Martial-arts is part of who I am, it's been intertwined with my life. I sweat it, dream it, breathe it, poop it...you get my point, I simply just live it. It all started when I was about 5. My parents signed me up for Tae Kwon Do or Karate. I can't really remember what it was, but I hated it. After I had passed my yellow belt to get my orange belt, I told my dad that I no longer wanted to pursue that martial-art.
Throughout my childhood my parents would expose me to a lot of Kung-Fu movie. When my dad noticed me throwing kicks and punches in the air trying to immitate the Kung-Fu movies that we were watching, he decided to enroll me in a Kung-Fu school. At that time my dad didn't really know any good kung-fu schools but I had some cousins already enrolled in one, so my dad took me there. Sa Long Cuong was the name of it and It wasn't really a school at that time, it was more like a friend of my uncle who learned kung-fu in Vietnam and taught it to us for free in his basement. After a few years, my family had to move away due to a divorce and due to the move I could no longer train there.
What brought me back to learn martial-arts after a few years was how much I was bullied around in school, so I looked in the phone book and saw the name "L' Academie Shaolin White Crane" in Montreal. I remember thinking..."Dude, It's S-H-A-O-L-I-N! THAT'S AWESOME!!" I showed it to my mom and we went down for a visit. We also went to check out a Hungar school just down the street but I was not going to take Hungar over SHAOLIN. After one visit my mom signed me up for White Crane Kung-Fu.
Some years went on and with a lack of guidance in my pre-teen years, I was heading towards a dark path. My mom who couldn't handle my behaviour along with my baby sister, and teenage brother decided I was just too much. So she sent me over to my dad who lived in Mississauga for him to straighten me up. Coincidently, while looking up the yellow pages in Mississauga I found another Shoalin White Crane school. My Dad took me there for a visit and it turned out that this Sifu was my Sifu's Sifu from Montreal and I've been at that school ever since.
There were periods in my life where I just couldn't train martial arts, like when I was in High school in Atlanta Georgia there were no kung-fu schools in the area I lived in so I founded my own martial-arts club, I started a petition to open a martial-arts club, I received over 60 signatures from interested students to join, then I found a sponsor, became President and even taught martial arts to the students in my club.
When I was in College back inMississauga Living Arts Center
With the support of my girlfriend, we decided that regardless of our financial situation I would HAVE to find a way to come up with some money to pay for my membership fee. If that meant cutting back on groceries, or cut off our cable TV for a few months, so be it. I would often visit my old kung-fu school just to keep in touch with everyone and on one of my visits I told my Sifu what I had planned to do so I may join the class again, luckily my Sifu is a very accommodating Sifu. He sat me down in his office and found a way to accommodate me and my situation so that I may get back to my training right away. The next week I came back to train. This is the kind of Sifu that you know isn't like any one of those "MacDojos" Sifus. A real genuinely traditional Sifu, which after many years of training under him I have grown to love and respect him like a father.
So this is where I start to discuss with you my philosophy in training in Kung-Fu...but that'll have to wait for my next blog as I need to get back to work. This ending is the perfect start to my next blog, so please stay tuned... :)
Throughout my childhood my parents would expose me to a lot of Kung-Fu movie. When my dad noticed me throwing kicks and punches in the air trying to immitate the Kung-Fu movies that we were watching, he decided to enroll me in a Kung-Fu school. At that time my dad didn't really know any good kung-fu schools but I had some cousins already enrolled in one, so my dad took me there. Sa Long Cuong was the name of it and It wasn't really a school at that time, it was more like a friend of my uncle who learned kung-fu in Vietnam and taught it to us for free in his basement. After a few years, my family had to move away due to a divorce and due to the move I could no longer train there.
What brought me back to learn martial-arts after a few years was how much I was bullied around in school, so I looked in the phone book and saw the name "L' Academie Shaolin White Crane" in Montreal. I remember thinking..."Dude, It's S-H-A-O-L-I-N! THAT'S AWESOME!!" I showed it to my mom and we went down for a visit. We also went to check out a Hungar school just down the street but I was not going to take Hungar over SHAOLIN. After one visit my mom signed me up for White Crane Kung-Fu.
Some years went on and with a lack of guidance in my pre-teen years, I was heading towards a dark path. My mom who couldn't handle my behaviour along with my baby sister, and teenage brother decided I was just too much. So she sent me over to my dad who lived in Mississauga for him to straighten me up. Coincidently, while looking up the yellow pages in Mississauga I found another Shoalin White Crane school. My Dad took me there for a visit and it turned out that this Sifu was my Sifu's Sifu from Montreal and I've been at that school ever since.
There were periods in my life where I just couldn't train martial arts, like when I was in High school in Atlanta Georgia there were no kung-fu schools in the area I lived in so I founded my own martial-arts club, I started a petition to open a martial-arts club, I received over 60 signatures from interested students to join, then I found a sponsor, became President and even taught martial arts to the students in my club.
When I was in College back in
With the support of my girlfriend, we decided that regardless of our financial situation I would HAVE to find a way to come up with some money to pay for my membership fee. If that meant cutting back on groceries, or cut off our cable TV for a few months, so be it. I would often visit my old kung-fu school just to keep in touch with everyone and on one of my visits I told my Sifu what I had planned to do so I may join the class again, luckily my Sifu is a very accommodating Sifu. He sat me down in his office and found a way to accommodate me and my situation so that I may get back to my training right away. The next week I came back to train. This is the kind of Sifu that you know isn't like any one of those "MacDojos" Sifus. A real genuinely traditional Sifu, which after many years of training under him I have grown to love and respect him like a father.
So this is where I start to discuss with you my philosophy in training in Kung-Fu...but that'll have to wait for my next blog as I need to get back to work. This ending is the perfect start to my next blog, so please stay tuned... :)
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