Shaolin,
They don’t upfront tell you to do any of those things, really. It starts more subtle than that, when you miss practice for obligations, they act “dissapointed” in a stern way, if you can’t afford lessons, they tell you that you need to focus on your priorities, etc. Also, the amount of pressure they put on is relative to how much pressure they feel they can put on the specific individual.
And yes, it is funky for those who spend a long time there and leave. I still want to beat the crap out of some of them, and I was technically just as bad as them(although I didn’t take part in any tax frauds:D )
The reason I left had a lot to do with the accessibility of info nowadays. I started reading about real pa kua, and that was sort of the beginning. Also, when you train people to be unflinchingly adoring to instructors, and then hang those same instructors out to dry, it tends to raise some questions.
KC- I see how subtile it is. Even with the rediculous claims on their site for some reason they don’t stand out. Most of that stuff seems as normal as any McDojo. Only when you really look at it and study it do you see the strange claims. It’s kind of disturbing to me cause I am friends with someone who is a former member and when I talk to him I can still here allot of mental “programming” they did. Even though he is a cool guy it seems CMD did some damage to his perception of martial art and I bet it was far worse for allot of other people out there. I remeber him saying allot of things that other former members say they programed into them and I don’t even think he knows. I tried to explain it to him the other day(since I think he is involved with another “shady” school) and he got pretty angry. Since then I have been trying to find out more about this stuff to see exactly where it’s comming from. I tried to keep the tone of this thread light but it’s actually pretty serious.
My advice is to not try to “adjust” his thinking. After years of chung moo, he might be in the habit of having others adjust it for him, and he may be a little defensive when it happens now, as he is needing to do his own thinking.
One good angle is to plan a day with him, checking out schools, both good and bad. The good thing about this approach is that, from chung moo, he will have plenty of experience laughing at other schools, so its sort of a meeting him halfway approach. You can joke about the really bad schools together. Then, when going to really good schools, you can point out what you like about them, and ask what he thinks.
Also, try watching kung fu demos, really good ones. Sorry, didn’t mean to say kung fu. Martial Arts demos. Loan him books about different arts, etc.
BTW, I used to live in the Chicagoland area, and the best counter-programming I experienced was time and a guy by the name of Zhang Hongchao. Good teacher, and about as humble as can be.
Well, he has plenty of info on CMA and has visited other schools but I think his ideals about MA are still affected by his time in CMD. He seems really set against having a real Sifu, He prefers to work out “in the park” with people(mostly students of other schools) and learn from video but I feel that he needs a real teacher to go far in the martial arts. He insits that he doesn’t cause he “understands MA principles” then he got really upset when I was explaining that he needed a real teacher. I mean I don’t consider CMD and a little Kungfu training a martial arts base in which you can build from and I think the reason he doesn’t want to join a real school is because of his experience with CMD.
Well, it was a few years between when I quit CMD and started longfist, and I followed almost exactly the path it sounds like your friend is taking. It worked OK for me, because I learned a lot about kung fu in general in that time, so that I was a much more discerning consumer when I went to find my first kung fu school.
However, I’d say keep at him in a non-confrontational way. He might need a little time on his own, but the sooner he gets highly qualified teaching, the better he will be and the less lost time.
Has he sparred? That can be an eye opener.
Also, keep in mind that one thing a few of us ex-cmd’ers did pick up from our time in CMD was a strong passion for martial arts and a strong discipline. Do not base any arguments on invalidating everything he learned, merely show him what more is out there to be had.
My 2 cents are starting to add up.
A little side note. Originally, the chung moo schools were called kong su. Kong Su happens to be another name for tang soo do, a perfectly valid art. I’m fairly certain that there was tang soo do in the curriculum I learned, it just got lost in the endless forms that came from the “higher up” the line.
Wouldn’t it be great to slip into one of those schools and play the sheep for a while. Just take it to the point where they start to get abusive and then blow up on their a$$es.
It’d be great just to crack their heads in front of their students and then do a lil deprogramming. Course, you’d have to be a guppy for a few months, and that’d be miserable.
**** kc, it sounds like your giving tips how to help friends get off heron
What do you need to know?
My advice is to not try to “adjust” his thinking. After years of chung moo, he might be in the habit of having others adjust it for him, and he may be a little defensive when it happens now, as he is needing to do his own thinking.
One good angle is to plan a day with him, checking out schools, both good and bad. The good thing about this approach is that, from chung moo, he will have plenty of experience laughing at other schools, so its sort of a meeting him halfway approach. You can joke about the really bad schools together. Then, when going to really good schools, you can point out what you like about them, and ask what he thinks.
Also, try watching kung fu demos, really good ones. Sorry, didn’t mean to say kung fu. Martial Arts demos. Loan him books about different arts, etc.
Just my .02"“”“”“”‘’
it all holds the tone, treat your friend pleasant to set his mind on tommorrow, but be wary as he may go into withdrawel and start stealing your ****.
my buddy just finally kicked that mess, it’s all sad
That’s the problem. The chung moo people are trained not to think its just martial arts. They believe its more important than anything else in their lives, and that, if they live their art right, the rest of their life will magically work out OK.
That’s the funny aspect of it. It’s really weird that a MA cult like this could even exsist. I mean c’mon there is no way i’d give up my life savings or let the instructor have sex with my wife etc. for this stuff. I just don’t get it. I’d like to play the sheep to but it might turn out like that episode of the simpsons.
na na nana na leader(to the tune of batman tv series theme)
I think you’ll find that the real hardcore crazies from chung moo come from the first three groups of instructors. The IRS put a serious limit on how much of the really weird behavior the school could take part in. Funny how federal agents with shotguns can break up a lesson.
At the beginning level, its not much different that any other mckwoon, especially nowadays. I suspect they are going to be a much less prevalent organization over the next few years, and I’m willing to bet that Kim will be prosecuted before too long.
Basically, keep in mind that the horror stories you read are the extreme examples of life at chung moo quan. Most students don’t give all their money, their wives don’t have to put off sexual advances from Kim, they aren’t living with other students, etc. It is at the instructor level that most of the crazy stuff happens, and the ones who gave up the most money were the school owners, who worked endless hours, brought in huge amounts of money, then had to turn it all over to Kim, who would decide whether or not to send any back for the school owners to survive on.
Frankly, there were many times I didn’t pay them. Their record keeping was so bad that they often forgot if I had paid or hadn’t.
Speak to anyone who was proffessionally trained in brainwashing (KGB, CIA etc..) and they’ll tell you the key is to deprive the subject of sleep and gradually make them feel like you control their lives. Eventually they’ll hand control of themselves to you. All the techniques used by Kim are classic brainwashing techniques.
BTW: Students were expected to bring extra money on Kim’s B’day - said to be April 1st (April Fool’s day - how appropriate lol)
I did not realize that we had anybody on here that had been hooked by that clan. Sorry to hear that. Not laughing at you. That is just life when we don’t have any better experience?
Hey, it is pretty funny **** to us right now because we have perspective and some experience as we all get older. But until that point, how do younger adults know any better? I mean, they fall for all this credit card crap at 20% interest, with skip payment options and stuff like that. That is a severe bend over job by the bankers once you do the math. Most don’t find out until they are over-levereaged (cannot pay enought to bite into principal) that they have fallen for a very very bad deal.
It will be a lot harder with the internet in the future to rip people off so unbelieveably with this type MA garbage.
hmm.. I like your thinking Sharky…
try it out and let me know how it works out for you… heck it worked for Kim, seems like he screwed half his instructors’ wives
