More Mystical Magical Martial Arts Horseshit – Monkey See, Monkey Do…

When people do this sort of nonsense to my art, I get very, VERY aggravated. The embedded video demonstrates a number of cultic parameters:

1. All the students have some sort of dress code (at least in the video),
2. The students are obviously throwing themselves around to impress the ‘master’(willing to bet whoever flails around the most gets complimented on his ‘sensitivity’ by the ‘master’).
3. Claims of trophies and medals without an exhaustive list of both students and specific tournaments
4. No demonstrations of ‘chi power’ on outsiders

Now, I’ve watched some of the videos on lama Dondrup Dorje’s website, and while he looks to be a high level martial arts expert, this utter nonsense where the students throws themselves all over the place when the sifu touches any of them is just crap. If you watch closely (and you develop an eye for body language when you practice martial arts of any variety), you can actually see these folks tensing up to toss themselves about. I’ve seen this sort of nonsense before:

 

The martial arts is rife with this mystical, bordering on religious, nonsense – stories abound with flying Taoists, strange mental powers, chi from a distance. And of course, gullibility helps a lot. Usually when you challenge one of these guys, it goes a little something like this:

 

And like psychics, miracle workers, faith healers, and all those other frauds, there’s always some excuse when it fails when used on a non-believer. The reality? Doesn’t work.

Martial arts, like religion, does not a better person make. Obviously these folks are trying to solicit some business with EXTREMELY dubious and unethical marketing practices. Obviously derived from some Dragon Ball Z idiocy.

It chaps my hide, it does.