Master George Long with the Sword of the Western Hemisphere
I find it interesting that the Tibetan Gung Fu community venerates Michael Staples book, while at the same time, as I review the White Crane/Hop Gar archives on this forum, note the disparagement of my teacher, Dr. George Long. The training is greater than all of us. It will live on after us. We are mortal, it is eternal truth. Various of you have said that my teacher was “a phony” and made fun of him and those who followed him in training (just as you have made fun of me on this forum…and you wonder why this forum is dead). Shame on you.
The relationship between White Crane and Hop Gar during those times was intricate. There were no lines or tribes. Each school was trying to be better than the rest of them. Trying to be the best fighters, the most heroic. It was not a time of political correction and children’s classes. Men hit each other, hard. Training was dangerous. Fighting was dangerous and without padding. I began training with Dr. George Long and finished training with Master Ron Dong. It was a long and arduous process. It took me 28 years and incalculable amounts of time to do it but I learned the entire George Long training system up to an including Cotton Needle. I have now been training for almost 48 years. I never stopped because I love it.
- posted on and deleted fromKung Fu Magazine forum October, 2018
Is it White Crane or is it Hop Gar?
STUDENT- October, 2016 Facebook: I had a couple questions in regards to George Long. Just curious. Wasn't sure if you could shed some light. I heard it mentioned that George long and David Chin were Harry Ng’s top fighters. Heard it mentioned that George long was certified under Harry to teach Hop Gar. Was curious how George long hooked up with with Chan Hak Fu to learn Pak Hok Pai. Did he have a falling out between Harry Ng? I noticed the way we fight looks very Hop Gar . Just based on my training observation I came to a conclusion that George long infused a lot of Hop Gar flavor into his Pak Hok Pai. The first time I fought in Arlington Texas I turned a lot of heads and caught the attention of David Chin and his Si Hing Chris Heintzmen. They knew and recognized the similarities. After my fight they came and talked to us for a good while. This was back in 2003. Any information would be appreciated I'm sure I’ll come up with more questions but it’s so cool to meet my Sifu’s teacher (SKM) I'm grateful to him and you for my training and everything I have learned.
SIGUNG: I will try to answer all of this for you. Dr. Long started training Pac Hoc in NYC when he was 10 years old. By the time I started with him, he had already been training 35 years. He was a fighting master and master acupuncturist. He was a genius. Master Jin and Dr. Long are first cousins. Chin, Jin, or Jang means 'long' in Chinese.
During World War II, on a visit to Canton, Dr. Long as well as all of the older generation White Crane practitioners got stranded in China when the Japanese invaded. They spent four years living and training together in White Crane. Master Chan Hak Fu was actually Dr. Long's boxing brother but because there was so much interaction between everybody in one place at one time it was difficult after a while to ascertain who was whose teacher and who was whose student. Dr. Long spent as much time training with Hong Bun Fu as he did with Chan Hak Fu.
After the war, it was decided that Dr. Long would be enrolled under his boxing brother Chan Hak Fu, who would be his Sifu. After Dr. Long moved back to the states, he settled in S.F. At that time, the White Crane Federation allowed only so many Sifu to teach. Most of the young, up and coming White Crane practitioners like Dr. Long had no place in the White Crane organization at that time so there were a lot of White Crane guys hanging out at Harry Ng's training hall and bidding their time until their name came up for permission to open a school.
Dr. Long's name came up and he got permission to be Sifu. The first thing he told the Chinatown masters was that he was going to open up a school outside of Chinatown. The Chinatown masters said "OK. But you cannot teach non-Chinese." To which Dr. Long responded, "Whose going to stop me." Of course no one was going to try.
All this was told to me and never written down so far as I know. More later regarding the nature of the training…
I had to sleep on what I wanted to say next because regarding the fists, that is up for anybody's interpretation. So continuing the narrative... Dr. Long had his White Crane school opened on Geary Avenue in SF for several years when I first entered the doors of the training hall. At that time there were only two teachers outside of Chinatown that taught non-Chinese- Dr. Long and Brendan Lau, who taught Mantis. Both Dr. Long and Master Lau focused on fighting and not on forms. During that period not much attention was given to forms. Attention was given to what put the other guy on the ground.
This was a radical departure from the goals of the Chinatown community that considered it necessary to pursue certain pro-forma training requirements in order to be legitimate. I was physically standing there and witnessed one time when a student asked Dr. Long why he taught White Crane the way he did and Dr. Long said, "Because White Crane has forgot how to fight."
Now this was decades before UFC, MMA and all the other events prominent today and was a radical departure from what was considered legitimate and appropriate during those days. Dr. Long taught "The Horse" (which everybody loves) the fists, the footwork system, the knife and staff form, and that was it. The rest was fighting, always fighting. I have seen guys who went through his program in nine months, and then did it again, over and over.
At that time, Master Chan was president of the White Crane Federation and he told Dr. Long not to train people so fast. So Dr. Long slowed the training down and had a two year requirement (note: At this time he developed the three Gum Gong forms, the four person form, and Round One and Two of the Fighting Circle sets in response to this two year requirement.)
Dr. Long had placed six pasteboards high on the wall in his school so that as soon as a person walked through the door, his entire curriculum of footwork patterns, fists, and forms was apparent to all. Dr. Long was a totally transparent teacher and there were no ‘secrets’ in his school. In order to fulfill Master Chan’s requirement of a two year curriculum, Dr. long created the following forms:
Basic Fists:
Gin Choi (‘arrow strike’ aka charge punch)
Pow Choi (uppercut strike)
Gup Choi (overhand strike)
Chow Choi (hook fist)
Den Choi (‘sledgehammer’)
Hoc Jow (crane claw)
Fist Sets:
Big Gum Gong (ape style)
Little Gum Gong (crane style) aka. “Snake Creeps Up the Vine”, aka. “Four Elephants”
Golden Bill (flying crane)
Four Person Gum Gong Set
Round One Fighting Circle Set (long bridge set)
Round Two Fighting Circle Set (short bridge set)
Weapons:
Tiger Tail baton
Devil Wind Blows Knife Set
Five Brothers/Five Wolves Staff Set
This compact training system was a composite of all of Dr. Long’s knowledge of forms from his years of White Crane training.
(note: I always told students that the Gum Gong sets were the core of Gum Gong training but the Fighting Circle sets were the heart of the core.)
In addition, Dr. Long created a footwork system to implement and launch the fist techniques. This included the Four Shapes of the Stupa (pagoda or chorten)- square, triangle, crescent, circle, the inside five star Fighting Circle, and the outside seven star Fighting Circle.
What Dr. Long did here was profound. He recaptured the original content and essence of the Lion’s Roar and Dub Dub training regimens from 600 years ago and figured out a way to translate these concepts into a recognizable form that contemporary society could understand. It was a work of genius.
This training requirement satisfied Master Chan and he sanctioned Dr. Long’s training under the Federation. During this time in Master Chan’s tenure as president of the White Crane Federation based in Hong Kong, he presented Dr. Long with “The Sword of the Western Hemisphere.” It was a particularly heavy sword with no sharp edge on it and an inscription that gave Dr. Long authority over all White Crane practice within the Western Hemisphere of the world. (I have had the honor of holding this sword.) Master Chan told Dr. Long, “From now on I will run everything in the east and you will run everything in the west.” Very few people know that Dr. Long was given this authority as he never exercised it over the other schools. He was only interested in what was going on in his own school.
There were still problems with this so the Federation "invited" Dr. Long to Hong Kong for their annual convention. He brought along his Si Hing Ken G. Ken was an interesting person. He was African-American and he was Si Hing of the school. Such a thing was unheard of in Chinatown during those days. After Ken got out of the Navy, he used his GI Bill to enroll in Dr. Longs Gung Fu class and trained hours every day for 9 straight months. I have seen him move and he was extremely skilled after ‘living the life’ for 9 months.
Dr. Long’s Gung Fu class was taught at UC Berkeley. When either Dr. Long offered the class or they asked him to do it (not sure), he said he would not teach it out of HYPER as a gym class but would only teach it out of the Chinese Philosophy Department. Berkeley agreed and he taught there three days a week- two days of training and one day of philosophy. Student could also go to the studio and still receive credit. I saw students at the studio frequently during those days.
So at the convention, the Federation heads said, "We need two volunteers to challenge them." Nobody wanted to so they said, "OK. YOU and YOU." So they got their "volunteers." Dr. Long did a 1-2-3 on his guy and knocked him down. Ken threw his guy off the stage. Then the Federation guys said, "OK, OK, we figure you guys are alright." And that was the end of it. Here is an old article of that event.
If all of this is not controversial enough, we get to the situation with the fists. Is it White Crane or is it Hop Gar?
Now getting on to stage three of your question. Is it White Crane or is it Hop Gar? I first want to say that the reason Master Gin is a Hop Gar practitioner is because at the time everyone was waiting around for their chance to open a school. I was told that Master Harry Ng’s school became a sort of holding company for a lot of White Crane practitioners at the time, hence the misunderstanding that Dr. Long, and a lot of other people were Hop Gar, not White Crane practitioners. The situation came up where Master Chin and Dr. Long were in line on the same lineage. Were a chance to open a school come up, the invariable fact would be that they would have to fight each other. They made a personal agreement that Master Gin would remain Hop Gar and Dr. Long would pursue White Crane. I consider Master Chin not only a great Gung Fu master but also a great man because of this.
Through the years I have always noticed the similarities between David Chin Hop Gar and George Long White Crane. I have come to the conclusion that based upon their family history and the sensibilities they share, that what we are looking at is an historic family style with different branches. You could say that Dr. Long's White Crane is half Master Chin's Hop Gar or visa versa.
Having trained with Ku Chi Wei, I can tell you that his Hop Gar is much different than Dr. Long's White Crane or Master Chin's Hop Gar. I can train White Crane, or I can train Hop Gar, but I cannot train them together. To use one or the other, I will always default to Dr. Long's White Crane.
20 Dollars
My Gung Fu journey started with $20. Five of us guys were sitting around the berthing area complaining how broke we were and there was nothing to do. One of them had an old beat up Chevy and was asked if maybe we could at least drive around town. He said he needed gas. I then had an epiphany. Didn’t I stash $20 dollars in my one of my pockets? I went to my locker, looked in my shirt pocket, and behold, $20! I said, “Hey guys... I just found twenty dollars.” Everyone got bright eyed and bushy tailed real quick. So we got gas and went for a drive in the beat up Chevy. During the drive, we went from the Presidio onto Geary Avenue. While driving down the street I noticed this amazingly crude but incredibly fascinating sign that said “White Crane Gung Fu” with crudely drawn figures of men on each side of the moniker, in very strange poses. For two weeks I could not get the image of this strange place out of my head. It was as if the place was calling me.
On January 21, 1972, I entered the training hall for the first time. I knew that the strange building was on Geary Avenue but I did not know the address. When I got on the bus at Turk Street Downtown, the bus driver asked me where I wanted to get off and I told him I wanted to get off at the kung fu school on Geary. He looked amused and told me he would drop me off at the Sears building. To this day I do not really know if he knew what I was talking about. At that time the Turk Street run ran down Turk Street, then onto Filmore, then back to Geary. It was a sort of round about journey. I got off the Turk Street bus on Geary Avenue at the Sears building in San Francisco, which turned out to be just a few doors down from my destination.
As I opened the door to the school and cautiously looked inside I saw young men doing some of the strangest body movements I had ever seen all to the cacophony of inhalation and exhalation. One of the young men stopped, looked at me and asked if I wanted to speak to "Sifu" (the Cantonese word for teacher.) I told him that I guessed so, not really knowing what he was talking about. The young man took me to a back room where I found, sitting behind an ancient oak desk, a small, stocky oriental man. In pretty good, yet somewhat broken English he introduced himself as Sifu Long.
I introduced myself and he asked me why I came. I told him I did not know why and that I was actually looking for an Aikido (Japanese) school but saw his place and decided to check it out. He told me that I was in the right place and that what he had to teach me was the best. It took me half a lifetime to believe that statement but I now know that he was correct. It certainly turned out to be the best training for me.
Sifu Long asked me if I wanted to learn Gung Fu and I told him "I think so... what is that?" He laughed, then became profound and mused that right now I was probably wondering if I could beat him up (which I was). He assured me that I could not. Why? He held up his hands in two "secret swords" (a standard type of hand formation in Gung Fu training) and told me it was because he had knowledge and I did not. Knowledge! Now that was the keyword that caught my attention.
I jumped at the chance for knowledge and signed up then and there. Tuition was $25 dollars per month but he charged me $50 dollars for two months “So that I would be sure to come back.” As we were leaving his office, Sifu Long told me my first Gung Fu lesson: “learn how to run away.” It took twenty years of training before I understood what he was saying. Running is the first strategy, but you "leave something behind." It took me two days to work up the courage to return to the school. When I did, it was hell. Dr. Long put me in the horse riding posture. As the name says, it is a sort of Yosemite Sam type posture that looks like you are riding a horse, while concurrently doing hand exercise. Back then the beginner had to do three horse routines on their first day of training as a sort of initiation and to let you know what was in store for you. Due to an old motorcycle injury this posture hurt so much that it brought tears to my eyes. As I progressed in training, Sifu Long would walk by and quietly tell me to keep training and my legs would get stronger. He was right.
Dr. George Long was a master of Tibetan White Crane Gung Fu. Skilled at taking on multiple opponents he would sometimes invite students to encircle and spar with him. It did not matter how many people were involved, he could not be touched in any way. Even more impressive than this fighting prowess was his ability to heal people. He became a doctor when he was awarded an honorary degree for his efforts to create the first State Board of Acupuncture in California after having been arrested more than once for "practicing medicine without a license" even though the California Medical Board did not consider acupuncture as medicine. Master Ron Dong told me that after the California Board of Acupuncture was chartered, Dr. Long was upset that his acupuncture license was ’003’ as two other people on the board had taken the numbers ’001’ and ‘002’, coopting his hard work in establishing the Acupuncture Board of Examiners.
Early on in my training, I experienced the paradox of young, tough guys training in the training hall while elderly grandmas casually walked by on their way to their acupuncture treatment in the back room. I instinctively knew that I wanted that knowledge. The catalyst for pursuing this knowledge with a passion came from the following experience: One day early in my training while I was doing my general horse training, Dr. Long walked up to me and grabbed my left arm with two crane claws. He put his energy into my body and it felt like he had plugged me into an electrical socket. I was paralyzed with a pain I never experienced before or after. When he let go of my arm he looked at me and said, "Now you know the power of the touch".
That moment changed my life. I was awoken to a greater reality, a universal reality, if you will. For the next two weeks I could barely use my left arm and there were eight black dots on the inside of my arm where he had ‘spotted’ me. He had literally crush the blood in those areas. After a few days of arm paralysis, I went to Dr. Long and asked him if he would fix my arm. He just laughed, told me it would get better, and that it was a good lesson for me. The only other time I had been spotted like that was one time when Master Dong and I were discussing the intricacies of a ‘heavy palm’ and he gently raked down my right arm. I had two elongated bruises on my forearm for two weeks. The prevailing feature of energy strikes is that they require no effort and the bruises last a long time.
In those days I used to go to the USO on Market Street to hang out. There was a handsome, older woman of German descent there, with brilliant silver hair, with whom I used to talk. I remember her asking me what I planned to do with my life when I got out of the Navy. I told her I was going to be a doctor. When she asked me why, my answer was that it was because of the knowledge it entailed and that it was the hardest thing I could think of learning. She wished me good luck, though, at the time, I don't think she believed I would actually become a doctor. I think she would be pleasantly surprised I did.
Another thing that happened was that while sitting in the USO one day, I struck up a conversation with another military member as we sat in the front next to the window watching the world go by. He asked me what I did for recreation and I told him I had just started taking kung fu lessons a few weeks ago. He said, “Oh, you mean like the TV series?” I was stunned and asked him to explain that because I did not know a kung fu series was on TV. He said he saw a trailer for it on TV. In my berthing compartment which I shared with 35 other men, we had a 17” black and white TV attached to the overhead. I finally saw the trailer for “Kung Fu” and mad a mental note of when it was on. Fortunately, the night I watched it on that tiny television, no one was in the berthing compartment and I sat there fixated for an hour and a half. Kung Fu aired exactly one month after I started training and to this day, I have a small affection for that television series.
By that time I knew at least two things about myself. First, that I was grossly ignorant and that the only remedy would be to become educated. Second, that this education would take several forms: the Gung Fu way and the American college way. The task of learning and integrating both types of education into my life has been like riding two horses simultaneously. However, as I pass my fourth decade of Gung Fu training, and as my knowledge integrates, I look back on this dual path and it is a satisfying experience.
Because I was in the military, when I was state-side, I would frequently have to go on missions that would last a week or month. I remember the first time I went on a mission after joining the school, I told Dr. Long that I was going to be away for a month and I would be back. He looked sad and said, “No, you cannot leave.” I was touched by that but said that it was my orders and I had to go. He reluctantly gave me leave, still not understanding why I had to go. When I came back after a month, he was very happy and said, “Welcome home.” Each time I left and came back to the school after that he always said “welcome home.” I came to realize that Gung Fu was my home. I had lived in homes all my life but this was the first time I was home. He was like a father to me. He was the father I never had. Subsequently, through the years, I have trained in many different places. I have even trained in a war zone. Because of my training, wherever I go, I am home.
After being discharged from the Navy, in January of 1975 I matriculated at Logan College of Chiropractic in St. Louis, Missouri. When I began, there were 150 students in my class. At the end of the first year, there were 120 students left. When I graduated in January 1978, I graduated with 74 other doctors. I have always viewed chiropractic as an extension of my Gung Fu training. All my teachers and their teachers were fighters as well as healers: Chan Hak Fu, Dr. George Long, and Master Ron Dong. Fighting is only five percent of Gung Fu. An important five percent, to be sure, yet highly romanticized. The other ninety five percent of Gung Fu consists of its philosophy, art, science, and healing. Gung Fu is a life art most of all.
“The Student Listens”
Master Ron Dong and Dr. Gareth Smith circa 1991
The Gareth Smith School of Gung Fu
I never set out to become a teacher of Gung Fu. After I established my health care practice in Fayetteville, Arkansas in 1990, word got around that I knew Tai Chi. I would teach it out of my living room for free. The day that 25 people showed up and packed into my living room I realized that I needed a larger space. So, my Tai Chi school was born. A slow iteration was also occurring on the White Crane front. Three of my Tai Chi students asked me about the White Crane and so we started a small class in my living room. Word caught on and I had to move that class to the studio for more room.
During all this time, I took regular quarterly trips to San Francisco to continue honing my combat skills and training with Sifu Ron Dong, who was Si Hing of Dr. Long’s school when I first started training. At the time he was my oldest friend, having know him from my starting days at Dr. Long’s school during my military days. At one point he made a visit to Fayetteville and I set up a White Crane retreat to introduce him to my students. Before this visit, all the White Crane teaching that I was doing was only because people seemed interest in it and kept showing up to do it.
Sifu Dong came to my studio, looked around, and asked me, “So when are you going to open a school?” I looked at him and asked, “Are you asking me to officially open a school?” He rolled his eyes and said, “Well…..” I said that I would take that as a yes and officially open a school. He said, “Just one thing…you cannot call it White Crane.” I told him I had no problem with that.
Thus was born the Gareth Smith School of Gung Fu. My chosen name in Chinese is Su Ko Ming, which roughly translates to “Make the Virtues Illustrious.” Hence, I gave the school my own name- Su Ko Ming Jong Shr Gum Gong Kuen, or ‘SKM branch of combat training’. Because of this, none of my past students have ever trained in White Crane per se, even though they like to refer to their training as “Tibetan White Crane”. However, in the past twenty years some of them may have chartered their schools with Pac Hoc Pai. I do not know or care. I created my own training system based upon Dr. Long’s personal instruction to me that at some point in my training create my own content, and I have done as he instructed me to do 47 years ago.
As such, my training system has never been recognized by any chartered organization. In the beginning years of my school’s development, I was concerned that this would be a hindrance on my training. History has shown me that it does not matter in the progress and evolution of personal training. In fact, for the last twenty years I have come to view this situation as an advantage and the true hindrance is the associations and charters keeping everybody else ‘in line’, so to speak, prohibiting true innovation in the training. I always told my students, “Tradition is about one second long and the only true tradition is who is laying on the floor looking up and who is standing up looking down.” I adhere to that tradition even to this day.
I began my training with Dr. Long and finished it with Master Ron Dong. I thank Master Ron for putting up with me for ten years so that I could complete my training in Dr. Long’s system. It took me 28 years to complete the Chen Zuo Zhi Gum Gong training system and as far as I know Master Ron and myself are the only two men on the planet who know the complete combat and healing system as taught by Dr. Long. Master Ron used to tell me that kung fu teachers are a dime a dozen but there are very few “healer-dealers” ie. those who do both the healing and the combat. I jokingly used to tell my students that I could take them apart and put them back together again.
Healer-Dealer
Schools have different specialties. Dr. Long’s school had two specialties: combat and acupuncture. Dr. Long was able to pass on his acupuncture skills to Master Dong, and he, in turn, passed on those skills to me and other people, though not necessarily fighters. I did not train anyone to an advance level where they could learn the highest level acupuncture method of my school but I did train quite a few people in the practice of bone-setting.
The hallmark acupuncture method of Dr. Long’s School and practice is known as The Ghost Angel Heavenly Method aka. the ‘Iron Plate’. Dr. Long was gifted this method on one of his visits to China, circa 1970. The daughter of the Minister of Health for all of China became ill. Dr. Long treated her and she got better. As a gift of thanks, the Minister gave Dr. Long the Iron Plate. In Old China the Iron Plate was considered the Emperor’s property and could only be administered to the Emperor or the Royal Court. Anyone else caught administering the Iron Plate or receiving treatment with it were executed. After receiving the Iron Plate, Dr. Long resided in Hong Kong for a while and ran an acupuncture clinic. He advertised, “Come here if you are dying.” He treated chronic and terminally ill patients with the Iron Plate and never lost a patient.
Within my lineage of training, there is a strong tradition of fighters as healers, or ‘healer-dealers’. Hong Bun Fu (Kwong Poon Fu) who Dr. Long trained under during World War II, was a healer as well as fighter. So was Chan Hak Fu, Master Dong, and myself. It has been a longstanding tradition among our line of trainees to have health care practices as well as fighting stables. Traditionally, a teacher is not considered a full fledged sifu unless they have at least some rudimentary healing knowledge. This can also be a basic rule of thumb as to a teachers efficacy in the training hall. I have had to treat more than one dislocation on site.
As mentioned, the Chinatown community was upset that Dr. Long had moved his studio outside of the Chinatown gates. He opened the doors for more Gung Fu schools to move outside of Chinatown and open up the training to non-Chinese people. Eventually new Chinatowns opened up on Judith and California Avenue up to Presidio Parkway. This is where I entered the picture. Had Dr. Long not been so bold as to move outside of the confines of Chinatown, I would never have been able to meet and train with this great man.
Standards
On the wall of Dr. Longs training hall was a typed, thumb-tacked 5x8 inch card. It read (with slight paraphrase):
“In this school we do not discriminate against age, sex, race, creed, or religious beliefs. We respect your differences and only ask that you respect the differences of others.”
In a rough and tumble school of hardened fighters like Dr. Long was turning out, one might logically think it was a free for all. It was actually quite orderly. Where Dr. Long had thrown out centuries of frequently misguided traditions used to stifle and control students, we were held to an incredibly high standard of conduct and civility. One reason is that a combat driven school is self regulating. Everybody knows their place ie. everybody knows who they can beat up and who can beat them up. Should an advanced student decide to bully a beginner, you could be sure there would be two or three advanced students showing up, waiting in line, to try him out. I witnessed several instances of this.
Another thing is that Dr. Long had a list of ten school rules that were strictly enforced. This is like the old adage that goes, “His rule book was thin but he meant every rule.” I once saw Dr. Long chide an advanced student for going around and picking fights on the street. This can be dangerous for a school as it can cause what we used to call ‘bad blood’ between schools and/or gangs creating a dangerous feud for everyone involved. A fighter always has to think about who is behind him and how they will be affected by his decisions before making a choice to engage someone else. After an incident with the Devil Wind Blows Knife set and a “red letter” (blood letter) sent to Dr. Long, street fighter and another advance student took several other students with them and opened a school somewhere else. Si Hing Ken went there and closed the school down telling them “Do not practice MY art here.”
Whenever bad blood would occur between two fighters in the same school (and it does happen) they would be placed in the fighting circle and beat it out of each other. After the fight, that would be it and regardless the outcome, it was finished and not to be discussed thereafter. I have had to do this several times in my own school. Usually sparring on the Fighting Circle would be enough to appease the personal gods of war, so there was very little bad blood within the school.
I adopted a version of the ten rules to my school curriculum and strictly enforced them also:
1. No fighting in or out of the school except at authorized tournaments. You fight, you are out, permanently.
2. Wear a clean uniform consisting of black tee shirt, black sweat pants, and athletic shoes of your choice.
3. Be courteous to your instructors and fellow students regardless of level of training.
4. Money is a token. You pay, you learn. Be prompt.
5. No alcohol, tobacco, or drugs allowed in the training hall.
6. Train only in the art you are being taught while in this training hall.
7. Mind you own business. Train in only the lessons or past lessons that you have been given. Do not train in what you see more advanced students doing.
8. Regular attendance is mandatory. If you miss more than two classes without contacting your instructor, do not come back.
9. Gung Fu is a dangerous art. No horseplay or socializing while training. Train seriously.
10. Train slowly, with humility and pure heart, and the art will reveal itself to you.
I also have ten personal standards that I follow as a Gung Fu sifu:
1) Do not harm anyone physically, emotionally, or spiritually.
2) Say what you mean and mean what you say.
3) Do not lie. Tell the truth, even if it hurts.
4) Training and teaching are not the same. Train personally and train intensely every day.
5) Do not expect from someone else that which you have not experienced or are not willing to experience yourself.
6) Put no other arts down and do not allow anyone to put you or your art down. There is a test.
7) Train for life. Learn to heal. First yourself, then others.
8) Train functionally. Keep it real and keep it humble. You are not bulletproof.
9) You are a householder, not a monk. Take care of home, family, and business first.
10) Take nothing for granted. Life is the gift.
I still practice the sifu’s rules daily. The last 47 years (almost 48) have been a ride and an adventure. No amount of money can buy the training. I am a truly rich man because of it. My thanks to Dr. George Long and his associate Master Ron Dong. I am forever grateful to you for helping me make my life better.
In closing, I will leave you with the poem of my school:
Ten thousand repetitions.
One million repetitions.
Ten thousands are the Teachers.
One Millions are the Guardians.
Train to the beat of one's own heart.
See every move from beginning to end.
Train from the hard to the soft (progression of training).
The four shapes define footwork and fists-
Square, triangle, circle, and crescent.
Skill comes from the ability,
To manipulate the five levels of engagement,
With any technique at any moment-
Evade, block and counter, block with pain, maim, kill.
The five principles of functional training which,
Through conversion factors
(The teacher's experience),
Lead to functional combat application-
Breath work, bridgework, timing (footwork), center, focus.
Learning and teaching are not training.
Training is not fighting.
Correct training is the foundation of functional combat
(Checkmate, not check).
THE reason to train:
To become a better person through unification of the
You are most welcome, Andrew. Thank you for your interest.🙏🏻
Thanks for sharing 🙏 your knowledge