I'll check that vid out when I get home. But yeah, I've definitely heard stories about these kinds of schools. Also, because my MA experience has predominantly been in internal MAs, I've seen these kinds of people before IRL. There was a guy in a group that I used to train with who absolutely believed in this sort of thing... that he can expel his chi energy and kill you without touching you blah blah blah. Trying to argue with these kinds of people is like trying to argue with people who are extremely supersitious or religious to the point that they block out logic and common sense. Like any time I'd ask him to demonstrate this power to me, the excuse would be, "I can't, otherwise I'd badly hurt you or might end up killing you." I'd say, "Yeah, I'll take that risk. Try me." but he'd repeat the same thing and say, "I won't use my power unless I'm under a real attack," and of course, I'm not about to assault the guy to prove a point, so he wins.

Then I'd ask him what he'd do to defend himself if he were attacked, but the attacker wasn't presenting him with lethal force. Like say if someone had grabbed his shoulder in a threatening way... most of us would physically do something to escape and/or counter that grab, but then we'd quickly assess the threat before choosing what an appropriate response would be. Like if someone's trying to grab shoulder so they can swipe your bag, you can't deliver a lethal blow... then you'd be up for manslaughter charges. But he was like, "If someone attacks me then they deserve to die. I can't be held responsible for that." And again, repeatedly headbutting a brick wall was less painful than trying to argue against that with this guy! He thought the rest of us were being stupid and foolish for training in tactile self defence.



He was just completely delusional and completely convinced about his ability to project energy to defend himself and kill people. The rest of us in the group distanced ourselves from him (he'd just stand several metres away from us and do solitary form practice all the time) and just laugh at him... and not just about his conceptions of combat, but also because he wore this super-tight see-through shirt that showed off his ... erm... "radio dials" <shudder>... and he frequently had his fly undone. But nobody was gonna tell him that. We all just kept telling each other that any one of us would just so love to be a fly on the wall if he ever found himself in a situation where he had to defend himself! I can just imagine him holding his hands out imagining that he's projecting his chi energy to kill his attacker... yeah. Maybe the attacker would laugh so hard or take pity so he wouldn't bother continuing the attack (in which case this guy would be totally convinced that his powers worked... like a Jedi Mind Trick).

I've heard of this one school that teaches students to fight like this. The teacher charges his students some ridiculous amount of money for each class (like $100/lesson?) ... and he even has students who regularly fly in from interstate just to train with him! Someone told me that he visited this school and saw the teacher "Force Pushing" the students around. He'd make a gesture, and the students would throw themselves back, falling down as if they'd been shoved by an invisible force. When he spoke to the students, they absolutely believed that their master had pushed them with an unseen force. He asked the students if any of them could do it, and they said, "Oh no, it takes a lifetime to achieve this." He then asked the master if he could demonstrate some of this force, and he said, "Oh no, without proper training you would die!" But he told me that these were the kind of people who just wanted to be conned into something... like they're desperate for some kind of emotional crutch. And he said that quite honestly, if this bogus MA school weren't ripping them off and giving them false hope, then somebody else would be. It's like that scene in Monty Python's Life of Brian where the big crowd keeps chasing Brian and won't leave him alone.