BJJ Practitioners Take On the Yellow Bamboo

HAPKO3 · 2/09/2005 4:05pm

No doubt you have all heard of Yellow Bamboo, the self proclaimed self-development, protection, healing and white magic non-profit association (1) based in Bali, which boasts over 30,000 (unconfirmed) practitioners worldwide. Proponents of Yellow Bamboo (YB from now on) claim that performing certain exercises in order to cultivate and direct your "chi" grants the practitioner powers that can only be described as magic, and that include levitation, longevity, healing, and, last but not least, the ability to knock down an aggressor from a distance, without making any contact. For those interested, you can take a look at what a part of their training routine looks like here.

In addition to making such extraordinary claims, YB practitioners are notorious for spamming internet communities dedicated to the practice of martial arts of all sorts in order to attract more converts into their organization. This practice has led to a number of internet confrontations and challenges, as it usually is the case with such things, none of them have ever been carried through from the interenet to real life; until now, that is.

What started as a series of discussion on the usenet group rec.martial-arts, spanning at least a couple of years of heated debate, has finally matured into a physical test of these supposedly magical powers, announced in a post here.

Two Brazillian Jiu-Jitsu practitioners from Australia (THEMAD1 and GreenStar) have stepped forward to challenge their local YB representative to prove once and for all that no-touch or Chi knockouts are, and have always been, complete and utter bullshit. The test was set up as follows. The YB practitioner assumes a stance on the sand and is given time to prepare his Chi in accordance with YB practices. The challenger then runs 20 feet across the sand and attacks the YB practitioner. As the challenger is making his run, the YB practitioner has to effectively disable or deflect him using his chi. Here's how it played out.

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1) www.yellowbamboo.com

**HAPKO3** · Posted On: 2/09/2005 4:07pm

My spelling and grammar suck, so please make whatever corrections you need and post as news.

**Aesopian** · Posted On: 2/09/2005 4:13pm

I request that they be called bambookoonas or whatever that guy called his fellow gotards.

**Dochter** · Posted On: 2/09/2005 4:20pm

Sadly your english-fu is better than mine.

I would change the first bit "No doubt you have all heared of Yellow Bamboo", no reason to assume people know about them. Along the same lines, if you say "so obviously it follows", it usually doesn't.
Just deleting up to "Yellow Bamboo" from the first sentence should be sufficient..

Where's Wastrel? This is his bailiwick.