10 Year "fulltime" Program... then what?

[Xue Sheng]

Now if I were 17 to 22 this all sounds mighty cool to me but being greater than 17 to 22 years past 17 to 22 I find myself asking after 10 years at 27 to 32 what exactly do you do with all this training in the real world of the 21st century?

More detail here

YMAA CA Retreat Center 10 Year Program
http://www.ymaa.com/retreat-center

The first semester of the YMAA CA Retreat Center 10-year program has been proceeding smoothly according to plan. Now, it is time for the second and final student recruiting. Five more students will be accepted for the semester starting September 1, 2009. All interested students aged between 17-22, please visit the following web page for more information. In addition, if you know someone who may be interested in this program, please pass this message to them.
Applications will be accepted from now until February 2009. March through May 2009 will be the next testing period. After testing, the final decision will be made at the end of May, 2009. However, if the center has found some potential candidates, they may be invited to the Center for a short testing period even before March of next year. The Center will only recruit 5 more exceptional individuals for this second and final generation of this program.
Please refer following webpages for more information about the 10-year program at the YMAA CA Retreat Center.
For all student candidate information, payment options, and to download the application, please visit:
http://ymaa-retreatcenter.org/students/application

Training Hours
Monday - Friday:
(33 hours/week) x (39 weeks) = 1287 hours/year = (12870 hours/10 years)

Saturday:
(3 hours/week) x (39 weeks) = 117 hours/year = (1170 hours/10 years)

Total Training Time = 14040 hours/10 Years


Lecture Hours
Monday - Friday:
(15 hours/week) x (39 weeks) = (585 hours/year) = (5850 hours/10 years)

Saturday:
(1 hour/week) x (39 weeks) = (39 hours/year) = (390 hours/10 years)

Total Lecture Time = 6240 hours/10 Years


Meditation Hours
Monday - Friday:
(6 hours/week) x (39 weeks) = (234 hours/year) = (2340 hours/10 years)

Total Meditation Time = 2340 hours/10 Years

 

[clfsean]

Go teach & hope there's a market.

 

[Xue Sheng]

That's what I'm thinking, that or be the biggest bad *** Burger King employees on the planet.

But there are other things that are trained in that 10 years but I am not exactly sure how serious any employer will take your business training or horse back riding training from YMAA

 

[JadecloudAlchemist]

From what I have read you are learning Long fist and White crane for the first 3 years and start learning Yang long form in year 4-6.
In year 9 you start to learn Hsing yi and Bagua.

I don't know if learning music,running and business really interest me in this package. I don't know how much it cost but I rather spend my 10 years focusing on arts I am interested in than be a jack of all trades martial artist.

 

[Xue Sheng]

I agree

I like Dr Yang and I have trained with him, and I might again, but I don't know about this one.

It seems to me that this might be more of a marketing thing for the few that actually start and finish this program since Dr Yang is so well known and they can then claim 10 years of fulltime study with Dr Yang. But if you want to learn a CMA get a 4 year degree in something first then go teach English in China or Taiwan and study a style with a Sifu there for 10 years and you are still talking one heck of a lot of time in training and you are getting real world experience in a career and learning a language.

I found out the hours of an English language teacher in Beijing and I got to tell you they provide you with a place to live pay you fairly well for Beijing since you do not pay rent and you only work about 6 hours a day. That leaves a whole heck of a lot of time to train.

However at my current age and with my responsibilities now I can’t afford to do it but I have to tell you at 22 if I knew that I would have been there.

 

[JadecloudAlchemist]

If the program catered more into an actual style you wanted to learn I think it may not be that bad.

I am not that interested in learning long fist and I would rather spend my 10 years learning deeper into the internal arts.

I think it would cater to those interested in that set program or as you said those who want to say they trained with Dr.Yang for 10 years.

I agree whole heartly about getting a 4yr degree in something first than you don't really have to worry about trying to fit your martial art in some niche market. I can only imagine getting your sole income from teaching martial arts can be tough.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Like I said I like Dr Yang and I do believe he is skilled but his first CMA is White Crane and I believe his second is Ling Fist and his third is Taijiquan.

Those are what I believe he learned in Taiwan and I have absolutely no problem calling him a qinna master and he sure knows one heck of a lot of Qigong, although I am not sure to what depth. But his Xingyiquan and Bagua are from Liang Shouyu. Nothing against Liang Sifu he too is rather skilled (but his main art is Shuaijiao) but I do not believe he teaches Xingyiquan Wuxing at all, he may not know it actually but I’m not sure.

He does teach 12 animals and I believe that is all Dr Yang knows and as for his Bagua I am not sure how much he knows so I do not believe he could pull off 10 years of in depth training in Xingyi or Bagua. His Tuishou although quite good is nothing like that of my Yang Sifu and much closer to that of my Sanda Sifu. I like it actually but it is not taiji, IMO, it is closer to what I would expect from White Crane or Long fist and if I were going to dedicate 10 years of training to Dr Yang I would rather train White Crane actually.

 

[Tez3]

Like I said I like Dr Yang and I do believe he is skilled but his first CMA is White Crane and I believe his second is Ling Fist and his third is Taijiquan.

Those are what I believe he learned in Taiwan and I have absolutely no problem calling him a qinna master and he sure knows one heck of a lot of Qigong, although I am not sure to what depth. But his Xingyiquan and Bagua are from Liang Shouyu. Nothing against Liang Sifu he too is rather skilled (but his main art is Shuaijiao) but I do not believe he teaches Xingyiquan Wuxing at all, he may not know it actually but I’m not sure.

He does teach 12 animals and I believe that is all Dr Yang knows and as for his Bagua I am not sure how much he knows so I do not believe he could pull off 10 years of in depth training in Xingyi or Bagua. His Tuishou although quite good is nothing like that of my Yang Sifu and much closer to that of my Sanda Sifu. I like it actually but it is not taiji, IMO, it is closer to what I would expect from White Crane or Long fist and if I were going to dedicate 10 years of training to Dr Yang I would rather train White Crane actually.

You know, I haven't the foggiest idea what you are talking about not being CMA but your post is absolutley lyrical! it's fascinating!

 

[terryl965]

Well for some it maybe all they need.

 

[Xue Sheng]

You know, I haven't the foggiest idea what you are talking about not being CMA but your post is absolutley lyrical! it's fascinating!

You want Lyrical next time I do the WHOLE thing in Chinese (Pinyin)... I probably won't understand it all either then but I could pronounce it and it would be incredibly lyrical

Well for some it maybe all they need.

I don't doubt that, if this were around back when I was 17 to 22 I would be trying like hell to get there because I did not know about the possibilities in China back then. But back then I did not live all at far form YMAA either and I didn't know it was there, if I did, I would have been there. I was tkd then but I know about Dr Yang form his books on Long Fist, I just didn't know I lived that close to his school

But being older and knowing more I have to wonder what one will be able to do after 10 years there beyond what clfsean already said.

 

[Ninebird8]

I have three masters and one of them is Sifu Jeff Bolt, who is Dr. Yang's senior student of 35 years here in Houston. I also have Leung Shum and Ricky Anderson. I have taken many seminars from Dr. Yang and asked my Sifu here why he would do this. I truly think Dr. Yang's motives are twofold: he was disgusted with how today traditional CMA is not taught that well and he wanted to honor his masters, and secondly, I know he has a passion for the scientific side since he has doctorate and masters in physics and engineering (that is how Jeff met him at Purdue) and wants to keep exploring the scientific side of chi, qigong, etc. As far as the 10 years, it is 90k for 10 years, training 9 months a year, and then substantial assistance in opening a school etc. He will refund the 90k if you stay the whole 10 years. At the same time, while his son maintains his school in Boston, and helps run his 48 other international schools, Dr. Yang continues his seminars once a year in California. When Jeff had his school here, he sponsored Dr. Cheng De Wu and his wife, Madame Wong Ju Rong, and they were in the school with Jeff from 1989 until around 2001 when they got their own location. During that time, you had Dr. Wu showing qigong and then Dr. Yang coming down for seminars in the same topic. Neither was happy with that...LOL!! As far as Liang Shouyu, he is highly skilled, especially in Li He bua fa. I can attest to Dr. Yang's skill, and his motivations are pure, but I agree with you a degree along with this curriculum, perhaps in business, would be a nice parallel accomplishment.

 

[still learning]

Hello, Trust you intincts on this one? ...it something feels NOT quite right?

Then follow your intincts....

We have a 10 year program to teach fishing? ....want to sign up...first 5
years is learning to catch bait....

..next five years is teaching how to tie fishing lines/HOOKS and there sizes

by then should be able to GO FISHING AND BE GOOD AT IT!

The fishing "black belt" will be use to hold up the fishing shorts due to all those stuffs hanging from the pants. stripes are for amount of fish caught

Aloha, so far we have 7 stripes...14 years too!

 

[Tez3]

This probably seems obvious and I'm going to look silly posting this but many of us have already spent over ten years studying our arts and plan to continue for as long as we can so spending ten years full time studying sounds an ideal thing? If it's the style you want to study of course. It's a lot of money all at once of course but how much have we all spent over the years?
I have no doubts that most if not all martial arts have enough in them to spend ten years in full time study and there would still be more to learn. I suspect this is even more true of CMAs.

 

[Xue Sheng]

This probably seems obvious and I'm going to look silly posting this but many of us have already spent over ten years studying our arts and plan to continue for as long as we can so spending ten years full time studying sounds an ideal thing? If it's the style you want to study of course. It's a lot of money all at once of course but how much have we all spent over the years?
I have no doubts that most if not all martial arts have enough in them to spend ten years in full time study and there would still be more to learn. I suspect this is even more true of CMAs.

You are correct.

You spend 10 years there learning and I will be completely honest here if I were 17 I would be trying REAL hard to get there.... but I'm not and although after 10 years of training with Dr Yang you will very likely continue your training because you will still have a lot to learn. I am just wondering how one will support themselves after spending 10 years there. Of course Dr Yang giving back you $90,000 goes along way to help there but after 10 years in this program you would then be 27 to 32 and $90,000 is not going to cover the next 50 years. And although teaching Martial Arts is great it is not always that easy to make a living doing it, especially in CMA if you want to stay true to traditional training.

 

[Jin Gang]

If I were 17-22, I'd be all over that. This is a program for someone who is passionate about martial arts and qi gong and wants it to be the focus of their lives. No one said making a living as a martial artist was easy, but if you go through a program like this you are obviously prepared to live that life. I'm glad Dr Yang is doing it. He has a lot to teach, and I'm a little envious of those young guys who will be able to participate. I think greatest benefit of this sort of training will be ability to completely focus on your training...imagine the progess you could make with such a huge portion of your time allocated to practicing qi gong. Wherever your life would lead after that, I'd say you'd be well equipped to deal with it.

 

[Big Don]

A couple of old lines came to me while reading this.
Everything in moderation.
All ______ and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
I can see the value of an intensive program, however, a ten year program seems excessive.