I'm a long time student of Tom's, so I wanted to add a bit to this discourse. Obviously, I would have to say I'm biased in regards to Tom's ability both as a practitioner and as a teacher, although I can say that Tom does have several senior students who have great ability and the number of students who have fallen out with Tom over the years has been minimal. Mugen Ronin Warriors Ryo.
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The online learning program that Tom offers is excellent. He provides material in multiple formats to support different learning styles. There are tons of videos and PDFs, and it covers all of the foundation level material, which makes it useful to practitioners of any style of bagua. We have just finished our first teacher training program for the foundation level material and several of the students who participated were students who had progressed through the online learning program. These were students who really applied themselves to the material by practicing every day and dissecting every morsel of information in the online program.
If the measure of an online program is to produce quality students, then I would have to say that Tom's program is successful. I've trained with Tom directly as well as with a number of his students, and I can only say good things about his mastery of the art, his dedication to furthering the practice of martial arts in the US, and his ability to teach in a clear and effective manner. He's also a pretty nice guy. That said, distance learning programs are almost never worth the time and money. There is a lot of information both the teacher and student gain from on person contact that is vital to developing a proper foundation in the art. Finding someone local who can look and feel what you are doing wrong or what you need work on, even if they are not half the martial artist Tom is, would probably benefit you much more. Thank you very much for your input!
Although I generally agree with you on the disadvantages of distance learning, I am in a situation where there are no reasonable teachers of any CMA in my area. It's either distance learning or a Taekwondo McDojo. I have a broad but shallow background in CMA and I am in excellent (external) condition. I am hoping that these factors, along with very strong motivation will allow me to get some benefit from this (or a similar) program. As for the money, if I make even the most basic progress, the $400 one-time fee is meaningless.