people how to kickbox in ring setting but I would argue that training in kickboxing lends itself to sparring with other styles better than spm. Before you go on saying that, since I have never trained in the style I have no reference for what I am talking about, ask yourself if you have recently tested your spm skills against an actual resisting opponent. Yourself would probably conjure up past friendly sparring akin to patty cake or arm twirling and you might convince yourself that that was THE DEADLY full contact.

Or we can look to recent posts by WaterDragon who, from his own statements, said he studied spm for years and found it hard to apply realistically(paraphrase). Are you going to make your repetitive argument that waterdragon, 1. Did not train with the right spm teacher, 2. Had a bad experience which does not speak for all spm, etc.? He has been doing it for years and disses it so... maybe you are in the minority of people that like to romanticize their THE DEADLy(I really like this new term) training.

[sanjuro_ronin]

Since it was agreed upon that SPM is a polishing style than how can anyone have a pure mantis hand? No one can have a pure anything because we all take the same shapes and add our own flavor to it. One person might say it is supposed to feel this way and another might say he is wrong.

You are catching on