When does a martial art become a cult?

[dtactics]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuO6aM4R ... re=related

Is it in the practice, rituals, traditions, beliefs?
It's too bad because I really liked this guy and had heard he's as every bit as good as Vladimir Vasiliev but this work seems downright cultish to me.

[Dmitri]

It's in the "teacher", when he happens to be that special type of person whose ego needs to affirm itself in that particular fashion, i.e. through gathering suggestible people (who also have certain matching needs) as "students" and using them to (subconsciously) assert himself.

[Darth Rock&Roll]

next tuesday if everyone shows up in the robes i gave them...



in all seriousness that just looked like the social interaction portion combined with sensitivity stuff.

I've seen people fall over by simply raising then dropping their heels in 8 pieces of brocade practice.

don't assume balance always has a seat in your house. it doesn't and the subtleties of motion that can remove your balance are many.

[Chris McKinley]

When it becomes about the practitioner(s) and not what they can teach you.

[Waterway]

The mind is a powerful thing.

I once had a bout of Post Concussion Syndrome (PCS) after banging my head pretty hard. It lasted about 8 weeks. It was a nightmare.

I had difficulty eating during that time. Everytime I would try to eat, I would lose my appetite.

I experienced my head injury by passing out due to illness caused by eating bad food.

I had read that sufferers of PCS who had suffered head injuries in car accidents would get bad PCS "attacks" when they got into cars after their accidents. Their minds reacted because they believed they were in danger. My doc said my mind may have been reacting to my bad experience with food (i.e. in some way, my mind believed food was going to hurt me!).

While suffering a bad bout of PCS, I got up and did the small part of a Taiji Form I knew. I repeated it 8 times. By the end of the session, I felt as right as rain. Now maybe it was due to getting out of a chair and helping my posture, circulation and nervous system, which helped my brain. Or maybe it was the placebo effect i.e. I thought doing Taiji would help my health, so it did.

The point I am making is that the belief mechanism is incredibly powerful. If your mind believes something, especially subconsciously, it can have very real impacts on your body.

Here is a great example from a TV show "Is it Real?", where they bust some popular myths. In this part, two scientists confront a senior student of George Dillman. Dillman is a karate teacher who is a master of the "No touch KO" apparently:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HXyJTXGTOk

Here is the outcome of the test (from about 4:00 on):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoQE5DOL ... re=related

I found it interesting that it compared things such as "No touch Knock out" to a form of hypnotism/suggestion.

P.S. I like Dillmans explanation! It's worth watching if just for that

[CaliG]

I think as soon as people only do what the teacher/leader says you may be entering into a cult.

Also when people believe that only that "one" teacher/leader can offer what they are looking for the relationship starts to get very unhealthy.

Saying that I sometimes think some people want to be apart of a cult led by their teacher, where as the teacher just wants to run a business.

[chud]

I only watched about half of the video, but speaking generally, I think that cultish behavior is VERY common in martial arts.

[cerebus]

Ooooooookay.... I too only got about halfway through that....

[Dabbler]

When all the girls are sequestered in "the house of harmony" (for the boss man only of course). If these cults ever figure out asexual reproduction they could rule the world!!!

[CaliG]

This is the one that freaks me out...no matter how many times I've seen it.



I do think it is a serious problem in IMAs. It's a small group, but I think with an understanding of NLP it can be easy for teachers who attract "edgers" who want to break away from western ideas and find out the secrets of Taoism, or Buddhism or Maoism so they can rise above all the stress and tension brought on by the modern world simply by following the simple wisdom of what some advanced being tells them.

[Bao]

Hard to say.. There is an invisible line between a "cultish" movement and an explicit cult.

There are a whole lot of charismatic teachers who fool their students in many ways, sometimes they believe very much in what they teach. There is a lot of Ninjitsu practitioners who believe that they practice the real art of the ninjas, a lot of Aikidokas who believe that they prepare for realistic fighting and there is a whole lot of taiji practitioners who believe that they will learn how to fight just doing form and PH, just like what they practice was some kind of magic.

Politics, economy and many things in our society are kind of cultish and a lot of people believe in daily life are superstitious. Sometimes the invisible cultishness is much more dangerous than explicit cults, because it's very easy to be dragged into stuff everybody else believe in.

[wiesiek]

what a strange mix of everything hip tday-
shamans rituals, caporeira, bagua, aikido and modern psychology...
definetly for the Lama Tanderbold box
but
what i know about maki`n money ?
-nothing ,
so STFU!


wasn`t able to see vid. posted byGreg ,
when i heard THIS type of pathetic chinesse music and same slo-mo weirdo beggin to dance...
sorry

[WongYing]

Wong Kiew Kit...need I say more !

[Ian]

This is the one that freaks me out...no matter how many times I've seen it.

that weirds me out even before the ph starts...

[Jeice]

I hope someday to find such a master. So I can punch him in the face.