Should I sue temple kung fu?

[Gargoyle again]

Yeah, my sympathies

My girlfriend also got sucked into a Temple Kung Fu school here in Seattle. She was completely sold by the high-pressure marketing into believing that it was the ultimate real thing, fortunately at the time she was a poor starving college student and simply couldn't sacrifice for the outragous fees (belt fees, sparring fees, extra "clubs" and events, etc). Upon leaving and working out at a couple of other schools she saw the light fortunately.

Every week my driving takes me past both a Temple KF and a Chung Moo school, that I see filled with people working out Very sad. I support MA fully, but I can't support innocents being taken for a swindle.

There was also a huge Aikido McDojo here that was running the same fee scams and brainwashing. Happily they've since gone out of business. The beauty of the internet today is that hopefully thru communication, message boards, community, etc crap pyramid-scheme schools like Temple and Chung Moo will go the way of the dinosaur.

[Fu-Pow]

Kung Lek, good response.

I'd say that in my opinion he should either challenge the instructor , proving that there kung fu is worthless. Or just let it go. Chalk it up as a learning experience.

There is old saying :

Overtrustfulness harms the heart.

Perhaps next time he will be more skeptical before committing himself so much financially.

Getting into a protracted legal battle with these shady characters in the end will rob you of more than you gain.

Kicking someone's ass would make you feel a lot better and would prove that their kung fu is a fraud. But first you would have to learn kung fu from a real master and I think by that time you would have no anger left in you.

Just some thoughts.

[yenhoi]

Dont sue them, many have stated that this will be MUCH more trouble then its worth.

Learn real kung fu and go back and beat up everyone you see.

Or form a hardcore kung-fu posse and go burn the place down, im down - this includes beating everyone up that you see.

[reemul]

1. don't look to China, you are more likely to find Shoalin outside of China.

2. don't expect a schools history to be laid at your feet in great detail.

3. they won't try to sell the system to you. (As I have said before Shaolin did not come here to pimp there art).

4. It can be a long frustating search for a beginer who has no concept of Shaolin kungfu.

[firepalm]

Challenges to fight; Challenging them (Temple KF) could open you up to possible charges of assault... in the real world. As well it doesn't necessarily prove their stuff as legit or not, can every old boxing coach go toe to toe with their best fighters. The instructor you challenge might simply be a good fighter (perhaps bigger or stronger then you), and have nothing to do with his martial art. If ability to fight was sole prerequisite then every good street fighter could well open a martial arts school and be able to claim whatever they like...

Court; Temple is the lowest of the McKwoon / McDojo sort & money is what matters most to them. What really hurts them is hitting them in the bank account. As well having their names dragged through court is also a likely undesireable possibility for them. You are not questioning their claim to the Shaolin name, previous posting is correct that it is a hard one to prove. However you signed on as they sold on the 'only westerner to have trained in Shaolin'. As mentioned it is matter of 'court record' that Simon in fact did not train in China or with any monks... therefore you have a valid claim of false advertising/being sold goods under false pretenses. Again call the Better Business bureau. Just my thoughts...

Challenge them to a fight if you wish but be prepared to in the end having to hire lawyers anyways when these guys probably call the police and try to press charges. Simon & his Temple KF don't operate by any true code of 'Wude' they are merely frauds involved in the business of ripping off people...

Just my thoughts.

[GunnedDownAtrocity]

i'm for vandalizing the place.

i'm a poor family man, but if you can buy me a ticket i'm there.

[GunnedDownAtrocity]

of course i'll only actually throw wet toilet paper at the place after you spent all the money on the plane ticket, but you ought to be used to it by now.



i really do wish i could make it up there though. i'm all about some bricks and fire.

[KungFuGuy!]

Tempting offer GDA, unfortunately they are located underground so the only thing we could vandalize would be the harveys above it ^^
Thanks for the advice, it seems like going to court is a bad idea. My best bet is to go to the BBB I guess.

[Reappah-X]

Don't even bother with that scum, just walk away and never look back, but don't forget the lesson you learned...

At least now you know what a bad school is like, maybe it will help you in finding a good school in the future : )

Due to the high volume of BS schools out there its really easy for someone new to get suckered in, but just as in life, you live and learn so just never make the same mistake again.

Reap

[Shaolindynasty]

Hey hold on. A small claims court isn't a bad idea. It usually costs under $100 to file. A sueing in small claims court isn't the big "legal battle" people are making it out to be. Trust me people go to court for far less than $4000, your amount is definatly worth it. This is in USA though and I don't know what you backwards folk do up there.


Don't get greedy though, leave the "mental suffering" stuff at the door. Judges usually don't honor that unless it is really serious like injuries etc. He claimed to be "the only shaolin taught westerner right"? I would push the point that he wasn't trained there not that there are other westerners that have trained there. He can claim ignorance to that. What he did was false advertising and he should pay the consequences, someone else said hurt his pocket book. I fully agree with that, if you beat him up or vandalized his school he have you arrested and will be taking you to court.



Somebody above said "avoid schools that say shaolin"
This could be a mistake since you might miss out on somthing good. I'd say be weary of them, it it looks like kempo it probally is. I am more for educating yourself before picking a school. Shaolin is a general word, research some of the better known schools and try to get all the different veiwpoints you can. The more extradordenary the claim the more possibility it's not true. If they use alot of "mystical" words they are probally Kungfu TV series hippies. For instance celestial grand master, I have never heard any real kungfu school use a term like that. Picking a Shaolin school is tricky, the key is to stay open to the variations but still know what "shaolin looks like". Shaolin does not look like kempo.

[GunnedDownAtrocity]

normally i would say that letting it go is the best advice, and it still might be, but we're talkin 4k here.

and that's not even 4k spent over years of getting scammed, but pretty much all at once.

[KungFuGuy!]

Well they are a business, so they are probably prepared for things like this. I wouldn't be surprised if I signed something along the way that said I wouldn't sue. I skimmed over everything they made me sign, so I could have missed it.

As for finding a new school, I've been talking to a jeet kune do instructor who is opening a school in february. He seems legit, and when I made a thread asking for people to give their opinion on him, the people who posted on it gave their thumbs up, so I'm going to check it out. Plus, it's very inexpensive I'm interested in traditional kung fu as much as in JKD, but there is no other place in my area.

[Shaolindynasty]

WTF!!!! I just read some moe of that site. No offense but you must have had absoulutly 0% knowledge of any kungfu to be taken in by that! Those guys are definate frauds with a emphasis on the cult part of it. I take some sort of action against them if I was you. Yet you should feel partly responsible for getting ripped off cause I think a single issue of a martial arts magazine would be enough to educate yourself against the kind of crap they push.

[KungFuGuy!]

I didn't post this to be cricitized, I know that I was a fool to believe them, I already said that.

[Shaolindynasty]

I'm not trying to insult you. I was just pointing out how easily someone with no knowledge of kungfu can be taken advantage of. Also how people look back on how little they knew and wonder how they got taken in by people like this. I still think WTF when I see sites like this. I wonder if the inter net helps or hurts people like this. On one hand people have more access to knowledge but on the other hand the "knowlegde" could come from places like this and they can also reach more people than before. I wonder who the internet benifits more the frauds or their potential victums?