Contributed by Kendall Stewart
There are many of us who grew up watching martial arts movies wondering, how do they fight like that? As a kid, I watched Bruce Lee and old-school Kung Fu movies, amazed that the main character could block all those attacks and beat multiple people. When I got older, I thought it was impossible to block one person’s attacks, let alone multiple.
When I was in college, I went to a party with a girl I was dating. I was leading her through a crowd of people when I heard her yelling behind me. I turned around and she was yelling at a really tall, buff guy. I walked over and asked what happened. She told me the guy grabbed her.
This guy was a 6’8” muscle man, and he looked down at me like, “What are you going to do about it?” At the time, I had no formal training and, on the inside, I was terrified. On the outside, I stood up to him and told him he needed to apologize or else. I was hoping he was going to apologize because my “or else” would have been more trouble for me than him.
I was at my fraternity, Omega Psi Phi’s, party and wearing my gear. He looked around and noticed there were a bunch of my fraternity brothers around. He looked down at me and apologized with a smirk on his face. I acted tough and said, “Yeah, you better apologize.” But I could see in his eyes that look of, you got it this time.
I quickly realized I needed SOMETHING to level the playing field. How can I, a smaller guy, deal with a much bigger and stronger opponent? Shortly after that event, I joined a martial arts school called Tai Yim Kung Fu in Kensington, Maryland.
Before I jump into my Kung Fu journey, I want to go back to my first real introduction to martial arts. I had a cousin who lost over 80 pounds doing Tai Chi. My cousin recommended I try it. He used a two-part Tai Chi VHS series, old school, with a morning session and an evening session. Every day, I started my day with Tai Chi and ended it with Tai Chi. I was playing football in college at the time and noticed a huge difference in my breathing and flexibility.
Back to my first Kung Fu school. I started at Tai Yim Kung Fu and was learning Shaolin Hung Fut. I was living my dream! This style was similar to what I used to watch in the movies. It was a mix of different styles of Kung Fu, like Crane, Snake, Tiger, long and short styles mixed together. The forms were amazing.
My cousin, good friend and I spent several years leveling up, working on forms and sparring. My confidence went up tremendously, and I was moving in a more economical way.
One day, I was looking at Kung Fu videos on YouTube and stumbled upon something that said, “Ip Man vs. 10 Black Belts.” I was like, “Who is Ip Man?” I watched the video, and it changed my life forever. I had never seen such a brutal but effective form of Kung Fu before. After a little research, I found out Ip Man was Bruce Lee’s original teacher.
My friends and I looked for a teacher in the Maryland area and found Sifu Shannon Moore. We looked him up online and saw a video of him doing Chi Sao, or sticky hands. It’s a drill that helps you develop touch sensitivity and the ability to use your opponent’s energy against them. He was smooth, fast and kind to his opponent.
We thought, it’s time to learn a new style of Kung Fu. We reached out, joined his class and my Wing Chun journey began.
This is just the beginning…
Shalom, Shalom
Sifu Stewart
Alaskakungfu.com
