Ohhhh... this hurts.

[Itinerant_Phenomenologist]

I think I mentioned before that this James Rath character claimed his Hung Kuen came from Jerry Cook who claims he learned it from Bucksam Kong. After trying to establish the quali of Jerry Cook, I've come to realize that Cook might very well have a level of legitimate martial arts background, but it certainly is not in Hung Gar. He actually admits that many of the forms he knows come from videos and books and he learns them only to the point where he can perform and teach those performances to his students. Nowhere regarding his 'formal' training does he mention Kong Sifu. So at least for the Fu Hok Seung Ying, that most definitely has to be the product of a video/book rather than a bad instructor.

If you search for Jerry Cook on youtube, you will find various performances of MANY unrelated martial arts forms; from Wudang staff forms to Shaolin staff forms to tai chi and Hung Gar and Japanese Karate etc. He also goes through the poetry/litany of the movement names as he does the motions. That alone doesn't give evidence of video learning. However if you add that smooth cascading of names of movements to the extremely eclectic collection of forms and the empty feeling of his movements as he moves from posture to posture, it hints rather strongly that he learned them from books and videos.

A very small part of me is grateful that he admits to learning many forms only up to a certain degree from videos and books purely for the purpose of collecting. In that sense there is a level of minimum honesty. It's the second part, the "collecting and sharing", that causes concern. The great majority of me is rather putt off/insulted that he would charge people and pass himself off as a qualified instructor based on videos alone. This James Rath character, performing the Fu Hok and the Dui Dah with his daughter, is certainly one of those people who learned from Jerry Cook and assumed he actually knew what he was doing. Now his daughter probably thinks her father is a legitimate master of Hung Gar and that her father's teacher, Jerry Cook, is some high and mighty lineage carrier. It doesn't take long to establish a wikipedia worthy lineage that the commercial world will validate with $$$, causing the traditional Chinese martial arts community to suffer further backlash at its reputation for quality and effectiveness. With characters like Jerry Cook and James Rath running around, the fine line between TCMA and contemporary wushu becomes so blurred that you cannot fault practitioners of other martial arts, as well as the casual observer, from concluding that TCMA is simply an uglier version of contemporary wushu.

Cheers and have a nice day.

[ironpalm]

[santaranks]

To be honest I think he learned this opening of Fu Hok from a video, god knows what lineage does it like that???I just hope he doesnt teach it....doesnt American Kempo have a version of Fu Hok, is that an influence on it??!! Anyway I am not into pissing on someone's parade, or affecting their rice bowl, was just a shock when I saw it yesterday....

[Itinerant_Phenomenologist]

[santaranks]

Think about it if you had the time...how many forms could you learn from DVDs?? I think it would be easy to learn 105, or more, RARE forms-all a form is, is a load of movements 1 after the other-I've seen some of this Jerry Cook's stuff on youtube when I have been bored at work and not been impressed. Then reading his biography he never learned Hung Gar anyway!!! So where do his "forms" come from then??

As for the American Kempo "Tiger Crane" WOWEE I thought MY Fu Hok was bad-think I will give learning it a miss and stick with the Fu Hok I have.
Thanks Itinerant Phenomologist those videos have cheered me up today too!!!

[ironpalm]

[Yogicmotion]

I personally find it funny he admits to basically being a "set collector". I wonder if he knows that is not a positive thing.

[tripleHHH]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS7LyrApecA


how be this version? Skip to 7.40

[SAM]

Looks like Wushu to me

[inthebakyard]