They lied to me to get me to join, so should I be able to sue them for false advertising?
I really regret wasting all that money, but I thought I had the opportunity to train under “the only westerner to ever train with the shaolin monks”, so they told me. I worked 2 jobs and gave up my whole summer to pay for it, I feel so robbed. I’ve been given advice from a couple sources that I may have a case in court, one for false advertising (or something like that), or even for “emotional damage” when I found out they were fake and I had wasted all that money.
Anyways, I know we’ve got a couple lawyers here, could someone give me some advice?
dont do it
You got screwed, Find another place that is better and train untill you are good the go back and sparr them, and beat them.
With you suite, you might not even get enought to pay you lawyers.
Rogue Slayer
i don’t know who these guys are or how gullible you had to be to believe them, but if you really feel like you can get something back for getting fu cked i wish you luck.
Yeah I’m mostly mad at myself for being so goddam stupid, and if it weren’t for this board I would still be training there ignorantly believing what they tell me.
You’re right slayer, that’s what I’m doing, but I’m having trouble leaving it in the past. I keep thinking of all that lost money (too embarrasing for me to give the amount) and time, and what I could have done with it instead.
". .. I would still be training there ignorantly believing what they tell me. "
how bad was it?
Alright, well first of all, there is sparring once a week and you have to be invited into the “sparring club” to do so. This costs $800 (canadian) a year, I never joined this though. It’s not even real sparring, it’s slow motion “ok you do a move then I do a move” bullsh!t.
Next, they are really big on these punch counters, we did them in every class. They are so needlessly complex and ineffective it’s rediculous. I thought they were pretty cool until I sparred with some karate friends of mine and realized they don’t work, and resorted back to my tkd training.
Thirdly, not only is their lineage fake, it’s fake kung fu altogether. The founder didn’t train with the monks, he trained with his uncle in kempo karate. I read a court log where simon (the founder) said he was never in china and trained under his uncle in kempo. To confirm this, I looked at the fine print at the bottom of one of the instructor’s black belt certificate, and it was authorized by the international kempo association.
It’s so expensive because everyone gets an hour long private lesson every week, and then there’s 2 group classes per week. Well that’s what they tell you anyways. You actualy get 3 lessons a month, and a lesson usualy starts 5-8 minutes into the hour and ends 10 minutes before, sometimes 15 minutes before if they want to talk to you about buying the new book or clothing or equipment or program. Also, the instructor would disapear several times during the lesson and come back up to 10 minutes later.
More evidence that it’s not kung fu: Karate gi’s, belts, kias.
They have this crap called kungrobics, it’s the biggest load of BS I’ve ever seen.
When we bow in and out a the beginning and end of classes we have to say “grand master simon, kia!” Even when I was blindly under their influence, I felt very silly, and when I started to learn the truth, I felt very dirty when I did this.
A uniform costs over $100, and there are 3 different uniforms that you eventualy have to buy.
Well I embarrased myself already, so I may aswell tell you how much I spent. I spent 4k canadian on training, and about $300 on uniforms and equipment. If I had stayed longer, I could have spent another 1000 on sparring club and equipment. Note; this was something I wanted to do for the rest of my life so felt that money wasn’t an issue. Also, I had very little knowledge of martial arts outside taekwondo, and I thought very highly of a karate friend of mine’s opinion (who is the one who suggested I join), but I now know that his knowledge on the subject is very limited.
Something good has come out of this, I am much smarter and less naive now. I’m also a lot more bitter and mean 
dude!!!
trys not to laugh
that fu cking sucks man. i just meant how bad was the training . .. the monitary loss was way more than i expected.
dude!!!
man if you really think you can get something back i say you do it. im not sure that you got a shot in hell though.
if it’s in the states i’ll help you vandalize the place.
i like breaking sh!t.
Man I can’t imagine…
Speak to lawyers (which is what you’re trying to do now)
Sounds like you’ve got a case to me
I’m not going to say anything about your decision to do it because I don’t want to make you feel worse than you must do already.
Dude that’s painful.
Sounds kinda like that Shaolin-Do BS. Man that sucks! :mad:
Anyone else feel like joining up with KungFuGuy and go to this fake doublecrossing a-hole “Kung Fu” club? Thrash the place and go medieval on them!!! 4k canadian… Dammmmm…
There are no standards
With all the contraversy as to who is lagit and who is not, its all pretty much just specualation. I’m all for sueing, if you have a case, but you don’t. Kinda hard to prove if something is shaolin even if it is fake and absolutely bogus. No one has a patent or trademark on the term kungfu or shaolin Kungfu.
How much would this be in american dollars? Like 3k or something?
I personally will fly to Canada from the UK to help you torch that place.
$4000! F u c k.
I’ve had all the sh!tty training ritual crap before, but $4000. Man, I’m really sorry.
You probably have the equivalent of what we in Australia call the Small Claims Tribunal (anything under 5000 (i think) is a small claim). You don’t really need a lawyer the whole thing is a Judge Judy type proceeding. Get some free advice from legal aid and sue for the money you lost.
Second thing i recommend you do is join a good kungfu school (I recommend Buck Sing Choy Lay Fut ), train your ass off, then come back, challenge all of them kick their ass then run around town pouring crap on their school, so they go out of business.
YEAHH!!! 
Seriously - firebomb the school. A good getaway and you’ll be OK, and you’ll save a lot of other students hard cash.
Man, I’m glad I check up on all my schools beforehand. Bet those guys are laughing their arses off.
Where in Canada ?
Hi KungFuGuy,
Sorry to hear about the scam, can you tell me which city in Canada your in, perhaps I can recommend a good Sifu for you. Old-school and traditional.
Cheers
Buddhapalm
That’s brutal
Coming from a Fellow Canuck…i don’t know how you could not see past the $$$ in the first place. Punches are punches, kicks are kicks..essentially they had you paying close to 5 gran for everything after the sparring for ONE year! Forget the courts..they have a rightt s a business to charge what they want. You may get them on false advertising without the credentials but the books and uniforms etc..that is their right to charge what they want.
What you should do is write the kempo association he is affiliated with and publicly make a statement to the local papers on the state of their business and their false advertising..don’t go into the cult crap, go into the costs and their failing to deliver what they promised to. This angers the consumers and will likely make a better story than " i was brain washed". Make sure nobody else goes to this school and try to publicly humiliate the name of Temple Kungfu as much as possible. That is all you can really do..
s*&t..4k?! man, i spend 60 a month and i train 6 hours a week…don’t be blinded by the name of the art or its “origins”..be convinced by what is taught…the legitimacy of an art and its origins are found in the art’s effectiveness, not the instructor’s ability to market it.
My peice of advice..stay away from anything labelled “shaolin” lol and do what i did when i first started in the bujinkan, ask to see your instructor’s credentials and who he is affiliated with. In my case, the documents all came from Japan and his teacher was who he said he was(having bothe the rank and having spent the time in japan with Hatsumi and the other shihan). You have to go through this as a consumer if you don’t want to get ripped off.
Wow, you got conned. It’s okay though. Don’t let it stop you from training.
You may even be conned again in different ways…it’s something we all have to face trying to good quality instruction.
You can sue, but what will that do? Is it worth it?
Just move on and don’t let it stop you on your quest for truth. Stuff like this happens, It’s happening right now to people on this board and they don’t even know it.
Just keep looking ahead.
Caveat Emptor. More than just funny-sounding Latin words.