Introduction: recovering from a cult-like CMA school

[killface]

First of all thanks for all the guys making this site possible.
It helped me to get rid of much bullshit in my head.

I needed to sort some stuff, so i ended up writing the story of my MA life til now.
I don�t really think it is so interesting so feel free to skip it but hey at least it is a proper introduction!
Feel free to ask questions.
(Ah and I live in Europe in case you wonder)

Short Story is: I got kicked out of two TMA schools, found some legit Xing Yi school, which I love (even-though the training isn�t exactly alive) and started BJJ.


I will not name the schools i trained in because i want to talk more about my subjective experience and have no need to be overly diplomatic.

When I was a Kid I wasn�t really into sports, not fat, actually very thin, typical Nerd.
I figured i should do some kind of workout.
So I started Shotokan Karate. (Basically the Karatekid stuff got me going.
I did ok in the beginner class but when i switched to advanced class, the trainer didn�t like me from the start.
I once did Kumite with an older woman and she got an small bruise on her arm, really no big deal and she did not care but he was pretty pissed.
Later he accused me of not being concentrated and stuff but well I was kid so of course i could not concentrate all the time.
I was the only kid in class so i guess he didnt like to have some kid around.
After some time i simply got kicked out.

Wasn�t such a big deal for me.
I went to training an a regular Basis and all but it wasn�t like a focus in my life.
After some months and watching the Matrix I figured i wanted to learn to kick ass like Neo.
Didn�t want to do anything competitive because I still sucked and the real deadly stuff obviously wasn�t to be found in a competition with rules and shit.
So i started Kung Fu.
They had some lineage chart on their website with Chinese names and shit and some story�s so i figured that should be the real shit.
I believed I would learn authentic Shaolin Kung Fu.

The training was very very hard.

The head of the school was very rarely teaching himself because he was way too advanced and his training would be way too hard for beginner.
Yep, that was exactly what we have been told,.
Advanced Students would do the training. (They wouldn�t get any money for it, it was expected because family style and "tradition")
So the advanced students (sometimes barely one year at the school) would do the training while the head would most of the time sit in his "office" and do ... well I don�t fucking know.
There was a big picture of "the sifu" in the room, which had to be greeted before the beginning of the training.
(We had some special "greeting move".)
You had to greet when you enter the school, when you enter the actual training room, when you enter the matt, after that the picture of "the sifu", the whole group and if the head or the two friends of the head came during training, the group had to stop immediately to greet them.
So all in all there was a lot of greeting going on.
There was is strong hierarchy based on since when you where student.
(Actual skill did no really matter)
You where expected to respect your "older brothers" and always and without questioning do what they tell you to.
If not, you got punished and had to do push ups and stuff.
(Though there is to say that nobody got beaten or something, the worst was getting them to quit)
Myself got picked up by the advanced students pretty often but i did not care as I thought extra exercise would be good for me.

Sometimes before starting of the class the head would hold a lengthy speech that could last for more than an hour.
Yes an actual fucking hour.
He would talk about "tradition", philosophical and political stuff, how bad the Wing Chung and other MA are and stuff like that.

The head learned some (i guess) legit hapkido from a Korean guy with an big alcohol problem and managed to get first dan.
That guy died pretty soon.
Later the head would claim to have 8 dan because he Korean guy apperently had 8 dan.
After that he studied hapkido under some con artist (claims to be 11 dan and shit, you really smell the fraud before you see him) and also learnt an "kung fu" style from this person.
After many years the head finally figured that is was bullshit and found some other guy who claims to have learnt a very very rare (like he is the only one doing it) style from a mysterious hongkong Chinese.
The second guy (the one we used to call "the sifu") has some good reputation in certain circles and i cant prove it is all bullshit but i fear it is.
So what we learn t was basically two crappy "kung fu" styles and a bit of hapkido mixed in.


Why didn�t I smell the crap?
Because the training was physically very demanding.
Doing 1000 push ups was nothing for me when i was more advanced.
We also did all the hardcore stuff like finger push ups and iron body techniques.
I now know that competitive MA train also very hard but I only had crappy karate as comparison so I kind of believed no other school would train as hard as us.

I remember some seminar when "the sifu" came to our school and all we would simply get where some very demanding exercises. He wouldn�t teach us any shit except for two cheap bullshit chi na locks, even-though we paid some good money.
I figured that these seminars where a waste of money but many students actually liked it.

The head was constantly "testing" us, that meant playing bullshit psycho-shit to test if we trust him and have the right moral.
I mistook this kind of behavior for trolling at first and didn't care.
The group of advanced students decided to leave the school because of this "testing" and also because they believed the training wasn�t "traditional" enough.
They became direct disciples of "the sifu" and always went to seminars.
This made the head pretty pissed and he demanded "the sifu" not to teach them.
So the relationship between both got a bit worse but the head still goes to seminars.

The training wasn�t really effected by that because by the time I was the one having to do the training while the advanced students trained separate or where forced to sit in the office with the head. (The head pretended that there was something important to discuss but most of the time the head felled lonely.)
Oh and I was quite bad at it.
I mean i didn�t know shit and was not allowed to teach shit as the head was the only one to decide what technique someone were to learn.
We were no allowed to share our technique with other "brothers" and of course not with the outside world.
Yes ALL the technique we learn t was secret technique.
The good thing is that I got used to teaching people and now i kind of like it and miss it.
Also after the leave of the advanced students I got the keys for the school so that i could train after regular class.
And this was the frankly the reason i kept going.
Sure i had to go through the regular class bullshit but after that i could train whatever i wanted.

We did some sparring after class but we had no protection gear, didn�t even use gloves, so we could only go light contact.
We weren�t officially allowed to do sparring, especially not alone.
Well I was very bad at sparring, got out of breath very fast and so didn�t do it often.
I thought i needed to work on my "basics" more before doing sparring.

One day I was sitting in the office and the head holding some speech.
He said something that I knew was wrong (a historical fact, the speech had nothing to do with kung fu anyway) and i corrected him.
(I don�t always correct people but at least stuff like historical facts matter and he was stealing my training time)
That pissed him off and he separated me from the rest of the advanced student.
I had to do the beginner training while he told the rest of the advanced students that I am too "naiv" and stuff like that.
I don�t really know but I think that was the reason he began picking on me.
(He was always picking on someone though so it was kind of about time)
He did stuff like taking the keys for the school from a student that was a friend of me, saying he would be too influenced by me.
(yes collective punishment was normal)
It all ended in a discussion in the office with other advanced students where he he took my keys, my sash (i was black at the end but did not care for it, didn�t improve much since orange anyway) and said I should go home.
I said that i paid money for it and wanted to train.
He got really pissed and throw me out, saying i should never come back.
Later students told me i could come back if I apologize, lol.

The throw out was kind of good for me, as I got instantly out of the 6 months contract.
Even-though he treated me like shit i still feel kind of "rejected", like i wasn�t a worthy student anyway.
Also to be honest i wished that the other advanced students would have "defended" me. One even said "go and apologize to him".

After getting kicked out I was motivated as fuck to do MA, like showing how "worthy" I am and shit.
I had developed an interest in Chinese culture so I wanted to do a CMA again.
Well tried a Wing Chung school but i didn�t like the forms and they wanted a one year contract which was pretty pricey.

So the only other choice was the Xing Yi school.
And lucky me got into the real stuff.
The master had students from Taiwan coming all the way to train with him.
AND what was more important he was a very pragmatic person teaching the real thing and no chi magic.

The plot twist is that I was only semi-lucky.
The master was already ill when i started training and would die after some months.
Now the current trainer for xing yi is cool and all but he never did any sparring and used to do tai chi and switched only recently.
So the training isn�t really much alive.
The training is still fun, especially the warm up/ qi gong part but it kind of sucks having nobody to spar with.
The other students tell me they want to work on the fighting aspect more but when i ask they always have no time.
I did some very light sparring with a Boxer friend, which already helped me enormously but he hasn�t much time.

Oh and I met someone of the ex-advanced students that left the cult-like school.
He is still training that shit and wanted to spar with me using a deep horse stance and tiger claw.
Yes, deep horse stance, yes tiger claw.
(the sparring did not happen)

While the Xing Yi training helped to get rid of much bullshit I used to believe about CMA, there was still much left.
And this is when bullshido finally comes into play.
First i didn�t really understand what the site is about and then "BOOM".
I kept reading and reading and got rid of one stupid believe after an other.
Oh and I understood that the ground game is important so i tried BJJ and i love it!

[SLBC]

It's very easy to get mixed up with shady stuff when you get into CMA. Me, I was very lucky to have entered a legit school, with lineage, documents and all that. I tried japanese MA too, but got into a school with too much psycho-shit (as you said) going on, so I quit.

Since you do Xing Yi, you should check the Chinese Martial Arts and Kung Fu sub-forum (under Traditional Martial Arts and Styles Forum).

[slamdunc]

Welcome to Bullshido.

[CoffeeFan]

It's scary how much control an instructor can have on his students. Glad you were able to get out of the cult like environment.

Welcome to Bullshido!

[Diesel_tke]

Welcome to the Bullshido. Sounds like a pretty shitty experience, but one that you learned a lot from. That's important. I did Xingyi for a while and there are people here who have done it for a long time. I know what you mean about sparring. Xingyi is fun, but if you are not getting some sparring time in, it gets pretty taxing.

There is a lot of carry over from Xingyi into other martial arts too.

[BackFistMonkey]

Welcome to Bullshido and keep in mind that EVERYONE is susceptible to being conned, hoodwinked, bamboozled, and deceived. Some of the biggest industries in the world are just giant tax exempt scams fleecing millions of people.

The most common reason is that people want to believe in these things, it brings comfort and hope for the future.

[killface]

I know what you mean about sparring. Xingyi is fun, but if you are not getting some sparring time in, it gets pretty taxing.

The most common reason is that people want to believe in these things, it brings comfort and hope for the future.

[Tonuzaba]

Welcome to Bullshido, killface.

Many members here are/were recovering from something similar. Bullshido really does wonders.

...Are the animal forms in (hebei) xing yi useful for fighting?...Maybe eagle and bear have their uses. For fighting i use the elements and draw some inspiration from western-boxing. Good approach?...

To determine whether or not something is useful for fighting, you need to test it in fighting or conditions resembling fighting as closely as possible.

That means sparring. With different people, who know what they are doing.

Good luck and keep us updated.

[Diesel_tke]

Depends on how to train them, and use them. The way we did it, when I trained Xingyi is we did shit loads of forms. Over and over and over and over. Then we would do some compliant drills where we would take said form movement and then show it's aplication. That was done for a while. Then eventually you move on to sparring. When you got to sparring(Sanda) it was pretty much kickboxing. Most of the blocks went out and cross stepping disappeared. But some of the stuff showed up.

I stopped Xingyi because I felt like the first two parts were not the best way to get to the sparring, so I moved on to other stuff. But some of the guys I trained with did very well in competition. So it worked for them.

I think your approach "the elements combined with boxing" is the perfect combination. The drop step and forward-backward movement of Xingyi was good. It also has parallels in stick fighting(which makes since from where it came from). Add in some other footwork and it becomes a good method for fighting. When I started stick fighitng my coach noticed that a lot of my movement was natural because of the Xingyi I had done.

[killface]

To determine whether or not something is useful for fighting, you need to test it in fighting or conditions resembling fighting as closely as possible.

That means sparring. With different people, who know what they are doing.

Good luck and keep us updated.

Yep, true. Thanks!
It is quite hard to find good sparring partner but I am working on it. I hope that maybe some of my BJJ mates are also interested in stand-up.

The way we did it, when I trained Xingyi is we did shit loads of forms. Over and over and over and over. Then we would do some compliant drills where we would take said form movement and then show it's aplication. That was done for a while. Then eventually you move on to sparring. When you got to sparring(Sanda) it was pretty much kickboxing. Most of the blocks went out and cross stepping disappeared. But some of the stuff showed up.

We do the same except that forms don't matter much and we go more for training striking power, qi gong and the like. And we don�t spar in regular training. :(
I think looking like kickboxing is a good sign that things are not too far attached from reality.

I stopped Xingyi because I felt like the first two parts were not the best way to get to the sparring, so I moved on to other stuff. But some of the guys I trained with did very well in competition. So it worked for them.

I think the best part is the warm-up and qi gong. When you feel down, you can use them to relax, when you feel full of energy you can have an good exercise.

I think the forms should be better practiced like boxing-style drills, that would make learning more efficient. Walking the forms takes way too much time.

I think your approach "the elements combined with boxing" is the perfect combination. The drop step and forward-backward movement of Xingyi was good. It also has parallels in stick fighting(which makes since from where it came from). Add in some other footwork and it becomes a good method for fighting. When I started stick fighitng my coach noticed that a lot of my movement was natural because of the Xingyi I had done.

Thanks, your post was helpful. I think the way you learn foot work in Xing Yi is quite inefficient. Maybe I am just not talented but i took me way more than half a year to get to the point where i could actually imagine using it in a fight. It sucked so bad, I ceased to do any forms in free training and focused solely on the footwork. I think you need to practice in a more "alive" way to get it into muscle memory. I would take some tree and pretend to be fighting it, closing the distance, going in, out. That helped a lot.

Oh i would like to start stick fighting some time. There is actually a school here, that does regular sparring but they are quite expensive and insist on a one year contract. I have seen some modern arnis club as well, they are probably cheap but don�t know if they are any good. Wasn�t impressed from what i have seen.

[Rivington]

I believed I would learn authentic Shaolin Kung Fu.

The training was very very hard.

Gongfu is gong fu, as they say.

Yep, that was exactly what we have been told,.
Advanced Students would do the training. (They wouldn�t get any money for it, it was expected because family style and "tradition")

This is fine, actually. One way to learn is to teach. It trains you in how to explain things, how to demonstrate material, etc. It's not at all unusual for a newer student to be trained, initially, by an advanced student.

So the advanced students (sometimes barely one year at the school) would do the training while the head would most of the time sit in his "office" and do ... well I don�t fucking know.

One-year students aren't advanced, so that's a bad sign. If the advanced student had been working for 5-7 years, that would be appropriate.

There was a big picture of "the sifu" in the room, which had to be greeted before the beginning of the training.
(We had some special "greeting move".)

Goofy. But I've heard of BJJ schools that bow to photos of Helio Gracie. I'm not a huge fan of too much bowing and scraping, but you're not really describing a big deal.

You where expected to respect your "older brothers" and always and without questioning do what they tell you to.

They told you what to do in what context? Class? Were you washing people's cars (which would be terrible and stupid, of course), or just doing the forms and drills under their direction and expected to pay attention?

If not, you got punished and had to do push ups and stuff.

Not unusual. Not necessarily typical, but not all that unusual.

Sometimes before starting of the class the head would hold a lengthy speech that could last for more than an hour.
Yes an actual fucking hour.
He would talk about "tradition", philosophical and political stuff, how bad the Wing Chung and other MA are and stuff like that.

Sounds tedious. If he were talking about techniques, or if the philosophy was martial philosophy/natural philosophy of fighting, an hour would still be too long, but rambling is often just an artifact of language skills. Was he a native speaker of the language he was giving his speeches in? Did people ask questions and receive answers during the speeches?

Later the head would claim to have 8 dan because he Korean guy apperently had 8 dan.

That's terrible behavior.

So what we learn t was basically two crappy "kung fu" styles and a bit of hapkido mixed in.

What made them crappy?

We were no allowed to share our technique with other "brothers" and of course not with the outside world.[/b]
Yes ALL the technique we learn t was secret technique.

We did some sparring after class but we had no protection gear, didn�t even use gloves, so we could only go light contact.

How light?

We weren�t officially allowed to do sparring, especially not alone.

I have to say that I am imaging you punching yourself in the face in a lonely, empty training hall now.

I thought i needed to work on my "basics" more before doing sparring.

That's certainly a possibility, eh?

I said that i paid money for it and wanted to train.
He got really pissed and throw me out, saying i should never come back.

Sounds like an asshole, indeed. Though there are two sides of every story.

Now the current trainer for xing yi is cool and all but he never did any sparring and used to do tai chi and switched only recently.
So the training isn�t really much alive.
The training is still fun, especially the warm up/ qi gong part but it kind of sucks having nobody to spar with.

Go find a push-hands club. Lots of people there will also do other "internal" styles and may bring gloves, etc. If your new teacher does or used to do taiji, he may know of a place.

He is still training that shit and wanted to spar with me using a deep horse stance and tiger claw.
Yes, deep horse stance, yes tiger claw.
(the sparring did not happen)

Are you the sparring expert despite not having done much then?

Oh and I understood that the ground game is important so i tried BJJ and i love it!

Great!

Honestly, the school sounds pretty annoying, and I wouldn't attend one like it, but I'm not seeing much cult behavior here. The one thing about cults is that people often stay in them for a long time, and have their money drained from them, are isolated from their families by them. What I'm reading is that your teacher was obnoxious, imperious, somewhat annoying, trained you very hard, and gave you the keys to the school. A little up, a little down, like any other school except for those founded in Heaven by Jesus and all the Little Baby Sparring Angels, to be sure.

[killface]

Wow someone actually read all of it!
Thanks for being critical, i appreciate it!

They told you what to do in what context? Class? Were you washing people's cars (which would be terrible and stupid, of course), or just doing the forms and drills under their direction and expected to pay attention?

Well that and cleaning duty�s. Some other minor stuff like painting the wall but yeah it was always training-room related.

Sounds tedious. If he were talking about techniques, or if the philosophy was martial philosophy/natural philosophy of fighting, an hour would still be too long, but rambling is often just an artifact of language skills. Was he a native speaker of the language he was giving his speeches in? Did people ask questions and receive answers during the speeches?

Native speaker and no, asking question was generally avoided because it would cause him to talk even longer. Also the answer had seldom something to do with the original question. Sometimes he would ask someone to agree with him, if he did not, he would talk and talk till the person would agree with him.

Now that you ask about it, there was also the game when he would ask questions like "how is the mother of the sifu called in Cantonese" and you had to know or else punishment. Note that he did not know any Chinese and our pronunciation was horrible. The same with "philosophical" questions, where you had to memorize the expected answer.

What made them crappy?

The movements are neither useful for fighting nor very healthy. Problems with knees and other joints where quite common. I don�t really know much about physiology so of course I am not in the position to judge it properly. Ah and we never learn't the application of the forms.

How light?

I have to say that I am imaging you punching yourself in the face in a lonely, empty training hall now.

Fight Club style. ;)
Nah, alone meant without supervision by the head.
How light, well so that it doesn�t hurt.
The official sparring was mostly slow motion.
Yes actual slow motion like in movies, if we got any faster we would hear "slower!".

That's certainly a possibility, eh?

I think that you need to know what fighting looks like or at least be trained by people that know how it looks like to be able to work on your basics. Else it is just guesswork.

Though there are two sides of every story.

That is something that still hurts me. I don�t tell outside people about how I got kicked out. If someone where to ask me, i wouldn�t know how to explain it. If I say it wasn�t my fault, it still shows that I am immature and not able to reflect my own wrongdoings. Even if I might be right.
Getting kicked out of schools looks always bad. On the other hand I am not going to lie if someone were to directly ask me.

Go find a push-hands club. Lots of people there will also do other "internal" styles and may bring gloves, etc. If your new teacher does or used to do taiji, he may know of a place.

No push-hand clubs here. There is a sanda seminar in two months from some shaolin guys, that I am thinking about to visit, as it promises some sparring. No regular sanda or push-hands meetings here.

Are you the sparring expert despite not having done much then?

No but even I can tell that deep-horse stance and tiger claw are not that much of a good idea.
(He is quite good in form so i would have had a hard time if I really sparred him, to be fair)

Honestly, the school sounds pretty annoying, and I wouldn't attend one like it, but I'm not seeing much cult behavior here. The one thing about cults is that people often stay in them for a long time, and have their money drained from them, are isolated from their families by them. What I'm reading is that your teacher was obnoxious, imperious, somewhat annoying, trained you very hard, and gave you the keys to the school. A little up, a little down, like any other school except for those founded in Heaven by Jesus and all the Little Baby Sparring Angels, to be sure.

Yeah maybe "cult-like" was a bit of extreme, don�t know. It sometimes got into the private life, as you were practically not allowed to have contact with the advanced students that had left the school, as they were viewed as "traitors". I mean not officially but you could fall into disgrace for it.

Of course these things are mere child play compared to real cults and hey i got some workout out of it!

[Rivington]

Well that and cleaning duty�s. Some other minor stuff like painting the wall but yeah it was always training-room related.

I go to two TMA schools. In one, we meet in a park. No cleaning there. In another, we meet at a SAMBO gym. Of course we mop up the mats afterward. It would be gross and rude and unhealthy not to. It's not like a maid is going to come in between classes. Painting a wall is a little sketchy though, yes.

Native speaker and no, asking question was generally avoided because it would cause him to talk even longer. Also the answer had seldom something to do with the original question.

So that sounds like he did allow questions, but that he was just a rambler. Annoying, but no big deal.

Now that you ask about it, there was also the game when he would ask questions like "how is the mother of the sifu called in Cantonese" and you had to know or else punishment. Note that he did not know any Chinese and our pronunciation was horrible. The same with "philosophical" questions, where you had to memorize the expected answer.

The movements are neither useful for fighting nor very healthy. Problems with knees and other joints where quite common.

your expertise is not in evidence.

The official sparring was mostly slow motion.
Yes actual slow motion like in movies, if we got any faster we would hear "slower!".

Slow is bad for sparring. Fine for drilling and learning. Light (say 30 percent oomph) sparring with decent speed isn't so bad. Thanks for clarifying this.

I think that you need to know what fighting looks like or at least be trained by people that know how it looks like to be able to work on your basics. Else it is just guesswork.

Here's the thing: fighting does look like lots of things. Sure, there are only four limbs and one torso so there are lots of commonalities, but not everything boils down to basic kickboxing.

No push-hand clubs here. There is a sanda seminar in two months from some shaolin guys, that I am thinking about to visit, as it promises some sparring. No regular sanda or push-hands meetings here.

Where are you. Wherever there are Chinese people and a park there is a push-hands club.

No but even I can tell that deep-horse stance and tiger claw are not that much of a good idea.
(He is quite good in form so i would have had a hard time if I really sparred him, to be fair)

Maybe you can tell that, maybe you can't. Some people can't handle deep stances and just shuffle around, others are able to drop into them and spring out of them in a fraction of a second. I have no idea whether this guy can or can't, but a "hurr hurr low stances be st00pid" attitude might lead to an unfortunate surprise for you in the future.

It sometimes got into the private life, as you were practically not allowed to have contact with the advanced students that had left the school, as they were viewed as "traitors". I mean not officially but you could fall into disgrace for it.

That is definitely bad.

[killface]

Any physical activity can lead to problems with knees and joints. See tennis and soccer players. Really, in the end, you'll be visiting a doctor�if you're smart you visit a doctor because of a knee problem, if you're dumb you visit one because of a heart problem due to a sedentary lifestyle. There are healthier and less healthy practices, of course (don't put knees over toes and whatnot) but when you make pronouncements like that, you're basically claiming a specific level of expertise about the stances and moves this guy taught�and your expertise is not in evidence.

True. Well I am only talking about my subjective experience anyway.

Where are you. Wherever there are Chinese people and a park there is a push-hands club.

Here in Europe I never saw any people do Tai Chi in a park. (I live in a smaller city).

Maybe you can tell that, maybe you can't. Some people can't handle deep stances and just shuffle around, others are able to drop into them and spring out of them in a fraction of a second. I have no idea whether this guy can or can't, but a "hurr hurr low stances be st00pid" attitude might lead to an unfortunate surprise for you in the future.

True. Just thought it would be an amusing detail for you guys.
(For that matter, i mean really deep, not like shaolin, something like http://www.fightingarts.com/content0...ics/kibas5.jpg )

[It is Fake]