A lot of people are speaking past each other here.
I watch a lot of EmRatThich's stuff. Some of it is good stuff, most of it is good marketing. Plenty of it is stuff that when I see it, I can place it in context, but I still sometimes wonder about the level of the player and the experience of the coach.
The labelling of what he says as "Chinese Secrets" is marketing - I can live with that.
His first video on Chinese blades/equipment vs. European blades/equipment came across as extremely fishy, given that Zhang Jike uses a Viscaria and Alexander Shibaev uses a Korbel. OF course, there are Chinese players who use wooden blades and Europeans who use composites so the point is not to get semantic. But the point is that beyond the marketing, I didn't like the stereotypical nature of some of the claims.
There was also a recent video where to illustrate the differences between European (or old or whatever) looping philosophy and Chinese looping philosophy, he used video of a player I have never heard of and compared it to top Chinese players. Again, good marketing, but dubious approach to the issue. While the Chinese have issues with the technique of many top European or Japanese players, these issues are far more subtle than the caricature that I was seeing in the video.
Carl's point is that a lot of "Chinese secrets" are part of standard European teaching. This of course makes sense as many top Chinese players went to Europe to build their games and bring ideas back to China (Wang Liqin and Kong Linghui being the most notable)! And of course, many of the top European players trained in China at some point in their lives so none of their games is purely Chinese or European.
There was an article I read recently on coaching vs. playing and I think it was about soccer or tennis or some other sport. Of course good coaches don't have to be great players. But good coaches have to demonstrate some ability to understand the level they are communicating to or show some experience of having coached players to that level. I am still paying my dues as a coach. I think most of the people here that I give advice to know my audience and I do not pretend to go around coaching 2200 players. And there is a specific reason why I even coach as I have explained before - I did most of my learning and training at the age of 34 with autoimmune joint disorders so I tend to remember the things I learned to get better and communicate them more easily than someone who got good at a young age and doesn't know how or why he got good in relative terms. Most coaches will simply train you how they were trained, and very few have experience dealing with adult learners in a way that specifically addresses the adult's needs. I worked with a coach who trained 2 adults to over 2000 USATT and has another two on the way - he got to his best level mostly learning as an adult. I also worked with an international coach who worked with amateurs in Australia as well as the Australian national team and who coached and played in Europe. So it is my understanding of those ideas I share with people from the perspective of someone who dealt with the issues adults face trying to improve. Some of my stuff is not even agreeable to a serious player. But it is the way I see it.
I have seen interesting stuff in EmratThich's videos. But I think that in general, people should be fairly transparent about who they are or their level of play when presenting or making claims on the internet. This helps us place things in context. We are not trying to be pros, so a lot of stuff is context specific. A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing because of context.