What do you think of bogus instructors who go and mix up mandarin and cantonese names to create a style...?
Seems a bit silly, but I'd much prefer to train with someone who uses a system name that's silly than an art that is. It's entirely possible that the art is based on an amalgamation of northern and southern systems, and the name is an intentional way of honoring both traditions. There are a variety of reasons that legitimate systems are taught with inconsistent terminology. On the other hand, if it's a given that he's a "bogus instructor," and you're not just basing that assumption on the name of the art, then I think the same of him as I think of most bogus instructors - very little.
The reason I ask is in the eighties as an impressionable teenager, we had a local instructor who taught a style called White Wind Fist. To be honest it was Wing Chun with Kickboxing thrown in. This instructor was originally a judo guy but had also learnt Wing Chun. My parents had a take away in the area, and one day the instructor asked me what were the laymans terms in Cantonese for things like sweep, throw to the ground etc. He said he didn't want anything flowery. HIs system went from a "Chinese" system into a JKD concepts system, even arranging a seminar with Jerry Poteet. It also included the sport aspect of kick boxing. I am building up a picture now, right? Then the whole thing disappeared but it has since re-surfaced recently. I chatted with one of the guys recently who used to do it in the eighties. He is now a head instructorHe told me the curriculum is not the same and he told me one of the names of a technique and I thought "what was that? (an exhibition? )" It seems that the system now has Cantonese names and Manadarin names for its techniques. I am not sure that this should be acceptable but my guess is as long as valid self defence techniques are taught then what the heck. I think it should be named after my folks take away!!
The picture seems to be one of a pretty typical JKD school. Wing Chun mixed with Muay Thai (i.e. a type of kickboxing), with a bit of Silat thrown in for good measure. Doesn't seem to be so far out of the ordinary. As for translating the names of techniques into Mandarin, my primary reaction is pretty much a shrug. So what? A rose by any other name, and all that jazz. That the vast majority of gungfu students in the United States have English as their primary language (and the majority, if not the vast majority, are probably fluent in only English, or if they're fluent in another language, it's usually something other than a Chinese dialect - note that I said majority. No need to respond with some of the many people in the minority who are fluent in Chinese). How is translating a Cantonese name into Mandarin all that much stranger than teaching the art using the Cantonese names with a bunch of English-speaking students? (If you're not in the United States, replace "United States" with your country's name and "English" with your country's dominant language... and take out the part about single-language fluency, since we Americans are pretty unique in our arrogance / unwillingness to be multilingual). My own system's terminology is terribly mixed up and inconsistent, but the training has always been about the movement, not etymology, and in many cases, it's not hard to figure out why the terminology got so screwed up. Get an Asian guy with poor English teaching Americans who have familiarity with Karate, and you get a Chinese-Indonesian martial art being taught partly with Japanese terminology so he can spend more time on teaching movement than linguistics, and then you get students who try to piece together a Chinese nomenclature, but whose command of linguistics is well below their command of martial arts, and you end out with dialect errors. In the end, you've got a bit of Mandarin, a bit of Bahasa, a bit of Japanese, a good deal of English, and a whole slew of techniques that don't have any names. The fact that the curriculum has changed since the 1980's isn't all that odd, either. My own curriculum has changed in the less-than-four years I've been running my club, and my teachers have been changing things on me for as long as I can remember. From talking to others, that seems to be a terribly common teaching method in Indonesian traditions. The inconsistencies work themselves out in the long run, and the student ends out with a body of knowledge that he makes his own curriculum (or, over time, curricula) out of. That's not to say that these WC/JKD guys are any good. It's just that the information you've given us, while suspicious, isn't damning.
I think it might be a little different in your case. The instructor I am talking about couldn't make up his mind what to call his system and I truly believe that in the end he had no genuine basis in true kung fu. In my opinion, he could have done away with all the fancy names. He would have been better off if he stuck to JKD Concepts. My thoughts are that he was pulling the proverbial wool over the laymans eyes with clever marketing. This is what I am against to be honest, but then as I said, before, if the techniques are valid, I suppose.......
my opinion is if it is truly a fakery , someone is trying to rip people off ,then they are truely bottom feeders. every legitimate sifu must work to make people understand that this is a scam. it tarnishes all who partisipate. however i have come across some unusual shaolin blended systems which are rare such as monkey mantis. if a person is just making it up as they go it should be exposed for what it is.
I have no doubt that it is. I'm simply saying that if you're judging this group only by its name and the fact that its curriculum has changed in 20+ years, there could be many legitimate explanations for those particular "red flags." Then you could've stopped your question at "What do you think of bogus instructors?" And as I said, my answer would be "not much." Sadly, there's an awful lot of that in martial arts. Just keep doing what you're doing, be aware of what else is out there, but don't worry too much about it. And really, in the sense of "looking out for number one," the prevalence of substandard martial arts could even be seen as a good thing for those of us who are aware enough to seek out and find quality training. It helps many people overestimate their own abilities, and helps the general public underestimate martial arts training, both of which can serve in our favor.
Cool replies, guys. Lets face it, it isn't every day someone walks in to your take away and asks for some Chinese words for martial moves....
This guy sounds life a guy who moved from China to Canton, Ohio in the mid eighties. This guy opened a chinese restaurant along with a carry out. When his restaurant showed no profits, he started teaching Wing Chun in the restaurant. He advertised that he was a 2nd generation Yip Man Sifu. Being a Wing Chun guy, I was curious of who this guy was and maybe he wanted to roll a little bit. When I arrived at the school, he had about 25 students. I entered and introduced myself and asked to look around, after talking to him and identifying myself as a WC Instructor, he became very defensive and aked me to please leave!!!!!.... that the techniques that were shown there were secret Yip Man Techniques!!!! Well to make a long story short...he only knew Siu-Nim-Tao... a little Chi-Sao and Chin Na. After he stole money from his students some who paid $3200.00 for a Instructors course...he closed shop and went back to China....Sad....very sad!
