Now I've Seen Everything.

[IWishToLearn]

Yeah - Geary is probably the dude with the biggest ego in the arts. According to his personal website (www.christophergeary.com) he even lied to take his 1st degree test from Cerio. Whee.

 

[Danjo]

what makes a martial arts reality show?

UFC, K-1, PKA (back in the day) etc., were all great shows IMO. However, the people are competing for real in the various arts and seeing who's best. Documentaries can be good too (The New Gladiators comes to mind), and I think we could use more good ones. But reality shows always involve "Drama" that comes from the personal lives of the people involved. Yeesh. I can't stand that crapola. Especially people competing to become a Shaolin Monk or whatever. It just seems wrong.

 

[Josh Oakley]

Actually, what I liked about Final Fu was that there really wasn't any drama. It was challenges and sparring. Most were good.... some not.

I can't seem to find anything that devles into great detail what this Shaolin show is all about. You don't happen to have a link, do you?

 

[Xue Sheng]

It just seems wrong.

That's because it is.

 

[Danjo]

\You don't happen to have a link, do you?

http://www.kstarinternational.com/

 

[hongkongfooey]

After watching the McDojo linked to Geary's site, I can understand why people have a low opinion of Shaolin Kempo.

 

[hongkongfooey]

What's your criterion for what makes shows such as these good or bad?

What made Final Fu bad?

Hmmmmmmm..........where should I start?

Bad match ups in sparring

Head contact illegal

Too many McDojo systems represented

Passing off XMA/EMC Monkeys as martial arts

General lack of skill

Sloppy technique

Jonathan Phan's hair. Dude, Dragon Ballz is just a cartoon.
People turning their backs to their opponet, so points can't be scored

Breaking scored or kiln dried pine boards as part of a challenge. Break some oak, then, tell me how your "killer" hands feel in their casts

Geared too much towards the tournament scene

That should do for now.

Produce a martial arts show that doesn't have the above garbage and I will watch it. Though, a show with out all of the XMA freestyle dance routines wouldn't make in our Happy Meal society. The last decent MA show I watched was on the History Channel.

 

[Gentle Fist]

Well look at it this way. If everyone did a SERIOUS DEADLY ART, the world would be full of dangerous people. I am kinda glad that 99% of the schools out there teach fluff. It just makes my students and I appreciate what we have that much more.

Speaking of Geary, anyone ever notice him on the Kenpo flame website (family tree). He has no instructor above him.... I guess when you burn all your bridges you put yourself on an island!

 

[Josh Oakley]

http://www.kstarinternational.com/

Thanks for the link. I don't see where it says you'd be competing to be a shaolin monk, though. It talks about a movie and tv deal. I also don't see a lot of other stuff that was claimed in this. Got more information for me?

Also, I do see the shaolin temple thing on there, so it's obvious they're part of the production. Not surprised there. They're trying to rebuild the temple and their land. That takes money. And from all the histories I've read, rebuilding their land and their temple is at least a hundreds-of-years-orld tradition and goal. It's impossible to improve ghettos and dilapitated(sp?) farms without money. It's impossible to help the poor, really help them, without money. I'm speaking up now because I'm getting tired of seeing all these people dis the Shaolin temple as being all about money nowadays. It's asinine.

I went to college with a shaolin monk. He was getting a business degree,so he could further serve the temple by applying good business skills in the some of the programs he was helping out with.

What I don't understand is why this is such a bad thing. I work for Providence Hospice of Seattle. We're non-profit, and focus on those who can't afford our services. Do you think we go to great lengths to acquire funds to do this? TYou bet we do! Do we ask shamelessly for money, and do fund raisers and big dinners for our contributors? Oh heck yeah. Do we recruit the best and the brightest from business and medicine? That's our biggest non-patient related expense. And we keep growing and growing and helping more and more people die a pain-free dignified death, or get rehabilitated. And we keep finding more and more ways to get money to do so.

Think about the Shaolin temple and its goals. Talk to one of the monks in America. It's no secret that the Shaolin temple has money and actively aquires more. Ask them what they DO with it, on the grand scale of things. Then you'll find out that they're not about the money. but you'll also find out that the goals they are after recuire money and man-power, and in great proportions.

So I wish them well on this project, and I hope they get back every dollar they spend on this show back tenfold.

 

[Josh Oakley]

What made Final Fu bad?

Hmmmmmmm..........where should I start?

Bad match ups in sparring

Head contact illegal

Too many McDojo systems represented

Passing off XMA/EMC Monkeys as martial arts

General lack of skill

Sloppy technique

Jonathan Phan's hair. Dude, Dragon Ballz is just a cartoon.
People turning their backs to their opponet, so points can't be scored

Breaking scored or kiln dried pine boards as part of a challenge. Break some oak, then, tell me how your "killer" hands feel in their casts

Geared too much towards the tournament scene

That should do for now.

Produce a martial arts show that doesn't have the above garbage and I will watch it. Though, a show with out all of the XMA freestyle dance routines wouldn't make in our Happy Meal society. The last decent MA show I watched was on the History Channel.

1. Bad matchups in sparring: Possibly. But at the same time, different styles have different ideas about what makes a "good" matchup in sparring. Often, the "bad" matchups can teach students as much or even more than "good" matchups.

2. Head contact illegal: Whether this is good or bad is subjective. The fundamental concept of sparring is that it purposely limits what is allowed and is not allowed to train other specific skills (i.e. proportion, timing, fluid motion, etc.) no sparring, no matter what level of contact or attacks are allowed, ever is the same as a real fight. If we treated every sparring match like a real fight, we would both miss the point of sparring, and find fewer and fewer training partners as time went on. For this type of sparring, head contact was disallowed. Those were the agreed upon rules. Sparring, by its very nature, requires such agreed upon rules, and is not meant to be realistic.

3. Too many McDojo systems represented: in the interests of community, I'm not touching that one.

4. Passing off XMA/EMC Monkeys as martial arts: Johnathan Pham was never in XMA, and on his website he claims explicitly that EMC Monkeys is entertainment only. That he was shown to represent XMA was a mistake that shouldn't have made it past the cutting room floor. I'll also point out that Pham has trained in actual martial arts. Here's what he's done:
Muay Thai (3 years)
Tae Kwon Do (2 years) - Blue Belt
Hung Gar (5 months)
Grappling (6 months)

If we're going to judge him as being a phony martial artist because he performs, we should also cast judgement on Bruce Lee, Jet Li, Ed Parker (did fight choreography as well as acting in Kill the Golden Goose), Chuck Norris, and Steven Segal.

EMC Monkees shouldn't even have been part of the judgement.

5. General lack of skill: Ernie pointed out to each martial artist where they needed to improve. And all competitors were black belts, not masters. Massive difference.

6. Sloppy technique: Again, the cream rose to the top. But then again, this was point sparring. clean hits that score points matter more than techniquein competitive sparring. Most of the points I would make here I have already made about sparring in general, so I repeat myself. I will add, however, that I've seen more than a few technically proficient martial artists lose to sloppy yet determined angry drunks. And in the UFC Hughes/Gracie match, Hughes's technique could easily be judged as more sloppy than Gracie's, but Hughes won. Not that we as martial artists should not develop our technique, but that's not always what wins competitions, or necessarily fights, for that matter.

7. Jonathan Phan's hair. Dude, Dragon Ballz is just a cartoon: While I will say that long hair is more easy to grab and manipulate, that comment was juvenile. And disrespectful. And that is more of a personal attack at Johnathan Pham than it was an actual critique of the show. Even if it was a joke (which it probably was), it was in poor taste.

8. People turning their backs to their opponet, so points can't be scored: I'll agree here. Then again, that was not common place, and the few guys that did that purposefully didn't make the finals. That's more a critique of certain individual arts than it is of the show itself. Avoid the fallacy of composition, good man.

9. Breaking scored or kiln dried pine boards as part of a challenge: Missing the point. It was not the points, but the challenge. Board-breaking has ever been primarily for demonstration. It's a TV show. The boards were part of an obstacle course, and most of those obstacles were designed to test the mind, and speed. Boards worked as well as any other targets, to that end. But then again, your comment seemed more aimed at board-breaking as a general practice, not just as part of the challenges for Final Fu.

10. Geared too much towards the tournament scene: Of course it's geared towards the tournament scene! It's a competition, not a documentary. Final Fu is itself a tournament, with prize money. That's like saying tournaments are geared too much towards the tournament seen. This one's kind of an obvious one, man.

General comment on your critiques: It seems to me that your comments against Final Fu are missing the point about what this type of martial arts show is aimed at. This is a showcase show: basically a beefed up martial arts demo aimed at generating interest in the martial arts in general (pulled that off the website, and then paraphrased it.) And for what it attempted to be it was actually a good show that generated interest in the martial arts.

There is a huge difference between whether someone likes or dislikes something and whether something is good or bad. It would seem, with some exceptions, that the majority of your comments are based around whether you liked it or not. Your interest in martial arts shows obviously revolves around documentaries, which is well and noble and good. But to try and draw a parallel to music, your comments seem equivolent to someone saying "Bach is a bad song writer. You can't dance to ANY of his songs! There's not even a guitar!"

I'm not trying to dis you at all. All I'm saying is that I think you're missing the point of the show.

To say an apple pie fails at being a crisp fresh apple misses the whole point of the pie.

Mmmmm.... pie....

I should really eat before starting these posts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kill_the_Golden_Goose&action=edit

 

[Danjo]

Thanks for the link. I don't see where it says you'd be competing to be a shaolin monk, though. It talks about a movie and tv deal. I also don't see a lot of other stuff that was claimed in this. Got more information for me?

Also, I do see the shaolin temple thing on there, so it's obvious they're part of the production. Not surprised there. They're trying to rebuild the temple and their land. That takes money. And from all the histories I've read, rebuilding their land and their temple is at least a hundreds-of-years-orld tradition and goal. It's impossible to improve ghettos and dilapitated(sp?) farms without money. It's impossible to help the poor, really help them, without money. I'm speaking up now because I'm getting tired of seeing all these people dis the Shaolin temple as being all about money nowadays. It's asinine.

I went to college with a shaolin monk. He was getting a business degree,so he could further serve the temple by applying good business skills in the some of the programs he was helping out with.

What I don't understand is why this is such a bad thing. I work for Providence Hospice of Seattle. We're non-profit, and focus on those who can't afford our services. Do you think we go to great lengths to acquire funds to do this? TYou bet we do! Do we ask shamelessly for money, and do fund raisers and big dinners for our contributors? Oh heck yeah. Do we recruit the best and the brightest from business and medicine? That's our biggest non-patient related expense. And we keep growing and growing and helping more and more people die a pain-free dignified death, or get rehabilitated. And we keep finding more and more ways to get money to do so.

Think about the Shaolin temple and its goals. Talk to one of the monks in America. It's no secret that the Shaolin temple has money and actively aquires more. Ask them what they DO with it, on the grand scale of things. Then you'll find out that they're not about the money. but you'll also find out that the goals they are after recuire money and man-power, and in great proportions.

So I wish them well on this project, and I hope they get back every dollar they spend on this show back tenfold.

Read Demasco's article in the July, 2006 edition of Black Belt. It gives more detail than the link does. I'll see if I can find more.

 

[IWishToLearn]

Anybody else remember WMAC Masters tv show from back in the day?

 

[Kenpojujitsu3]

Anybody else remember WMAC Masters tv show from back in the day?

You just had to drag that one out of the archives didn't you?

 

[Xue Sheng]

Anybody else remember WMAC Masters tv show from back in the day?

I did not watch it, but I believe that was on in the mid 90s and if that is the case..... if that is back in the day.... WHAT AM I METHUSALA

 

[Kenpojujitsu3]

I did not watch it, but I believe that was on in the mid 90s and if that is the case..... if that is back in the day.... WHAT AM I METHUSALA

Yep 1995 to be exact. Didn't realize that '95 was considered ancient history these days. LOL!

 

[Xue Sheng]

Yep 1995 to be exact. Didn't realize that '95 was considered ancient history these days. LOL!

DAMN I'm old..... by 1995 I had been in MA for over 20 years... so how can that be back in the day

 

[IWishToLearn]

That show was the original MMA-turned-drama-turned-XMA-turned-HelpICan'tStopWatching show.

 

[Josh Oakley]

Read Demasco's article in the July, 2006 edition of Black Belt. It gives more detail than the link does. I'll see if I can find more.

Thanks. I'll see if I can find it July's edition as well.

 

[Gentle Fist]

DAMN I'm old..... by 1995 I had been in MA for over 20 years... so how can that be back in the day

1995 is a long time ago!!!!

There are Grandmasters today, that weren't even in the arts way back in 1995.

 

[Drac]

DAMN I'm old..... by 1995 I had been in MA for over 20 years... so how can that be back in the day

Ditto...Except the years in...About 14 for me....