 |
How I got here
My first brush with the Martial Arts came around 1985 when
my boss, at the time (Dan Anderson), took me to his Aikido class
in Barnstaple, North Devon. The Soke (Master) was Eddie Stratton,
who I have since found out was a senior and well-respected player
in the style, and who sadly died in 2000. I didn’t get on
well with the very formal structure; bowing to the pictures of Sensei
Morihei Ueshiba, that uniform with the massive trousers, etc. I
left feeling I had witnessed amazing things but knowing I wouldn’t
be able to handle the discipline. (Young fool!)
I spent the next few years nearly joining all kinds of martial arts
from karate to Wing Chun; I was always going to start next week!
Well, next week never came, until I moved to London and read an
article about the Wutang Clan in iD magazine. The piece opened with
a story about thirteen Shaolin monks who rescued the Prince Li Shi-Ming
(Emperor to be, see film “The Shaolin Temple” starring
Jet Li). Based in a Buddhist Temple in Central China, they had developed
amazing skills not only to help them defend their Temple but also
to unite mind, body & spirit.
I found the story fascinating and after finding out these Monks
really did exist decided I had to train in Shaolin Quan, Shaolin
boxing.
My first step was to buy “Combat” magazine, nothing
there. Looked all over London, no Shaolin. Not a dickie bird anywhere.
More and more I began to think “Wing Chun, maybe I should
just settle for that.” No, disrespect to Wing Chun but it
wasn’t the Northern Shaolin I was hankering after!
|
|
