This is really the important part. That his skill was sub par to begin with.
Actually for what he learned in China his skill was pretty good and he did teach it pretty well in the beginning he was a stickler for form and claimed to know only what he learned in China. It was later that he discovered that if you are not as concerned about getting the forms right and don't care about hard training then you get a BUNCH more students. Then of course you get VCDs of the forms your students want and learn them form VCD and then claim mastery and get a LOT MORE students. Of course not one of them could fight there way out of a wet paper bag with what he taught them (he does not teach any sanshou anymore) and his students forms are awful, but they think they are great because they think he is great and gives them piles of certificates (for a price) based on his greatness to tell them they are great.
What truly upsets me about all of this is that he was not bad many years ago for what it was and it claimed to be nothing other than it was. He certainly did not have the understanding of taiji that my taiji Sifu has nor the understanding of Xingyiquan that my last Xingyiquan Sifu had nor the understanding of Bagua, Shaolin or any other form that he taught back then as a legitimate Sifu of that style would have but he was not at all bad for the forms he learned in China and Sanshou. But as he once told me, he can't train people in America like he would people in China because he would have no students. At that point I just thought he was going to keep the school like it was, I was training his Old Chen form then and it was pretty cool and like I said it started with 60 students and when it was all over there were only 6 of us left.
However after that the bogus taiji forms appeared and changing of other forms to make it easier started and the contracts, prices went up and copious certificates as well. And were he was once a stickler for form he was now not really all that concerned about it, close was good enough, and rough worked. Things went downhill form there and I left after that. Of course there were several discussions, an argument or two and a bringing in of one of his original videos as proof that he was changing things when he was denying it.
I just know what it was like, what he was like and what it is now and what he is like now and it all just makes me rather sad and on occasion, like it did when I started this post, rather angry.
If you are pretty much at a high level in a comparable style, with good basics and mechanics, then learning another routine isn't that big a deal. And the reverse is true, as in this case.
And I do not agree with this in the context of my first Sifu or any other legitimate high level Sifu for that matter, it is a big deal.
My taiji Sifu has been doing Yang style taiji for over 50 years but he could not learn Chen from a video and be a master of it or good enough to teach it nor would he want to (although of all the people out there today with Taiji videos Chen Zhenglei and Chen Xiaowang impress him most). But he most certainly knows the mechanics of taiji.
My Sanda Sifu has been doing Sanda for close to 40 years and he could not get Shaolin videos or Bagua videos of Xingyi videos and go off and teach any of them nor would he, even though he was show Xingyi 12 animal while he was growing up. He is a Sanda Sifu, nothing else, and that is how he sees it and people like my first Sifu are huā quán xìu tǔi" or xìu huā zhǒu tóu to him and he has called my first Sifu this more than once.
I have been at Yang Taiji for 18 years, 15 with my Sifu and I would not for a second go off and buy a DVD or a VCD and learn a form from that and then go off and teach it to anyone. I trained Chen for a couple of years, some with Chen Zhenglei and I would not for a second go buy his Videos, learn form them and then go teach Chen.
IMO, I do not care how good you are at any given style a DVD (VCD) is at best a supplement for training with a real Sifu not a substitute, not a marketing ploy to gain more students, just a supplement. But in many cases things are a lot more complicated than a VCD or DVD makes it look and on occasion the person who made the DVD has changed a form so he can tell if a person actually learned from him or from one of his videos.
My first Sifu was rather well trained in Modern Wushu, competition forms and sanshou. He is/was also a rather good mimic and I saw this when he copied a traditional Yang style video and then claimed he learned it in China and taught it, but that does not justify learning multiple other styles from a video, claiming mastery, lying about where he learned them, charging large sums of money for them and bilking the public.
I honestly dont think about this much anymore and I truly dont let it get to me much these days either and going to his webpage of late has usually been done for comic relief but when I saw his new DVDs that taught Yang style forms that, if they exist, are so rare I doubt any claim to someone actually knowing them, forms that not even the current Yang family heads know, I got a bit disgusted and posted it.
And there is more but I am tired of this and fraud busting is not what I want to do, I just wanted to get this off my chest in hopes that it would go away.
I am not fraud busting since I am not giving out names but I am just not happy about this and I had to get it off of my chest.
) 
:jediduel: 
