You totally crack me up. You are so filled with indoctrination that you can barely see the bigger picture before you. It's clear that you cling to this indoctrination because it seems to give you a much needed sense of self importance and inner knowing ... your views are facile at best. Erle learn't his arts from Chinese teachers, all. Where he did not speak Chinese he had translators to help him. This was only necessary in the case of Yang Sau Chung. In the case of Chang Yiu Chun, he spoke a little English and the translation of the art was easily bridged by actual "doing" of the art, rather than "talking". There are Japanese and Korean soccer players that are playing to World Cup level, many do not speak English. Football/Soccer has been popularised and disseminated by England and Europe. Should we say that no Korean or Japanese soccer player will ever truly be able to play World Cup level football until they speak English and get tuition from and English or European coach? Sure, Pele was never really a great footballer because he had dark skin. Your racist and xenophobic attitudes are not only antiquated but offensive. You seem content to perpetuate the negative stereotypes of some aspects of Chinese culture, whereas I think you do it a total disservice. Not everybody thinks like that ... thank the lord. Your foolish really. You know nothing about me and for all intents and purposes you make me and others on this forum your enemy. In my case, you know little about my knowledge of Eastern philosophy. I could tell you but it would make little difference since your the centre of your own universal diatribe. So in stating your fabulous Sun Tzu quote to me you've actually revealed yourself for what you really are, and shown that you don't know your opponent at all! What a coup! In one fell swoop you've completely negated your entire raison d'etre and proved how little you truly understand about the things you speak. You want to be a well spring of sage wisdom but you are an empty vessel that basically makes allot of noise. There is no stillness in you, none at all. There are teachers and there are teachers.
Let's all have a cold shower and bring the level down a bit! SC - I think Syd is right. This isn't a battle, much as you like to think. If you look at the profiles and posts of nearly everyone here, you'll see that we're open about who we are and where our knowledge is from. Some of us have even met in "real life" - and extended a friendly invitation to you, which you declined. You can't expect people to listen if you refuse to show what your background is. Like it or not, your opinion is coloured by your own experiences (as is everyone elses). The forum is about friendly discussion/debate - not winning/losing an argument.
Hmmph. Erle Montaigue and BK Frantzis. How shall I put this? ....... Naaah, I'm keeping my mouth shut LOL.
Have you ever trained with Erle or BK? You keep alluding to some opinion but then refrain from stating your case. Why don't you just spit it out ... *BTW* Who is your teacher, who do you train with?
Erle said: "I have known Robb Whitewood since 1993, and he has all those qualities that make a true warrior. (sic) His knowledge of hsing-I is so great that he is now the head of hsing-I for my organisation, the World Taiji Boxing Association. …As with the Internal Martial Arts of t’ai chi and bagwazhang, there has been much rubbish written over the years by those who think that they know martial arts and think they are martial artist….. " “ Erle Montaigue” Page VIII, Preface “Untraditional Hsing-I” by Robb Whitewood, 1999 http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...f=sr_1_1/104-5712305-2836756?v=glance&s=books I shuddered when I first read it. Wow ! Mr Montaigue thinks he has ascended to such lofty heights that he can now speak in that tone. I wonder why other IMA masters of equal or higher standing than his Excellency have NEVER published such superiority remarks against other masters? And by the way, Robb’s Hsing-I book starts of with 20 pages of STRETCHES and warm ups. This is a big SIN in Internal Martial Arts This is what happens when a person is taught an IMA, then decides to “improve” on it by adding western concepts ( because he’s more familiar with them) and inadvertently turns Hsing-I from an IMA into an EMA. My authority for no warm-ups/stretches comes from 3 IMA teachers , all born in China, all speak English and Chinese. You can then understand why I will never learn any IMA with anyone who doesn’t speak Chinese as well as English. I don’t want to learn a corrupted and waterdown artform the likes perpetuated by Erle and his unquestioning followers.
One can play Soccer whilst deaf and mute. Language is not mandatory factor in learning soccer . One can also learn most EMA's whilst deaf and mute as long as one one is able to imitate the movements of the teacher. This is not the case for IMAs. Apart from the postures and movements , one needs to be instructed on the "non visible aspects" :how to shift weight, control muscle tension , circulate Chi etc etc...you can't learn IMA from imitating actions only. Didn't Erle teach you that? Hmmmmm. It's telling. That's why Bagua , Tai Chi and Hsing_I Videos are a waste of time. You can't learn what you can't see from a video. BTW you have not answered my question: Why are English language skills MANDATORY for Engineering/ Medicine/ Science degrees in Western Universities? Why can't a student from China attend an Engineering lecture and have everything translated to him ? Infact why can't ALL of your TCM education be conducted in English? ( Books, lecture, practicals, treatment) Why make learning Chinese a co-requisite? This is your logic for Erle's IMA education. The logic for this language requirement is the same for learning IMA.
I know that you are a student of TCM at UTS trying to memorise the names of meridians and herbs on a Monday lecture and learning the meaning of the Chinese characters for those words on Tuesday. And I sincerely commend you for that effort. Chinese is not an easy thing to learn. I know that you are an Erle follower who is unable to see ANY fault in him ( including Erle's condescending ways and arrogance) , and especially the damage he is doing to IMA by spreading watered down IMA teaching thru hundreds of videos. I know you dont read very well, because whilst you accuse me of being a racist you forget to mention that I hold in highest esteem, White man American BK Franzis who speaks English , Mandarin and Japanese. My main problem with you is because you support Erle and hold him as the Final Authority on IMA, and as such I feel I need to provide a counter .
He didn't name any names there, he didn't specify that the people he was talking about were masters. You assume allot of things based on presumption. As I have said before, people who are threatened by Erle's remarks must be extremely insecure about their art. Look at any internal MA books by Yang Jwing Ming or Liang Shou You, they all have stretching and warm up sections in their books also. Warming up and stretching has absolutely zero negative effect on internal martial arts practice. If you think otherwise your kidding yourself.
Sure, thats why it was always said that great masters in Internal MA's would non verbally ( telepathically? ) pass on the highest transmission of their arts to a chosen student and this was a gradual process and would happen even when the student was not aware of it! For somebody so bound up in empty force you seem quite fixed on the idea that verbosity is requisite in the transmission of knowledge in IMA's! Hilarious again ... there are so many masters of IMA's who I have read interviews saying that it is more important that a student watch his teacher rather than be told. It seems a great many Masters, including those that Erle studied under are in direct contradiction of your own beliefs and those of the 3 sages you hold so secret. Erle teaches that and so does any teacher of IMA's worth visiting. But any master will tell you that there large elements of Taijiquan that are internal and must be discovered, they cannot be taught. But again we digress into your Universal diatribe of righteous indignation ... yawn. You'd like to believe that, but you'd be wrong. People can indeed learn a great many things from video's and if that threatens you, you better go and tell Yang Jwing Ming, Liang Shou You, Tim Cartmell, Erle, BK and about 70% of the serious teaching IMA world. Nobody questions that a flesh and blood teacher is pre-requisite, but once you are oriented in your art you can learn many wonderful things from tapes when you might not have had the opportunity otherwise. Because the courses are in English? Internal Martial Arts are not physically expressed in Chinese linguistically ... get a life. Again, it's like saying Asian bodies just can't play football because they won't understand the English actions of "kicking". Gee, ya think they might have a word for "kicking" in Japanese or Chinese too? No it isn't ...
Mod talk... I really don't want to read through everyone's posts to make sure there's no nasties in there. Just remember to keep it civil and we'll all be happy Oh, pls keep your posts to one post at a time too. It's much easier to read than consecutive posts and I really can't be bothered merging them together all the time! On the topic - SC, as we've said numerous times... you're not giving yourself any credibility if you don't state your background. Do you even do tai chi?? who have you learned from? how long have you done tai chi?? It's out of order to criticise people about their bias because of their upbringing/language/teacher without stating your own background. Seems like a pointless argument anyway. Like any teacher, if you like the teaching and it works, fine. If you don't - ignore it and do something more useful.
No I am not actually ... Klang! I'm not a follower of anything or anyone to be frank. I have studied in Erle's system and I currently follow my own course of study, the journey is my own, nobody has a monopoly on that. In the case of Erle I have found him to be the most complete and hands on purveyor of Taijiquan as a Martial Art and so I support his teaching style and what he teaches, yes. Having said all that, nobody is perfect and everybody is entitled to their opinion. Erle is a teacher of his own system, something that he openly admits to and as such he has as much right as anybody else to point out what he finds wrong or objectionable in the MA world. I recall a chap named Bruce Lee doing something quite similar in the 1960's and he also garnered allot of hatred for it. When you question the status quo it is always those with everything to lose that spend most of their time trying to shoot you down. Now thats what I find telling! Erle is a flawed human being as are we all, he's certainly eccentric but so am I. He's outspoken and that sometimes gets him into trouble, but he's honest and he's open and he has nothing to hide which is more than I can say for the large majority of people who see fit to run him down for it. I trust open people, not trolls under bridges with an axe to grind. If you really had a beef with Erle you'd take it to him and mail him all your thoughts shot through with vitriol ... nobody ever does it though. What does that tell you? Thats the antithesis of what he's about. But when a person has their head up their a$$, the world does look backwards and upside down. Oh, sure ... your only 98% xenophobic, ok, my mistake. I don't hold anybody as the final authority on anything, nothing is final and there are no absolutes. Erle is one of the few Taijiquan teachers who I believe has a good grasp on the art combatively and thats what Taijiquan should be about in balance with the healing aspects. You provide a counter to nothing but your own misguided animosity. When I started this thread, I never said anything about you, your teachers or anything else. When I started this thread it was to inform people who were interested in having a few factoids about Erle and his background which is sometimes questioned as though it's very wishy washy when it is totally straight forward. You flew in here with your usual tirade of pettyness and derailed the purpose of the thread for your own maligned agenda along with Mad Frank and perhaps others if they care to. Let's be clear about the purpose of the thread and where you and others like you are really coming from. Each time you contribute to threads like these you make it clearer and clearer.
Rich You may be a mod but you are entitled to your opinion also. You have studied under two different teachers within Erle's system, would you find anything SC has to say about Erle to be factual, right on, or true? Let's have some thoughts from people who actually know something about the system other than myself to balance it out. Anyway, I'm off for a run.
Dr. Yang Jwing Ming has a Western PHD in Mechanical Engineering. He speaks both English and Chinese. He has a long history of Martial Arts. But most of his adult years were spent in the West out of contact with his roots in Taiwan and even then that's not the real China . He has also written books on Shaolin and Wudang styles. In other words he advocates both External and Internal. You will not find me saying he's the final authority on IMA because of this fact alone. A real IMA master will not have anything to do with any EMA like Shaolin, even if he started from Shaolin. Chang San Feng never looked back to his Shaolin ways because he realised that was the hard /wrong way of doing things. Dr.Yang is mostly an academic that likes to write lots of IMA books. It is difficult to learn IMA from books or videos. In this way I put Dr. Yang in the Erle category. But because he doesn't attack other styles , masters or systems NO ONE else attacks him. In other words I think he has faults but I will leave him alone because he is modest and doesn't lambast anyone like Erle does. Erle on the other hand feel it's his God given right to attack other masters ( named or nameless) and other systems ....so in the yin and yang of things he should expect to be attacked in equal measure. :woo: You seem to think I'm suggesting that only Chinese masters are good, and non Chinese masters are not. No. I never said that. I am saying knowledge transmission suffers from generational loss. Minimising that requires both teacher and student speak the SAME language. Even in the "ideal " situation where both student and teacher are Chinese born there is enough generational loss. Case in point is how Tai Chi has degenerated from a once feared IMA into calistechnics for senior citizens, yes even in China itself. In China people who start learning Shaolin (EMA) in early life and discover Wudang(IMA) later tend not to look back. People who started with Wudang NEVER progress to Shaolin. This is such a basic point I find many people in the West miss.This includes Dr. Yang.
Why my background is irrelevant My debating style is to argue on the strength of logic,reasoning and commonly available information that can be substantiated. I do not like to argue on the basis of my background versus your background.A man may have 20years in IMA but if he learnt it the wrong way ( and many do, including the Chinese ) he still is less effective than someone with 6months Tai Chi who learnt it the right way. For this reason you will not find me attacking you for your comments on EMA/ Shaolin . Your background is Bagua / TaiChi but not EMA. I could have easily shut you down by saying "NZRIC has no moral authority to comment on EMA because he has no experience with it". But you find that I won't fight you on that ground, because you may still have good logic and reasoning about EMA that I like to hear about. In this respect I respect your views. I DETEST people who like to say " I have 20 years in Tai Chi so I know more about it than you so you shut up" This would be Erle-ish. Suffice to say I have substantial experience in 4 EMAs and 2 IMAs. I keep my teachers anonymous because I dont want anyone in MAP bothering them, but if I sense a person has the right mindset, I will send them a PM to invite them to class....this I truly have done. Yes I am discriminating and this is a request by my teachers....they dont want the trouble of teaching someone who has a lot to unlearn first and more importantly those who are more interested in dogma and sticking to what they know than learning to do things the right way. They already have enough students knocking on their door.
SC. I could refute your arguments at every turn and I usually do, but I can't be bothered picking up every piece of trash you toss out your window, and putting in the garbage where it belongs, anymore. The topic of this discussion is Erle's background, you are way off topic. If you cannot provide any new information or evidence to support or debunk any part of Erle's background history or training then you have no business contributing to this thread any longer ... your trolling again. Furthermore, if nobody can talk about your teachers then don't talk about anybody elses teachers, fullstop.
So did you or did you not study TCM at Uni? You seem to be contradicting yourself. UTS / UWS or elsewhere who cares.
There is no contradiction, but you give nothing so you get nothing. Erle has said nothing about your teachers either. The thread is about clarification of Erle's background as a student of IMA. Your a troll with nothing to offer the discussion. Infact, why don't we talk about this face to face? I'll happily meet you in the city one day and we can sit down and talk about these things in a bit more perspective. It's easy to say things over the internet but people are often one thing online and something altogether different in person. You'll find me the same here as in person, how will I find you? Name the day and I'm there. If you know something I don't, if you have some knowledge of Taijiquan and IMA that I can garner I will concede it right here on the forum in total honesty. What say you?
Gee this topic is a good un for raising hackles... SC I can follow some of your points but have to agree that if you wont/cant discuss your teachers then it makes some of your remarks seem a bit like one masters disciple refuting anothers... more an issue of spite or slagging than one of logical argument... also both my masters are chinese (mainland) have learnt from one of the top granmasters of Chen style taiji and speak little english but they transmit the knowlegde very well... (my chinese isnt much to write home about yet either but I am learning)... they also both advocate warming up the joints and add a warm up/stretch routine to our practice... Syd you seem to be getting very agitated by these comments... if they arent true and there really is no way you are going to change them then just let them by... it doesnt really matter...
Wow, you think I'm agitated? You should see me when I'm actually agitated. Not at all, but I'm not going to stand by while careless remarks are spouted from people who have little knowledge of what they speak, whilst running others down with nothing to support it. Whats the old saying, "evil can only exist if good men stand by and do nothing" It's a metaphor for my reaction. Put it this way, if somebody spouted allot of guff about your own Chinese teachers, they had no training with them and what they said about them was untrue, would you not feel compelled to set the record straight in the interests of honesty and fair play? If not then I have misjudged your character.
