Shaolin Do?

[zen_hydra]

BIGtiny,

Did the North Austin School not offer you a month-to-month plan? I know in San Antonio that you have a choice of payment plans. In San Antonio, the contractual plan is slightly discounted from the month to month plan, after looking around here at martial art schools, I actually pay less at Shaolin-Do than I would at most of the schools in the area (this of course doesn't include extra material such as seminars, but those are always optional).

 

[BIGtiny]

Trans and I joined at the same time, and neither of us were offered a month to month plan. Subsequently, none of the 4 friends of ours who came in after us were offered any month to month plan either. I did get the first month for free with the option to quit before that month was up. However, honestly everyone is still pumped up about going to class after only a month, so it certainly wasn't *really* enough time to come to an informed decision about the school and style. Also, another friend only had to sign up for 6months instead of a year, but that was something that she worked out with the teacher individually, and was certainly not the norm.

Yes, the frog leaps thing was probably a joke, but I didn't find it funny, particularly after the messages from the newsletter that Trans described.
-Bt:asian:

 

[zen_hydra]

I really am sorry that was the extent of your experience with Shaolin-Do. Please don't judge us all (at Shaolin-Do) by the poor behavior you have experienced with that school (and I am not assuming that you are). I am a very tradition (i.e. respect) minded person, and I hope to one day assume the level of proficiency needed to establish my own school. I believe in teaching others for the sake of the love of knowledge. While I hope that I can make a reasonable living at it, my goal is to always be fair to my students, and to give them the very best martial education that I can for their money, but most importantly for the time and effort that they invest. While I have had nothing but positive experiences with Shaolin-Do, my ultimate loyalty belongs to the pursuit of knowledge and self-perfection, and if at some point my path and Shaolin-Do's diverge, that is just the way of things. I hope that you find everything that you seek in the paths that you choose.

 

[BIGtiny]

Oh, I am by no means bitter about SD. In fact, I am thankful for SD for one reason, I found out through them that I love KF. I respect your thoughts, as I have much the same goal in mind for myself. I would like to retire to some mountain cottage teach KF for fun, and make enough to keep the kwoon afloat . I am working on my second career, thats how i see it. It just so happened that my path and that of SD diverged at a early time in my KF journey. I certainly couldnt have made it to my current situation with out the help of SD, and that is definately not a bad thing. The advice I would try to give to someone new into KF, is do your homework, check out several different schools in the area, talk to the sifus, talk to the students, make sure what your paying for is what you are looking for out of your training. Oh yea, and TRAIN HARD!!!! thats number 1
-Bt:asian:

 

[TranSendze]

I am still interested in discussing Shaolin-Do further. I went to school there, have friends there, and they still get my money =)

Also, from the previous post you can see that my kung fu experience is limited (only a year invested). I am hear to gain info on Shaolin-Do, not flame it. If any previous post seemed to be from that perspective none others will be.

Ok so on with the questions for you SHaolin-Do guys.
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Shaolin-Do does not have tournaments with other non-Shaolin-Do schools. Why is this?

Have any of you ever gone to tournaments anyway, and what strengths and weaknesses did you notice about Shaolin-Do after fighting a different style?

 

[eneref]

What's odd is that some Shaolin-Tao schools don't do tournaments at ALL.

There seems to be a different emphasis on that sort of thing depending upon the school. I've heard it described as the Eastern style and Western style Shaolin-Tao. The Eastern folx tend to gear a lot of their effort toward competition in the yearly tournaments, whereas we, in the Western style schools, never even HEAR of the tournaments.

There have been some people in my school who've been anyway, but in general, it's not talked about. We stress our training toward combat more than show, so the idea of *gasp* competing for show is one of those unspeakable things.

I've no idea how many would do at competitions. I guess that depends on the rules (much the way it is with all martial arts competitions, really). If we're not allowed strikes to the head or some such, who knows. I'm not sure what the rules in the Shaolin-Tao annual tournament are like.

Do you know anyone who's been? Would love to hear what they have to say.

 

[SRyuFighter]

Why do you call your school Shaolin Tao...instead of Shaolin Do? Is it just a different way of spelling? Thanks.

 

[zen_hydra]

As it was explained to me, the tournaments where started to expose students to a larger slice of the Shaolin-Do community, and to allow them to compete against each other in a friendly manner.

I think the atmosphere of the tournaments would be different if they where completely open. I would imagine that if you where going to have a completely open tournament you would need to invest a good deal of money on training judges, coming up with a set of clear, concise rules that are fair to practioners of any school of martial arts, more liability insurance, larger space for the competition, etc.... I think that there would also be a less friendly atmosphere as people felt the need to represent for their school (as opposed to just competing to test your own abilities).

That said, while I enjoy the friendly atmosphere and competition, I do have plans of pitting my skills against other schools in various open tournaments, and "tough man" competitions when I get the opportunity (and money).

 

[BIGtiny]

What about AAU? I am pretty sure that they have a CMA division, and that many schools in and around Texas compete there. From what I can tell they are well organized and have all the things needed to run top notch tourneys...

-Bt:asian:

 

[eneref]

Originally posted by SRyuFighter
Why do you call your school Shaolin Tao...instead of Shaolin Do? Is it just a different way of spelling? Thanks.

Yeah... we spell it that way at the school. Chinese spelling/pronunciation as opposed to the Japanese. Same kanji/character ('street'... or 'way').

 

[zen_hydra]

AAU? I am not familiar with this. What is it?

 

[BIGtiny]

Originally posted by zen_hydra
AAU? I am not familiar with this. What is it?

Amatuer Athletic Union, they have annual tourneys, for all types of amatuer sports, throughout the country. They also have a CMA division as well.


http://www.aausports.org/index.cfm?publicationID=31

-Bt:asian: