Taken from an audio Recording of Calasanz
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I remember I was looking for northern styles of Chinese kung fu. I already had read about Wing Chun Kung Fu and I knew that two of the main styles in China were Long Fist, that is Cheng Chuang Long Fist and of course Wing Chun I knew about because of Bruce Lee.
My friend Angel said to me, "No, no, no. Go to Moy Yat. He was a classmate along side Bruce Lee."
| Moy Yat |
"Okay, that's it for today." they said. I responded almost in disgust, "That's it for today? You must be kidding. You must not know who am I."
I started doing pushups, exercises... the incredible, doing all these things. They got angry, but they let me stay there.
You see, when I came to this country with that dream of being Bruce Lee nobody was going to stop me. Nobody stopped me. I was the craziest little bastard, little gorilla, chimpanzee, black cat, cheetah... unstoppable.
During my first few weeks at Moy Yat's school I became well known very quickly. People would come in to fight the Chinese; you know back then it was different from how it is now. I remember specifically two occasions. There was one guy, he must have been about 6' 4, easily 3 times my size. He came in and we ended up doing Chi Shuo. We were trapping and hitting each other for over an hour, but neither one of us said 'Uncle'. It was one of the only times I would take punishment, I delivered a fair share of punishment to him as well.
While I was doing Chi Shuo with this guy the Chinese were all around looking, talking, murmuring among themselves out of the sides of their mouths behind open hands. You see, at this point I was new at Moy Yat's school and didn't have any training in Chi Shuo, I was just reacting to him. Fortunately, I already had the necessary skills involved from training with George Wood. He would hold two sticks and I would rotate with the two sticks as he held them for me. So that gave me the ability of chi shuo. I must have ended up winning because the guy never came back.
The other occasion took place, when a guy came in, again, to fight the Chinese. He was sweeping and flipping them onto the floor like nothing. They were landing very hard. Luckily it was a wooden floor because they were landing very, very hard. He was unimpressed. "I come to Moy Yat and this is how they fight?" Understand, a lot of the people training there had never even seen the dummy, let alone hit it. They never did anything but Siu Nim Tau and rotating in chi shuo, so they couldn't take a shot, they could not fight. He came over to me and I said, "Try doing that to me. " When he came and delivered that kick to sweep me I did exactly what I did in the Dominican Republic. I grounded my leg. He came to sweep me but failed because I had grounded my leg so well and immediately I countered him.
You should have seen the Chinese when I came through the door the next day. They started whispering; I remember one lady, this one little girl in particular, I will never forget. She was the best of the best, probably only 75 pounds but she moved like a little cat. She watched me non-stop, but I hear her murmuring still to the others, 'wshewsewshs... 10th degree black belt.' as she looked at me out of the corners of her eyes. "This guy is black belt, he's 10th degree black belt, watch out for this guy shwhshsh." They just talked and talked and talked.
Later on, Jon, a guy who worked for Moy Yat and who was responsible for bringing some of the bigger names in Martial Arts at the time to the school, came to me and said, "Go talk to Moy Yat." So I went to the office and sat down there. Moy Yat tells me, "Calasanz, we already know the skill you have." He said, "Pay me this much and in 3 months you can teach, in one year you will have a certification and a picture with me." It was exactly like that.
I went directly to Steve James, my boss at Victoria Station. I said, "Steve, if you give me Saturday opening at 7 am and closing at 5 in the morning I can take wing chun with Moy Yat." At that point I was the number one bus boy / waiter / employee there. He said, "Of course Calasanz." And I worked. I worked all day and night, 22 hours. By the time it was 5 in the morning I had about 7 or 8 hundred dollars cash plus whatever my hourly pay was at the time. I had made the money for Moy Yat working at Victoria Station on a Saturday in just one day.
Here, this is a real story now. This is real. This is exactly how it happened. When I finished there I spent 3 days just hitting the dummy. I looked down at my arm there was nothing there. It's all gone, all the hair on my arm gone, the skin almost gone. It looked exactly how it looks when a snake peels its skin. All the skin is gone, just peeled. Think about it... hit the dummy for 1 day and still that is not going to happen. I spent three days hitting it. So now maybe you can understand what was the extent of the obsession that I had, that I hit the dummy enough to peel my arms entirely. That was me Mr. Alan. This is how, and that is the obsession that I had with being better than Bruce Lee.
Once I had completed that year we went to this cannoli place in Chinatown. He was supposed to bring the picture and the diploma but he must have forgotten them. Years later in 1988 I had him here for a seminar and even after calling him again and again to remind him, "Make sure you bring the diploma." he still didn't bring it. You know, maybe if we do everything we can it could be that it is still over there. Maybe someone in his family or someone over there has it because I know he would not break it or get rid of it.
Later on I figured out why he didn't want me to go and get the diploma. Previously I had paid him no insignificant sum of money for a video of him on a projector doing the 3 forms. Siu Nim Tao, Chum Kiu and Biu Tze. I have the projector sitting right here in my office. Not too long ago a good friend and long time student of mine, Mario, went to take a video of it from the projector so we could have it digital or whatever. Ends up that on it was one of his students, a child maybe 11 or 13 years old, who was studying there at the same time as me doing siu nim tao. So it wasn't even all three forms or done by him. I wouldn't mind getting the forms from a kid anyway but that was a lot of money for Moy Yat to do it. Anyway, probably he didn't want me coming and asking about that too if I went to get the diploma.
Moy Yat, he was a good instructor. He did what a good instructor does, you know. He realized who I was. He did not go and say, "Calasanz let me try to give you a lesson." and beat me up, not that he could have anyway at that point. I respect him but he never had the capacity of giving me a lesson like that. But he could have said that. Instead he called me and said, "I'm gonna teach you." That's what a good instructor does.
It's like me now. When I see someone like that, dedicated and has passion for the Art I don't go trying to beat them up. I want to raise them up. For example, now I am building some of the youngest and most well rounded martial artists, the youngest masters I call it. It's tremendous what someone with that sorts of mind-set, dedication, passion, desire and devotion to the Art is capable of learning and achieving even at a young age. It's Incredible.
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