Bao wrote:
Interesting speaking purely from a business perspective. People sell services using all kinds of trick and branding methods. How the company looks behind the branding is not important, only the service is. The important thing is to give the customer what they want and what they pay for. So what do these people pay for? Many who do MA have no clue about historicity and authenticity.
You are right - people do sell services using all kinds of trick and branding methods. That is why we have IP law and trademark infringement, departments of consumer and employment protection etc.
As you say, the important thing is to give the customer what they want and what they pay for.
What do these customers want? What are they paying for? They clearly want to learn "Pakua" - that's why they're there. They are paying to learn a martial art called "Pakua".
Are they being given what they pay for?
Bao wrote:They do it for the social aspects and for the physical practice. So the people you see in the vid are probably mostly people who payed for what they got and enjoy what they do.
Who are you to decide what they do it for?
Sure - easy to dismiss fraud and fakery as unimportant when it doesn't impact you.
For what it's worth, I discovered this group a few weeks ago when a young chap posted on another forum, stating he'd been training there for a year or so, but all he could find online regarding the history of the school were rumours of fabrication and fraud. Unfortunately due to the rules of that forum preventing "style bashing", all I could do was advise the kid to take those rumours very very seriously, and investigate Baguazhang.
I'm not one for crusading, but I also believe in calling a spade a spade. Unfortunately it seems south america is rife with MA fakery.