Around the age of five, my dad took me to visit his lifelong best friend Mike and his business. He had an exterminating company, and they operated out of a large garage. The garage had a section in it with a weight bench, punching bags, and a clear open space; they were practicing forms of kung fu there. My dad dabbled in it for a while. They let me hit the bag when I was there. I remember both Mike and my Dad demonstrating tiger form techniques and Mike demonstrating a mantis form. His garage was out of the neighborhood, and I visited there with my dad once in a while when I was little.
I began martial arts training at the age of seven. My father knew a man who was a veteran of the Korean War. He was trained in Okinawa and ran a dojo out of his basement. My dad arranged an interview. I was accepted and I trained in “Traditional” Japanese Karate Do for several years under my original Sensei, Mr. John Mallace. By traditional, I mean that the focus was on building physical capacity and body movement. He didn’t teach us how to fight per se and even scolded students for arguing or having fights. The idea was, you could see how Karate-Do could be used to fight after you knew what you were doing and had acquired the ability to execute techniques proficiently. He wasn’t a traditional sensei and would smoke a cigar during class and walk around with a bamboo shinai and whack me and my classmates in the leg if we faltered in holding our stances. I earned my first belt, an orange belt, in 1979, around the age of eleven.
Around this time, a new neighbor moved in two doors down the street. They had two sons named Charlie and Jackie. Charlie was about ten years older than I, and Jackie was about 3 years older than me. They were always nice to me and looked out for me. Charlie was a PA state golden-glove champion boxer. He took an interest in me and taught me how to punch, and then he tried to teach me how to box. The skills and capacities that I subsequently developed from this experience have contributed greatly to my martial arts conditioning, abilities, and training ethic.
Everyone who trains in Martial Arts has an “origin story”. Sometimes it’s because of family; sometimes it’s because they got beat up one too many times, and sometimes people just fall into it by walking into a dojo one day or joining a club at college. My father introduced me to martial arts, and because of that, I not only introduced my own kids to martial arts, but I’ve had the honor of introducing a lot of other peoples’ kids to martial arts. For over 27 years Zhang Sah has been teaching kids and adults traditional martial arts. A few of my black belts and instructors even started here as kids. All of it is because of my Dad and his friend Mike, who showed me some kung fu forms, in the corner of a garage, all those years ago.
