Olaf Simon - Temple Kung Fu part II
Years later I saw some temple Kung Fu adds where Olaf Simon was on some bridge doing some wavy hand actions. When I saw this I thought, that’s not the Simon I knew. It didn’t look like a powerful Kung Fu or Karate and didn’t resemble anything I saw hi do before. Still later I saw Olaf Simon using these strange titles. The whole thing seemed like a religious movement. When I think about the Karate days many students talked about Simon like he was a kind of god but then it was based purely on his fighting skill and not on his talk. By a god I mean the normal way Aikido students view their teacher’s which I call treating them like they are some kind of God.
What Simon’s base fighting style was, is hard to say . He wouldn’t teach that. He just taught millions of actions and you never knew what his real fighting style was. I think he didn’t have an easy time with the Karate because of opposition from Judo people, and others. Olaf was a big fan of Chinese martial arts. Although he was very proficient in the Japanese Karate he didn’t speak highly of the Japanese the same I suppose as Bruce Lee and his ideas about the Japanese so it was nothing new.
When Simon did his patio block breaks, he would try for a maximum number let’s say 12, they wouldn’t break so he removed one and then he did it. His hand sometimes would look pretty bruised. In those days Olaf Simon would talk about Mas Oyama a lot and all the things he technically did wrong.
I think business pressures, maybe his divorce, his desire for wealth, maybe a power trip, the failure of maybe USA people to recognize him and many other factors probably combined to set him on this strange course. Definitely Simon succeeded in business. In the 70’s various people created fortune’s using underhand methods. In Wing Chun someone by the name of Leung Ting was even more successful making more than 10 million dollars teaching. But in each case something of value was taught.
I heard about Olaf Simon’s marketing approach years later when I visited one of his “Master” students in Calgary. I forget his name. Anyway he was very open and honest with me and explained the various methods to keep students and to maximize the amount of money paid by each student. This person didn’t like doing that so he split from Simon but still taught his basic stuff. He himself also made a considerable amount of money."
"Now when I see Olaf Simon calling himself “His Holiness” I just can’t relate to that. we just called him Simon or Olaf even to his face, at least his blackbelts did. But everyone did treat him with respect for his fighting. Simon taught one form that consisted of only elbows applied from al angles. He had many varieties of arm breaks that were not of Kenpo or Karate origin. Simon demonstrated a bit of Tai Chi once but when I later learned Tai Chi I knew it was just some hand actions without the Tai Chi base footwork and arm and body coordination.
In my view it seems that something happened to Olaf Simon to set him on this strange path. If it is not a cult, many things are very cultish looking. Simon has set himself up as sort of a Pope figure who is unapproachable but mere mortals - this is what I get from my very surface knowledge of him now.
I was disappointed at the various books he wrote. The book law of the fist shows some of the Karate he taught and includes the postures of what he called Moo style Kung Fu. He taught various breaks and locks out of those stances. The pictures are from the 60’s when I was a student in Calgary and Edmonton.
I guess strange things happen to some people in their lives. Who knows what his thinking is. I read the court testimony of Olaf Simon and it also doesn’t seem normal. It was very evasive and non specific. He was not at all like that in the 1960’s.
I kind of think his stories of the origin’s of his art are not true and were just some marketing gimmick. Many other people did that in those days including Wing Chun with it’s made up story of Yim Wing Chun and the nun Ng Mui. In those days we just cared about fighting effectiveness and there was little mystical talk. That must have developed later.
From Ed Parker’s book about Chinese Kung Fu I can see that Ed Parker was familiar with a variety of Kung Fu systems. Him and Simon may have exchanged ideas. I don’t think Simon learned his Kung Fu from Ed Parker, maybe some Kenpo. I don’t think he learned anything from Ark Wong since his style was didn’t resemble a true Southern style in my eyes. - too be continued
These are just my observations and thoughts, some of which could be wrong. Perhaps physical Simon couldn’t keep up with his own 60’s reputation and had to take this new tack to survive financially. Perhaps he just had this giant dream and this is his implementation of it. I doubt if any of the Buddhist origins and his lineage can every be traced. These things are usually a waste of time to check out.
I think maybe Olaf Simon doesn’t have a complete Kung Fu system since he hesitates to write anything about it except talk of some temple which may have worked in the 70’s but not now. The temple monks now are almost like circus performers. In Simon’s old days the government in China outlawed real martial arts practice.
The White Tiger style was something that came after my time with Simon. I have no idea how that relates to his Moo style. The Moo style was taught the same way as Kenpo by teaching a dozen new techniques everyday with no real Kung Fu base of any kind. Real Kung Fu is generally taught in a very different way which doesn’t lend itself to mass marketing and money making.
It’s too bad Olaf Simon is no longer doing martial arts or has ever filmed his stuff. Maybe there isn’t much to it except a large collection of isolated techniques. If Simon’s origin’s are true then there should be other people who practice a similar kind of art, I don’t think there are other than the Kenpo people."
originally posted by Yongchun
