Student Resources

This page mainly has items for active students of the club rather than casual visitors but feel free to down load the items if you so wish. Many of the downloads are in the language which the style is taught in so should mean more to students than visitors. However, if you want further details of any item after downloading it then please feel free to EMAIL me. I've also been lucky to have some written comments about the system from students and I've put these on the site too.

Chinese Diagnosis Sheets (WORD Documents) : Jan 2002 Edition

Sheet 1 (Handout to Patients to Describe What Kind of Questions the Diagnosis will Cover)

Sheet 2 (Diagnosis Checklist )

Concepts Covered (Up To Jan 2002)

List of Concepts which we Covered Up to Ruth's second grade.

Accounts (Up to Jan 2002 : Excel Document)

Club Accounts

Chinese Herb Listing By Function (Excel Document)

Details of commonly used herbs and categorisation of their major function. herb.zip

How to Tie A Sash

One of the most complicated parts of Peaceful Fight is the method of tying the sash. This isn't my invention as Grandmaster Fletcher of Hok Koon Kung Fu taught me this on my second private lesson. After all these years, this is the only thing that I still teach from my Hok Koon days. With that thought in mind, maybe I should have left after lesson two and done something else with my life rather than continuing with the other 10 - 11 years of training ! Just bear this in mind when you think you want to train in Peaceful Fight for the next 25 years ! Once you've got the feeling of Daoism why bother turning up each week ? I only teach one thing (but in lots of different ways). Honestly, there are so many other more important things to do (and no, being able to tie a sash properly is not one of them !). sash.html

Student Comments / Testimonials

Ken MacKay (15/06/02)

Doug, Perhaps being more of interest to potential students rather than existing students and others that know you well, I am not sure which of your web categories this fits into, or indeed whether you would want to post it. We have spoken about my progress as your student at length, but I thought it would be useful to collect my thoughts together into a few lines that may
prove helpful as a guide to other potential students (and therefore omitting any Chinese descriptions). Please feel free to amend/correct/add as you think. I know I have a bad habit of swapping between first, second and third person!:

I have been training with Doug from Aug/Sept 2001 (about 40 x 2hr sessions). Because of commitments I have on Sunday mornings (and therefore unable to attend Doug’s “public” sessions), Doug has been generous enough to come to me on weekday evenings, and put up with the chaos that is the Mackay household. Though I would not consider myself a “natural” martial artist, years ago I have had some experience with Karate and Tae Kwon Do, though I have not found that this has eased my progress within PFKF!

I am as interested in the healing and philosophical drives behind PFKF as I am in the martial aspects, though currently feel (though some progress has been made), my healing work is certainly in greatest need of improvement, and frequently we spend more time talking than working on the more practical aspects. Doug has quite a lot of detail about his interpretation of PFKF in the web pages, but has regularly emphasised that each student’s KF style/purity/technique comes from within them, not copied from Doug. I found this hard to cope with at first (having only followed martial arts with prescribed techniques, copy and practice.), but have come to realise how obvious this is as a precept of PFKF.

One of the first things I have recognised in my training to date is the way I consider a “fight scenario”- it has substantially changed, and I am gradually becoming less focused on the attacker/defender. [EDITORS BACKGROUND NOTE FROM DOUG : Within a confrontation within the Dao, there is no such thing as attacker / defender but the two are one thing (ie they form the confrontation). How the fight goes is solely controlled by the nature of chaos, which side "wins / loses" is of no consequence to the Dao but only of importance to the individuals. By following the Dao the fight reaches it's "correct" conclusion. Ken used to get a bit caught in the instructor / student mentality loop, assuming that he was not supposed to beat me as I was supposed to be better than him (because I was an "INSTRUCTOR") and so sort of mentally biassed himself towards losing. We are past this now (which makes training a much more difficult job for me !)]. This change in feel has in turn made me more able to continue the engagement to a positive conclusion. The healing and theoretical discussion have assisted in this process, though it is difficult to quantify how! Training only with Doug of course continually draws attention to my weaknesses, though self-awareness and Doug’s positive offerings (I would not dare say nagging) have moved things on in a helpful way. [EDITORS NOTE : Nothing is ever perfect so there is always something to complain about !]

I noticed that recently in a weapons session, bad habits relating to over-focus on a weapon say, rather than allowing a more “natural” overview and subsequently much more effective position with the combat, came to the fore. [EDITORS BACKGROUND NOTE FROM DOUG : The more recent work on weaponry centred on defensive and offensive work using knife or short stick or staff. The part that Ken is relating to is the moment of recognition when the weapon becomes more of a liability than a help. This is most obvious when you close to short distance with short stick. Over emphasis on keeping hold of the weapon at all costs limited Ken's movement which meant he was ignoring part of the potential options available to him (ie to let go of the weapon and change to open hands techniques). Without having this possible option available, he was making himself a much easier target (ie by ignoring this possible choice, he was not within the chaos and so was standing outside of it). Once we got to the same feeling with the weapon as without it, things were greatly improved]

In some martial aspects, I seem to improve gradually through my training, but unfortunately in other areas, including self confidence, seem to move as a pendulum. In general though, and perhaps crucially, my overarching ability and view of the world has changed, though not profoundly, certainly a great deal. I am certain this level of change could not have been achieved
through either formal martial art instruction, reading, or academic work. I believe and hope PFKF reinforces those aspects of our personality which really are part of us, rather than synthetic- following on from third party trends and ideals.

Because of Doug’s student-centred approach (not instructor-centred nor finance-constrained)- I am sure every student will rapidly reach their own potential, though Doug has pointed out that increased progress within PFKF may be achieved via interaction between students, which up to now, has not been possible. I am sure every conflict between now and my death will not be with Doug, and Doug alone. I hope not!!

Doug, to finish, though I am sure you will try and distance yourself from it, your instruction, personality,commitment and view of the world do yourself and PFKF credit, and I do hope future students recognise your contribution to a better world.

Ken

Response

Dear Ken,

many, many thanks for your very kind E-mail. As always, you are too hard on yourself in places. Your healing work has come on in leaps and bounds over the past few months. The change in quality of touch was the only barrier to your success and now you have got this, much of the energy rebalancing work is open to you. This is one of the most powerful human experiences / gifts and if that was the only thing you has achieved during training I'd be proud to have contributed to your development. It seems like nothing as it is so simple but that's why you don't need to do 25 years to the arts to achieve a useful purpose ! Yes, there is still a lot of "formal" instruction and background to learn within the TCM field, but the power of touch gives you the ability to sort out a whole range of everyday problems. Get used to using it (when you feel it is the right thing to do) and you'll start to understand it and yourself even more. Yes, we use it in the martial side but this is of such low importance when compared to the ability to take away someone else's discomfort etc.

When you add this improved touch to all of your other successes then it can be seen that the training is going really well. I feel that your understanding of the Dao / chaos / Peaceful Fight is very nearly there, especially the idea of not needing to look or feel like a stereotypical "martial artist" (or to end up like me). This is fundamental to the system and once you have this, training / life becomes much more obvious. Not necessarily any more fun but certainly more obvious ! Add to this your views on the parts about the relative value of martial arts against, for example, bringing up a family or being a "nice guy", it all helps to show that Peaceful Fight (or whatever you want to call it) was with you all along and all training has done is connect it all together so you understand yourself more deeply. Like I always say, I just pay for the insurance, you do all the work ! People put too little value on the things that are really important in life (family / friends / helping people / being with the girl of your dreams etc) and too much on things of little worth (martial arts, fear, violence, stress, work etc). Think you've had it right all along, but now you know it too ! Think the weapon work we've done more recently lead to a true "eureka" moment when the true nature of chaos was highlighted. Take that same feeling out into other scenarios and you have your own Peaceful Fight ! We could discuss the differences between each of our personal Kung Fu until the cows come home but in the end we are both right ! We might disagree but we are still right ! Certainly a good position to end up in ! I've said on numerous occasions that everything that Peaceful Fight achieves is down to how a student chooses to progress, I just stand there with them and nag ! Without the willingness of students to think about their own views / opinions etc they wouldn't progress and I wouldn't learn so much. For me, it's very much a win / win situation as all things fall into the Dao and so give opportunities for self development for both of us. Thank you (and also to all my other students / friends etc) for your contribution to my development (and that contribution has been significant). Hopefully we will be able to continue on our paths for many years to come, sharing experiences along the way.

Thanks again

Doug

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John Atkinson 15/05/03

By way of background, John joined the club in 2003 having come from a sport kick boxing background. He brought lots of ideas / thoughts of his own to the club and we all learned a lot from him being with the club. In the end, John recognised that Peaceful Fight was not fulfilling his personal objectives and that he wanted to pursue other aspects of the arts. Although a pity to see John go, it was nice to hear that a student had at last taken to heart my general advice to leave once they thought it was the right time to do so ! We've left as friends and that's the way that things should end in a perfect world. John was kind enough to write to me to tell me he wouldn't be able to make it for a while whilst he investigated other styles / ideas. He was also kind enough to say that his thoughts can go onto the site (and they are duplicated below). A nice guy and will be a good student for an instructor to have wherever he ends up.

E-Mail from Doug

Dear John,

Wherever your training ends up, good luck with it all. I enjoyed our time together and I wish you every success for the future. Always feel free to pop in to the club if you want to keep us up to date about your continued development and I hope that some of Peaceful Fight helps you in your future. We all have our our path to lead and I sincerely hope that yours is a happy and peaceful one wherever it leads.

Take care

Doug

Reply from John

Doug

Thank you for the kind words. During my time at Peaceful Fight, I have really enjoyed meeting everyone. They say that some people you meet have a lasting effect on you; this is certainly true for me by having met you. Your daoist take on life has certainly improved mine, and I have learn't to start to embrace chaos. I'm not sure where life and training will take me, but I do know that wherever it is, I will be taking a little of you along as a guide and reference point.

Thank you for your acceptance of me as a person, and for your inspiration both in training and life. I feel equipped to truly search for the "Spirit" of Kung Fu.

Please feel free to use this on the web site. I look forward to our paths crossing again. In the meantime take care.

Kind regards

John

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