How did you get here? What path did you take?

[Danny T]

This won't be a linear story, it will kind of jump around, just like my Martial career did.

I saw Ed Parker on The Lucy Show in 63 and that was it, I was pretty much hooked, that's what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I dabbled around with anyone who knew anything about Martial Arts, but there wasn't much around me at the time. The first time I trained in an actual school it was Greek Gojo Ryu, went for about a year, but it was just too far away and I didn't have a car. Then a dojo opened in an adjoining suburb of Boston, and I found a home. A couple of months later a boxing gym opened two blocks away. I remember my Karate mind feeling threatened by the boxing gym. So I used to practice in front of the dojo mirror. Throwing rising blocks to block their imaginary jabs. (yes, I was that foolish a kid)

Started going to the boxing gym in the afternoon and the dojo at night. I was living at home, going to a local college, and working part time in a pool hall. I didn't have to pay for Karate as I started teaching very early. Not because I actually knew anything, but I spoke well and could get ideas across, something the chief instructor didn't know how to do at all. The boxing gym, The South Side was an old fashioned boxing gym, and it was cheap. There were a lot of good boxers there, an Olympian, a few guys who fought pro, a lot of amateurs. Freddy Roache and his brothers trained there as kids when I was there. Their locker was next to mine. Their dad, Mister Roache, taught them. Marvin Hagler stopped in once in a while and sparred with everyone.

Any night the dojo wasn't open I worked in the pool hall making money so I could go to tournaments, I'd be sitting behind the counter reading Mas Oyama Karate books as I smoked a cigar.

At the dojo, a guy that was friends with my instructor would stop by every once in a while and work with me on his art, which was Fu Jow Pai Kung Fu. I loved it. I loved anything that had to do with Martial Arts. Whatever art someone was trying to teach me I was fully in. There weren't enough hours in the day so something had to go. I took the obvious route, I left college. Again, not the brightest of young men.

I was promoted to black belt in American Karate in nineteen seventy four. Got a job in the Boston Public School System the same week, right as the desegregation of Boston public schools was taking place. The job title was "transitional security aide", we were basically bouncers. The job was perfect for me as it ran from 8 a.m until one thirty, gave plenty of time to train, AND, you pretty much fought at work in the riots every week. It was absolutely crazy. Sure, they were high school kids, but some of them were in their twenties, there was a lot of violence, a lot of chances to use martial arts for the good, especially since you weren't trying to hurt them, just control them and keep anyone from killing anybody else. In doing this, if it worked, I kept doing it, if it didn't I'd eventually stop doing it. Started doing the same thing in the dojo.

Sometime in the late seventies I got certified by the state to teach Defensive Tactics to police. Had a whole lot of fun doing that. I was a "Motor Skills Design Instructor" which is a fancy smancy name for a "DT guy". I actually had a certificate from the state that said that. But I think the dog ate it. What was interesting to me, and which I love - they didn't tell me what to teach, they just certified me to teach.
For a period of fifteen years, four different black belts of mine, all of whom were Boston cops, were the full time DT instructors at the Academy. I would go up and assist them as a private contractor. I didn't become a cop until later.

In 73 I first met Joe Lewis at George Pesare's Kenpo school in Providence Rhode Island. He was supposed to teach a seminar, but the seminar was rescheduled. Everybody was informed of the new date except for Joe Lewis himself and a half dozen of us.
So he taught us anyway, no charge just a bunch of Karate guys working out. Everyone knew Joe Lewis from the Karate magazines. He was the guy. He was nothing like I had pictured in my mind. He was far more cerebral than anyone would have guessed. He was extremely calm and soft spoken. When he moved, it was like an explosion. Unlike anyone I've seen since.

We worked out for five hours, not hard drilling, he was teaching us movement. Blew my mind. Changed everything I did from that moment going forward. I started to seek him out, train with him every chance I got. He changed everything I knew of Karate and especially of fighting.

Twenty years later when Joe would come to New England to teach seminars at peoples schools he would stay at my house. I don't kid when I say that I learned as much about fighting right there in my kitchen as I did in any dojo. And some times when he'd have a day between seminars he would just come down the dojo and teach a class. Unbelievable. And my dojo at this time was that pool hall I mentioned earlier. That place stayed open for thirty six years. Twenty of them as a good school. I will always miss Joe Lewis. He was a truly great Martial Artist, a good man, but he was also one seriously scary mother F'r. (in a nice way)

In the late seventies kickboxing became big in New England. One of the promoters approached me and asked if I wanted a three rounder, two minute rounds. Five hundred bucks. I said "You mean to tell me you'll give me five hundred bucks for six minutes of work? Where the hell do I sign?" That was pretty awesome. Especially since they paid you in cash. But, ain't there always a "but"? This was in Massachusetts. There's a lot of politics in Massachusetts. A lot of the old boxing guard had cush jobs at the State House. Kickboxing shows had started to outdraw boxing shows by a wide margin. Couldn't very well have that, now could we? Massachusetts passed a bill outlawing kickboxing. The bill actually said that kicking was dirty fighting. It was over turned several years later, but for a few years I had to go out of state to kickbox.

And in a strange turn of events - twenty five years later, those same boxing cronies, still politically connected, became MMA judges. And guess who taught a series of clinics to teach them how to judge MMA? Me and a friend's nephew, who was a Gracie purple belt.

Speaking of which, in ninety one, I had been studying Jeet Kune Do part time for a couple years while teaching American Karate. My Jeet instructor said "plan on spending all day Saturday and Sunday here, I want you to meet and train with one of my teachers". I figured he was talking Jeet Kune Do, his teacher was Paul Vunak at the time, and I'm thinking cool, always wanted to meet him. So I went. But it wasn't his Jeet instructor, it was his grappling instructor. And that's how I first met Rickson Gracie. Those first two days I couldn't even sleep at night. I kept staring at the ceiling whispering "wow, that stuff is nuts". And it was awesome. And nobody even knew what a Gracie was back then. After training with him a dozen times, I brought my wife. She was one of my black belts. Rickson took her under his wing and partnered with her every time we trained. She has a better rear naked choke than I do because of that. And, yes, I'm insanely jealous.

In seventy six I was at a tournament and was wearing a t-shirt that I had had made that said "God bless a kickboxer". Somebody tapped my shoulder and asked "Where can I get one of those shirts?" I turned around. It was Bill Wallace. Told him I'd have one for him at a tournie he was appearing at the following week if he'd teach me stuff. So he taught me stuff. Years later we were on the same fighting team for a bit. He is one serious Martial Artist, one seriously intelligent man. And I don't actually get along with Bill too greatly, but man, he is something when it comes to anything Martial related or movement related. (Masters degree in Kinesiology)

In 83 I had an ethics question that I wanted somebody with weight in the martial world to advise me on. Ed Parker taught a buddy of mine, I had met Ed several times. My buddy was hosting him for a seminar and I went just to talk to Ed. Talk we did, for about an hour, delaying the Black Belt portion of the seminar. When one of the higher ranked guys reminded Ed of the time, Ed turned and said, "yes, and you see I'm busy at the moment and when I'm done here we'll start." When it did start, Ed put me in font and used me as his Uki all day. Told me it would be a good lesson for people getting too big for their britches." Ed was an awesome guy. When I think of him I remember his laugh, because he was the easiest guy to tell a joke to, and I remember his love for Italian food. I miss Ed. He was a rock star. And I'll tell you what, the guys hands were fast, real fast, they felt like fricken' hammers. He could smack. He helped me a great deal.

Right around nineteen eighty, somebody bought the building my dojo was in and evicted us. Oh man, did that suck. Fortunately, I had made a lot of friends on the tournament circuit and a group of us would go to the dojos of friends of ours, all over the place, all kinds of styles. We mostly went on sparring nights, but sometimes for classes. If I had never competed, I would never had met and become friends with all the people I did. And I don't know what the heck would have happened over that three year period, maybe I would have been out of the arts. Some of the places were Kempo, some Okinawan, TKD, Kung Fu, some boxing, heck, hard to remember them all now. I even went to a Kung Fu wedding at a Mantis school that I sometimes visited. It was very cool, a nice ceremony.

In the early eighties Billy Blanks moved to Massachusetts. We started training together and became sparring partners for five years until he moved to L.A. Changed my game so much I can't begin to tell you. I met so many folks through Billy it blows my mind. He was the best man when my wife and I were married. Met her in 78 in a dojo.

First moved to Hawaii in ninety four. Our dogs had to spend 120 days in quarantine on Oahu. We stayed there and took full care of them. While there we visited Relson Gracie's school at the University of Hawaii. Next thing I know my wife and I are at Relson's house watching Rickson videos in his living room, then taking privates in his garage from of his purple belts, John

After quarantine we finally got to Maui. A dojo had just opened a few months earlier. A Rickson Gracie school. Again, luck I have no right to have. Go figure.

Throughout the rest of the nineties, I'd fly to L.A and spend a week at Billy's every month. I'd teach privates to pay for airfare and stay at Billy's house. He had the busiest gym/dojo I've ever seen. Heck, busiest I'd even heard about. Had a lot of fun, taught a lot of people, wrote some movies for Billy in between classes. I remember the first time I was at Billy's L.A dojo - the building had originally been a bank building. A big one. One of the rooms had previously been a large vault. Now it was a bag room. There were twenty heavy bags hanging in there. Nice bags. Anyway, I went in and started using a bag. I used to get seriously immersed when I did bag work. Didn't really pay attention to my surroundings. Soon all the bags were taken. Nice sounds, twenty people hitting bags. Kind of like a waterfall sound. Except there were chains clanging and there was background music.

At some point I take a rest and just hold onto the bag. There, on the bag to my left was Carlos Palomino, former welter weight champ and a Boxing Hall of Fame member, and on my right is Sugar Ray Leonard. I had to pinch myself because I thought I was dreaming. I trained with both of them a bunch of times. Used to love working combinations with Ray. He taught me a lot.

A couple days later Billy, Ray, Shaq (this was at the beginning of his Lakers career) and I went out and did some road work. A film crew happened to be driving by, saw Shaq, pulled over and started filming. Nobody had any comment. They shoved a mic in my face and asked me who I was. I told them I was nobody, just the token white guy. The others giggled at that one.

In 03, maybe 04, I met Tom Sotis, a knife instructor. To this day the best knife man I've ever seen. I'm still learning so much about something I really knew nothing about. Sometimes we'd train at the dojo, or somebody elses dojo, but most of the time we'd train at his house. He lived in Rhode island but it was a short drive for being in another state. He mostly trains military and letter agency guys now, but still teaches any of his old crew any time we want. I gotta get back to that, it's a lot of fun and a heck of workout. And I’m pretty good at it. Unusual for me as I never had much talent with tradition Martial weapons.

Throughout all this I'd go to seminars of just about anyone. Heck, it's only a day, sometimes a few, sometimes just part of a day. Always picked something up, met a lot of folks which led to meeting and learning from a lot of other folks. Went to a lot of week long seminars, training camp things, why not, I had the opportunity and the time. I'd be crazy not to. Best thing about the long ones....you know how if you go to a really good seminar, the next day or so you'll snap your fingers and say, "I wish I had remembered to ask him such and such"? With the week long ones you sometimes actually remember.

The Uechi folks in Massachusetts used to put on a terrific week long training camp. They'd bring in people from all over, all kinds of styles, and all kinds of people. It would be in a huge indoor area, with everybody broken up into groups. You know, a Shotokan guy over there, Rory Miller over there, a boxer over there, a sword guy here, a kung fu guy there. You could go to everyone and spend as much time as you want. These would go from like 10 a.m until five, a break for an hour and then into the night.

Sometime in the midst of this crazy trip of mine the internet came into being. Ho-lee craparoni, this was something else. Within ten years I could see, study, read about all kinds of Martial Arts. And talk to people online about what they did. Still blows my mind what we have at our fingertips today. Blows my mind chatting with all you guys, too. Never could have imagined that in a million years.

Been fun so far.

Wow Buka...Like I said before; you are connected!!! Awesome journey!

 

[JP3]

Been fun so far.

Man, I clicked the like button of course, but it doesn't seem cool enough. Great stuff there, you name-droppin' cuss, you...

Awesome backstory.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

This won't be a linear story, it will kind of jump around, just like my Martial career did.

I saw Ed Parker on The Lucy Show in 63 and that was it, I was pretty much hooked, that's what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I dabbled around with anyone who knew anything about Martial Arts, but there wasn't much around me at the time. The first time I trained in an actual school it was Greek Gojo Ryu, went for about a year, but it was just too far away and I didn't have a car. Then a dojo opened in an adjoining suburb of Boston, and I found a home. A couple of months later a boxing gym opened two blocks away. I remember my Karate mind feeling threatened by the boxing gym. So I used to practice in front of the dojo mirror. Throwing rising blocks to block their imaginary jabs. (yes, I was that foolish a kid)

Started going to the boxing gym in the afternoon and the dojo at night. I was living at home, going to a local college, and working part time in a pool hall. I didn't have to pay for Karate as I started teaching very early. Not because I actually knew anything, but I spoke well and could get ideas across, something the chief instructor didn't know how to do at all. The boxing gym, The South Side was an old fashioned boxing gym, and it was cheap. There were a lot of good boxers there, an Olympian, a few guys who fought pro, a lot of amateurs. Freddy Roache and his brothers trained there as kids when I was there. Their locker was next to mine. Their dad, Mister Roache, taught them. Marvin Hagler stopped in once in a while and sparred with everyone.

Any night the dojo wasn't open I worked in the pool hall making money so I could go to tournaments, I'd be sitting behind the counter reading Mas Oyama Karate books as I smoked a cigar.

At the dojo, a guy that was friends with my instructor would stop by every once in a while and work with me on his art, which was Fu Jow Pai Kung Fu. I loved it. I loved anything that had to do with Martial Arts. Whatever art someone was trying to teach me I was fully in. There weren't enough hours in the day so something had to go. I took the obvious route, I left college. Again, not the brightest of young men.

I was promoted to black belt in American Karate in nineteen seventy four. Got a job in the Boston Public School System the same week, right as the desegregation of Boston public schools was taking place. The job title was "transitional security aide", we were basically bouncers. The job was perfect for me as it ran from 8 a.m until one thirty, gave plenty of time to train, AND, you pretty much fought at work in the riots every week. It was absolutely crazy. Sure, they were high school kids, but some of them were in their twenties, there was a lot of violence, a lot of chances to use martial arts for the good, especially since you weren't trying to hurt them, just control them and keep anyone from killing anybody else. In doing this, if it worked, I kept doing it, if it didn't I'd eventually stop doing it. Started doing the same thing in the dojo.

Sometime in the late seventies I got certified by the state to teach Defensive Tactics to police. Had a whole lot of fun doing that. I was a "Motor Skills Design Instructor" which is a fancy smancy name for a "DT guy". I actually had a certificate from the state that said that. But I think the dog ate it. What was interesting to me, and which I love - they didn't tell me what to teach, they just certified me to teach.
For a period of fifteen years, four different black belts of mine, all of whom were Boston cops, were the full time DT instructors at the Academy. I would go up and assist them as a private contractor. I didn't become a cop until later.

In 73 I first met Joe Lewis at George Pesare's Kenpo school in Providence Rhode Island. He was supposed to teach a seminar, but the seminar was rescheduled. Everybody was informed of the new date except for Joe Lewis himself and a half dozen of us.
So he taught us anyway, no charge just a bunch of Karate guys working out. Everyone knew Joe Lewis from the Karate magazines. He was the guy. He was nothing like I had pictured in my mind. He was far more cerebral than anyone would have guessed. He was extremely calm and soft spoken. When he moved, it was like an explosion. Unlike anyone I've seen since.

We worked out for five hours, not hard drilling, he was teaching us movement. Blew my mind. Changed everything I did from that moment going forward. I started to seek him out, train with him every chance I got. He changed everything I knew of Karate and especially of fighting.

Twenty years later when Joe would come to New England to teach seminars at peoples schools he would stay at my house. I don't kid when I say that I learned as much about fighting right there in my kitchen as I did in any dojo. And some times when he'd have a day between seminars he would just come down the dojo and teach a class. Unbelievable. And my dojo at this time was that pool hall I mentioned earlier. That place stayed open for thirty six years. Twenty of them as a good school. I will always miss Joe Lewis. He was a truly great Martial Artist, a good man, but he was also one seriously scary mother F'r. (in a nice way)

In the late seventies kickboxing became big in New England. One of the promoters approached me and asked if I wanted a three rounder, two minute rounds. Five hundred bucks. I said "You mean to tell me you'll give me five hundred bucks for six minutes of work? Where the hell do I sign?" That was pretty awesome. Especially since they paid you in cash. But, ain't there always a "but"? This was in Massachusetts. There's a lot of politics in Massachusetts. A lot of the old boxing guard had cush jobs at the State House. Kickboxing shows had started to outdraw boxing shows by a wide margin. Couldn't very well have that, now could we? Massachusetts passed a bill outlawing kickboxing. The bill actually said that kicking was dirty fighting. It was over turned several years later, but for a few years I had to go out of state to kickbox.

And in a strange turn of events - twenty five years later, those same boxing cronies, still politically connected, became MMA judges. And guess who taught a series of clinics to teach them how to judge MMA? Me and a friend's nephew, who was a Gracie purple belt.

Speaking of which, in ninety one, I had been studying Jeet Kune Do part time for a couple years while teaching American Karate. My Jeet instructor said "plan on spending all day Saturday and Sunday here, I want you to meet and train with one of my teachers". I figured he was talking Jeet Kune Do, his teacher was Paul Vunak at the time, and I'm thinking cool, always wanted to meet him. So I went. But it wasn't his Jeet instructor, it was his grappling instructor. And that's how I first met Rickson Gracie. Those first two days I couldn't even sleep at night. I kept staring at the ceiling whispering "wow, that stuff is nuts". And it was awesome. And nobody even knew what a Gracie was back then. After training with him a dozen times, I brought my wife. She was one of my black belts. Rickson took her under his wing and partnered with her every time we trained. She has a better rear naked choke than I do because of that. And, yes, I'm insanely jealous.

In seventy six I was at a tournament and was wearing a t-shirt that I had had made that said "God bless a kickboxer". Somebody tapped my shoulder and asked "Where can I get one of those shirts?" I turned around. It was Bill Wallace. Told him I'd have one for him at a tournie he was appearing at the following week if he'd teach me stuff. So he taught me stuff. Years later we were on the same fighting team for a bit. He is one serious Martial Artist, one seriously intelligent man. And I don't actually get along with Bill too greatly, but man, he is something when it comes to anything Martial related or movement related. (Masters degree in Kinesiology)

In 83 I had an ethics question that I wanted somebody with weight in the martial world to advise me on. Ed Parker taught a buddy of mine, I had met Ed several times. My buddy was hosting him for a seminar and I went just to talk to Ed. Talk we did, for about an hour, delaying the Black Belt portion of the seminar. When one of the higher ranked guys reminded Ed of the time, Ed turned and said, "yes, and you see I'm busy at the moment and when I'm done here we'll start." When it did start, Ed put me in font and used me as his Uki all day. Told me it would be a good lesson for people getting too big for their britches." Ed was an awesome guy. When I think of him I remember his laugh, because he was the easiest guy to tell a joke to, and I remember his love for Italian food. I miss Ed. He was a rock star. And I'll tell you what, the guys hands were fast, real fast, they felt like fricken' hammers. He could smack. He helped me a great deal.

Right around nineteen eighty, somebody bought the building my dojo was in and evicted us. Oh man, did that suck. Fortunately, I had made a lot of friends on the tournament circuit and a group of us would go to the dojos of friends of ours, all over the place, all kinds of styles. We mostly went on sparring nights, but sometimes for classes. If I had never competed, I would never had met and become friends with all the people I did. And I don't know what the heck would have happened over that three year period, maybe I would have been out of the arts. Some of the places were Kempo, some Okinawan, TKD, Kung Fu, some boxing, heck, hard to remember them all now. I even went to a Kung Fu wedding at a Mantis school that I sometimes visited. It was very cool, a nice ceremony.

In the early eighties Billy Blanks moved to Massachusetts. We started training together and became sparring partners for five years until he moved to L.A. Changed my game so much I can't begin to tell you. I met so many folks through Billy it blows my mind. He was the best man when my wife and I were married. Met her in 78 in a dojo.

First moved to Hawaii in ninety four. Our dogs had to spend 120 days in quarantine on Oahu. We stayed there and took full care of them. While there we visited Relson Gracie's school at the University of Hawaii. Next thing I know my wife and I are at Relson's house watching Rickson videos in his living room, then taking privates in his garage from of his purple belts, John

After quarantine we finally got to Maui. A dojo had just opened a few months earlier. A Rickson Gracie school. Again, luck I have no right to have. Go figure.

Throughout the rest of the nineties, I'd fly to L.A and spend a week at Billy's every month. I'd teach privates to pay for airfare and stay at Billy's house. He had the busiest gym/dojo I've ever seen. Heck, busiest I'd even heard about. Had a lot of fun, taught a lot of people, wrote some movies for Billy in between classes. I remember the first time I was at Billy's L.A dojo - the building had originally been a bank building. A big one. One of the rooms had previously been a large vault. Now it was a bag room. There were twenty heavy bags hanging in there. Nice bags. Anyway, I went in and started using a bag. I used to get seriously immersed when I did bag work. Didn't really pay attention to my surroundings. Soon all the bags were taken. Nice sounds, twenty people hitting bags. Kind of like a waterfall sound. Except there were chains clanging and there was background music.

At some point I take a rest and just hold onto the bag. There, on the bag to my left was Carlos Palomino, former welter weight champ and a Boxing Hall of Fame member, and on my right is Sugar Ray Leonard. I had to pinch myself because I thought I was dreaming. I trained with both of them a bunch of times. Used to love working combinations with Ray. He taught me a lot.

A couple days later Billy, Ray, Shaq (this was at the beginning of his Lakers career) and I went out and did some road work. A film crew happened to be driving by, saw Shaq, pulled over and started filming. Nobody had any comment. They shoved a mic in my face and asked me who I was. I told them I was nobody, just the token white guy. The others giggled at that one.

In 03, maybe 04, I met Tom Sotis, a knife instructor. To this day the best knife man I've ever seen. I'm still learning so much about something I really knew nothing about. Sometimes we'd train at the dojo, or somebody elses dojo, but most of the time we'd train at his house. He lived in Rhode island but it was a short drive for being in another state. He mostly trains military and letter agency guys now, but still teaches any of his old crew any time we want. I gotta get back to that, it's a lot of fun and a heck of workout. And I’m pretty good at it. Unusual for me as I never had much talent with tradition Martial weapons.

Throughout all this I'd go to seminars of just about anyone. Heck, it's only a day, sometimes a few, sometimes just part of a day. Always picked something up, met a lot of folks which led to meeting and learning from a lot of other folks. Went to a lot of week long seminars, training camp things, why not, I had the opportunity and the time. I'd be crazy not to. Best thing about the long ones....you know how if you go to a really good seminar, the next day or so you'll snap your fingers and say, "I wish I had remembered to ask him such and such"? With the week long ones you sometimes actually remember.

The Uechi folks in Massachusetts used to put on a terrific week long training camp. They'd bring in people from all over, all kinds of styles, and all kinds of people. It would be in a huge indoor area, with everybody broken up into groups. You know, a Shotokan guy over there, Rory Miller over there, a boxer over there, a sword guy here, a kung fu guy there. You could go to everyone and spend as much time as you want. These would go from like 10 a.m until five, a break for an hour and then into the night.

Sometime in the midst of this crazy trip of mine the internet came into being. Ho-lee craparoni, this was something else. Within ten years I could see, study, read about all kinds of Martial Arts. And talk to people online about what they did. Still blows my mind what we have at our fingertips today. Blows my mind chatting with all you guys, too. Never could have imagined that in a million years.

Been fun so far.

Man, you have led a charmed life. I get so jealous of some of what you got into. But really, you put yourself in places I didn't, and some of that "luck" comes outta that.

Still, I'm jealous.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Man, I clicked the like button of course, but it doesn't seem cool enough. Great stuff there, you name-droppin' cuss, you...

Awesome backstory.

Yeah, sometimes the like button just doesn't quite say it.

 

[dvcochran]

I wish I had your writing skills. Never has been a strength of mine. Great history; I really enjoyed reading it.
I don't know if you are familiar with Dog Brothers MA in Memphis. They started in a former bank and had a one of the workout floors in the old vault. Still had the huge door on it. Fantastic Kali workout there.
I need to set down and try to make a list of some of the folks I worked out with over the years. Nothing extended like you had unless they were close to home. I have never been able to stay away from our farm for too long. I am fortunate that there are a ton of quality TKD masters/instructors in the southeast.
Thanks for taking the time.

 

[Buka]

All my backstory was pure luck. None of which I actually deserve to be honest.

My biggest regret was never doing any wrestling. But there just wasn’t any around. And I mean not anywhere.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

So ... I started out as a scrawny, uncoordinated, unathletic, out-of-shape, contact-shy bookworm kid who loved the idea of martial arts but didn't have a realistic idea of what it was like. At age 17 I got randomly jumped by a gang of neighborhood kids and that was the impetus I needed to start searching for some real training. I used money I had saved up from my allowance to start out at a TKD school up the street. Unfortunately my funds ran out after a few months. Then I found a Bando school that was teaching for a nominal fee out of a neighborhood rec center. Unfortunately it wasn't a nearby neighborhood, I didn't have a car, and after a few months my Mom got tired of driving me there. For the next year or so I didn't have any formal classes, but I practiced what I had learned so far, read every martial arts book I could find, and pestered everybody I knew who had any martial arts background to share anything they knew. When I got to college, I tried to start a martial arts club, but only managed to recruit one guy who had a couple of years of karate experience to work out with me. (Later on some other students formed a TKD club and I joined that.) Around the same time I joined the National Guard, which got me in somewhat better shape, and also the newly formed Baltimore chapter of the Guardian Angels, which got me some sparring/training partners.

About halfway through college I met up with a small club that was bringing Stephen Hayes in for a seminar. (This was in the early 80s when the ninjutsu craze was just getting started in the U.S.) This ended up being the first art that I actually studied consistently for an extended period. At that time, there were less than a dozen "ninjutsu" (Bujinkan Taijutsu) black belts in the country. For the next few years our group would bring one or another of these black belts in for a seminar every 2-3 months, travel to Dayton (Hayes's hometown) when we could, and practice what we had learned on our own in between. Our skill level was … not great. However all the other members of our core group besides myself had black belts in other arts and the leader of the group was a longtime street cop, so I picked up some useful lessons. Also, I continued to pick the brain of everyone I met who knew any martial arts, thus gaining my first exposure to Wing Chun and Kali.

After graduating from college, I was somewhat at a loss regarding what I wanted to do with my life. I found a job and was living on my own for my first time ever, but had no real plans. Then it hit me - this was probably the one time in my life when I could pursue my martial arts training without any conflicting obligations. I packed up all my possessions I could fit into my car, gave away the rest, and moved to Dayton Ohio to study "ninjutsu."

For the next few years I studied at the Bujinkan dojo in Dayton. This was Stephen Hayes's dojo originally but he had handed it over to some of his students (Kevin Schneider, Shawn Havens, Larry Turner, Gary Busch) so that he could focus on the more lucrative seminar circuit. In addition to attending regular classes I continued to spend every spare dollar I had travelling to seminars. While looking for another social outlet, I joined the Society for Creative Anachronism and ended up learning some useful lessons from several years participating in SCA heavy combat. (For those of you unfamiliar with the SCA, it's basically putting on armor and beating each other with heavy rattan sticks.)

I got my black belt in the Bujinkan, but I eventually drifted away for a variety of reasons. Part of it was ugly political splits between my instructors. Part of it was growing inklings that the art was not nearly as magically effective as what I had been led to believe. Part of it may have just been burnout. I put an ad in the local weekly paper looking for training partners - I didn't care what art as long as we could experiment and improve together. I found one regular training partner with a background in Shaolin-Do and few other folks with various backgrounds who came and went. I saw the first UFC and was intrigued by BJJ, which I didn't understand at all. I ordered some instructional VHS tapes by Renzo Gracie/Craig Kukuk and worked through them with my friend.

After a couple years of that I stopped in to try a boxing gym that one of my training partners had recommended. Had my first experience sparring with gloves on, which was eye-opening. While I was there, one of the coaches mentioned that there was someone in town teaching Muay Thai. I had always been interested in Muay Thai, so I tracked him down. This was Oscar Kallet (former pro kickboxer, WKA New York State champion, MT instructor under Chai Sirisute). Oscar was teaching his classes out of a jujutsu school (Yudansha Fighting Arts, a Danzan Ryu spin-off). Since membership at the dojo covered both the Muay Thai and jujutsu classes, I attended both. This was my first experience with hard-contact sparring and free-form grappling against people who had some clue what they were doing and I really came to appreciate the limits of what I had trained previously. I earned my brown belt in YFA before the head instructor moved out of town. Oscar continued to run the school on his own and I helped with the teaching. I had a couple of amateur kickboxing matches (1 win, 1 loss), but didn't continue to pursue that path. I did take my vacation one year to stay for a week at the Fairtex gym in San Francisco and train with world-class Muay Thai coaches.

During this time BJJ finally came to Ohio. Jorge Gurgel was a blue belt from Brazil teaching out of Jeff Brown's academy. He graciously allowed me to visit and drop in for classes whenever I wanted. If I had any sense I would have switched to studying with him full time, but I didn't realize how good his crew would end up being. Eventually Jorge reached black belt and had a killer group of BJJ and MMA competitors. One of his brown belts, Mike Patt, bought out Oscar's school and I trained with him long enough to earn my blue belt in BJJ. At the same time I had gone back to school at the local community college to learn computer programming and discovered they had Judo classes. They were only once per week, but I learned a fair amount from the teacher (Mark Curry). As always, I continued to pick the brains of friends from different martial arts and attend as many seminars as possible. (Mostly BJJ and Muay Thai now, but occasionally other arts like Judo or Silat).

I had a couple of years where due to injuries and other health problems I wasn't training much and got really of shape. I moved to Lexington and found a really good gym (my current training home, Four Seasons Martial Arts under Mike O'Donnell) that had BJJ, boxing, Muay Thai, MMA, and often other arts as well. I felt like I was so out of shape that I didn't want to wear my blue belt and be an embarrassment to the man who promoted me. So I just took MMA and no-gi classes until I felt like I had recovered enough to legitimately wear my gi and belt again.

I've been here ever since. Earned my BJJ black belt 4 years ago. We've had instructors of various other arts come through the gym over the years (Kali, Capoeira, Sambo, Judo, Sumo) and I always try to take advantage of those classes. I attended Judo classes at the UK Judo club, until that went away (instructors died or moved away). For a couple of years I would drive out to Louisville to take Wing Tsun classes with @yak sao , until schedules and finances got in the way of all that travel. And of course, I still attend seminars when I get the chance (including with MartialTalk members @lklawson and @Brian R. VanCise ).

All told, I've been in the martial arts about 38 years now. I'm not as skilled as I might hope to be after all that time. I started out on the bottom end of the bell curve for talent. I've had periods where I was on my own, periods where my instructors weren't very good, periods where I was only training once per week. Still, I'm happy with how far I've come and I'm looking forward to the next 38 years.

 

[JP3]

I'm noticing a bit of a theme here.... Good narrative of How You Got Here, Tony. Good stuff, reading that.

 

[frank raud]

Let's see. 1983, after always being interested in martial arts, decided it was time I start training. Checked out a couple of karate, aikido, and kung fu clubs, then I walked into John Therien's jiu jitsu dojo. No idea what (Japanese) jiu jitsu was. As we are talking, and he is explain to me how jiu jitsu is different than karate or aikido, the main doors open, and a flood of reporters with cameras and microphones surrounding a man swarm in. I ask who he is, and am told that's Jean Yves Theriault, the PKA world kickboxing champion, who teaches at the club. It's the most impressive club I've seen in my research so I sign up. Although a block off a main street, I didn't know it was there, only 4 blocks from my apartment. So I start learning the breakfalls, throws and punches of our style of jiu jitsu. Sensei Therien organizes an annual event called Capital Conquest, which has as many as 25 instructors from different styles teaching aikido, kung fu, karate, kajukenbo, judo, BJJ, various styles of jiu jitsu from Michael Lamonica of Hakko Ryu to Miguel Ibarra. Pick up bits and pieces here and there from them all.
Late 80's I became interested in WWII combatives. Hard to find, mostly rumours. Managed to track down a copy of Get Tough!. Thought this is just stripped down jiu jitsu, so trained as best I could from what I knew of jiu jitsu and applied it to combatives. Eventually met someone who had trained in combatives with one of Carl Cestari's students. Changed my view on combatives. Kept researching and adding to my collection of books, training with George when I could. Internet beomes a thing, find like minded people in far away places. Talk, share on email message boards, get together when we can to train. Still training jiu jitsu and doing seminars with more traditional martial artists.

Adopt my kids in 1994 and 1995, new parent stuff takes priority over martial arts, still try training as much as I can. Wife travels a lot, so I pay babysitter so I can train once a week. Managed a weekend away, trained with Wally Jay, Remy Presas and George Dillman. Did a weekend seminar with Dan Inosanto, met some training partners who have become lifelong friends. Snuck off for a weekend in Montreal to train with Larry Hartsell. Find myself in a very small group comprised mainly of Phil Gelinas and his students. If you don't know who Phil is, 1st tier Dog Brother (Sled Dog),9th dan Kajukenbo, full instructor JKD under Dan Inosanto, high ranking tuhon in Pekiti Tersia under Leo Gaje.

Started Tae Kwon Do with my son, as I wanted something we could do together, not something I would be teaching him. Got to blue belt, he lost interest, and so did I. Started teaching jiu jitsu, getting brown belts ready for their black belt tests. Eventually started teaching a class. The core of the students I taught started as white belts and stayed until their black belts, so we has a good group of people who had trained together for a long time. Highlight of teaching was being on the grading board for Jean Yves Theriault (and his brothers) when they tested for their black belts.

2002 went to New Jersey to train with Carl Cestari. Met folks from around the world, England, Sweden, Germany and the US. First time actually meeting Southnarc, who has been a mentor of mine ever since. Went back to NJ in 2003 for more training with Carl. Started bringing Southnarc up to Canada for seminars. We brought others instructors up at the same time, like Paul Gomez(RIP) , Matt Temkin(direct student of Rex Applegate) and Paul Sharp (formerly of ISR Matrix, now Straight Blast Gym). Regularly went down to New York for more training with Southnarc and his associatesDuring this time, life decided to kick me in the balls. Had a major heart attack, takes a while to recover. Doctors weren't happy with my style of exercise, wife wasn't happy with me driving solo long distances to train with people. Had to lay low for a while. Taught combative seminars around Ontario, helped with choreography for a play, taught twice annually for the city, did regular seminars for a Jinenkan dojo. Still trained judo and combatives, occasionally jiu jitsu. Flirted with BJJ. Took boxing with a former Canadian heavyweight champ. Seminars with Leo Gaje and some of his students. Basically ended up with a mongrel art, a mishmash of old and new, some sporting techniques and some definitely not sporting techniques. S o now I have my hands in the traditional (judo), the modern (Westernised Jiu jitsu), RBSD (Southnarc and the Shivworks collective), historical (WWII combatives) and a splash of other things (FMA).

 

[Buka]

So ... I started out as a scrawny, uncoordinated, unathletic, out-of-shape, contact-shy bookworm kid who loved the idea of martial arts but didn't have a realistic idea of what it was like. At age 17 I got randomly jumped by a gang of neighborhood kids and that was the impetus I needed to start searching for some real training. I used money I had saved up from my allowance to start out at a TKD school up the street. Unfortunately my funds ran out after a few months. Then I found a Bando school that was teaching for a nominal fee out of a neighborhood rec center. Unfortunately it wasn't a nearby neighborhood, I didn't have a car, and after a few months my Mom got tired of driving me there. For the next year or so I didn't have any formal classes, but I practiced what I had learned so far, read every martial arts book I could find, and pestered everybody I knew who had any martial arts background to share anything they knew. When I got to college, I tried to start a martial arts club, but only managed to recruit one guy who had a couple of years of karate experience to work out with me. (Later on some other students formed a TKD club and I joined that.) Around the same time I joined the National Guard, which got me in somewhat better shape, and also the newly formed Baltimore chapter of the Guardian Angels, which got me some sparring/training partners.

About halfway through college I met up with a small club that was bringing Stephen Hayes in for a seminar. (This was in the early 80s when the ninjutsu craze was just getting started in the U.S.) This ended up being the first art that I actually studied consistently for an extended period. At that time, there were less than a dozen "ninjutsu" (Bujinkan Taijutsu) black belts in the country. For the next few years our group would bring one or another of these black belts in for a seminar every 2-3 months, travel to Dayton (Hayes's hometown) when we could, and practice what we had learned on our own in between. Our skill level was … not great. However all the other members of our core group besides myself had black belts in other arts and the leader of the group was a longtime street cop, so I picked up some useful lessons. Also, I continued to pick the brain of everyone I met who knew any martial arts, thus gaining my first exposure to Wing Chun and Kali.

After graduating from college, I was somewhat at a loss regarding what I wanted to do with my life. I found a job and was living on my own for my first time ever, but had no real plans. Then it hit me - this was probably the one time in my life when I could pursue my martial arts training without any conflicting obligations. I packed up all my possessions I could fit into my car, gave away the rest, and moved to Dayton Ohio to study "ninjutsu."

For the next few years I studied at the Bujinkan dojo in Dayton. This was Stephen Hayes's dojo originally but he had handed it over to some of his students (Kevin Schneider, Shawn Havens, Larry Turner, Gary Busch) so that he could focus on the more lucrative seminar circuit. In addition to attending regular classes I continued to spend every spare dollar I had travelling to seminars. While looking for another social outlet, I joined the Society for Creative Anachronism and ended up learning some useful lessons from several years participating in SCA heavy combat. (For those of you unfamiliar with the SCA, it's basically putting on armor and beating each other with heavy rattan sticks.)

I got my black belt in the Bujinkan, but I eventually drifted away for a variety of reasons. Part of it was ugly political splits between my instructors. Part of it was growing inklings that the art was not nearly as magically effective as what I had been led to believe. Part of it may have just been burnout. I put an ad in the local weekly paper looking for training partners - I didn't care what art as long as we could experiment and improve together. I found one regular training partner with a background in Shaolin-Do and few other folks with various backgrounds who came and went. I saw the first UFC and was intrigued by BJJ, which I didn't understand at all. I ordered some instructional VHS tapes by Renzo Gracie/Craig Kukuk and worked through them with my friend.

After a couple years of that I stopped in to try a boxing gym that one of my training partners had recommended. Had my first experience sparring with gloves on, which was eye-opening. While I was there, one of the coaches mentioned that there was someone in town teaching Muay Thai. I had always been interested in Muay Thai, so I tracked him down. This was Oscar Kallet (former pro kickboxer, WKA New York State champion, MT instructor under Chai Sirisute). Oscar was teaching his classes out of a jujutsu school (Yudansha Fighting Arts, a Danzan Ryu spin-off). Since membership at the dojo covered both the Muay Thai and jujutsu classes, I attended both. This was my first experience with hard-contact sparring and free-form grappling against people who had some clue what they were doing and I really came to appreciate the limits of what I had trained previously. I earned my brown belt in YFA before the head instructor moved out of town. Oscar continued to run the school on his own and I helped with the teaching. I had a couple of amateur kickboxing matches (1 win, 1 loss), but didn't continue to pursue that path. I did take my vacation one year to stay for a week at the Fairtex gym in San Francisco and train with world-class Muay Thai coaches.

During this time BJJ finally came to Ohio. Jorge Gurgel was a blue belt from Brazil teaching out of Jeff Brown's academy. He graciously allowed me to visit and drop in for classes whenever I wanted. If I had any sense I would have switched to studying with him full time, but I didn't realize how good his crew would end up being. Eventually Jorge reached black belt and had a killer group of BJJ and MMA competitors. One of his brown belts, Mike Patt, bought out Oscar's school and I trained with him long enough to earn my blue belt in BJJ. At the same time I had gone back to school at the local community college to learn computer programming and discovered they had Judo classes. They were only once per week, but I learned a fair amount from the teacher (Mark Curry). As always, I continued to pick the brains of friends from different martial arts and attend as many seminars as possible. (Mostly BJJ and Muay Thai now, but occasionally other arts like Judo or Silat).

I had a couple of years where due to injuries and other health problems I wasn't training much and got really of shape. I moved to Lexington and found a really good gym (my current training home, Four Seasons Martial Arts under Mike O'Donnell) that had BJJ, boxing, Muay Thai, MMA, and often other arts as well. I felt like I was so out of shape that I didn't want to wear my blue belt and be an embarrassment to the man who promoted me. So I just took MMA and no-gi classes until I felt like I had recovered enough to legitimately wear my gi and belt again.

I've been here ever since. Earned my BJJ black belt 4 years ago. We've had instructors of various other arts come through the gym over the years (Kali, Capoeira, Sambo, Judo, Sumo) and I always try to take advantage of those classes. I attended Judo classes at the UK Judo club, until that went away (instructors died or moved away). For a couple of years I would drive out to Louisville to take Wing Tsun classes with @yak sao , until schedules and finances got in the way of all that travel. And of course, I still attend seminars when I get the chance (including with MartialTalk members @lklawson and @Brian R. VanCise ).

All told, I've been in the martial arts about 38 years now. I'm not as skilled as I might hope to be after all that time. I started out on the bottom end of the bell curve for talent. I've had periods where I was on my own, periods where my instructors weren't very good, periods where I was only training once per week. Still, I'm happy with how far I've come and I'm looking forward to the next 38 years.

What a great journey, Tony, what a fun thread this is.

I had some of the Renzo, Kukuk VHS tapes as well. Picked up what would become one of my favorite moves, that lapel choke from closed guard. We worked that with every conceivable article of upper body clothing over the years, from bulky winter coats to wife beaters to tuxedos.
I've caught a lot of people with it. But, of course, you can't learn from videos and what not.

 

[Danny T]

This isn't everything but mostly what I am remembering at the moment. It's been a lot of years.

Began boxing at the age of 11 after convincing my mom it would be good for me. LOVED it, even though I wasn’t very good but I was aggressive. Learned to take hits, got tempered, and began to learn to control my temper and emotions. It also stopped most all of the school yard fights I got into. Couple of years later the University of Southwest La. began a wrestling program holding a few camps during the year and during the summer. My dad signed me up and thus my introduction to grappling that was far beyond the school yard rolling in the dirt. I continued boxing and at 14 I began strength training with Ken Broussard the coach who trained the youngest AAU Mr. America (Casey Viator). Through Ken I met Kerney Fournet a special forces vet and Shotokan instructor who captivated my interest in the martial arts. Kerney was also a police defensive tactics instructor who taught realistic use of the techniques with a lot of striking, standing grappling, throws, takedowns, and some kata. He was more interested in teaching us to fight rather than what he called air dancing. Though often after a hard drilling session he’d have us review one or two katas with the intent that we find the particular technique we just drilled within the kata. I received a BB from him in 71 and continued to train until going into the military in 72. Basic military combatives and firearms training with a rifle and small arms. Pararescue training with far more firearms & hand to hand training as well as jump school, jungle survival, water survival, until being reassigned due to eyesight. (Man that sucked…had almost 18 month of training as a PJ and suddenly someone realized I’m wearing eye glasses!!) So what do they do? Send me to the Philippines…where, from time to time I see some guys wailing away at each other with sticks. Which I find out is Eskrima or Arnis. Some were just crazy, swinging sticks aggressively, others used a lot of footwork and body movement. Interesting to see the differences in refined movement & technique and gross movement with aggressiveness. I attempted to connect with them to learn but they weren’t at all receptive to me training with them though being allowed to watch. Was several years later I got to train with Guro Dan Inosanto and behold…Kali as well as JKD, wing chun, and silat. Amazing!!! Met Sifu Francis Fong who was one of Guro Dan’s wing chun instructors. WOW!!! Began training under him and have continued to this day. Through them both I met Ajarn Chai Sirisute who’s hand speed was blinding and his left kick was lighting fast and the most powerful thing I’d ever felt in the martial arts. Had to get some of that so I traveled when ever and where ever I could to get some training with him.

Again through Guro Dan I met Tuhon Leo Gaje’ and Tuhon Bill McGrath, Larry Hartsell, and spent some time training with them all. Through Sifu Francis Fong I met and did some training in BJJ with Rey Diego, then Master Ricardo Murgel and Professor Pedro Sauer, Jean Jacques Machado, and Erik Paulson.

In 92 or 93 attended a seminar in Dallas with guy from Indonesia (Herman Suwanda); Spooky good and funny. One of the most fun training weekends I ever had. After a couple of hours he asked me; “how long you do silat sir, you pretty good… ?” Very little I laughed. “You not train silat? Do you know the first 16 jurus?” Hell I didn’t even know what that was. “How you know silat and you don’t know the jurus? I don’t understand.” I’ve trained wing chun and jkd sir. A lot of the hand drills are very similar. “Wing Chun??? I don’t know that, never heard of that but your silat pretty good.” Funny man, was able to train with him another 9 or 10 times spending the evenings going to dinner and having some great conversations with him before he was killed in an auto accident. Man I miss his spirit.

Larry Hartsell broke my right foot some time in 93 demoing a toe hold or something. He was powerful like a bull in a china shop but learned a lot from him. After training he could put down some drink and then wanted to fight everyone. Some wild and crazy times with that man, don’t know how we were never arrested and thrown in jail.

There have been many others but I didn’t do much training with them. But they gave me greater perspectives of things I already had.

Has been a wild and fun journey. Somewhere along the way I even learned several things and gain some skills. Looking forward to more.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Let's see. 1983, after always being interested in martial arts, decided it was time I start training. Checked out a couple of karate, aikido, and kung fu clubs, then I walked into John Therien's jiu jitsu dojo. No idea what (Japanese) jiu jitsu was. As we are talking, and he is explain to me how jiu jitsu is different than karate or aikido, the main doors open, and a flood of reporters with cameras and microphones surrounding a man swarm in. I ask who he is, and am told that's Jean Yves Theriault, the PKA world kickboxing champion, who teaches at the club. It's the most impressive club I've seen in my research so I sign up. Although a block off a main street, I didn't know it was there, only 4 blocks from my apartment. So I start learning the breakfalls, throws and punches of our style of jiu jitsu. Sensei Therien organizes an annual event called Capital Conquest, which has as many as 25 instructors from different styles teaching aikido, kung fu, karate, kajukenbo, judo, BJJ, various styles of jiu jitsu from Michael Lamonica of Hakko Ryu to Miguel Ibarra. Pick up bits and pieces here and there from them all.
Late 80's I became interested in WWII combatives. Hard to find, mostly rumours. Managed to track down a copy of Get Tough!. Thought this is just stripped down jiu jitsu, so trained as best I could from what I knew of jiu jitsu and applied it to combatives. Eventually met someone who had trained in combatives with one of Carl Cestari's students. Changed my view on combatives. Kept researching and adding to my collection of books, training with George when I could. Internet beomes a thing, find like minded people in far away places. Talk, share on email message boards, get together when we can to train. Still training jiu jitsu and doing seminars with more traditional martial artists.

Adopt my kids in 1994 and 1995, new parent stuff takes priority over martial arts, still try training as much as I can. Wife travels a lot, so I pay babysitter so I can train once a week. Managed a weekend away, trained with Wally Jay, Remy Presas and George Dillman. Did a weekend seminar with Dan Inosanto, met some training partners who have become lifelong friends. Snuck off for a weekend in Montreal to train with Larry Hartsell. Find myself in a very small group comprised mainly of Phil Gelinas and his students. If you don't know who Phil is, 1st tier Dog Brother (Sled Dog),9th dan Kajukenbo, full instructor JKD under Dan Inosanto, high ranking tuhon in Pekiti Tersia under Leo Gaje.

Started Tae Kwon Do with my son, as I wanted something we could do together, not something I would be teaching him. Got to blue belt, he lost interest, and so did I. Started teaching jiu jitsu, getting brown belts ready for their black belt tests. Eventually started teaching a class. The core of the students I taught started as white belts and stayed until their black belts, so we has a good group of people who had trained together for a long time. Highlight of teaching was being on the grading board for Jean Yves Theriault (and his brothers) when they tested for their black belts.

2002 went to New Jersey to train with Carl Cestari. Met folks from around the world, England, Sweden, Germany and the US. First time actually meeting Southnarc, who has been a mentor of mine ever since. Went back to NJ in 2003 for more training with Carl. Started bringing Southnarc up to Canada for seminars. We brought others instructors up at the same time, like Paul Gomez(RIP) , Matt Temkin(direct student of Rex Applegate) and Paul Sharp (formerly of ISR Matrix, now Straight Blast Gym). Regularly went down to New York for more training with Southnarc and his associatesDuring this time, life decided to kick me in the balls. Had a major heart attack, takes a while to recover. Doctors weren't happy with my style of exercise, wife wasn't happy with me driving solo long distances to train with people. Had to lay low for a while. Taught combative seminars around Ontario, helped with choreography for a play, taught twice annually for the city, did regular seminars for a Jinenkan dojo. Still trained judo and combatives, occasionally jiu jitsu. Flirted with BJJ. Took boxing with a former Canadian heavyweight champ. Seminars with Leo Gaje and some of his students. Basically ended up with a mongrel art, a mishmash of old and new, some sporting techniques and some definitely not sporting techniques. S o now I have my hands in the traditional (judo), the modern (Westernised Jiu jitsu), RBSD (Southnarc and the Shivworks collective), historical (WWII combatives) and a splash of other things (FMA).

That's quite a beautiful mish-mash of stuff, Frank.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Man, I just love this thread.

 

[Buka]

Man, I just love this thread.

I do too. A lot.

 

[Buka]

This isn't everything but mostly what I am remembering at the moment. It's been a lot of years.

Began boxing at the age of 11 after convincing my mom it would be good for me. LOVED it, even though I wasn’t very good but I was aggressive. Learned to take hits, got tempered, and began to learn to control my temper and emotions. It also stopped most all of the school yard fights I got into. Couple of years later the University of Southwest La. began a wrestling program holding a few camps during the year and during the summer. My dad signed me up and thus my introduction to grappling that was far beyond the school yard rolling in the dirt. I continued boxing and at 14 I began strength training with Ken Broussard the coach who trained the youngest AAU Mr. America (Casey Viator). Through Ken I met Kerney Fournet a special forces vet and Shotokan instructor who captivated my interest in the martial arts. Kerney was also a police defensive tactics instructor who taught realistic use of the techniques with a lot of striking, standing grappling, throws, takedowns, and some kata. He was more interested in teaching us to fight rather than what he called air dancing. Though often after a hard drilling session he’d have us review one or two katas with the intent that we find the particular technique we just drilled within the kata. I received a BB from him in 71 and continued to train until going into the military in 72. Basic military combatives and firearms training with a rifle and small arms. Pararescue training with far more firearms & hand to hand training as well as jump school, jungle survival, water survival, until being reassigned due to eyesight. (Man that sucked…had almost 18 month of training as a PJ and suddenly someone realized I’m wearing eye glasses!!) So what do they do? Send me to the Philippines…where, from time to time I see some guys wailing away at each other with sticks. Which I find out is Eskrima or Arnis. Some were just crazy, swinging sticks aggressively, others used a lot of footwork and body movement. Interesting to see the differences in refined movement & technique and gross movement with aggressiveness. I attempted to connect with them to learn but they weren’t at all receptive to me training with them though being allowed to watch. Was several years later I got to train with Guro Dan Inosanto and behold…Kali as well as JKD, wing chun, and silat. Amazing!!! Met Sifu Francis Fong who was one of Guro Dan’s wing chun instructors. WOW!!! Began training under him and have continued to this day. Through them both I met Ajarn Chai Sirisute who’s hand speed was blinding and his left kick was lighting fast and the most powerful thing I’d ever felt in the martial arts. Had to get some of that so I traveled when ever and where ever I could to get some training with him.

Again through Guro Dan I met Tuhon Leo Gaje’ and Tuhon Bill McGrath, Larry Hartsell, and spent some time training with them all. Through Sifu Francis Fong I met and did some training in BJJ with Rey Diego, then Master Ricardo Murgel and Professor Pedro Sauer, Jean Jacques Machado, and Erik Paulson.

In 92 or 93 attended a seminar in Dallas with guy from Indonesia (Herman Suwanda); Spooky good and funny. One of the most fun training weekends I ever had. After a couple of hours he asked me; “how long you do silat sir, you pretty good… ?” Very little I laughed. “You not train silat? Do you know the first 16 jurus?” Hell I didn’t even know what that was. “How you know silat and you don’t know the jurus? I don’t understand.” I’ve trained wing chun and jkd sir. A lot of the hand drills are very similar. “Wing Chun??? I don’t know that, never heard of that but your silat pretty good.” Funny man, was able to train with him another 9 or 10 times spending the evenings going to dinner and having some great conversations with him before he was killed in an auto accident. Man I miss his spirit.

Larry Hartsell broke my right foot some time in 93 demoing a toe hold or something. He was powerful like a bull in a china shop but learned a lot from him. After training he could put down some drink and then wanted to fight everyone. Some wild and crazy times with that man, don’t know how we were never arrested and thrown in jail.

There have been many others but I didn’t do much training with them. But they gave me greater perspectives of things I already had.

Has been a wild and fun journey. Somewhere along the way I even learned several things and gain some skills. Looking forward to more.

It’s slow at work right now, after a crazy afternoon. I’m rereading this whole thread. Just reread the part about Larry Hartsell and you guys not getting arrested. I started laughing my butt off, big old belly laughs as I was picturing the whole thing. People are looking at me funny now, and grabbing their children.

 

[Danny T]

It’s slow at work right now, after a crazy afternoon. I’m rereading this whole thread. Just reread the part about Larry Hartsell and you guys not getting arrested. I started laughing my butt off, big old belly laughs as I was picturing the whole thing. People are looking at me funny now, and grabbing their children.

Yeah...it's quite funny in retrospect.

 

[frank raud]

That's quite a beautiful mish-mash of stuff, Frank.

Thank you. Most of what I've learned is centered around Japanese throwing arts, so relatively easy to pick a technique from here and there. When I took a Crazy Monkey seminar, the instructor commented on how tight my posture was.. When I told him my kickboxing instructor was Jean Yves Theriault, he was impressed. I got Jean-Yves to autogragh a book for him.
For a relatively small city, there are some interesting martial artists from here. Conroy Nelson was a kickboxing champ, although he is better known for appearing in Playgirl, and for being one of Mike Tyson's early conquests. Patrick Auge, of Yoseikan Budo , had multiple dojos in the Ottawa area. Jean-Yves Theriault, of course. Igor Yakimov of Sambo fame taught here for years. The Takahashi family have had their dojo here since 1969, producing Olympians and Olympic coaches.

 

[JP3]

This thread is fun to read.... I didn't think to name drop, let me see. Some of these names might be familiar, most won't. Happens when you begin your training in small-town, mid-Missouri.

Paul Chang was my initial aikido instructor when I was 8. Very nice young man. He reached the rank of 4D last I heard. His business & family occupied most of his time later on in life.

I honestly can't remember the names of my karate instructors where I attended in school after the aikido, which I accept as a failing.

My ATA TKD started with then 2D Mark Prosser, in Rolla, Mo. Mark's now a Master 6D, so good for him. He's got I think 6 or 7 schools under his tutelage now.

Mikhail Kuns, then a 2d TKD/1D Hkd when I met him when I was 2D TKD was in Seabrook, but ended up moving to New Jersey for some reason I couldn't understand. Last I heard he'd made it to 6D in both arts.

First Judo coach was Frank Yoon, son of 7D Pius Yoon (then deceased). At that time Frank was a USJA 4D and was the senior instructor of his dojo in Tulsa.

In Houston, started training the Tomiki with Ray Williams, then 7D aikido/2d judo/3d crazy person. His instructor was Sensei Karl Geis, who I never did meet but about which stories flew in nearly every class. Through Ray, I met very cool high ranking folks like Mike Heygood & Carla Martin, both 7D aikido and assorted other high ranks in tons of other things, they enjoy training more than aabout anything else. Bob Rea, the most gifted judoka I've ever had my hands on. Then Nick Lowry, owner/founder of Windsong Dojo in OKC, very cool, laid-back guy, and maybe the most scary person I've ever been on a mat with because he ccontinues to smile as he is eliminating any possibility of you doing anything.

Then there was Bill Wallace, who was around at time for my buddy's karate associationseminars, though all I ever did was watch once, that's the claim to "fame."

Oh, Chuck Norris was sighted in the town I live now, one time. There ya go.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

This thread is fun to read.... I didn't think to name drop, let me see. Some of these names might be familiar, most won't. Happens when you begin your training in small-town, mid-Missouri.

Paul Chang was my initial aikido instructor when I was 8. Very nice young man. He reached the rank of 4D last I heard. His business & family occupied most of his time later on in life.

I honestly can't remember the names of my karate instructors where I attended in school after the aikido, which I accept as a failing.

My ATA TKD started with then 2D Mark Prosser, in Rolla, Mo. Mark's now a Master 6D, so good for him. He's got I think 6 or 7 schools under his tutelage now.

Mikhail Kuns, then a 2d TKD/1D Hkd when I met him when I was 2D TKD was in Seabrook, but ended up moving to New Jersey for some reason I couldn't understand. Last I heard he'd made it to 6D in both arts.

First Judo coach was Frank Yoon, son of 7D Pius Yoon (then deceased). At that time Frank was a USJA 4D and was the senior instructor of his dojo in Tulsa.

In Houston, started training the Tomiki with Ray Williams, then 7D aikido/2d judo/3d crazy person. His instructor was Sensei Karl Geis, who I never did meet but about which stories flew in nearly every class. Through Ray, I met very cool high ranking folks like Mike Heygood & Carla Martin, both 7D aikido and assorted other high ranks in tons of other things, they enjoy training more than aabout anything else. Bob Rea, the most gifted judoka I've ever had my hands on. Then Nick Lowry, owner/founder of Windsong Dojo in OKC, very cool, laid-back guy, and maybe the most scary person I've ever been on a mat with because he ccontinues to smile as he is eliminating any possibility of you doing anything.

Then there was Bill Wallace, who was around at time for my buddy's karate associationseminars, though all I ever did was watch once, that's the claim to "fame."

Oh, Chuck Norris was sighted in the town I live now, one time. There ya go.

Okay, let's get with the name dropping. Likely none of mine are recognizable. My Judo (and Shotokan) instructor was Guy Jacobson. Great teacher, better rock climber. My first NGA instructor was Steve Weber (now head of the NGA Federation, and based somewhere in Arizona). The second was Joe Beckham, who still has his school in Greenville, SC - and his senior shodan Mike Bibb. The instructor I trained under longest was John Wyndham, who still runs a small school in Spartanburg, SC. I trained FMA (actually a fusion of FMA and JJJ) under Bryan Adams, whose lineage I know nothing of.

I've tinkered with Silat and Kali with Mike Casto (Anjing Gembala Penchak Silat).

To drop a name someone might actually know (other than @Tony Dismukes, who has actually met Mike Casto when I was up there), I attended a seminar once with Joe Lansdale, an award-winning fiction writer who used to teach a blend of JJJ and CMA.

 

[JR 137]

I trained FMA (actually a fusion of FMA and JJJ) under Bryan Adams, whose lineage I know nothing of.

Was that back in the summer of ‘69? Did he teach you the hearts on fire technique? I’m pretty sure he’s still around because he can’t stop that thing he started, but maybe I’m wrong about that one.

He’s Canadian, so I think @frank raud would be able to give you some insight as to his lineage.