ALRIGHT FOLKS, I finally did it. I finally went to the Shaolin-Do school in my area to watch. This is going to be a 2 part post, covering Monday and then Wednesday. The first post is Monday. Second will be Wednesday.
I just attended a Shaolin-Do school this evening to observe how they train. I never held Shaolin-Do in high regard, mainly being a bias because of there shady history (Insert Chewbacca reference here). However, being that I took a month off of Wing Chun do to college, I decided to attend the class tonight to see how they train.
The best thing there was the jailbait hot blonde with the flat stomach who is still in high school. BTW, I'm 20.
Now for the stuff I saw in ONE hour (I arrived over a half hour after class began).
I saw a Baguazhang form, 2 Monkey forms including one with ground fighting, a Drunken form, some other hand forms I have no idea what they were, a Sai form, a Staff form, and 2 sword forms.
Baguazhang form: Not being a practioner of Baguazhang, I shouldn't disect the form. However, this stuff sucked big time. One guy had his hand backwards from the other guy doing the form. The walking the circle was way off, there was no "rooting" to the ground, and the footwork was just **** poor. The instructor said that usually by the time you hit black belt, you should have 1/3 of the Baguazhang form, then by 2nd black, another 1/3. Well one guy was gonna be testing for his blackbelt in 4 months, and I can tell you he has alot of work to do. But he was the one who had his hands right, but he still was sucky in the footwork.
Monkey form 1: This is the one with the ground fighting. Lot's of rolling, jumping, etc. Had some Fukien Ground Boxing in it as well. Somewhat impressed for at least having a little ground fighting, however the fighting was against a standing opponent and not a grappler.
Monkey form 2: All standing. Somewhat impressive, at least by flashiness. He said it wasn't True Monkey Kung Fu (what is in there system?) but something called White Monkey. Also, you have to learn the 8 Drunken Immortals before you learn Monkey.
Drunken form: He said that there weren't alot of application to this form. So whats the point? A form is to show applications and train you. Not to look pretty. 2 of the guys doing it were mediocre, but the instructor seemed to be really into it.
Sword form 1: I swear to God, twice in the form they stopped and held the arms up as if they were about to scream "I HAVE THE POWER!"
Sword form 2: I think this was funnier than the first one. The guys looked like they were doing the tango with the sword, it was upside down and they held it like you hold a female when dancing. Also, several times they would grab there own blade, and even throw the sword in the air and catch it after it twirled.
Staff form: Very Chinese/Japanese hybrid with more Chinese. There was alot of more jabbing that is seen more in Chinese styles, then they'd quickly slide the hands down and swing it to hit with both ends of the staff like you'd see in more Japanese forms.
Sai form: Can we say Karate? He said after class there was a Sai in China that one tong bent backwards and went down the arm and wrapped around it. Um...sounds cool? But they guy kept doing the handle hits seen in Karate, where you chamber the strikes while leaning forward. Again looked like a Japanese/Chinese hybrid with much more Japanese to it.
I know I saw more forms, but watching these guys and gals do 12 forms in 60 minutes really just messes with the brain and they kind of clump together.
The instructor said he has over a dozen years of Shuai Chiao training. If he does, wtf is he doing in Shaolin-Do? He seemed pretty cool and might have an idea how to fight (especially involving throws), but put him against a good grappler and I think he'd get owned. His students sure as hell would. There were 2 brown belts there, one who was testing in a few months. The jailbait girl didn't even have a belt on.
Jailbait girl also was doing her stuff all wrong and the insturcot wasn't doing alot to correct it. The guy formed a Leopad Palm and called it the Tiger Palm. I wanted to scream out "Bullcrap! That's a Leopad Palm! This is a Tiger Palm!" and show him. The girl would do the "Tiger" Palm strike and lean formward, but the thing was, her lead leg would be locked out so she leaned all wrong. She needed to be corrected on this and I really wanted to say "Bend that front leg and sink down into it" even though I never did Hung Gar or Shaolin or something that leads like that. I just know though. Then she pulled out one of the broadswords and walked across the school, dragging it along the ground and sort of did a form, but did it all wrong, which was when they did there form. When she threw a round kick, the leg would be extended from the moment it was thrown, and not wait until it was there to finish it. It was also locked out, and she struck more with the SIDE of her ankle and not her foot. Meaning she didn't turn the hip.
When they did the applications, they'd throw fists that would NEVER hit you. One guy threw one at the other man's stomach and when his arm extended fully, he was about 5 inches from his partner's body, who THEN would do the technique. Or they'd throw a fist, and you would do say a side block so it misses your head. However when they threw the punch, it would already go past your head, so all you did was just raise an arm and not even have to strike.
They did knife fighting and the instructor commented on how they tend to kill one another at the same time. Jesus, that's what I wanna go do. Get in a knife fight and slash my attacker, then get slashed too. Hey, I die, but at least he does too right?
He said they do alot of throws as well, due to his Shuai Chiao training and when they go to tournaments (which I think Shaolin-Do only does Shaolin-Do tournaments? Can we say ATA?) that they'll throw the opponents around and people are all like "Oh that must be such and such's school". Of course I did my best to be impressed.
Another thing that caught me is the guy didn't ask if I ever did martial arts before. Every time I visit a school, it's one of the first questions asked. I was debating to say no training, TKD or 2 and a half years Wing Chun. I decided to say Wing Chun if he asked. He never did.
He also said his school focuses alot on application and little on forms, while some other schools have very pretty forms, but suck at fighting. When I walked in, I saw alot of forms.
So all in all it was pretty crummy. I can now safely say that I think Shaolin-Do is not great, and rather pretty crappy and can't get the "Oh, you've never been there so don't judge it!" from Shaolin-Do students. I've now seen it first hand.
In the end, I paid more attention to the students. After all, if you want to know how good an instructor is, look at his students. And the 2 brown belts sucked.
The instructor invited me back Wednesday, which I will probably attend just to look at the hot blonde again. Since she seems to be new, her and I will probably train there together. I just wanna have the chance to flirt with her, and find out if she is 16, 17 or 18. And try Shaolin-Do first hand. But mainly the blonde.
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Originally Posted by Oso
