Al Colangelo? Insta-internal? Take any UFC fighter?

Wai Jia: The Kung Fu Forum Kung Fu Forum
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I Recently saw a video demo that one of my students got via mail, it was an hour and half on how he can beat multiple grapplers. After two days of training he would tell the student to “go internal” and all of the sudden could prevent being taken down! Al says he can out of any lock, or hold, and invites anyone to come to his trainin hall and try him on it.
Has anyone seen his stuff? Ill reserve judment for a later time. One of my new students has been doing his qi-gong tapes, and is wondering about going to a seminar sometime.

website- www.mindboxing.com

Thanks,
Gary

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Good lord.

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Good and constructive…

thanks sdriver!

:slight_smile:

TTT

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I’ve seen one of his tapes, it had A.) Some good material that I recognized as being from Share Key Lew on Qigong and B.) Some really funny stuff called poison hand that involved lacing your fingers together and jerking your arms really hard to hit a guy. Looked like a good way to break your fingers.

He does have an aggressive marketing system built out of his sight. His background includes learning from some well known Silat, Chen style and other MA types.

What I’ve seen is a real mixed bag from my perspective - some solid material mixed with weird misinterpretations like 'Baji requires a ‘carrier’ art to work.

I don’t like to criticize unless something is completely bogus, like OYD, and I’d guess he must be pretty confident to have an open challenge out there. I’d like to hear how it goes if someone really good takes him up on it.

But from what I’ve seen, I’m a little skeptical. How much is my own prejudices, I can’t really say.

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Gosh…if I only knew those “secrets”…then I wouldn’t have to practice. Sign me up Al.

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from picture . . .

"Willy John Christopher Wetzel
(1921 - 1975) was a teacher of the Chinese-Indonesian Poekoelan Tjimindie fighting arts. He was born of Dutch and Indonesian parents in the village of Loemadjang on the island of Java "

neat . . i study pukulan and have never heard it mentioned anywhere until now.

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when they make claims like that

they had better watch out for there will be a MMA guy going down there and pummeling this guy into the ground. as we have seen on the McDojo site. :wink:
Many Respects ,The Willow Sword

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oh .. . and i agree with ms2. he seems to be some odd union of the bonnified and bogus.

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Emailed Al myself

Here is the email I sent, and the response…
From me:"Hello Al,
I just had a few questions for you regarding your multiple attacker demo tape. One of my students has been doing your qi-gong methods and is reaping the benifits.
I was just wondering how you can give people internal power with only a few days of training? Proper mechanics-maybe, but good internal circulation and use of it?
I understand marketting, but “never be touched” is an extrordinary claim! Do you have a video of anyone at a high level in one of the Neija arts fighting you?
“See why all other arts including Dim Ma, Iron Palm and Pressure Points are useless against this art yet alive in the hands of the Wu Tong expert”
I could agree to an extent, but be advised there are others out their that do practice such skills on resisting opponents, I personally have used these methods in real combat, and have no such affiliation/training with your “wu tong” system.
I ask these questions becuase my student is considering coming to one of your workshops, I encourage him to go regardless of my opinion, I am just wondering if I should go with him!

Kind regards,
    Gary Romel

His reply back (timely response!)

"Gary,

Who is your student?

I learned from an Indonesian-Chinese underground fighter who learned from a Wu-Tong monk who also mastered Silat Serak and hired by the Dutch Indonesian govt. He had to be capable of defeating all other styles or else he would be tortured and possibly give out all info on the monk, etc. So that was his forte.

Little Girls at our school when I was just 15 yrs old beat the bigger guys in split seconds over and over…so many times…it was unbelievable. I boxed and street fought but could not touch the smaller, weaker guys who were pathetic street fighters…yet with the little skill they learned, they beat me like I was a kid…effortlessly.

Look at the website…at mindboxing.com. The 2 big guys at 6’3,
285, & 260 could not take down our beginners…on video.

Hope this helps…

It’s all about how to manipulate energy in the body so that the fight should never last more than a split moment.

We prove it every time we spar full contact.

If you learn the codes…no one can even thrown a strike…as we use a concept from acupuncture called ‘Freezing’ that confuses the attacker…makes him weaker…all on video.

Beginners can’t be lifted, grabbed, taken-down,…grapplers can shoot-in and take-down or strike.

Best of Luck to you,

Al"

I emailed him back, which should be a bit more interesting! Will post it when I get a response..

Gary

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TTT

TTT

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He can shoot chi lazers from his eyes and thunderbolts from his arse.

But seriously if there was any grain of truth in what he says then we would have 15 year old girls beating up weaklings like Frank Shamrock and Tank Abbott. With total dominance in the UFC by their fighters:rolleyes:

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Enough criticism of his marketing tactics…

Can we hear from someone who has met the man? There must be at least one of you on this board.

It would also be nice to see some video clips from his tapes.

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Yeah it would

But Its not my place to publicly air his stuff, that could be law suit time!
Few more lovley email exchanges, he seems he keeps dodging my questions, when I finnally asked him the same question the third time he got really defensive, of course I can understand why…read below…

Thank you for the reply,
My student is Tyler Tansel, in OKC, OK, I understand manipulating the energy in the body, and ending the fight in a split momement, I personally took out 2 attackers (real situation) in a split second using dim-mak, energy,etc. My question was how do you teach begginer students to go “internal” in just a few days?
My assistant instructor (Chris McKinley) is an acupuncturist, and a Bagua , and Kali teacher, I just got off the phone with him, he told me your freezing concept was “Complete Bull****”, in fact he thinks you are a complete “fraud” and not even worth the time of day,and he does not think you could pull anything of the sort on him, he told me I could tell you that for him.
Anyhow, could you please explain how your beginners cant be lifted, grabbed, struck..etc.? I am aware of all the internal principles, so you do not have to speak in lamens terms, but most of these principles take time.
Kind regards,
Gary

Gary,

It sounds like Chris is his own worst enemy. We train to BEAT ourselves…We, ourselves are the greatest enemy…we train to defeat the enemy within…fatigue, weakness, pre-mature aging,
deceiveing ourselves, inconsistent training,…see how many so-called experts end up fat, overweight, looking 20 yrs older than they should? I just say to all, “If the show fits, wear it.”

Gotta run,

Al

P.S. The fighting end of this art was taught to one of your guys,
Scott Watkins, and he quit that art after only weeks with us…he’s the real deal…

Al,
Thats fine what you think about Chris’s perceptions,but he is an accupuncturist, and you stated “Freezing” was of that origin? Also you still failed to answer my questions! Please tell me how you teach people “internal”, and how not to be taken down, or struck in a few days!
I dont know Scott Watkins, who was his teacher? He’s not one of my guys, and unless Ive met or trained him, its a moot point.

talk to you Later,
Gary

"Read this if want any more info…I don’t play games with cynics or fools…as in the the people with hair brain attitudes…jealousy is common…we ARE about Self-Development…NOT Billy the Kid
bull****…the world is full of ‘Wanna-be’ tough guys, dim mak killers, “WE do that internal stuff, too” kind of wannabes…what it takes to make it in any endeavor is Exclusive Knowledge…the kind that I spent 42 years acquiring from THE MONK who is now 90 yrs old and whose teachers lived to be 116 yrs. old…the rest of the KILLERS out there won’t make it past 65 or 70 and will live in weakness and pre-mature old aging…either you know how to regenerate or you life will kick one’s ass.

An acupuncturist that does not know how to Freeze is silly…
If he doesn’t know how to manipulate the ming men, dan tien, bai hui, and lao kung points? Why waste your breath? That’s common knowledge…and that stuff most all practice AIN’T internal..unless you know the above manipulations for starters…
I can’t describe how to do it…it takes study…
Al Colangelo’s Mindboxing

Yahoo! Groups : mindboxing"

Ok,
Oh, Chris knows how to manipulate energy/points just fine, but im sick of playing go-between boy, so end of disscussion.
“I can’t describe how to do it”
But I suppose if you cant describe it ,you cant teach it either, especially in two days. You still failed to answer my question sir, and you could at least provide the name of this monk who gave you such “secret” knowledge.What was his lineage? Willie Wetzel is also not considered fully legit from what Ive heard, but hey, thats not my art, I really dont care.
Why get defensive? How about providing info? “‘Wanna-be’ tough guys, dim mak killers, “WE do that internal stuff, too” kind of wannabes”-From what Ive seen/read from you, I would put Chris or a number of others in the ring with you, or in debate theoretically any day, so stop assuming you are the only good internal guy around. Trust me, there is no jealousy issue…Make claims that you cannot be touched and people are going to ask why, either your dealing with cynics, or really ignorant people, but hey ,whatever makes the $$$ right?
Either way im not going to pay you to teach me something you cannot explain.

Gary

Just mailed that one…I hate when people avoid my questions and play the exclusive knowledge from the secret “monk” game.

Has anyone touched hands with this guy?

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waitaminute..what?

a UFC fighter has an internal colostomy bag? huh?

..sorry i didn’t even read the thread…ignore me:D

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Hey that’s the site JuJitsuJedi brought over way back when. Remember when we were all chi-blasting chickens?

If your style is regenerating the atrophy of your adrenals proven by the energy increase felt all day long then just study on with what you have.
Couldn’t have said it better.

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the guys got a mullet… i think that sums it up

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Just to speak for myself on this matter,

My real problem with Al and others like him is that he is a snake oil salesman in the classic tradition. It’s common knowledge in the Indonesian Martial Arts that Willy Wetzel was a controversial figure. That’s fine…stick around in this game long enough and EVERYBODY gets detractors. Even the very best and the most legitimate.

So let’s give benefit of the doubt to Wetzel and, by association, also to Colangelo and assume that their information and training is entirely legitimate and combat viable as well. Let’s further assume that, all advertising hype aside, Colangelo’s students are receiving that good information. For all I personally know, that could be the exact truth of the situation. HOWEVER, when an instructor (and worse yet, someone who has studied the quality arts Colangelo claims) feels the need to pad his advertising with the kind of “back of the comic books” ads that Charles Atlas or Ashida Kim used to use, he loses all credibility with me. It’s made all the worse by the fact that these arts DON’T NEED any padding or hype selling.

If indeed Colangelo is “for real” in teaching Taijiquan, Baguazhang, and Silat, he knows **** good and well that there’s no such thing as a magic bullet nor any magical ability to do anything whatsoever. Just good practice to develop good skills in good arts.

When ANYBODY starts advertising crap about how one can learn this or that system and “never be touched” or “never be taken down”, they are preying on the hopeful naiivete of the uninitiate buying public. They are also knowingly instilling a false sense of confidence and security in those unfortunate enough to be convinced by their advertisements. God forbid that one of Mr. Colangelo’s students should actually buy into the idea that, after a few years training with him, he/she won’t be touched in a real street assault. Such a person is likely to wind up a crime statistic. The tragedy will be even worse if such a student is protecting a helpless loved one at the time as well.

Bottom line: I don’t claim to know anything at all about Mr. Colangelo’s training, his teaching ability, nor the material he is specifically teaching…I haven’t trained with the man nor watched a class of his. What I DO know, and so does Mr. Colangelo, is that there is no such thing as a fighting system which can guarantee or even offer the ability to not be touched in a fight nor be taken down under any circumstances. I honestly don’t know how ppl like Colangelo can sleep at night knowing that there are poor unfortunate souls out there desparate enough to believe his advertising and potentially putting their own lives at risk because of it.

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He probably sleeps the dreamless sleep of the sociopath.

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Al Collangelo’s art

He be the man, alright. Al don’t have former Samoan pro boxers for nothing. Those types don’t play paddy cake. I’ve been with many former Chinese teachers. The way I found him was seeing him beat two of the best Chinese fighters there are in LA Chinatown who tried to mock him. I mean these were the best you might ever see. One move from them convinced everyone they were not wushu. Scary!! I was studying with them until I saw these fights. He produces what he says but he’s not claiming, his students do. I would never have left the Chen Village and Bagua masters I was studying with unless Al could teach me what I saw him do.

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Tom,
I’ll be in Chicago the weekend of August 10th. I’d love to meet you and see this first hand. (That is not a challenge, I am genuinely curious.) I’ll be teaching most of the time I’m there, but I’m sure we can find some time.

Who were the chen style and bagua teachers who got trounced by Al?

E-mail me at Visajoe@hotmail.com

Thanks.