Anyone know anything about this style? There's a school in Aspen, CO that I'm thinking of trying out and the flyer said classes were taught by Grandmaster Joel Castillo, who, apparently, learned the style from Grandmaster Xing Wah Li in San Francisco. It also said that he won the 1999 U.S. Open Kung Fu Championships without being hit once and he was the first American to capture a San Shou World Championship title. It then went to say that Xing Wah Li officially passed this system to him in 1996. The flyer says he is the only existing teacher of this system. Is this guy for real or is he a phony?
Got a website? Shame to say it but sounds a phony, never ever heard of white pheonix, saw a recent tape of the '99 Champ's and no white pheonix in it, first american to capture a san shou world champ? Ha!
Yeah, I was afraid of that. But I just read that one of his students, Brandon Briscoe, just qualified for the olympics. This might be a lie as well though, idk.
Olympics could most likely mean Modern Wushu, which would be the deal right there. A Traditional style? Most likely not. Modern? Might be.
Yeah that's no legit at all. I asked my hfriend in HK about it and there's no existence of it in China....so that should answer it. And the claims he made are really far fetched, unless he went into point fighting and used full force! LMAO!!!
again. watch for the mixing of dialects, even in pinyin romanization-Xing Wah Li, would most likely be Xing Hua Li. I know I'm nitpicking, but sometimes there are clues that lead to other clues.
Coming in years late to this conversation, but stumbled across it in my searches. I was researching this school also and found a video posted on the 1999 US Open. You can view it here: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93udtDxG8vM"]YouTube - 1999 US Open Kung Fu Championship[/ame] Does anyone know what this event actually WAS? I can't find documentation on it anywhere, but it sure appears like it was an actual competition.
Looks like horrible point fighting/sport karate type stuff. If you can find some clips and offical records of the coaches and students competeing in San shou/sanda then that might be worth something... that video however, is not IMO.
Well, this supposedly happened in San Ramon, CA but I can't find any official records of it - which is odd even if it's some other sort of tournament. There's a website now, here : http://whitepheonix.com
My thoughts exactly. And more importantly the new "website"....Phoenix is spelt incorrectly. If its a traditional style, which i would bet my months wages it is not, you would have thought they would know how to spell Phoenix. Pathetic and fake i think!
here is a thread on Joel Castillo and his White Pheonix etc. Pretty good read. . . . http://www.bullshido.net/forums/showthread.php?t=92918&page=1&highlight=white+phoenix
Why would they know how to spell phoenix if it's a traditional Chinese style? In Chinese they're called Fenghuang.
Well, I am not quite sure about that place in Aspen with a style named White Phoenix, but I or whatever that guy Joel Castillo's up to, but there is an acadamy for Kung Fu named that(however, the discipline he, then I learned is Wing Chun) in Kansas, my Sifu learned and then taught there before moving to where he began my training. If you'd like to contact him, he's VERY knowledgeable and a really nice dude. His name is Patrick Cossel and can be contacted at e-mail removed or look him up on facebook. Hope it helps!
I always was interested in the animosity towards "non-traditional" (IE less than 50 years old) martial arts/forms of kung fu. Obviously, looking at this one (Or Ameridote or Rex-Kwan-Do, or something) it doesn't seem like a pristine, amazing style. However, if someone were to, say, learn a few styles of kung fu and some karate and some BJJ or something like that and teach those techniques, then label it "Beautiful Lucky Dragon Kung Fu" or something, is it illegitimate? What makes a kung fu style legitimate -- does it have to be developed by an old Chinese man and only taught within his family for 5 generations before branching out into other parts of China, and taught to foreigners only 100 years after that?
It doesn't matter if the art is old or not. What makes it authentic is if you can prove your lineage in the styles that are being incorporated into the new style. I want to know if you learned from an actual teacher or some anonymous wondering monk in a secluded temple.
