Earl Grey

Is it not possible for you to stop making false dichotomies and straw man arguments, platitudes, and diversions from what is actually being presented? I am finding it difficult to discuss this matter with you because of the loaded questions you are presenting.

I just helped research into some of the projects here in the Philippines such as the Kaliwa Dam project, a favorite of the Philippine lapdog Duterte and something the CCP is keen on loaning money to help realize. The CCP are actually quite wrong because they are working against the interest of the people and instead in the interest of oligarchs and demagogues, some who were propped up by Chinese propaganda trolls just like Russians did for the United States--a significant reason Duterte won was that he has his own army of trolls paid for by China. Put up a leader who is receptive to Chinese debt diplomacy and reap the benefits--how nice. The West Philippine Sea, the projects that move their goalposts further, the interest and inability to pay debts as seen in African nations, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Pakistan, and eventually here show that yes, it is absolutely wrong. To give a simple analogy, you can convince me to sign a deal and tell me it's good for me, but there are strings attached and the information given to present to me what appeared to be a good deal turns out to be a dud and I am now enslaved by debt. This is a bait and switch tactic: I agree to X with you, but what you present as X is actually ABC and YZ, which I did not know about and it instead screws me over. It is about as fair as dealing with the mafia.

We can compare atrocities all day, there is no doubt both the US and CCP have a long list each. This is not the point though that Walker is making.

Oh boy, as someone who has seen China's "diplomacy" firsthand in Cambodia and the Philippines, Tanzania, and Sri Lanka, I am going to bite my tongue before this goes even further into everything wrong with the CCP, even though sadly, they are very much responsible for nCoVid19 as well as the nations that rewarded their bad behavior because of how China is their sacred cow and goose that lays golden eggs. I am no Gringo-lover either as Confessions of an Economic Hitman is a very similar playbook that is as inspiring to China's tactics as China inspires others too.

I actually met and know Kishore personally. He has a lot of interesting opinions, but unfortunately, this is not the same thing. Yes, Xi's CCP is not the same as Hu or Deng or Mao. This is a false conclusion and misdirection though. Personal freedom at the cost of suppression or the history of oppression, then going into Chinese civilization as synonymous with society is terrible. Kishore here is flying the CCP's banner and speaking as someone who comes from Singapore, which has a love for authoritarianism with some personal freedoms--personal freedoms based off of consumerism primarily. It is as though he is praising how comfortable a cage is rather than the fact it is still a cage.

@Walker, perhaps this trope is most applicable to why the CCP is so popular: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VillainWithGoodPublicity

A man of principle doesn't care about approval or what others think--he knows if something is wrong, he must act, for it is only when good men do nothing that evil is allowed to succeed. I myself have had many instances where the right thing was not the popular thing and the popular thing was not the right thing, and I chose the right thing to the ostracism of many, only to be vindicated much later. So? There is evil in the CCP, and neither Walker nor I are ruling out that there are greater evils out there, but we can't ignore the CCP's as being a lesser evil in comparison--it is still engaged in abhorrent acts. That doesn't sound like a hero at all to me if that's your definition. It sounds more like someone who is agreeable, and to me those are dangerous individuals because they have silver tongues and please your ears while poisoning your tea. In my work in development and humanitarian aid, this has happened often to my colleagues and I, once where a Sri Lankan man was being very pleasant and accommodating but was eventually revealed to be attempting to kill us all before someone quickly pointed out what was going on. He didn't like our work helping the Tamils as he was Sinhalese, and old wounds run deep. I would like to point out that many politicians, especially populists, cult leaders, and psychopaths appear open and accepting, but are not actually open and accepting. Here's a couple tropes to consider: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GoodIsNotNice https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AffablyEvil Straw man argument or loaded question with assumptions. You're unsubtly conflating the issue with Walker's adamant stance, and it is not what I am saying at all. A hero to me is one who lives by principle and serves the highest good. While I assume good intentions and your own curiosity, how it is communicated has some weight to it in that it has already been shown in the loaded question above. Additionally, your suggestion at the beginning stating that a hero should be open to all perspectives greatly limits any answer outside of your own framework and paradigm, as I do not believe my answers will conform to that framework at all.

My respect for you has risen immensely, and it was already pretty high. You are embodying the spirit of the 英雄, and I can not praise your integrity enough.

Aside from possibly demonstration purposes? I've also seen people in fights who get careless and step in with locked legs as in the heat of a conflict, nobody rises to the occasion, they sink to the level of their training. There's also the hunger to win, how crazy you are, and how focused you are, which to me, are crucial for a fight rather than a system or style. Some systems and styles help feed these more than others for each individual, and some individuals align with those practices better. One guy I know does Filipino Martial Arts and Javanese Pencak Silat, and it works for him because he's totally ruthless and aggressive when he does finger locks and scratches or destroying joints--until he met some of my friends in Bagua and Taiji who used sticking techniques and strafing to avoid letting him use his main advantage and strategy. I've seen this in Aikido and Judo. One day, when I have time after having been given blessings from my teacher saying that I have finished and have a degree of proficiency that allows me to learn more from my own creativity and experimenting than he can with guiding me step by step, I will pursue Judo and Kyokushin Karate to add to my "mental zip file" of styles. I knew a guy from Indonesia who would stamp on the front toes while simultaneously doing a palm up strike to the chin or the nose. Crazy dude.... I think I get what you're talking about and sure wouldn't want to get caught on the receiving end of this, especially after having had ACL surgery before!

I still haven't figured out if being accused of being a woman by Heartbreak should be taken as a compliment given how much he loves Asian women or if I should be creeped out for the same reason. Either way, I'm an Asian guy, just sayin'.

So here are some interesting links this Monday morning in Manila. As we already know, it is not wise to go against the Trump regime, which I will set up as a parallel given how many authoritarian populists are running the world right now: https://www.rappler.com/world/regions/us-canada/257092-pentagon-chief-defends-firing-navy-captain-voiced-concern-coronavirus Strangely, we see a very similar situation here in the Philippines for criticizing the Duterte regime: https://www.rappler.com/nation/257071-ue-campus-journalist-forced-apologize-criticizing-duterte-government-online One mayor is being probed for the simple reason that he was actually helping his constituents while the sycophants in Duterte's cabinet and congress are targeting him for what is essentially embarrassing the national government and the rest of the municipalities, all while following extended community quarantine protocols even before they were in place--in other words, they are retroactively applying the law to his actions that took place before they passed the order. How curious. https://www.rappler.com/nation/256953-duterte-distances-self-nbi-probe-against-vico-sotto Meanwhile, Chinese imperial colonial masters advisors have arrived in the Philippines, while I am awaiting @Walker to chime in if he doesn't already have a few thoughts already rumbling in his head at the sad state of things with this: https://www.rappler.com/nation/257050-chinese-experts-arrive-philippines-help-coronavirus-response And the current number of cases, 3,246 with 152 deaths: https://www.rappler.com/nation/257054-coronavirus-cases-philippines-april-5-2020 Fantastic way to start week four of our quarantine here in Manila...

Yes, I'll create a new thread for us a little later.

I work in NGO development, humanitarian aid and such. So as a foreigner, I stick out like a sore thumb and in some cases, local ruffians and foreign tourists have various reasons for seeking conflict. I am not interested in fighting, but I am all about guarding my life and anyone else if it's threatened. Thankfully, I've never been seriously harmed even in northern Sri Lanka, Tanzania, and Cambodia.

The only reason I know that I did Taijiquan and Xin Yi was because those were what I could recognize as it happened fast as do most of my fights, being a foreigner who has lived overseas most of his life. The crazy drunk French guy who attacked me in that example just said I looked like Bruce Lee and wanted to pick a fight, and unfortunately, I ended up reinforcing a stereotype. Thankfully, the fights I've been in over the past three years, the internal styles made me look less violent and more like I was defending myself, so when the police arrested him and the Sri Lankan guy on another occasion (incident not mentioned here), I was pretty much in the clear since I wasn't "excited" so to speak as the internal styles made me calm and controlled rather than hyped up and aggressive.

There's a certain point that all your skills become one and it's hard to see where one style ends and another begins. I mostly did hard styles like Muay Thai and BJJ but I hadn't done them since 2009 when I had surgery, which is why I went into Taijiquan and other internal styles, and by the time I started learning Xin Yi (Yi Quan and Liuhebafa) and Baguazhang, I found them as no more than just extensions of the foundation I built in Taijiquan as I don't turn off Taijiquan to do Liuhebafa and so forth.

As I said, I was on autopilot; I remember doing the techniques, but according to witnesses, they saw me doing more than what I remembered. The techniques I did were from those videos above based on what they described and what I remember. The level of internal training my lineages guide us towards is to be as instinctive as we are methodical since we don't know what's going to come out, it just does and even does things I never would have realized I knew instinctively. He wasn't KO'd, but he was crying and bruised pretty badly saying I hit him hard, which surprised me because I was only defending myself to parry and deflect. He ended up being escorted away by the police because he tried to pull out a gun afterwards.

The videos were the techniques I learned and used. They are also necessary visual references because many who claim to have learned for martial use haven’t actually seen it used practically and professionally.

Those videos are examples of how it’s applicable. My post afterwards was my own experience reinforced it.

My own experience is that it is like a zip file in your computer. All of what i learned compresses itself and only comes out or un archives itself when there’s actual conflict. A guy who was about 188cm to my 171cm tried to attack me at a bar and the sensing hands came out instinctively, then did things I never even learned formally when he resorted to kicking and cheap shots. He never got a single hit in and was bruised for some reason because my body was on autopilot and I was apparently doing three things at a time without knowing what I did untjl afterwards.

Yes, and I have videos of one of our lineage teachers who uses it on a daily basis because he’s a narc detective. He says it’s the best art for fighting felons and thugs, and says he trusts it enough to put his life on the line daily. Look up Glenn Hairston.

I actually do text my teachers. ☺️ They required me to have a foundation before they could be comfortable giving tips and guiding from an SMS. This is for power and adjustments of some meditative techniques, but again, without proper foundation, nothing makes sense because I wouldn’t even have the ability to know what to ask or look for that they do. These days the questions i ask give them insight as to where I am and meeting up later proves it because they can see the skill is there. Case in point was a tall hockey guy about 203cm was shocked i manhandled him in spite of being only 171cm, and this is from pure power more than skill, and another, an American football player lost to technique because all I needed was to strike his throat while he was blocking the feint strike.

I definitely prefer in person teaching. I can learn a fair amount online as well as how I teach my own students, but there are limitations for certain practices. For Xin Yi, the foundation had to be in person for me, then I was able to learn most other practices when the master was traveling, meeting up periodically to adjust if necessary and test for strength and power while building skills. The background I have in my other practices allowed me to teach students online first then when meeting in person, only a few adjustments. For the moment, they have to do a lot of homework and self work. This is crucial for them developing their own path with what we teach as a safe foundation, provided they listen and follow what is instructed.

My own work with teachers online is that they already come from established lineages, so studying online doesn't mean that one has no lineage, and studying in person with someone doesn't mean that they necessarily are better, with or without lineage, because their ability to teach is one big issue, plus if they actually did learn properly. There are some people I've spoken with who talk a big game online, but when meeting them, they are quite weak when it comes to martial application, and when it comes to health, the current crisis only reinforced how good my teachers and their skills are in terms of health and longevity.