Meeting with Power -Yang Sau Cheung

[Formosa Neijia]

The state of California revoked Guen’s acupuncture license for the conduct alleged in the lawsuit.

Guen is a trained psychologist and knew well how to discern students’ vulnerabilities and manipulate them. The group he led was centered on a mystification of the baguazhang Guen learned from the late Gong Baozhai.

The video series is an interesting blend of learned commentary on Yang Shouzhong’s form by Guen without any demonstration that he himself embodies or can execute the skills. There are certain touchpoints and nuances in the narrative where Guen shows his paychological reinsmanship.

Appreciate both your recent responses in this thread, Tom. The thing is, people that talk all kinds of mystical mumbo-jumbo without showing much of anything real are the norm these days in IMA. After all, someone found them "enlightening" in the first place and started the thread.

As for his professional training, psych services is filled with mentally ill people. When I was in the field, the mantra was "psychology pays well and you can get paid to work on your own mental issues."

Wow, how come no one here even read the witness reports? About a sexual predator who took astronomical sums of money from women who he knew hardly had anything to begin with...It certainly don’t sound like the Tai chi hippies next door.

I did read the reports and the problem is, this is simply a matter of degree. All the hopping videos and the subtle hints that "you aren't high level enough to appreciate this" if you call BS on stuff like that shows the cult-mindset at work. The thing is, NONE of that hoppy stuff is trained OUTSIDE of a cult. It actually requires a cult in the first place to train it. EVERYONE THAT TRAINS THAT STUFF IS IN A CULT!

It's all psychological manipulation and many people are actually looking for it. TONS of martial artists have daddy/mommy issues. The "master" manipulates gullible people into believing his BS and how far he/she wants to take it is up to them but the process is the same. Sometimes its just done to feed dear-master's ego, sometimes it leads to sex with students.

[cloudz]

I need a bit of a re fresh as I've been doing a kind of hybrid chen pan ling/ wu style for what feels like long enough now. And quite fancy returning to the Yang style ,which also has a tie in. In that the form came from Taiwan through He Jing Han better known for his Bagua via Alex Kozma, this was before the days the YSC form video was made public. There was a bit of a disconnect in those days in regards the family kind of standard and HJH was as I recall part of that Taiwan movement to have this film released - in itself a controversial thing at the time. The form itself caused a bit of a stir back then too.

The kind of way HJH did Yang was closer to YSC's style than the official or typical family standard at the time. So anyway, his idea of using YSC form as a standard and to get the kind of corrections this mans experience may serve up is too appealing right now for me to pass up.

Correct me if I'm wrong but IIRC He Jing-han's taiji comes from Xiong Yang-he, not YSC. Wang Zi-he was the one that released the video of YSC. Xiong's style is certainly "old Yang" in that it isn't done like the "official line" and you can find multiple clips of all the material on youtube for comparison purposes.

hey didn't say it did come from YSC; you are correct i believe about where it came from.
that was kinda my point, it wasn't/ isn't done like the official Beijing /US Yang family lines. But is more like YSC's form that was released to the public.
Even for the HK branch('s) it was 'unusual'.

[cloudz]

Appreciate some of the posts here; I agree wholeheartedly on the 'buyer beware' type 'warnings' let's say.
Was wondering if an upsell was coming, you know, now buy my course type thing.
I wouldn't but there also hasn't been any whiff of him marketing this commercially.

It may just be a genuine attempt at exploring something that clearly moved him at the time.
whether that was part delusion, maybe we'll never know.

I'm fairly aware of cultishness in MA, I was in one for a while lol !
a pretty harmless and friendly one but still..

regards

[cloudz]

Hey Appledog,

would be more than happy to hear you recommendations for London/UK
chances are I've heard of them or seen them around etc..
but still, it's all good.

harmony and sharing
peace and love

that's me

[Quigga]

Well how do you want to eradicate cultishness
Let's assume first that trying to eradicate something is a good idea
That would be an error

How would a practical method of achieving this look like

Multiple ideas:

-go from door to door and knock, then bash like old times (not wise)
-make some kind of club who tries to dictate what's good practice and what's not: not viable, since censoring comes from dictatorship
-educate people by posting credible info sources about abusers and so on: ok, yet depends on people wanting to read and listen
-educate people by starting to teach good stuff yourself: based on the assumption that one knows what's good practice and what's not -> based on experience

So, short of teaching students yourself and calling assholes out when the need arises, I see few viable ways of dealing with this. Any thoughts?

[origami_itto]

Can't save everyone. Some folks just get caught up in the flow of a more intense energy. May as well try eradicating rape and drug addiction.

[windwalker]

Well how do you want to eradicate cultishness
Let's assume first that trying to eradicate something is a good idea
That would be an error

How would a practical method of achieving this look like

Multiple ideas:

-go from door to door and knock, then bash like old times (not wise)

for for some styles if one claims to teach the style without being associated with them, they may get a knock on the door if any of the style members are close by

-make some kind of club who tries to dictate what's good practice and what's not: not viable, since censoring comes from dictatorship

in many countries to teach martial arts you have to belong to some type of official association, as in Taiwan.

-educate people by posting credible info sources about abusers and so on: ok, yet depends on people wanting to read and listen

-educate people by starting to teach good stuff yourself: based on the assumption that one knows what's good practice and what's not -> based on experience

So, short of teaching students yourself and calling assholes out when the need arises, I see few viable ways of dealing with this. Any thoughts?

Why not allow for the fact that people have agency,


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mNjY7D-ffY


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZF1g0wu7b0

[Quigga]

'why not allow for agency'

Mostly because I know how bad it can feel to be hurt by other people and me wanting to (falsely) minimize that aspect of myself Toughen up etc, yeah I get it. But to admit that each insult or remark or situation which irks oneself, angers or otherwise throws one off balance - reveals a little bit more truth about your own self - that's painful. Yet so worth it. Still I agree that having agency surely is part of a healthy foundation for life. Thanks for the remark.

[Quigga]

for for some styles if one claims to teach the style without being associated with them, they may get a knock on the door if any of the style members are close by

you mean if what one teaches isn't up to the group's standard?

[Appledog]

Hey Appledog,

would be more than happy to hear you recommendations for London/UK
chances are I've heard of them or seen them around etc..
but still, it's all good.

harmony and sharing
peace and love

that's me

Thanks cloudz but that's really hard because I don't know anyone in London. The people I think are good are usually very hard to find. Like a needle in a haystack. Also I don't know what kind of style you like. I did do some research and found Tse qigong center, Yazi Liu's and a practical method school. There are probably others. Each one however seems to present a series of trade-offs. The lesson here is that you have to wholeheartedly accept your school and teacher. If there are things about your school you don't like then you won't enjoy learning there very much. Anyways in a case like this there is some general advice you could try,

The importance of a good teacher cannot be underestimated. But you shouldn't leave your current teacher just to follow someone else unless you've put in enough work to understand why the other teacher is better. (I edited this part and I have a hard time explaining why or why not.. in general if you feel you are not making progress despite putting in long hours of hard work it is definitely time to change teachers).

How to judge a teacher. On one level so long as they teach applications, push hands, and are not insular (i.e. they don't mind or encourage going to competitions and demos) they should be 'okay'. But for something truly spectacular, allow me to bring up that video again of the ma hong student (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64XB8cPAknM). She has a very crisp form which is not 'dry'. The point is that she was taught this material, which is how we can judge the teacher. That is how important a good teacher is, to unlock potential and push you down the road of progress. A good teacher will not necessarily demand you do everything exactly like he does, but will allow you to explore your potential. So on one hand you need, absolutely need, to find someone whose form appeals to you and whom you admire -- who is able to add bells to the form (japanese; furin) because they have to inspire you.

And of course if you want a good teacher you will need to put in the work to keep up. I mentioned earlier Master Feng did 5 hours in the morning every day minimum, that might be excessive, four hours is probably good enough. If you are in a 50% school, then just work twice as hard. Even six hours a day or more, and you will turn the 50% into 100%.

I know you probably know this already I just want to try to inspire you. Anything is possible if you have a dream.

[windwalker]

for for some styles if one claims to teach the style without being associated with them, they may get a knock on the door if any of the style members are close by

you mean if what one teaches isn't up to the group's standard?

Standard not really much of an issue.


If a person claims to teach something that they are not affiliated with or authorized to teach.
Depending on style, one may get a knock on the door by those who are

Family styles of taiji, tend to keep very strict requirements for those teaching in their name, and records of who is authorized to represent them.

Some people talking about cults list their certs, allowing them to teach different things
and put up copyright notices on published work on the web..


why would they do that

[everything]

this is where the popular, established sports styles have a great example. clear and transparent rules across the world. governing bodies, procedures to update the rules, etc. but a very difficult art ... maybe that's not so easy

[windwalker]

this is where the popular, established sports styles have a great example. clear and transparent rules across the world. governing bodies, procedures to update the rules, etc. but a very difficult art ... maybe that's not so easy

Be careful what you ask for

A friend of mine in France tells me it’s very difficult to teach any kind of martial arts without being certified by the organization there.

Long ago in the Bay Area, before acupuncturist were certified. People asked for this and they made up an organization to do so.

This locked out a lot of the older acupuncturist of the day and created an industry built around giving people certifications to practice acupuncture.

[everything]

yikes yes that sounds worse

[Formosa Neijia]

Why not allow for the fact that people have agency,


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mNjY7D-ffY


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZF1g0wu7b0

The second clip is Lin A-long, Tim Cartmell's "full-contact taiji teacher." For reasons I'll never understand he gave up teaching anything useful and started teaching this horse manure. He gets lots more attention now I guess.

People can believe anything they want but they deserve to be mocked every step of the way. Not mocking this stuff leads to the arrogance of "you're not advanced enough to appreciate this" and if we don't defend our space then it gets taken over by the liars, thieves, and sexual predators like Guen.

NONE and I will repeat again NONE of this works on even the slightest resistance by any trained individual. I went around Taiwan and no one could make any of this work on me. Not even once.

If you aren't in their cult, none of this stuff works and they have to resort to other measures. In the case of the 228 Park group in the top clip, they have guys that also do white crane and compete in moving step push hands that can address anyone that refuses to be led around by the hoppy nonsense. The obvious contradiction was lost on them.