Hello,

You've probably all seen the video on youtube or elsewhere of John Chang, or "Dynamo Jack." I read the first half of The Magus of Java before I brushed it off. It lost me with the sci-fi descriptions of internal martial arts and all the highly improbable Harry Potter shit, but I'm curious how it was received by the people of this board, and I'm wondering if anybody has additional information that sheds some light on the subject. Does John Chang teach somewhere? Anybody here train with him? Know someone who has? Anybody have reason to believe that what is described in the book is real?

hi notendo,

you can do a search for "John Chang" on the forum's search function.
you'll get well over 300 results. alot of info , alot of half-info, a lot of misinfo probably too. I hope you find your way thru

From what i can tell, John Chang is one of the higher level masters of Qi around today. There are, reportedly people who've grasped it better than him, but you are talking about a very small number of people. Seems to be a genuine guy, seems to give off a good and down to Earth vibe from what i've picked up on the videos.

Magus and Nei Kung seem to have a lot of information in them that is useful to people who've already been working pretty extensively with Yang Qi. Personally, i think they describe more in about a dozen or so interspersed pages of Nei Kung, than most books do in hundreds of pages. Take the far out descriptions however you will, but the videos seem to speak for themselves that limits are only as real as we have been conditioned to make them.

Beyond that, i would caution you that there are a number of charlatans who cannot replicate ANYTHING (not even common mastery of Yang Qi that any descent Kung-Fu teacher can demonstrate), and yet claim to have acheived levels of mastery parallel to advanced levels of the Mo Pa'i tradition. If someone is telling you that they can offer you this or that for a certain about, know up front that they are hustling you. You're not going to link up with Chang or his students (in any tangible way), on the Internet. Use those two books in conjunction with face to face training with at least a descent master of Yang Qi (not so difficult to find), and incorporate what they are saying into supplemental practice that you Shrfu gives you. This will take you further than folks charging you fees for internet forums, or thousands to hear about public seminars.

Hern Heng,

How many students have reached level 3 or 4 of Mo Pai apart Master Chang himself?

Its a shame he doesnt take new students i would like to learn it!

i'm very interested in this as well...

hern does not know john chang or any of john chang's students... here's what i've found- no students have reached level 4 in mopai and only one has reached level three and he is the chinese chosen to pass on the lineage. from speaking to kostas and andreas as well as other students, it's clear that chang is nolonger teaching westerners with the intention of helping them go further than level 2 at all.

after speaking to hern it is pretty clear that he has just seen a few videos like the rest of us and read the books... he may be correct that there are people teaching something similar, but none of them are level four.

it's strange that hern seems so hell bent on discrediting david verdesi; he has not met david or any of david's students... this is strange that he would make such strong claims with no real knowledge... there are a couple other members who have written dozens of posts one is hou tian, he says knows jim one of john chang's old students, but he also said some other things that aren't true. it just seems like the negitive stuff is based on sour grapes and hearsay.

the only hole i can see in david verdesi's teaching is the price, it pretty expensive to go on one of his three week trainings (the other training is not as much but you don't get to meet a master). but it does seem clear that he has reached level four and can show the skills that the lei shan dao training develops... over the past year david taught 2 of these training seminars in china with a master like john chang named jiang sifu... all of the students who attended these trainings were convinced that david is for real and that the skills he and his masters have are very real...

what eventually convinced me of this is reading a letter from rene navarro. he wote a very convincing article about david and is a student of davids... and he has a very good reputation as a martial arts teacher of high level and has been teaching for 40 years. what i understand is that mantak chia read his letter and felt it was quite real and asked to know more and showed an interest in joining david in china. i have been following this story from the beginning on their forum and here and it seems that many of the pieces of the puzzle are coming together in compelling way.

j