just another brick in the wall (of shite)

[Sam Browning]

Motor Vehicle Offers are always better in the high volume courts since they want to clear their dockets. In Stamford GA however they have more time to be jerks. BTW in Connecticut judges are appointed by the governor after being approved by the legislature, and not elected. I find we get better quality that way. :)

[jdp29]

The only Kuntao in Rhode Island is Frank Masiello. End of story. Never heard of him?? Of course not, he doesn't water his stuff down by opening up a dojo and selling belts.

[BDV]

Professor Vee was known a very knowledgable and humble man.

Well, Prof, Vee was so knowledgeable that he added a new style to his "curriculum" almost every year. First is was Vee Jitsu, then he added arnis,smattering of Kung fu"often claimed it was Hung Ga or Mantis", kuntao silat, and what ever else was "in" at the moment. But when you see it, it is kenpo striking with jujitsu locks. Kind of Count Dante/AShida Kim dance of death thing but based on a triangle pattern around the opponent.

If I remeber correctly the person to maintain some form of inheritance of the Vee system was David James but I could be wrong.

I know people will argue the fact that he was a well respected man but that does not equal credibility. If you look at his students and the stuff they say they lerned form him you will not see kung fu, silat, Muy Thai or any other exoteric art. All of their material is the same stuff Moses Powell was teaching before his death. The simple fact that they can not pin point the kung fu that was incorperated into the system can be seen as a red flag.

I mean just look at the circle of people he kept. Ronald Duncan, Professor Moses Powell, Shihan Joesph Torres, Lil John Davis, and others. All whom been said to be "Charlatans" by the martial art community at one point or another.

How do I know this? Well, I used to be a bullshido student of Joesph Torres, who besides being bullshido is a whole bag of worms unto himself, and have sat in the backgrond and heard so called "Masters' gossip and fight like wash women.

I remeber one time watching Powell do a "one finger" roll and a whole bunch of vials fell out of his gi top. Needless to say I was young, and did not know what they were but they did have these pretty little red tops on them.

Here is a listing and time frame for Vee's accomplishments: http://www.fist-inc.com/kfvideo/visit.htm actually one of the many versions.

I have nothing against Vee personally, but I have heard so many storeis about him from so many different teachers. These stories nevr truly matched his public and private demonstration.

To answer the "He is respected and knowledgeable" stuff (This is
He is respected because of the time he spent in the martial arts world and he was never really called to task on his material. A following was built around him and folk lore became fact. A lot of Martial arts "Grandmasters or Soke" carears are built upon his teachings and if Prof. Vee was ever discovered to be a fraud, many heads would hang low in dissappoinment.


http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Track/2823/vee.html

Some of Professor Vee's senior students are: Moses Powell, David James, Robert Cooper, Calvin Myers, Frank Edwards Sr., Frank Edwards Jr., Gary R. Cooper, Thurman Miller, Johnny Davis, and Sugar Crossen and Jose Valez

http://www.bullshido.com/articles/vee-arnis-9.html This is Bullshido's link. Go to any of the schools and arnis wise all you will see is Sinawalis and stick strips mixed with Jitsu stuff.

To each there own but alot of what they do is either BS or made up.

Here is what Vee's stuff usually looks like and sorry for the derailment.
http://www.veearnisjitsu.com/videogallery.htm

[daGorilla]

Gotta agree with IndoChinese on this one. Professor Vee was known a very knowledgable and humble man.

I don't know much about Prof. V or his art, but I see some potentially good signs on the Web site. Bear in mind that a) you can't completely judge a school solely by it's Web site; and b) alot of the leading indicators for suckage that might appear on a Web site may have been written, conceived, or posted by a third party.

Just because a school has kids programs and their Web site describes some questionable "Hall of Fame" stuff doesn't mean the school/instructor/style/training sucks.

The only way to be sure is to drop in and take a class, talk to the instructor, etc.

[Rivington]

Bridgeport is definitely a blighted town, but it was even worse years ago. (My folks live across the Long Island Sound from that town, and I go through there to take the ferry sometimes.) The University of Bridgeport is just awful; it was bought by the Moonies back in 1992, and the curriculum is full of various metaphysical nonsense now. The law school and many of its reasonable tenured faculty left (the law school is now part of Quinnipiac College); now you cannot major in foreign languages or philosophy, but can major in martial arts or neuropathy. And if you major in MA, prepare to take a lot of TKD or Yang style Taiji (though the latter isn't necessarily awful, just 90% of the time).

[BomberH]

The promotional video on their website showed lots of fast kung fu style strikes being applied against an attacker who after the first punch just stands still and gets beaten up. The short groung fighting sequence shows asome one taking their opponents back and rather than getting thier hooks in they "finish" their opponent off with a single elbow to the head.

It's not all bad the arm locks performed from the guard by the coloured belts were okay, however, for them to work properly they would need to do regular ground sparring which I couldn't tell if they do.

Over all it just looks like some idealistic, unrealistic Kung Fu with some useful but watered down Judo ground work. I suppose one might be able to learn so decent bits from them but if your starting from scratch better just join a decent Judo, BJJ or Boxing club.