A Lifelong Passion

I feel like Martial Arts have been with me for most of my life -- at least since I was seven years old -- even when I have not been actively training or practicing.  I was first introduced to Martial Arts by my Dad, who began teaching me a form of Chinese Kung Fu he had learned in his early 20s.  (This was before his accident, which left him paralyzed in 1980, after he had been practicing Kung Fu for three years.)

My Dad really tried to instill in me the value of the artform, with particular emphasis on the history of the style, which dated back hundreds, possibly even thousands of years to China.  He told me that "Kung Fu" began in the Shaolin temples of China, and was meant as a form of exercise for the monks who the earliest teacher felt had become weak from too little physical activity.  I also learned that a major inspiration for the movements had come from watching animals, such as the Tiger, the Snake or the Preying Mantis.

The story of how my Dad's teacher Ted had become introduced to Kung Fu is one that most people find hard to believe, nonetheless it's the only explanation my Dad had been given -- though Ted actually discussed it very little.  A government agency had apparently discovered Ted at a young age and detected something special about him.  These agents spoke with Ted's parents and received permission to train Ted in a secret program, where he studied under some Shaolin monks hired by the government to teach him Martial Arts throughout his childhood and into adulthood.

Tales of intrigue in my Dad's class were kept to a minimum, however, and my Dad's first year of training consisted almost entirely of learning the major stance, and how to stand and how to walk.  Most of the weight was kept on the back leg, the legs were kept close together, knees slightly bent, left arm perpendicular to ground in an L shape lined up with one shoulder, and the other arm in a fist to the side.  My Dad did not learn a more specific name for the style of Kung Fu he learned (there are dozens if not hundreds of styles could fall into this category) my best guess at this time, judging from some research I have done online, is that he was learning Hung Gar.

My attention span was unfortunately limited at that young age, and I learned the basics of the stance and how to walk, but little more.  Still, over the years martial arts was a major topic of conversation between my Dad and I over the years and we spent many Friday or Saturday nights staying up late to enjoy a Bruce Lee  or Chuck Noris movie, while my Dad commented upon which moves were "real" and which were just for show.

Martial Arts as a practice, however, did not come back into my life until I reached late middle school.  My best friend at that time, and for years before, was a boy named Lam who's family was Vietnamese.  I spent many nights over at my friends house, and on occasion we would stop into the garage where Lam's dad, Hai, was teaching a martial arts class to several teenagers in their extended family.

This class evidently all received blackbelts and moved on -- whether this was a regular part of the program, "like graduation," or just a consequence of the boys all going off to college, I couldn't say.  But for whatever reason, Hai decided to begin another class working with younger children in the family.  I was invited, along with Lam, to participate and of course I jumped on the opportunity.  There was never any charge for the class.

The style was called Thieu Lam and an image of a tiger was on the symbol I was shown to represent it.  While there were similarities between Theiu Lam and the one my dad learned, much of it was quite different.  The main stance, for example, kept most of the weight on the front foot.  We spent most of our time practicing kicks.  I also, during this time, learned three forms and performed two of them at a belt ceremony held at Lam's house, with dozens of family members including my parents in attendance.

Unfortunately, Hai had to take on another job after about a year and a half of training and no longer had the time to teach the class.  While I continued to practice for a short while after the class ended, the usual preoccupations with high school eventually took over.  After some years, through college, martial arts receded into the background of my thoughts, although I never forgot the experiences or what I had gained from them.

It wasn't until after I married and had a stepson six years of age, Poete, that I began thinking about martial arts again, because I perceived the lessons it could offer to him.  So, slowly, I began training with Poete, teaching him (and remembering myself) the exercises and movements I had learned in my Thieu Lam class over ten years before.  To my surprise, a great deal of the system, even the movements of the first form, was recalled to my mind in increasing detail as time passed.

Still, I knew there was only so much I could teach him and I began doing some research on nearby martial arts schools.  As a result of my upbringing and my own background, I could really only bring myself to consider Chinese or Vietnamese styles.  Though there were many Karate, Tae Kwon Do and even some Judo schools nearby, none of them (at least according to my own research) seemed to teach a style I was interested in personally.  And while I was primarily looking more on behalf of Poete, rather than myself, I knew that it would be mutually beneficial if I had personal confidence in the material he was learning.

The closest school I could find was White Crane in Baton Rogue, a bit over an hour from my house.  Now this is at a time when gas is almost $4.00 per gallon.  Poete and I visited the school once, and while I was impressed with what I saw, travelling this distance even once per week was simply not practical.

One day I was having lunch with a friend of mine, who I met through work, and as I was telling him about my family I brought up the fact that I was teaching my stepson and was looking for a school where we could learn together.  He told me about a school in New Iberia called Progressive Martial Arts Training Center, which was headed by a man named Danny Terrell.  He told me that many styles were taught there but the one that interested me the most was Wing Chun, a distinctly Chinese art.

My entire family, my wife Brianne, my stepson Poete and my newest son, Lennon who is a little over a year old now, visited the school one Tuesday evening.  To my surprise, Sifu Danny asked me to participate.  We went through the first form (the "Siu Lum Tao") and did some drills.  The first thing I noticed was that most of the attention seemed to be upon the upper body, particularly the hands.  While it was  different both from what I had learned from my Dad and my friend's Dad, there were enough similarities that I was immediately drawn to it.

I have been taking Wing Chun lessons at Wing Chun for about three months now.  There was an awkward period where I felt somewhat "between styles," not yet able to communicate much about Wing Chun and yet my commitment slipping towards my older style Thieu Lam, that unfortunately practices between Poete and I lapsed for a while.  However now that I am beginning to see the patterns in Wing Chun a bit more I have again started working with Poete, and we have gone through the first session of the Siu Lum Tao several times together.

I feel so taken by the beauty and effectiveness of this style, not the mention the pure enjoyment I receive from practicing the movements, that I cannot right now imagine stopping my training -- not this time, now that I am older and have a true appreciation of its value.  But more importantly, I truly hope that Poete grows up with the same space of fascination for martial arts in his heart that I had.  Even if he goes years at a time without practicing, which I feel is all but inevitable, I simply want to offer him the same gift I was given -- to be introduced to an art form, a system of movements far older than ourselves, and instilled with the wisdom that cannot be fully realized in a single lifetime or generation.  This is a gift I would want everyone to have the opportunity to experience.