My Road to Taichi (Part One): A False Start
I was inspired to write this recollection after stumbling and commenting upon a YouTube video, entitled: Pioneers of the Martial Arts: Bruce Tegner. Episode 1. (I'll provide the link at the bottom of this page.) I was really surprised to find the video because of the fact that I had actually studied, for a very brief spell, with Bruce Tegner, and I had no idea at the time that he was actually, at least to some degree, famous, famous enough at least to at some point later become the topic of a video series on martial arts pioneers. And not only was he famous in that sense, but it turns out that Bruce Tegner was additionally famous for creating, or at least popularizing, a martial arts move that almost everyone back then was familiar with as it made its way into so many movies and even TV shows - the karate chop!
After going back and re-reading my comments on that post, I noticed a few things in my timeline of events didn't quite add up, so I did a trip down memory lane, got things in the right order, and then, for kicks, I rewrote it all. It is fun to relive some of these odds patches from ones memory.
Welcome to the Real World
And so, it all began when I was in 7th grade, the first year of junior high school (back when junior high school in the Los Angeles Unified Schools meant 7th, 8th and 9th grades). I was having a time of it there at Joseph LeConte Junior High because I was a scrub (as 7th graders were derogatorily referred to), chubby, not at all sports skilled or savvy, very shy, and a new kid in the neighborhood - in other words, all the things that put a target on a young kid's back. Unfortunately, one classmate in particular was especially focused on that target - John Balano. He was tall, quick moving and tongued, very loud, and had the craziest looking crazed eye I had ever seen up to then and probably ever since. We shared only one class together, Miss Selman's Music class, the class in which I learned to hate Mozart.
It seemed that hardly a day went by when John Balano didn't at some point stand up in class and yell at my from across the room, "I'm gonna kill that Grant!" I had never so much as spoken to the kid, but I was on his obliteration radar. I would go home miserable day after day complaining of the situation. I suggested my going to another school, but that just prompted one of those "you have to face your problems head on" pep talks that parents give in TV shows. In fact, I am sure that my parents' solution was also based in my mother's having been schooled by such shows with a dose of cowboy movies. Unlike the modern parent, my mother's preferred remedy was for me to fight my way out of it, an approach that my father seemed to agree with. In fact, he was so certain of it that he spent a good deal of time teaching me how to make a proper fist and how to throw a punch, reminding me that he had lived in Chicago.
But my mother wanted to take it even a bit further. She decided that she needed to enroll me in a fighting class - a self-defense class. Self-defense class? Uggh!. To me, just reeked of loserdom. Per my view, whatever problems I already had would just get worse once people found out that I was so lacking in fighting savvy that I had to take a class to prove it. The cynic within me wondered what TV series she had gotten that idea from. It certainly wasn't from Leave It to Beaver. wasn't that keen on the idea (it was my face that would get bashed in, after all), but I wasn't completely opposed since I didn't really know what else to do other than change schools, an idea which my parents had already nixed with one of those
While their idea of facing my problems involved knowing how to make a proper fist and not be afraid to use it or take one in exchange, I had a different image of what a fight should look like. It had only been a few months after the TV series The Green Hornet completed its one-season run, but the cool moves of the Hornet's sidekick, Kato (played by Bruce Lee), were still fresh in my, and practically everyone else's mind. Bruce Lee had proven himself to be a rather cool character on the show and one who was very effective in the field of the fight, so I figured that if I were going to have to learn to fight, why not learn to Chinese fight since that was cool fighting, as a friend used to call it. All those guys who did fighting a la boxing looked sort of, well, dumb and dorky.
Battle of the Stars
As it turned out, I already had a school in mind. Just two blocks north and four storefronts west of where my mother was working at the time (and just one block four storefronts from where we would just a couple of years later live) there was a martial arts school that had long intrigued me. It was located at 5156 Hollywood Boulevard and was called the Chinese Martial Arts Association. I had no idea what martial arts they actually taught, and even if I had, I am not sure that knowledge would have meant anything to me at the time since I was not really all that knowledgeable about such things at the time. Still, I sensed the school had what I needed.
The school was nothing all that special to look at. It was a typical storefront with a small showroom out front. It could just as well have been a paint store or a bicycle shop. The signage, though, was a bit different looking, being all in red and black with a ying-yang symbol and a font that hinted at the school's east Asianess. The showroom always seemed to be void of people, but there were all sorts of exotic and interesting things to look at. I remember a scroll with Chinese calligraphy hanging on the wall, and another scroll paining of (who I would later learn was) Chinese warrior Guan Yu holding his halberd. There were also a couple of large photo blow ups in black and white showing students and a bearded man, who was obviously the teacher, engaging in martial action. Best of all, there was a weapon rack up against the back wall, filled with all sorts of fighting exotica, the names of which I would only much later know as the jian 劍 (double-edged sword), dao (sabre), chui 锤 (mace), and the weapon in the painting on the wall, the ji 戟 (halberd).
I didn't bother mentioning the Chinese fight school idea since I figured my mother would soon drop the idea of my classes since it would a) cost money, and b) she had a tendency to lose steam for ideas that suddenly popped into her head, especially when said ideas a) cost money. To my surprise, however, at dinner the next day, she suddenly turned to me and told me to keep my Saturday morning free so that we could go sign me up for a "defend yourself fight class." I was surprised but figured that if we were going to pursue this thing, I had better speak up then and there and state my preference. "I want to go to that school up on Hollywood up the street from where you work."
Her face tensed up, and she looked at me as if I were talking childish nonsense. "What school?"
"The one up on Hollywood Boulevard, I said! The Chinese school!"
"That black and red place with the weird weapons?" She just gave a dismissive snort and said with great adamance: "We're going to the Bruce Tegner school. He taught Ricky Nelson!"
I knew that to my mother the fact that this Tegner guy had taught her TV and music idol was about as great an endorsement as any mortal could hope for. To me, though, Ricky Nelson was a sort of has been. I mean, Garden Party was still years off in the future. Out of desperation, I countered with a lie. "Well, that Chinese school teacher taught Bruce Lee!!" I realized at that point I was in a weak position since I didn't even know the Chinese teacher's name. In fact, I would not know until decades later that his name was James Wing Woo.
"Who's Bruce Lee?" my mother asked, not really seeming to care about the answer. My father looked up and by means of facial expression seemed to ask the same question, albeit with a bit more curiosity.
"Kato!" I screamed back in the word economy mode that junior high school kids often used when they feel their dreams being dashed, even if they were only dreams discovered a day before.
My "Kato" ploy did not seem to work. There was no evidence of any bells ringing in her head. She just gave me one of those what-on-earth-are-you-talking-about looks, and said in that matter of fact, case-closed manner that mothers can sometimes have: "We're going to Bruce Tegner's! He wrote a book."
Had I only known at the time that actor James Garner (you, know, the star of the original Maverick series) had trained with James Wing Woo, I would have dropped that information bombshell and gotten my way. You see, while my mother was a big fan of Ricky Nelson, James Garner trumped all other stars in her galaxy. Unfortunately, I didn't learn that fact until decades later either, so for the time being, I was up against star power and a book. And so, the case was closed. I just finished my dinner and said no more. Lesson learned: Knowledge is power.
As if fate wanted to rub my nose int things a bit more, the next evening, Friday, we all went to do some grocery shopping at Ted's Ranch Market down on Santa Monica Boulevard. There was nothing particularly interesting about Ted's Ranch Market as there was nothing particularly ranchy about it, but it did have a fairly big newsstand outside, said to be the third largest in Hollywood after those on Cahuenga and Las Palmas. My mother usually didn't bother with the newsstand, instead heading straight into the market while my father and I perused the books, magazines, and out of town papers outside. This time, however, she walked with great intent directly towards the paperback books, pulled one particular volume off one particular shelf, spun around and showed it to me with great relish, tapping the cover with her index finger. "See!?" she asked in that told-you-so sort of way. "Here is the book!"
And sure enough, there was the book, Bruce Tegner's book in the flesh, or, to get literal about it, in the pulp: Bruce Tegner's Complete Book of Self Defense: The only book with the complete method! Well, OK, so my mother won the who-has-the-qualifications battle. She handed the book to me, seeming to feel quite satisfied with herself, and then marched off into the store. For my part, I got the point and thus saw no reason to look at the thing since I would soon be meeting Bruce Tegner then next morning, so I just walked the book back to the shelf from which she had taken it and put it back in its place. To my surprise, not only had Bruce Tegner written a book, he had written a slew of others as well. In addition the self-defense book, there were other similarly titled volumes, including: Bruce Tegner's Complete Book of Karate, Bruce Tegner's Complete Book of Judo, Bruce Tegner's Complete Book of Jiujitsu, and my favorite volume (due to its not only having a different title construction and cover layout design than the others, but also because of its having a pretty cool cover photo of a flying Bruce Tegner about to deliver a kick from midair!) Savate: French Foot Fighting by Bruce Tegner. I can't remember if I felt impressed or more annoyed, so I assume it was a combination of the two. At any rate, once I had finished reuniting the self-defense volume with the other members of the Tegner publication family, I went into the market and joined my parents in their shopping. I was very pleased that my mother didn't say anything more about the book that evening, the next day, or ever again, for that matter.
(Fight) School Days
My mother dragged me into the school, and we sat along the perimeter of the practice area in order to watch the action. Bruce Tegner looked just like he did on the cover of his many book, dressed in a white gi with black belt, while the students, a ragtag assortment of what seemed to be misfit kids, were also dressed in white gis with white belts. For my part, I was dressed in my martial arts best, or rather best I could do: a white pullover sweatshirt and a pair of slightly oversized blue jeans, holes beginning to show in the knees. In other words, I looked like a guy who avoids getting bullied by hiding in the garage washing out trashcans. That's the way I felt at any rate. The only thing that made me feel a bit better was that I still had my shoes on, while teacher and students were all barefoot, the soles of their feet black with the dirt that collects when one walks on linoleum or pavement in sweaty naked feet. I thought of those photos from the Chinese Martial Arts school where both teacher and students wore athletic shoes and how much more civilized that seemed.
Bruce demonstrated to the class what to do if somewhere were to come up from behind to rob your purse or schoolbag. Some slick moves, a loud scream, and a twist or two were all that was required, and the students took part in practicing, taking turns being the defender and the attacker. My mother gave me a tap on side of the thigh, "Isn't this great?!" She said, seemingly oblivious to the torment I was going through in my soul. I just smiled and said nothing. Bruce then taught the students some drill that looked a bit like some sort of karate kata (that I would learn about much later in life), with arms, legs, and fists jutting and twisting in a rhythmical pattern. It seemed easy enough, and the students seemed to enjoy it, though I didn't know what the point of it was. I just chalked that up to my being there as a first timer and in observer status.
After a while, the class took a hydration and bathroom break, and THE man himself, Bruce Tegner, walked over to us. My mother had spoken to him on the phone, so he was anticipating our visit. She introduced me, and he gave me a big smile and a friendly fatherly punch on the shoulder. Somehow, I liked the guy. I mean he seemed quite nice, and somehow even thought I wouldn't mind it if he were my dad. What a first impression he makes! Of course, as I was dedicated to disliking the guy, this feeling was most inconvenient, like Lizzy's towards Mr. Darcey's in Pride and Prejudice. Anyway, my mother explained my situation to him as in embarrassing detail, as I just stood there waiting for the humiliation to end. I mean having to listen to your mother tell a complete stranger, and an apparently famous one at that, that you are a complete bullied wimp is a hard pill to swallow, and although I knew she was well meaning and all, I just wished she would stop. . .immediately. He assured my mother than he would help get the boy (me) ready to face the crushing blows of potential attempted murder and/or intentional maiming.
Fortunately, there is only so much hydrating and bathrooming a class of young students can do, so it was soon time for class to go back into session. Unfortunately, Bruce Tegner invited me to join the others, and although I was set to beg off with a well-prepared I don't-have-the-right-clothes excuse, my dear ol' mom gave me one of those get-up-there-or-else looks, so I had no choice but to take off my shoes and socks and go up there in my jeans and sweatshirt. The grit on my feet from the floor dirt built up remarkably fast and began to annoy me immediately, while my jeans seemed to have no purpose other than to try to creep down my butt and thus annoyed me almost as much. As if that weren't bad enough, after a brief set of warmup exercises, Bruce had us practice doing forward rolls and thus had me revisiting a nightmare. Forward rolls, you see, were one of the activities in PE class at which I was hopeless (that and climbing ropes), and that embarrassing inability was just another of those nasty things that had helped mark me for victimhood at school. After a few embarrassing whale flop like attempts, Bruce noticed my limitations and gave me a semi credible face-saving way out by showing me how to do a shoulder roll, which was something I managed to take to quite quickly. I appreciated Bruce's kindness and understanding, but I didn't want to ever come back again.
Of course, my mother was not going to take no for an answer, and so she signed me up for a month of classes - one hour a day, one Saturday a week. I felt as if I was being punished, but such is the nature of motherly love. And so, the next Saturday I would return for more of the same and variations thereon, tumbling included, while I pulled up my jeans and wiped grit off my feet. As it was clear that I was making no progress, I could not help but ask myself what all the suffering for. What good were the classes going to do me in terms of keeping me alive when my arch nemesis, John Balano, was still screaming "I'm going to kill that Grant" during the middle of music class? Should his push come to shove, was I supposed to dive for the floor and do a shoulder roll?
After the sentence for that day came to an end, I put my socks and shoes on and headed for home. Upon arrival, my mother excitedly asked me how class was, and I said, "OK." And when she asked for more specifics as to what we did, I just told her "same stuff as before." She was annoyed with my lack of enthusiasm, but then I was pretty annoyed to.
Come the following Saturday, I didn't want to go to Bruce Tegner's anymore. I didn't want to sit in dirty feet pulling my pants up and doing rolls poorly. Still, I couldn't just not go since my mother had her heart set on the problem-solving effects that she was sure the lessons would provide. Thus, I had no choice but to at least head off to school. I would figure the rest out on my way, and that figuring led to an amazing decision. Once I got to within a few doors of the school, I stopped, knowing that I just could not do it again. And so instead of walking the ten or twenty steps to the front door of the school, I turned to my right and sat on the bus bench there in front of me. I had decided to cut class for the first and only time in my life.
The hour that class would normally take seemed to take forever because my mind was full of worry. What would happen if for some reason Bruce Tegner poked his head out the front door and saw me sitting there? What would happen if I suddenly had to go to the bathroom? Worst of all, what would happen if my parents found out about my Beaver Cleaver-esque ditching-class move (Remember the episode when Beaver failed to make the basketball team?). Time passed soon enough, and when I saw the first student leave out the front door of the school, I got up and started for home. I used my time walking to come up with some answers for my parents once they started asking how I could do such a thing. I settled on a semantic approach that consisted in my pointing out that I actually "go to" school, I just didn't "go in." Should that fail, I was ready to bring up "Beach Friday," a day of mass-class ditching that my father took part in during his high school days and continued to bring up with such joy and pride on many an occasion.
As it turns out, I did not have to pay that piper, so to speak, on that particular day. When I got home, it all went down as it had the Saturday before, with my mother asking how class was and what we did, and I replying in as few words as I could unenthusiastically reply with. I had lived to face another Saturday.
Stranger Things
The following Saturday was pretty much a repeat of the previous one. I left the house, walked to school, and then just sat on the bus bench at the corner rather than going inside to tumble. Time seemed to pass more quickly than the week before, and I was fairly good with the world and myself as time for class to let out approached. But then something very surprising, dare I say shocking, happened. From around the corner, a schoolmate from my junior high school appeared, and not just any schoolmate but my arch nemesis, John Balano, the very person whose vow to shorten my days on this planet had brought me to that bus bench on which I was then sitting. He saw me and headed straight over.
I had no idea what was going to go down, but I had to assume it would be bad, and I wasn't quite sure how I would work a shoulder roll into my defense. When the moment of truth stuck, the scenario that played out was not one that I would ever have imagined. John Balano came over, sat on the bench next to me, and said, "Hey, Grant. What you doing here on a Saturday?" He looked around to survey the scene so as to figure out the answer for himself when he saw Bruce Tegner's school. "You takin' Karate?"
The first feeling that hit was one of relief, relief that he had noticed the word "karate" on the sign outside the school rather than the "self-defense bit." Then I felt an odd sense of calm. "Nah, just went to have a look," I said, impressing myself a bit by my own quick altering of the truth.
"Cool. I should look into that someday. That Kato was pretty cool. Anyway, gotta go catch my bus. I'm heading the other way." And with that he went back to the corner, waited for the light, ran across the street, and jumped on the bus that arrived at just that moment.
I was amazed that I was still alive. I was amazed that John Balano had turned, at least for a brief moment in time, into what seemed like a semi normal fellow human being. I had no idea as to why, but I was glad that things happened as they did and my troubles, for at least a day and a half, were over. When the time arrived, I got up off the bench, just before the students in the school came out, and started my walk home, feeling a lot better than I had in a long while.
Unlike the previous two weeks after school, things were quite different when I got home. My mother seemed frantic and seemed to have demanded that my father be the same. "Where have you been?! Bruce Tegner called and said you hadn't showed up today!!" My father did his bit by adding a stern "What were you doing?"
I opted for the honesty-is-the-best-policy route and said, "I was sitting on a bus bench in front of the school, and I didn't go because I can't do forward rolls, and I hate being barefoot! I don't want to go to that school! Anyway, John Balano saw me and talked to me, and he was sort of friendly, and didn't kill me." My answer was honest, detailed, and ended with a tad of optimism. Sure to deliver a bit of something to everyone.
My mother was suddenly calmed and seemed to latch on to just one bit of my reply, asking, "What did he say?"
I told her what had happened, repeated exactly what he said and what I had said back because she liked the small details. She seemed confused and wondered why that name "Kato" kept coming up of late.
The news of my death sentence being lifted seemed to please them both, and their focus could thus return to their usual main concern - money. My father turned to my mother and said, "Well, those lessons do cost money, and he'd need that karate uniform if he continued, so if he doesn't want the lessons. . ." The financial argument seemed to pacify both of them, and it thus seemed to be what was going to get me off the hook.
I got up to leave the room, in case they suddenly wanted to get legalistic about things with me again, but as I headed out of the room, my mother just said, "So I take it you're not going to Bruce Tegner's school anymore?"
"Yeah, I guess not. I don't like those Karate uniforms anyway."
"OK. I'll call him. Not sure what I'll say though."
And thus ended my very short period as a student of the martial arts, something I would not revisit again for 44 years. Ah, but more on that later.
Epilogue
Oddly, after that day on the bus bench, John Baloano never so much as looked my way, and if we did run into each other in the hall or quad, he'd just give a me a nod as if we had once gone to the same Kindergarten. Odder still, about a month, and without warning or explanation, he was no longer a student at Joseph Le Conte Junior High. I never knew what happened to him, and no one else even seemed to remember he existed. A strange ending to a rocky start.
More on Bruce Tegner and James Wing Woo
I mentioned the video I stumbled upon about Bruce Tegner. If you are interested, you can click the following link: Pioneers of the Martial Arts: Bruce Tegner. Episode 1 . There are lots of other sites and videos out there online, including this article that also covers his record as a pioneer in the martial arts world in the US and includes some great photos and video: Bruce Tegner – The Forgotten Pioneer of American Martial Arts.
If you're interested in finding out more about the martial arts teacher I never had, James Wing Woo, check out this site about him: About Sifu Woo. There is also an interesting interview where he mentions his thoughts about and experiences with Bruce Lee at this link: Interview with Sifu Woo in the book Nei Jia Quan, Internal Martial Arts. There are also a few YouTube videos of him in his elder years teaching in his school (the one he created behind his house later on in life). Here is one example of him teaching taichi, and here is another video of his doing corrections with another student.
There are also a couple of books out, one by a former student, called Tai Chi Master James Wing Woo: My memories, class notes, anecdotes and life experiences. Tai Chi Master is available on Amazon.
There is also another small but very colorful and well-designed by James Wing Woo himself called Sifu. Sifu is also available on Amazon.
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