Are These Big Kung Fu Schools A Scam?
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- Опубліковано 2 лип 2024
- A lot of people ask me about these big Kung Fu schools in China, such as Kunyu Shan, Qufu, Maling Shan etc, whether at these schools set up specifically for foreigners you can train real Kung Fu or are they just a rip off. In this video I share my experience training at one several years ago, so hopefully you can make a more informed decision before coming to China to train Kung Fu.
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Love your video. I'm currently at kunyu shan. And I just wanted to give you some advice about the fitness. If you reached a plateau, then that's on you to raise the intensity. In any type of physical fitness, it's important to push yourself more and more. If you are weightlifting and you find it easy to lift the weights, add more. If you are running sprints, next time, run faster. It's all on the individual. It has to come within. Take care and keep doing what you love and I'll keep watching your videos
Glad you enjoy. But I wasn’t talking about plateauing in terms of fitness or strength, I was talking about in terms of the level of skill/knowledge you can achieve in your martial arts.
Pls, contact me ❤❤❤
Hello Will,
first of all thank you for all your work. You are one of the reason that I decided to go back to Kunyu Shan in 2014 thanks to an article you wrote about master Guo at a time where nothing was available on Internet about the style he was teaching, I will always be grateful for that because it changed my life.
About this video I think it gives good information and is really honest, as usual you give valuable information, give your personnal point of view, but always keep encouraging people to reponsabilise themselves and build their own opinion.
I will give my own point of view, knowing that I've been in Kunyu since 2014, and your video doesn't take account of the evolution of the school through the years (which is totally normal ! You didn't visit for a while). My opinion about the school is obviously positive , but I am totally ok with people who think it doesn't fit or who don't like the school/ this kind of school. I will mainly talk about what I know so it is not necessarly comprehensive (for example I won't give much feedback about shaolin classes).
About link between traditional techniques and actual combat, I train in wing chun baji and taiji with master Guo, I can assure that there is always a heavy link between forms, application and variations on the ring for Sanda, and it has always been the case... Regularly we make sessions when we take every move from Baji Xiao Jia one by one to explain all the applications and use of the moves (usually we have to do it in 2 session because the form is quite long). About sparring, it is every friday if there are enough volunteers, which is quite common (except theses days with the virus and usually in winter). All the students from wing chun group can also do sparring between each other with specific gears similar to MMA to practice traditional sparring, with elblow, knees, takedown and standing joint lock allowed (only ground fight is not practiced). It is still very difficult for student to take part in it, so we added a session of traditional sparring light at least once a month.
A few words on the evolution of the population:
I have always been really frustrated by the students who behave with a total lack of humility, pretend to be advanced because they have a black belt in whatever, and then literally practice like tourists (ask for a day off every two day, hangout at every break, go for drinks and cigarets every week end, go to younger and newer students and tell them that from their X years experience in the west they can tell that the training here is "fake" and then know better) and then complain that the quality of the teaching is not good enough, pretending to be experts in martial arts when they spend all their time in China behaving like teenagers. Through the year, less and less of this students came to the school but in my opinion they are the real problem that slowed down the increase of quality of the school. I also can't stand students who pretend to be too advanced to practice basic or even refuse to do any warmup or physical training because "they don't need it anymore". If you are are "expert" you are supposed to understand that learning advanced technics doesn't keep you from practicing your basics every day and work on your body every day as well, you don't come to China in a normalized school expecting to have a personalized seminar on "only technics" every day during your whole stay !
Everything totally changed the day we started to have a group of chinese students training by our side. Most of them started young (around 16) and training in the school is giving them a chance to be educated, at the very least learning discipline and find their own way, but then eventually make a career in martial arts. They are handled by master Gao, who also raised his teaching quality to a new level. They train every morning acrobatic or sanda depending on the season, on week end they do two extra session and step by step the masters also open this training to westerners who want to join, and on top of that they follow theory classes every day when they learn morality, philosophy, english and geography. They set an amazing example, and the part of the students who want badly to learn wushu get their inspiration from them. There is nothing more inspiring than whatching a sixteen years old kid starting being bad at everything and changing in a few months. You cannot find excuses anymore like "it is normal, they have talent", because you see just next to you how much sweat and blood they have to put to achieve this level.
Two years ago we also started to have foreigner students deciding to stay for long time and even if they are not the majority, they also set up a new good example. First to the masters, they show that there are westerners who are ready to try their best to adapt to chinese way and follow their best a even harder pace, second for westerners students , they show that we have a responsability in the evolution of the school, as westerners who come to learn in China from the chinese teachers.
I would recommand the school if :
- you are ready to pay the real price, which is sweat, blood, pain every day (no matter your background), community (living with people and get along with them no matter their differences of goals and background), discipline (we have a lot less freedom during the stay and have to respect discipline, curfews, leaving forms on week end etc...), being away from home (for younger people it is sometimes really difficult to stay away for a long period of time).
- you are respectful from a different culture and ready to adapt to it, no matter the frustration you might have at the beginning. Once you are in China there is no point criticizing their culture and trying to get them to "do more like you" if you want to learn from it.
- you are the kind of person who put 100% on something when you do it and you know the value (or want to learn the value) of daily hardwork
People who might not fit :
- people who consider themselves as expert, but are not ready to do any physical efforts or practice basics again
- people who think that China is cheap and fake, consider martial arts a product, and threaten to harm your reputation if you don't do everything the way they expected (honestly, stay far away from the school but stay away from China and from people in general)
- people who want to stop bad habits, but don't have enough self discipline to stay away from it (no matter if it is cigaret, alcohol, sex or drugs). If you want to use martial arts to get away from bad habits you have to already have stopped for a while and just look for the next step.
- If you want to mix training and partying, Thailand is a better choice
I would recommand to never pay straight away for a full year, and rather start by a stay of 1month or 3month maximum, then decide if you stay. For parents who send their teenagers I recommand to spend at least a week with them to see how it fits and if it can fit, let them for at least a month, then decide if it worth staying more for them (and absolutely take feedback from the kid as well). Prepare your budget according to your lifestyle, for example if you know it is difficult for you to adapt to new food, you should plan extra money to buy your own things.
If you want to stay for long also budget for at least one break a year where you go totally away from the school for at least 2 weeks, to let your body recover but also to take the time to think if you want to keep going or not. Also use this break to speak with the people you love, know if you are ready to miss important event from their lives or not, if you want to spend more time developing your career or your personal life, knowing that there is nothing wrong about changing and adapting your plans. Training make you evolve a lot, sometimes you notice that the most important for you is something else and you should follow your heart.
I would also recommand to take the time to do a few research before coming to the school about the chinese culture and the different arts, but this is optional from my point of view, a lot of students just go, see if it fits, and decide to stay or not.
If you have specific question send a mail or call directly the school, specially if you plan to learn a specific style.
Thank you again for the good video Will, and the overall quality of your channel.
Thank you for reading this long post, I hope it can help some people.
Thanks for your insightful input on the topic! Its good to for people to hear as much as they can before making a decision on where to go and what is right for them
I was also at Kunyu Shan and I actually was Lôc’s next door neighbor haha
I thought it was a great time and I loved Chen Shifu. I agree 100% with Lôc. If you have a great mindset you can achieve a lot but it’s people he’s talking about that ruins the lesson to be learned.
Also Lôc I’ve been keeping this secret for years but..during the Taiji cleaning day..sometimes Chen Shifu and I would sneak off to eat icecream at the grocery store. I’m sorry..
I lived and studied at the Qufu Academy for a year and a half , and at Master Chen’s school in Wudang for 3 months. Before I went I already had 17-18 years experience in the arts, in my opinion, with my background , it was a very hermetic experience on both occasions where I learned a lot about myself. As for the arts the masters were great and simply fixed cleaned up and refined a lot of my style. I appreciated them for it, however growth was difficult in terms of skill. I felt my power and strength growing and I can feel my movements getting much better but where I felt more magnetized to was the Chen Taiji instructor who came by way Hong Jun Sheng from the Chen FaKe lineage. Also Shandong is the alleged birthplace of Mantis so the Mantis instructor at the school was filled with a lot of rich history. Overall I had the most phenomenal experience in my life and I plan on going back but to another school in TengZhou. Thank you for this video 🙏🏽
Hey I've been looking at qufu academy and I was just wondering what your thoughts on it where and would you recommend it? Are there any major pros or cons to the school (I have no prior experience in gong fu although ive spent about 5 years doing judo) just looking for a unbiased opinion on the school
BTGenisis 0 it honestly depends on what you’re looking for and what you want to learn because there are many many schools like Qufu , you just have to know what you want. There was a traditional mantis teacher there who is amazing. Many schools teach modern competitive wushu , some stick to the classic traditional Shaolin forms, most if not all schools teach Sanda. If you want more traditional arts study this UA-cam channel for different schools. I will say this about the students at Qufu, it was there I met some of the greatest friends and human beings in the world hands down . Peace hope that helps
I want to learn Kung Fu, traditional and modern .. Planning to go qufu.. please tell me is qufu good ?
@@shivamamilla3911 it all depends on what it is that you are looking for ? I had an amazing experience but that doesn’t mean it’ll be the same for you. I knew what I was looking for when I went there, I made it clear and they accommodated me with the right teachers. I miss the hell out of that place
I have boxing, wing chun and wrestling experience, I've always had an interest in kung fu and wu Shu, from what I've seen older practitioners talk about is how larger schools and politically enlightened practitioners teach form but rarely guard, sparring or application interpretation as well as deeper understanding of principal, I've adopted Baji Quan and mantis boxing application for self defense and they work fine, but I only did this because of what a mantis practitioner talked about in a documentary where he explained that the performance aspect is hurting Kung Fu in the sense of performance guard over actual guard, what do you think? Has politics hurt Wu Shu?, Also is performance hurting application?
Hello Will !
I just found you channel and your video and I can not argue a lot what you said.
People must be clear about that there are three major ways in martial arts.
1st is the Martial Arts like Kung Fu oder Wushu.
2nd is the Martial Art Sports like Taekwondo do or even Muay Thai.
3rd is the self defense, there are many different stiles.
For what you like to train and what you like to achieve, thats the point you should asking your self.
When I trained about 40 Years ago there was not much choices like nowadays, going to China for training was not so available.
I give some idea for what is Kung Fu good, it is good for my son (11yo) for example.
He trains since three years every year for some month in China and he developed very good, this would be not possible for him in another way.
The training is general physical development, Form-Training an acrobatics.
He got very good trained to do precise movements and that gives him the ability to learn other technics very fast.
For example he trained a short time Thai-boxing and he could do that quit fast, I am not taking from fighting for money in the stadium.
We will see how he is going on, but for self defense it would be good he could train Muay Thai Boran or Chaiya. Unfortunately it is not teached at many places.This is the best self defense based on traditional Martial Arts, my opinion.
Good Luck
I stayed a month at Kunyu after living in China for a while and though it was very short, came away with similar impressions after speaking to people who stayed for longer. I enjoyed it, but coming from an application-heavy background was surprised at the disconnect between the forms and sparring. In retrospect I wouldn't have chosen the Shaolin path. After graduation I want to go back to China and find somewhere else and am thinking of looking in Wudang, but know it's becoming highly commercialised and don't want to end up in a similar situation long-term :/ any ideas of the best approach?
You could check out Hu Zheng Sheng's school. Or Shi Xing Long... he was a teacher at Kunyu years ago, but was very serious and didnt like the commercialisation, so he left and made a really small school that only accepts a few students at a time.
I imagine Wudang will have almost zero connection between application and form.
Also check out my video on training in the parks if you wanna see the other end of the spectrum for training.
@@MonkeyStealsPeach Thank you!! Yes, that was sort of what I was afraid of.
I'll be sure to check your video out!
@@MonkeyStealsPeach I trained for 9 months at Shi Xing Long's school, a fantastic master who really cares about his students and will push you. Would highly recommend, his website is www.kungfuschoolchina.com
On the gap between fighting and forms:
The applications of the forms are generally found in Qinna and Shuai Chiao, with Sanda like kick boxing at range. You also find the old fighting arts of China, preserved outside of China in the South East Asian arts. They have their own cultural influence in the forms they choreographed, but the fighting is usually old school Kung fu in application...which is really hard to find in China.
On the training plateau, that's probably a sign you are not getting enough protein.
Not to mention in places like Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau.
I went to China in 2020 and I went to Kunyu. I had trained in the 90s in Wing Chun with Tommy Tsai who was a student of a student of Wong Sheung Leung of Prince Edward, Hong Kong. For the first three months @ Kunyu I was trained in choreographed moves by a 16 -year old US student who had never practiced Chi Sau. There was no Chi Sau practiced in the time I was there. It ended up being very embarrassing for the Master who clearly only learned choreographed moves. He looked good. All of the grading is based upon the student's ability to demonstrate choreographed moves (no fighting/sparring/chi sau). The Wing Chun there was fake because the Master had never experienced or practiced Chi Sau. It's like a boxercise instructor with no fighting experience trying to teach someone to box. I wasted five months of my life but I knew after the first couple of months, I had been conned. In the evenings I became the unofficial Chi Sau teacher of two French students who had wasted six months there. I would advise that if you want to learn to fight go to a fight camp in Thailand and you'll get good training from real fighters and good sparring.
I have been to a Kung Fu academy in Shandong and you really spoke out of my heart 😂.
But how and where can I train.with a master in a park ? I need to live in Xhina or invite him to my house in germany ? 😂
They don't train the application in the fight but they do teach it but u learn the fighting of sanda i feel like mixing sanda with a traditional kung fu style
The clip at the beginning is from Kunyu Mountain school. I went there in 2020. The Wing Chun Master claimed two lineages. Both were a fabrication. He had learned Wing Chun academically but didn't know how to apply it (not real). A good analogy would be to compare a boxercise class with sparring. In four months I never sparred or practiced Chi Sau. It was all choreography and you were graded by three guys sitting at a table marking you according to how well you could demonstrate the forms. It was all choreography. I had learned Wing Chun in HK 20 years before. At that time I did at least 1 hours of Chi Sau almost every training lesson. The Sanda training was practical but Wushu had no practical application (no sparring).
I spent 6 months at a Shaolin school in Jilin province back in 2003. Got in the best shape of my life, experienced life in China for the first time but then after a while I began to feel like this is just wushu plus sanda. I think its important to come to China, and these schools make it easier to take that first step. That said finding a master with the full system and knowledge of a traditional style is the best bet in my book for anyone who is serious.
Thanks for sharing your experiences
Sounds like you had a similar experience to me! Was still worth it and glad I did it
@@MonkeyStealsPeach Same here. Am still in China and still practicing martial arts
Ty for sharing.
Oh thanks for the theme. I only see it now. 🙈 I already found out about fake schools myself luckily.
Hi Will! The main problem I see in this kind of school is the application of "college life". After spending several years into, you come out "among the people" unable to harmonize training with work, family and modern life in general.
Interesting insight! I suppose you do lose touch with reality somewhat. Didn't really consider that one.
Great experience if you can afford/ or have the time do it. If not, find yourself a quality instructor in your local area. Don’t judge the instructor by the quantity of students but by the quality of his instruction. Beware of the “black belt” schools as they tend to push you through the curriculum without too much depth. Look for someone who spends lots attention on the basics & small details. Who will push you into the proper position of the movement then make you practice it for an hour. Build a relationship with them by dedication and sharing your goal. Take the initiative to train on your own. I can guarantee you will come out an amazing martial artist! It just depends on your drive and dedication whether it’s in China or at home.
One thing that I got from this video is whether in China or home training the basics is the most crucial part of your martial arts journey.
Good advice not just for kung fu or martial arts, but really anything
thanks, kind of food was there??
Very accurate picture of what it is like to train in China kung fu schools even though I have never been to one. They can only do so much to foreigners most of whom do not speak the language.
Ya, sanda is also done from what we learn in traditional kung fu. Like a normal block in kung fu, we use it in sanda but not totally traditionally. Both traditional kung fu and sanda kickboxing is practiced ❤️🌸🐉
Hello! sorry if I bother you with my questions. I have studied Kung-fu in Spain for 4 years now and I want to study in China to increase my skills (I did wushu so the forms part is which I'm interested in) and because here the technique and level is pretty low (not good posture, jumps, etc). Do you recommend this kind of training for a person like me? I've also seen some really good wushu academies for chinese people that accept outsiders but they do not seem as good as the international ones about accomodation or food... Thank you very much for your time~
Hi! If you wanna do wushu forms I think these types of schools will be perfect. As long as they offer “shaolin” that tends to include a fair amount of modern wushu and acrobatics.
Yes, if you want better conditions go for the international schools, the Chinese only schools tend to have very very very basic conditions that most westerners would find difficult to endure
As Ive never done modern Wushu, I cant comment on which schools will be the best, but you could try looking at either sports universities in any big city, or the large schools in Dengfeng such as Tagou or Epo maybe
@@MonkeyStealsPeach Thank you very much!
@@Yuki12Akira you could also ask Jakob Pang Isaksson (he's on FB and elsewhere) who trained three years in China - two with his teacher at Wudang Shan, and the other with the Guangdong wushu team. He's the only foreigner I've met who has taken both traditional and sport kungfu seriously enough to train in them both. Very easy guy to talk to, should have some good insights and advice.
Those "forms" that they had you practice will come back to you when your kungfu is a mature kungfu. There is nothing to "get" with kungfu. Its practice.
Did they not have Wing Chun sparring when you were there? They did when I was and even though I was in the shaolin program the wing chun look legit.
just Sanda sparring between all groups once or twice a month.
@@MonkeyStealsPeach Question, when doing Sanda there, were you taught to incorporate the techniques that you learned from
The other styles of traditional
Chinese martial arts into the sparring?
Not really. Was pretty much standard Sanda
@@MonkeyStealsPeach That sucks. I wonder why they don’t just spar with the regular styles.
If the forms and the fighting are not connected, either the style sucks or the teacher sucks. There should be no disconnect between forms and fighting.
Then surely go to a school that trains you harder than your school
Why bother when there is Silat,Muai Thai,Filipono weapons systems for actual self defence? If you go to China you go to test for masters that know internal martial development at most...but neidan is the true gold if you can find someone after a lot of recommendations from lower skilled teachers.But the general consensus is that most true masters of internal arts are in exile in Malaysia,Hong Kong,Taipei etc.
So you spoke about the big schools and what's it like. But who is that master you're training with one on one?
Take a look at my channel page playlists, there are quite a few videos discussing different aspects or periods of my training in China. My teacher’s name is Zhou Zhen Dong
@@MonkeyStealsPeach Thanks!
Anyone know some tough tough schools
Aaah very helpful. Hmm...i think personally as I've been training for a decade aswell myself, i have realised that all martial arts essentially boiled down to similar principles when it comes to what works and doesnt work. So i think its the particular expression and unique movements of the styles that im interested in over there i. IN A years time if i train hard enough and my teacher thinks im ready i may recieve my blackbelt in Goju-ryu and as amazing that is there has definitely always been a pull towards Kung Fu as a traditional expression of martial movement so no matter what i choose to do there i think i'll be satisfied. Plus, "Martial Arts & Travel in Asia" ✊️
If you have trained that long, I just hope you won’t find Kunyu Shan underwhelming. The training is very much like I discussed in the Shaolin video, they seperate forms and Sanda completely, and you won’t get any deeper explanation of principles or anything like that.
@MonkeyStealsPeach I think the main thing for me is to have a transformative experience and get out there in the world. See what they have to offer. Take a sabbatical from life in a way. I'd only been going for a year at first. If it turned out to not be something I want to continue with then at least I've had some much needed experience and training thats improved my physicality a bit.
Yea that sounds good, in that case I think you’ll love it
Very informative video.
In Okinawa, they are doing camps (from 2 to 4 weeks) for foreigners who want to study Karate in the Island but, even if they dont say, its more focus on intermediate to advance Karate pratitioners. You can see in the pictures that the most people who go to this schools in China are in their 20s to early 30s...while the people going to Okinawa are mostly middle age stablish Sensei or former Competitiors who are comming back to traditional training. Also, the Okinawan camps are wayyyyy more expensive, like 3 times more, than this Chineses schools.
But still, in the way you break it down, it doesn't sound a terrible idea to go just for the experience to be there and train full time without having to worry of anything else. You have your training, acommodation and food covered, so why not go and have a martial arts vacation lol :)
Thanks for the video.
That's really interesting to hear the difference in Okiwawa. I heard Tokyo has some similar intensive courses for Aikido and other arts too.
The full time training is definitely an invaluable experience and although I wouldn't do it again, I'm very glad I did do it when I was young
thank you! good idea! I wonder if I can eat omnivorous and cooked food too, not just veg raw and low quality like in shaolin europe
@@MonkeyStealsPeach why you say you would not do it again?
@@EnergiA854 I guess they give you the food you need for the kind of training you are doing there. When i see the pictures, seems like they have different kinds of dishes.
Thanks bro....nice point of view and suggestion.
Wht are the best schools or master recomended for experienced martial artist for kungfu ,sanda traning..
Of course they are.
Hello will!
Do you think the saolin temple is a good place to start training for those 6 months?
It sounds like karate people that take kick boxing for fighting. Makes no sense. Looks and sounds like a rip off.
Many of the real masters left china during the communist cultural revolution. If you want to learn real, effective chinese styles, You're better served looking for a family style inner door school in USA, Hawaii, Taiwan or Europe from a lineage that escaped china during the communist crackdown on traditional martial artists. The fact that these big schools teach kick boxing and traditional forms separately tells you how much they either respect or understand the traditional forms. i.e, their traditional knowledge of kung fu is not practically efficient. You can learn kickboxing in the west just as good. the inner door, invitation only schools actually teach the fighting applications and are very effective.The real traditional chinese kung fu that is effective are invitation only. If it is offered to the masses, it is heavily watered down and pretty useless. The real stuff is still kept hidden...
The only ones who were able to leave were from coastal regions. The majority of teachers just went underground. There is a lot in China if you know where to look, this video was just talking about big commercial schools
@monkey. Good to know. I stand corrected. Love your channel btw...
Thanks man! Check out my video on the Cultural Revolution. Its one of the first I uploaded, so a bit disjointed.... I am planning to redo it at some point but you can get the gist
Will do. I was lucky enough to learn one of those "secret" family styles. They still keep it secret and it is extremely effective... Thanks for the channel
Sounds fascinating!
These schools are perfect for geeks and nerds
Just the Shaolin and Wing Chung (I forgot the spelling) really.
Both of you are disrespectful, you should work on that.
@@painn333Q I am both a geek and a nerd, so I know what I am talking about :P