"I am not going to bother to try and address all your responses" I like your strategy. If you can't find a flaw in the logic, just ignore it altogether... "And if Piercy had taken out the money, it would have been taken back under the bankruptcy." OK, you're going to have to clarify this bankruptcy to me. It is very clear that Piercey did not declare personal bankruptcy. He didn't lose any of his personal houses or cars. You yourself said repeatedly that Piercey was very successful. The only way I can see his studios go bankrupt (if they actually did go bankrupt) was if he withdrew all the money out of them. Being the owner, he could pay himself personally however much he wanted to. Since none of his other personal property got confiscated, neither would the money he took out of the studios. "The studios were making money (lots or little I don't know) but most of that was going back to pay a) the high license fees and b) the cost to own the whole TKF." a) How high? As far as I know, during Piercey's time, it was about $500 per city per month, which is peanuts compared to the $15,000 average monthly revenue. (Grasshopper, please correct me if you know for sure that the license fees were some other amount.) b) OK, you keep contradicting yourself on this point, and it's about time it gets clarified. If I understood you correctly, you said that Piercey was making payments to Simon other than the usual license fees. If that's true, were they payments on the studios (i.e. paying Simon back for being allowed to own the studios), or were they payments on the franchise itself (i.e. so that he would own all rights to the name and would not have to pay license fees to anybody when he was done)? You saying "the whole TKF" as well as your statement about him not having to pay any licensing fees when he was done seems to imply the latter. However, in other posts you contradicted yourself and seemed to imply the former. Which is it? "Anyway, if you can discount what all these people (you listed a few people you had heard from) have said..." I only discount things that are not logical or believable. For example, here's something that came from two students at KFFL in Edmonton before it went bankrupt: Weber, when breaking away to form KFFL, explained about how Simon manipulated Piercey and the other masters. He said that Simon would make his owners, whenever they visited Grand Forks, sit in a special chair and shine special multi-colored lights into their eyes, which would subliminally reprogram them to do his bidding. The sad thing is that some people were actually naive enough to believe this tale. "not one instructor or past student is willing to stand up for Simon" Stand up where? There are only these forums where he needs defending (nobody dares to accuse him personally). I will bet you that most of his past students and instructors are not even aware of the existence of this forum. And those that are aware are too busy to waste a couple of hours each day arguing with a couple dozen disgruntled individuals, many of whom, when they're presented with logic they cannot counter, resort to personal insults (thankfully not too often on this forum, thanks to the moderators). Other than that I don't really see where Simon needs defending.

"As they were closing studios in Winnipeg, and everything that happened with Weber, yet Sparrow could not get June/Simons to change how they were dictating things." We've been over this a dozen times already. What kind of changes did Mrs. Simon stop Sparrow from making? Sparrow did make many changes. He was mostly copying Jones, except that while Jones's changes seemed to work well for him in Washington, they weren't quite what was needed in Ontario. That is why Sparrow's studios went bankrupt. Sparrow and Jones were running the licensing company for over a year before Sparrow went bankrupt, so he could make all the changes he wanted without much fear of losing his license. And even if he did lose his license, it would be better to operate a successful chain of studios under his own name than to go bankrupt under TKF. As I said on many occasions, I believe he was simply using Mrs. Simon as a scapegoat. "I firmly believe that I was taught very useful techniques, but I do regret that it was done in the environment in which it was done." Personally I didn't see much wrong with the environment. The other students were great. Most of the instructors were great. The classes were fun. The only time I didn't like the environment was during the end of Weber's management, when almost everybody (both students and good instructors) had left, and Weber had left the studios in such a state of dilapidation that even the lights were out of order for months on end. "This other merchandise and everything that comes with it seems to have really poisoned the atmosphere for so many." Maybe it was regional, or depended on who was running the place. I was personally very seldom asked to purchase books, CDs, and other merchandise. I said no a couple of times, and was left alone after that. Perhaps you had more persistent instructors than I did.

"The last few years have seen TKF go from 15 studios to 2" Very sad, I agree. However, considering what the instruction in many of these studios had become, I tend to think of it as a good thing. Quality versus quantity. The remaining 2 studios are top notch, both in terms of business practices and the level of instruction. We have way more students in the single current Edmonton studio than we had in the two old Edmonton studios combined as they were run by Weber (both as KFFL and for a couple of years previous to that). Unfortunately the students in other provinces aren't so lucky, but in time I'm confident they'll rebuild also. "Why would he quit and just walk away? How come this other stuff does not make sense to you (personal guarntee, being forced out etc) but you simply believe that he quit?" I listed a few possible good reasons in my previous posts. Perhaps you should reread them. Some of you remark about the similarities between how things happened with different owners. Well, they did try to kick Weber out. I believe they had very good reasons to do so. And what happened? Weber laughed at them and left together with his own studios. Nobody was able to take the studios away from him. Weber blamed everything on Simon, and then proceeded to operate in exactly the same way for over half a year until most of his studios went bankrupt. Let's look at Jones. Grasshopper confirmed that he pretty much did what he wanted, ignoring the Simons. Then he left together with his studios, and nobody did anything about it. Well, what would happen if Piercey simply left with his studios as well? That's right, nobody would have done anything about it. That's why I don't think he was kicked out. It failed with Weber, and if push came to shove I believe it would have failed with Piercey too. (BTW, rainmann, I'm still to hear about all the big changes in the business model which Piercey has made at KFFL and which he wasn't allowed to do at TKF.) Grasshopper, you mentioned that he was under pressure from his immediate subordinates. Well, I have no doubt that Piercey would have simply fired them if they started to cause trouble. He did that before when one of his senior chiefs tried to organize a movement to have instructors' wages raised. Knowing Piercey, I'm quite sure he wouldn't put up with anything from his subordinates. He may have simply decided "to hell with it, I'll do something else", but that was not because he couldn't do anything about it.

"Many times I have regretted giving that trust, and sometimes I have been taken advantage of. Thankfully, so far, nothing as severe or costly as what Simon has done to these previous owners etc." Costly? It certainly wasn't costly to Piercey. As far as I know he made quite a bit of money as owner (the stuff about him going personally bankrupt seems completely ridiculous to me). Even if he didn't last as owner forever, it seems to me that what he got out of it was well worth it. The alternative would have been for him to continue receiving an instructor's wage all those years, and we know how great that was back then. "Simon betrayed all these people that were very loyal to him." Betrayed how? Even if Piercey was kicked out (which I very much doubt), how is that betrayal? Someone compared the Piercey-Simon relationship to a marriage. OK then, say two people marry and live happily for a couple of decades. Then they divorce for whatever reason (maybe one of the people fell in love with someone else, or maybe they just grew apart and life together became intolerable). Would you say that one person betrayed the other? I say no. They both had a very fulfilling life with each other, and whatever happened afterwards, they each benefited from this relationship with each other. No relationship lasts forever. There's a time to recognize that and move on. I believe that Piercey benefited as much from the experience of being an owner as Simon had from having him as owner. Did Piercey trust Simon to keep him an owner his entire life? Somehow I doubt Simon ever promised that when he gave his studios over to Piercey. Whatever deal Piercey got was better than no deal. So I don't see how you can look at what happened as a betrayal. "I understand that Simon sometimes patrols/patrolled his property with guns. I wonder why...." Are you talking about the Temple lands? Not much to wonder about. It's a very wild, secluded area, with bears, snakes, coyotes, etc.

"I feel like Vortex with my multiple posts." I'll take that as a complement. :D

To all, On the first post of this thread, Grasshopper posted, “Feel free to add other excellent studios to this list” Anyway, here are the sites in B.C. that I have found. Holland’s Kung Fu Academy It says of Bob Holland; “He is the owner of Holland's Kung fu Academy in the Western Communities.” http://www.kungfuacademy.net/instructor.html Island Kung Fu Under “Our Instructor”, it says: “The Chief Instructor at Island Kung-Fu is Sifu Cathal Walsh.” http://www.islandkungfu.com/about_kungfu.html Regards, MrE2Me2 Without prejudice E&OE

To all, I have just discovered this website. I don’t know anything about it. But here it is, anyway: http://www.maotw.com/gmg/ About halfway down the page. And on the same site, we have “Moo Kempo Karate” http://www.maotw.com/list/ma01.html Again, about halfway down the page. Regards, MrE2Me2 Without prejudice E&OE

That IS something, I checked out that site months ago and they had no record of GM Simon or Moo Kempo. I think I may have sent them an e-mail about their ommission, but someone else sent or collected that photo. Not to open the can of worms again, but I am very conflicted about this... My goal was not to give him "validity", but more to give the colective "US"; his past & present students and teachers; some enlightenment and validation on what it was we really learned. It was really to combat the nay-sayers of the style... Olaf (like others I am sure), has done (In my opoinion) some dispicable things to some good people and I opologize to those that have been hurt by him and feel I am helping his cause. I hope that they understand this is an uncontrollable by-product from my true intent... The Zen Shack history page on O. E. Simon, for better or worse, is a very sanitized chronicle of his life and accomplishments. Maybe one day the WHOLE truth will be published, but at this time I see no benefit from that... None the less, I still chuckled when I saw his name picture on that GRAND MASTER GALLERY...

Hello Grasshopper, Personally, I think you have done a great job with both this forum and “zenshack”. This website that now lists Olaf has a new picture but the name is “Moo Kempo Karate”. To my knowledge, it hasn’t been called “Karate” since before my time. As to what you said about not opening a can of worms: I hear that…I don’t think any reasonable person does. We have all asked, read about and tried to answer really hard questions. That they haven’t all been answered to our satisfaction is too bad. But it has been my experience that Moh is far from the only martial art with problems. Ed Parker once refrained from calling his art other than “Karate”. He had started with “Karate” and he stayed with it. Ed Parker wrote, “Later on, he regretted using the term “karate,” but he felt he was “stuck” with it for a variety of reasons.” http://www.q-net.net.au/~razored/Ed%20Parker.htm Also, Ed Parker went through several transitions before arriving at his current system. “American Kenpo began with Ed Parker. But it is not a single system as Ed went through five transitions before arriving at what would be come the Ed Parker Style of American Kenpo.” http://www.americankenpo.com/dedication.html And not to put too fine a point on it but there is this from another thread I posted. From “Kenpo Talk” which is located here; http://www.kenpotalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3471 A forum member nicknamed “Celtic Crippler” posted this; “The subtitle on Black Belt Magazine reads, "Jeff Speakman Updates Ed Parker's Art." That caught my eye and I immediately flipped to page 74 to read more. According to the article, Jeff Speakman has revamped his curriculum, removing 1/3 of the techniques he used to practice and replaced them with "ground" techniuqes and modified another 1/3 to fit the new fight model.” There are several other systems of “Karate” that have also seen their share of conflicts. For example, there is this: http://www.24fightingchickens.com/2006/05/28/capitalism-for-dummies/ “Time and again I have read or heard the argument that when Karate instructors or associations set out to make money, everything goes straight to Hell.” The article also states, “If the leaders of Karate organizations were truly mindful of their income statement, they would seize upon opportunities to leverage their scale to provide equipment, insurance, uniforms, and lobby the government. If they were really interested in profit, they would advertise more, make themselves less exclusive, and would view their clubs as customers instead of as helpless members who required their assistance to survive. If they were really interested in their balance sheet, they would work to retain their assets which give them strength - their high ranking instructors and talented up and comers. Instead, they begin to view such people as threats as they rise higher and higher, and history shows that Karate orgs, much like the Soviet Communist Party, tend to eliminate these people instead of leverage them as they become more powerful. “ So while we at Moh have had our fair share of problems in the political arena. We are not alone in this. Regards, MrE2Me2 Without prejudice E&OE