Fantasies – a dangerous side of martial arts students

Fantasies – a dangerous side of martial arts students

By John Chow of Tao of Tai Chi Chuan Institute, Melbourne, Australia

I have been teaching martial arts since 1977. That makes it nearly 29 years. And during that time, I have encountered many different types of students, time and over again – both my own students, and the students of other martial arts teachers. At times, I have grave concern about some of these students. Of these types of students, those I consider most dangerous to themselves as well as to fellow students in the class, and perhaps to the general public, fall into 2 categories:-

1) Violent, savageous and psychotic

2) Highly excitable and nervous

3) Fantasy mongers

The violent, savageous and psychotic type and the highly excitable types are easy to identify. The violent, savageous and psychotic type tend to be macho, and excuse their hardcore actions by virtue of “being realistic”. “Realistic Training” has become quite a fad recently and I have grave concern that these violent types can easily take shelter under such a convenient camouflage. These violent types tend to hit and block hard, and execute their combat techniques to the fullest, giving their training partners a “good punishment”. They are sadistic in nature. They have a subconscious need to hurt their opponents as much as possible. They are dangerous in class because they might hurt their training partners, and they do it consciously. Such types should either be told to leave the class, or slowly coaxed into following the class’s behavioural conduct (hope that they do not hurt somebody in the meantime).

The highly excitable and nervous type get carried away with nerves and subconscious fright. They tend to execute quick, frenzied, and irregular movements. They tend to be stiff in their body and movements. They also tend forget the teacher’s instructions. For example, if they have to strike to the head from the side and withdraw their left hand when stepping forward, they may strike to the ribs instead of the head. Because of their inability to follow instructions to the letter, they execute moves which are not practised and thus, may be a source of danger to themselves and their training partners.

The fantasy mongers are an elusive type. They may or may not be obvious. Some of them are also highly excitable and nervous, but some are very calm and collected. Some are actually excellent narrators. Time is needed to identify them. Usually, they give themselves away by talking about arts, masters, and events that sound exciting, dangerous, or incredible. Or they have interest in such topics. They tend to have interest in subject matter such as the occult, mystic, power, etc. They want to be “masters” capable of deadly powers which others do not have - a flight of fancy that puts them above the rest of normal people.

Fantasy mongers in martial arts may also entertain fantasies about their teachers. How great their teachers are, the special abilities that their teachers have, the incredible deeds they have seen their teachers performed, special techniques, secret transmissions, secret ceremonies, and special abilities such as Dim Mak, ability to kill at a distance without physical contact, ability to send sickness to enemies etc etc etc. Of course, at times, these fantasies may have been fed or even encouraged by unscrupulous teachers. But sometimes not. Sometimes, these fantasies of “deadly secret” still abound despite denials of such abilities by the teachers.

In general, fantasy mongers may or may not be dangerous, depending on how the circumstances of their life pan out. If circumstances are good, fantasies are relatively harmless. Sometimes, the propagation of such fantasies may irritate students or teachers from other schools. Sometimes, the fanciful stories touch on topics which contradict the teachings or accounts of other teachers. Thus they can be a source of disputes between martial artists.

Sometimes, due to the force of fantasies, the student may execute his techniques in certain ways which were not prescribed by the teacher, or worse still, prohibited by the teacher. This is negative because the student is practising wrongly in the belief he is more correct than his teacher (a real fantasy!!!), or he creates a sense of disobedience or schism in the class, or worse still, because he practises the wrong way and is not following the teacher’s instructions, he may hurt himself and his training partners. I have also personally seen a case where the student thinks he is may be better than his teacher and takes a few of the students in the class aside to coach them.

A fantasy monger may also think his teacher is giving him secret mind-to-mind transmissions without actual words or demonstration of the techniques. While this may seem harmless, a variant of this is very disturbing and potentially harmful for the teacher - where the student thinks that the teacher is performing ‘something extraordinary’ to him or her. In this case, I really hope that the student is not having fantasies about me, and these sort of fantasies can range from anything mild to hilarious or criminal, such as:-

· When the teacher points at the student’s abdomen to indicate incorrect breathing, the student thinks he has executed a distance hitting without physically touching the student. Abdominal pains followed a week later, and a month later, the student was diagnosed with gastric ulcers.

· When the teacher thrusts his stick, the student thinks the teacher has poked him in the heart from a distance, causing chest pains for days, and a few weeks later, a heart attack.

· When the teacher thrusts his stick upward, the student thinks that the teacher had thrust his stick up his anus, causing excruciating pain, and a few days later, anal bleeding.

· The teacher demonstrated an upward thrust to the throat of a female student. The student felt her vagina was penetrated by the amazing extension of the teacher’s stick, thrusting up the whole length of her organ, stimulating and arousing her.

These circumstances leave the teacher open to all sorts of unimaginable allegations.

I have encountered a case where a student alleged that his Tai Chi teacher hit the fatal points on his chest 7 times to cause “energy disruptions” (a term often used by Erle Montigue’s students to describe Dim Mak) while doing Tai Chi Push Hands. The fact is that not only that particular teacher vigorously disagrees with Erle Montaigue’s idea that “The real secret of Tai Chi Chuan is that it is actually the art of Dim Mak’, but he never trained in Dim Mak and does not even know Dim Mak. Therefore, the teacher could not have performed Dim Mak on the student. Explaining that fact to the student still did not help. In the same incident, the teacher made his customary salutation at the end of his Push Hands session with the student, and the student ‘misinterpreted’ that the teacher’s gesture as an act of putting killing ‘chi’ into the student’s stomach, with a sensation of hot and painful energy which remained in his stomach, causing him great pain, for which he had to be admitted to the hospital.

It is not a coincidence that this particular student referred to above had been studying and reading a good number of articles and books on Tai Chi Chuan and so forth, and in fact, had been studying and learning some advance Tai Chi Chuan topics from Erle Montaigue’s tapes.

The mind s a very powerful thing, and we do not realise how it can influence our physical reality. Believing is reality, and if fantasy is really believed in, it becomes real. Thus, if a student fantasises that he has been struck by Dim Mak or some distant hitting energy, he may develop the signs of being struck.

It is thus a very logical conclusion that fantasy can be very dangerous for both the student and the teacher.

I write this to warn martial arts teachers to be wary of students who show signs of fantasy because I have encountered such incidences myself.

John Chow,

Tao of Tai Chi Chuan Institute,

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.