Richard Dunn ~'Tai chi'

Projects and Investigations The 36th Chamber
1

OK, the man’s a complete fraud.
His web site: http://www.art-of-energetics.com

A thread where I’ve been having an unrunning discussion with him:
http://www.martialartsplanet.com/forums/showthread.php?t=45035

A summary of the thread to date, in a gentle easy to read format for MAP;

1)His martial training of his students is a farce and he fully admits other tai chi schools are much more martial than him. That doesn’t matter though ~ because he says they’re all shaolin hybrids. No, he can’t say why this migh be true.

2)Damn it. The man does empty force training! http://www.art-of-energetics.com/Sa...artin%202.1.MPG

If any of this was in any way genuine and his students could feel him push them ,without him touching them, it would make him ellegable for one million dollars from the randi foundation. http://www.randi.org/research/index.html

He won’t apply.

  1. Whilest he claimes to do all of this apparantly magical stuff through the manipulation of chi. He can’t justify it. He can not discribe what is going on in terms of traditional chinese medicine at all.

His only response to our questions to date has been varrying forms of “LOL you are not ready to understand true tai chi!”

I’ve taken some footage off his website and uploaded it to the BBC video section in case he takes it down.

Help and or advice in writing an expose would be nice.

2

I already posted links to those ‘energetics’ vids in the Bullshido section a couple of months, but a more thorough expose would be cool.

We could invite one of his people to the January 8th throwdown to demonstrate energetics, but they almost certainly won’t come.

One of us could be a ‘new student’ at his class and write a review.

He will almost certainly dismiss any failure of his ‘energy work’ to effect us as the result of us not being ‘sensitive enough’.

The process of ‘becomming tai chi’ he talks about almost certainly involves learning to be such a compliant partner who ‘flows’ with everything that at the advanced levels one is psychologically conditioned to flinch, stumble and hurl oneself to the flow when he merely gestures in your direction, as happens in many ‘aiki’ based quasi-japanese styles which involve ‘no touch’ work.

3

Ah, this guy claims that what he teaches has highly effective martial applications.
If you want to put me up as a wudang noob against the biggest and/or most skilled person he has to test how martially effective their stuff is, I would gladly accept.

4

You know it’s not going to happen.

5

Well, if he thinks this uber-sophisticated force-field based self-defence works, surely it should work on somebody who isn’t even very experienced at the ‘bashing’ yet ?

Although he’d probably cite my years of point-sparring and 2.5 years barely-ever-sparring Wing Chun.

6

More retarded claims from his site, here http://www.art-of-energetics.com/samples.htm :-

“The Qigong Tradition
The practice dates back beyond the earliest recorded history. We still have pictorial writing on artefacts referring to qigong from seven thousand years ago. There is archaeological evidence suggesting that qigong may date back as far as a million years. Qigong predates the martial arts, and all of what we now know as religion as well”

Jekyll, in the MAP thread he says he has video of more stuff, but which he thinks is too big to upload but which he wants to e-mail to people individually…

I will hold back judgement until he provides it.

7

Someone try and feign interest to get his “secret clips”

Plus, I don’t see any problem sending a “student” in for a month or two to get some inside info, in an attempt to get the scoop with a fair degree of candor.

You can start to outline an article here, then we can add to it, and once written up, we can edit it, I know a pretty good editor.

8

I already have the first of his secret clips from the link he posted in the thread. It’s more of the same ‘energy work’ which is a mix of some kind of pushing hands where they start with their arms softly twirling (is that like some kind of hypnotic trigger to become compliant ? we had to do that in Wing Chun), and then Richard does various light slaps which appear to variously paralyse, stick to the floor or send dramatically pedalling backwards into the crash-mat his ‘opponent’ (it’s the same deluded goober shown in the regular ‘energy work’ videos).

9

Problems to overcome with ‘secret student’ investigation:-

Outside chance Jekyll or Liokault will be recognised from vids on our club’s website (he knows we’re training at a school in Dan Docherty’s ‘lineage’).

Outside chance Jekyll, Liokault or I will be recognised from upcoming Oxford Throwdown photo or video (he knows I’m a bullshido poster at the very least).

I think we should assume that he’s lurked at bullshido. I’m pretty sure he knows we train in Oxford.

10

What about shadowh? Do you know who he’s with over there?

11

Shadowhand seems to have broadly agreed with pretty much everything Jekyll, Liokault or I have posted in the comments he’s made in the thread. I don’t know whether he has any pics of himself online anywhere (he isn’t planning to come to the Oxford Throwdown). I will check through his profiles on any MA forums I can find him on.

12

Well, he’s cleared for addition to this forum if he’ll help with this project. Cullion, have you talked to him before? If you have, ask him about this in a round about way if you can.

13

Not that I can help in any direct way but for your amusement:

http://www.emptyflower.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi/YaBB.cgi?action=search2

Mr. Dunn has quite a “following”.

My favorite is this one:

15 Chinese Internal Martial Arts / Off The Topic / Re: Tian Zhao Lin on: Nov 2nd, 2005, 10:38pm
Started by Father_Ted | Post by Father_Ted

Many thanks, but actually, I was looking for information on richard dunn. I believe an article was posted on this forum about him. I’d like to read it, because he has made serious allegations recently and I need to see what was written.I am building a legal case against him

Emphaisis added.

14

I’ll get on it.

15

nice to see people doing good work exposing the BS.

i would help if i was in the area.

there are so many BS CMA schools here in nyc, i wouldn’t know where to start.

16

More nonsense from Richard Dunn:-

Keep trying, you are clutching at straws. The same way as it is not magic it is also not co-operative exercise. There are elements of both in it but they are not it. The Anglo Saxon word for Qi was Megin and the word for the process of using it was Galdar. Why don’t we have a word for it now, think about it and you may find where you have been brainwashed and by whom. To show the level of corruption the modern derivative of Megin is Magic, so in a way you are right, apart from certain controlling elements in society over the last 1000 years have changed the meaning to a derogative nature. Why have all the pagan / Celtic quarter days (apart from midsummer solstice) been highjacked and by whom? What is all fools day for? Why were people called witches and burned? The co-operative element is the same as in any other training or learning process, confront your teacher and you don’t learn, whether it is Maths or Tai-Chi.

There was an old Anglo Saxon “Qigong” called Runar Megin, which when I have time I am determined to resurect. Want to know about it? Practice it 500 years ago and you were burnt as a witch. So another secret transmission was created, lol.

I asked him nicely and he explained further:-

Runar Megin

Runar refers to the use of Runes which are a series of symbols more like the
very early Chinese pictograms than modern phonetic writing, and like them
were designed to be cut in stone or wood with a knife as opposed to painted
or written. But as with the early Chinese writing they took on energetic connotations and properties beyond simply a method of communication. The Rune alphabet is called a Futhark and each Futhark is divided into aettir (pronounced eight-ir and translates as family) within each aettir there are 8 Runes, hence the modern word eight! Each Futhark consists of a number of aettir depending on the origin. The three most used were:- The Elder Futhark, the oldest known, consisting of 3 aettir. The Younger Futhark, the last one in usage (up to the 14th century) consisting of 2 aettir, and the Anglo-Saxon Futhark consisting of 4 aettir. Each of the Runes is given a series of things they represent depending on what you want from them, either for physical, religious, communication or energetic purposes.

Galdar means use off or releasing the power. Runar Megin is the exercise
of / for the release of Rune Qi (in their terms Rune Magic) which in our terms, once you take out all historic and Pagan baggage, means energetic exploitation. This is performed as a “Qigong” with both moving and meditational (stationary) elements. The moving element is slowly taking the position / structure of imitating the shape of the Rune, at the same time the Rune sound is slowly vocalised from the belly utilising Dantien power which is then flavoured by the Rune shape. Having achieved the shape and position it is then held for a short period of visualisation / meditation regarding its elements or the specifics you are working with. The first 4 in each aettir box the square and the second 4 box the corners.

For example the first aettir consists of:-
1 fehu - South - Sun - Prosperity - Throw/Strike
2 uruz - West - Rock - Strength - Overpower/Smother
3 thurisaz - North - Wind - Flexibility - Change/Deflect
4 ansuz - East - Moon - Yield - Submit/Defer
5 raidho - N.East - Water - Travel - Retreat/Run Away
6 kenaz - N.West - Night - Control - Mental/Psychological domination
7 gebo - S.West - Day - Buy/Bribe - Give in order to achieve
8 wunjo - S.East - Fire - Take - Consume/Burn Out

The uses and extentions mentioned above are very contentious, but with
all energetic work it is your focus and belief that does the work.

If you consider the last flavour to be describing a Jin you about get
it. The idea being you can achieve these results energetically. Reflecting position, element and structure, life work, survival.