Southend-on-Sea, England: Kung Fu master Tony Anthony and Avanti Ministries

[khaixiang]

I think the problem with this guy is that he's making pretty fantastical claims without any back up. Most of his accounts seem to be taken directly from the tv series Kung Fu, and he claims to have been won competitions that didn't exist.

Yet you concentrate on what someone said about his accent. Odd. Perhaps you should introduce yourself in the Newbitown sub forum.

if i know more about his martial arts claims i would concentrate on that. yeah i will do the introduction bits at some point

AS an aside, I have a friend from Hong Kong who's been living in the UK for the past ten years. She's reached the point where she uses full Scottish slang, but she still has a Hong Kong accent. This, combined with her perfect comedy timing, has led to some of the funniest shit I've ever heard.

lol would love to meet her then but yeah many of my friends who has lived in the uk for an appreciable amount of time have no trace of asian accent. and I believe tony moved back to london at the age of 10ish.

[believer]

Has enyone have his email? The avanti.com page doesnt seem to have one...

Hi. One of the most glaring mistakes that Tony Anthony makes in his book, and there are very many, is that he stroked, even played with a wild WHITE tiger (pure, unadulterated fantasy). This is written about in the early part of his book.
Sincerely, Stephen Prunetti.

:la:

Hi,

I saw this guy couple of days ago on one of his evangelization campaigns in my town. First rather impressed, because he didn't tell the audience his best BS, but latter on when I casually found this on net, I was more then surprised. Actually I am quite fed up, that I had missed the opportunity to ask him a few questions face to face, about him playing with white tiger, burning his wrists etc. But doesn't anybody here have his email, or mobile phone? I would really like to contact him and hear the answers.
Actually I am a believer, but I travel to China frequently and I am quite fluent in chinese, mandarine and I know a bit about chinese martial arts.
I think he is obliged to explain this BS.
I already wrote an email about this to church that had organized his campaign in my town, but they where really mad at hearing complaints, and they dont seem to be willing to give me his contact details...

[CrackFox]

If you want to contact him, you could try Avanti Ministries. Their details are available here: http://www.avantiministries.com/aboutus.php

[believer]

Thanks, I didnt see the tel num first... I call them tomorrow.

---------- Post added at 08:00 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:48 PM ----------

Actually guys, I am quite surprised, that nobody from bullshido tried to call or contact him before me (I didnt see any posts of this kind), because this discussion is going on for years already...
You are all warriors, arent you? Are you afraid of him?
But somebody has to be the first. :):) So be it me.

[Asriel]

I stated way back that I live in Southend-on-Sea and would be happy to attend his classes if he's teaching.

[believer]

I tried to call his office today, but there was only answering mashine... I left a message, but nobody contacted me back yet, hopefully they will soon. I will keep you posted. Hello Asriel, I cant go with you - too bad I cant, because I am not from U.K., but you should try to visit him, there is an adress on his webpage and let us know what you will find out.

[Jadonblade]

Any news?

[believer]

re:

Hello Jadonblade,

It was never possible to find someone on his phone, there was always answering machine. Actually I left my contact details on his answering machine, but he never bothered to contact me back.
Later on I found feedback form on his webpage and wrote him 2 times, but never heard back from him too. I tried to send webpage form few more times afterwards, but it seems he blocked my contact details, because ever since then I could not send that webpage form through any more.
Actually I dont care about this guy any more, I dont think he deserves it. I am pretty sure he is hiding something, otherwise he would have no problems answering emails or phones. And I am sure that truth will find him one day. I am leaving this up to you guys who live in U.K., I am not from and neither I live in your country, it will be easier for you to reach him somehow and ask him all the questions that had appeared in this forum face to face. Good luck and dont forget let other people from bullshido know about it.

[Kuri]

OK since I really don't feel up to reading 10 pages worth of posts I may as well just say what came across to me as I read a few of the pages of claims that he's lying.

To be honest, I was pretty shocked when I did a search on him and didn't find any details about all the claims that he'd made and even did some research in other areas of his books (i.e. the whole white tiger deal) based on what members of this forum suggested...

Before I begin this little 'essay' of sorts... I'd just like to say, I've had an interest in martial arts for a looong time, mainly due to my Chinese heritage (born and bred in Beijing, currently living in England) and I've been back many times and also attended a Chinese summer camp where I did very basic wushu for 2 weeks (just for fun cos I was dying to try it!) so my wushu knowledge is pretty limited. Where wushu knowledge is needed, please correct me if I'm wrong...

I think one of the glaring claims of his lies that stood out to me was how there are no details of the martial arts competitions that he attended. Someone said "he claimed to be world champion in kung fu--what type??!!" or something... to that, I answer: Kungfu *is* the type.

Kungfu is a type of Chinese martial art. Martial arts is the collective term. Kungfu is specifically Chinese martial arts (i.e. Koreans have Taekwondo etc etc). Please refer to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_martial_arts

Quote: "Chinese martial arts, ... consists of a number of fighting styles... Examples include Eagle Claw, *Five Animals*, Hung Gar, Monkey, *Praying Mantis*, *Fujian White Crane*..."

Any of those sound familiar to you? :)

Anyways, that he used 'Kung Fu' instead of 'Gong Fu' or 'Wushu' pretty much backs up his claim of having lived in HK as 'Kung Fu' is the Cantonese way of saying it.

Another thing was the white tiger issue... Actually, that's pretty plausible to me too... Someone stated that there are no white tigers in the area of China that Tony was supposedly in. Canton Province is in South China, in case anyone is wondering. Please refer to http://www.tigerhomes.org/cam/white_tiger.cfm.

Quote: "The South China tiger occurs only in southern China." Of course, they are referring to the South China *White* Tiger. Therefore, that claim about Tigers not existing in that part of China is also disproven :)

Another issue was the burning cauldron at the end of the training tunnel. Someone suggested several hundred pounds would be *impossible* to lift. Can I just quote that it says: "It was glowing red with heat and *looked like* it weighed several hundred pounds"

That doesn't mean to say that it definitely weighed several hundred pounds. And even if it was a hundred pounds or so... so what? That's not impossible to lift!! I have friends who weigh up to two hundred pounds and other (strong) friends of mine can pick them up no problem, so I don't see what's so surprising about picking up a pot of a couple hundred pounds with your arms.

Ok apart from that it was burning.

But you guys do martial arts, right? Surely you've seen people lie on top of *needles* with their *bare chests* simply because of Chi control? I've seen it so many times at Chinese Kung fu demonstrations, then there are other showings of people being lifted in the air lying on nothing but (sharp) spears at various points of their body because of Chi (I saw this live actually. Went up later to have a look at the spear and fking hell it would have killed me ._.) ...so, my point is, if they can do that and not feel pain (or be stabbed through and killed) then why is it so hard to believe that someone can pick up a hot, heavy cauldron esp when they've been so highly trained and tutored in martial arts?

As for people searching up his grandfather's name and not getting any results... Ok, you're surprised because......?

Firstly, we're Chinese, aka very conservative. We don't really post up personal details about ourselves. And in case you guys have forgotten, internet was only invented in the last decade or so! Think about it, how old is Tony now? What year must it have been when he was only 20? Then what year must it have been when his *grandfather* was a kung fu champion?

Was there internet when he was alive? Nope, don't really think so. So are there any *internet sources* that we can use to search his family background? Again, definitely not. My grandfather doesn't even know how to turn on a computer, I expect, let alone put details about himself up online.

Also, he's more famous in his province rather than worldwide anyway, so if you really wanted to search him, go to a Chinese website and search it, maybe you'll get some results then, but again, highly likely as back then it was... what? 1930?? 1940?? (I would but I don't know the particular Chinese characters that made up his name.) And think about it in context: just by the first part of the book you can tell the MASSIVE cultural gap between then and now.

Now that China's opened up to the world, it's cool to see a Chinese person marrying a non-Chinese. In fact, it's even a good thing. Back then it was taboo. Back then, China didn't want much to do with the world. I guess it was only in certain career areas that they may have had outside connections/if you just so happened to be lucky enough to be socially outcasted for being mixed blood. But my point is, if China was so culturally conservative, do you really think there'd be sources online for Tony's grandfather's kung fu achievements?

As for kung fu world championships... I dno about you, but when I google that, all I get is a bunch of youtube videos linked to this Japanese dude playing piano? The only decent site I can find is http://www.namyang.co.uk/martial-art...amionships.phphttp://www.uswushuacademy.com/resour...005%20Tour.htm -- from 2005.

Where is all the recent stuff? I know for a fact that he's been competing in all-China wushu competitions and has just recently come back from one. He won second or first for spear or something.

So... if I can't find anything RECENT about *TODAY's* martial artists, how on earth are you expecting to find legit sources for Tony, who was world champion n-years ago (when computers weren't even invented)?

I also googled the guy he mentioned he fought--Li Chang Po. There's nothing on him either, but that doesn't mean he didn't exist. And it also doesn't mean they never fought.

To the person who wrote a lot to the ministry that Tony now works for (or something): I wouldn't be surprised if you don't get a reply. Think about it, Tony is known internationally. The number of comments he gets *per day* is probably in the thousands... they don't really have time to sift through all of them just to answer yours, right? Please try to understand.

Anyways, after all that, I'm still sitting on the fence about the story haha. There is one part I think is slightly strange: that his grandfather made him wear 'Chao ni lao niang de shi ba dai' or something... That's Mandarin. If he was in Canton province, why is it that he wrote the Mandarin Phonetic spelling?

Tho they do also speak Mandarin in Canton (my paternal grandfather comes from there and his Mandarin is fine). But I guess I maybe they only have that particular insult in Mandarin, I've never heard it in Cantonese before... it's preeetty darn rude =3 Another thing is that he hasn't mentioned what happened to Henry after he and William got back to US, but then again I haven't finished reading the book yet, maybe he mentions it later on...

We'll see!

I heard him speaking live actually... twas pretty cool to hear him speak :) I even bought the book that day and he signed it for me personally :D As for not wanting anything to do with kungfu again, I'm not surprised either...

I *am* a Christian, and we had a debate at our fellowship a few weeks ago about kung fu and chi... apparently there is a lot of negative energy and evil spirits involved in Chi (the power has to come from somewhere, right?) so if Tony really was so powerful, I can understand why he would never want to revive that Chi again in fear of the evil spirits that it attracts.

Just a potential explanation of why he doesn't use his martial arts anymore, as well as how it probs brings bad memories (and I expect he doesn't give the other explanation because as soon as atheists etc hear it they'll be completely like wtf) so...

I end it here because my arms are tired and I need to go somewhere... Wow... I wrote a lot @_@;;

[jk1809]

Apologies to reviving an old thread.

I just want to thank people like 'Believer' for investigating ton Anthony's claim. Religous viewpoints aside, Tony's 'claims' degrade other testimonies of christian martyrs who have suffered greatly for their faith. While christians passively observe deception peddled under their religous label, the rest of the world only re-affirms the assumption that all christians are liars and hypocrites.

It would be great however to see conclusive evidence on the matter. I think claims and counter-claims as to Tony's authenticity based on his accent are anecdotal at best, and don't lend anything to the discussion. Come on Bullshido, you're better than this.

[It is Fake]

Come on Bullshido, you're better than this.

Hmm read the thread and there is a ton of information in here on the guy.

Come on, why bring the thread back to add nothing and complain?

[madbull]

I Believe in What Tony Athony has to say, unless proved otherwise. I have heard him speak 3 times on 3 different occasions, his motive is to bring others to Jesus Christ. He became a Christian in Nicosia in 1990.

I suggest if you continue to dig you will find out disappointingly that he is legit.
Regards,
Madbull

[CrackFox]

I Believe in What Tony Athony has to say, unless proved otherwise. I have heard him speak 3 times on 3 different occasions, his motive is to bring others to Jesus Christ. He became a Christian in Nicosia in 1990.

I suggest if you continue to dig you will find out disappointingly that he is legit.
Regards,
Madbull

How do you feel about the similarity between his description of his Kung-Fu training, and the opening sequence of the TV series, also called Kung-Fu?

Do you believe he played with a wild white tiger on mainland China?

If you feel that further digging will prove his legitimacy, then I'm sure you agree that we should get this investigation in gear and clear everything up. Maybe you could help?

[honesty]

Unfortunately further digging will prove nothing, as there is no information out there. I've looked. Its basically all unprovable, as the only sources for the story all come back to Tony...

[icarusjfel]

Found this:

YouTube - Kung Fu VS Jesus

Words fail me.