Belt: Black Years Training: 33 What was your starting inspiration?: How has your approach to training changed over time?: What advice would you give to someone starting in Martial Arts?:Sifu Stan Lytras 
As a ten years of age I was living in Greece, in the city of Piraeus the port of Athens.
One day rummaging through piles of books at the local second hand bookstore, an avid reader since my early days, I noticed a strange book thrown on the floor titled Jiu Jitsu by Kiyose Nakae. Seeing pictures of a small man dropping a larger man with various tricks made me buy it. As soon as I went home, I dropped my mattress on the floor and proceeded to practice the tricks with my best three friends. The book today is sitting in my bookcase with another 400 martial arts books. I still read it from time to time and it still inspires me like it did 40 years ago.
What is your favourity element of karate?:
A hard question to answer after 33 years of training. When I started training in 1974 sparring and fighting was my favourite part. I really enjoyed the free style sparring part of training with Sheehan Robert Dawning in the early 1980s, while studying Sonji-Ruy Karate. Since 1984 when I started training with sifu Bill Young I started appreciating the value of kata which became my favourite element at the time. These two areas of karate are still my favourite. Of course in the last 18 years, teaching has become a great favourite of mine as I enjoy immensely sharing my knowledge with others.
Two main changes come into mind. I find that these days I am a lot more interested in the details of a technique. Learning is not as “superficial” as it was say 15-20 years ago. Studying and practicing body mechanics and dynamics is now a more important part of training. After all this is the purpose of martial arts to defeat your opponent with minimum effort on your part. The only other major change in the last seven year has been replacing my running schedule with a walking schedule. I always have listened to my body and adjusted training accordingly but even so, these days it tends to talk to me quite a lot!!!
The same advise I would give to anyone starting anything in life. Be a good listener. Don’t be in a hurry, take your time and enjoy yourself. Trust your instructors and your fellow students and allow them to trust you. Train hard but don’t take it too seriously, karate should be part of your balanced life. Persevere and train hard but listen and be kind to your body, that’s all you have. Just train and do not overanalyze things. Avoid talking too much, thinking “noise” only contributes to slow progress. I always found copying my instructor as the best and fastest way to learn.
| Dai-Sihing Jay Parsotam | | |
 Dai-Sihing Jay Belt: Black What was your starting inspiration?: I recall being around twelve years old when two of my classmates started karate at a local dojo in Lower Hutt. Back at school the next day, most of the boys in my class were abuzz with the stories of their new hobby. These two guys had us knocking knuckles on the doorways every time we entered or exited the class. “It’ll harden up your hands,” they said. I can still hear the teachers voice telling us to stop knocking on the door and get out – and more importantly to hurry up and get back in after recess. Luckily he was a good-natured guy and let us continue regardless. Perhaps he had done a bit of martial arts in his time and understood the reasons why we were holding up the rest of the class. It would be another twelve years, at the late age of twenty-four that the karate urge hit me again. Dare I admit, the movie “Karate Kid” was to blame. I went about checking out a few clubs in the Wellington area. I’m a great believer in gut instinct, and it wasn’t until after I had checked out a few other clubs, that I walked into one at the All Saints Church Hall in Hataitai. Arriving in the middle of a training session I immediately knew I had found the dojo for me. There was a little Chinese guy (Sifu Bill Young) walking around correcting the students as they were going through their blocking, striking and kicking techniques – not a wax on, wax off, or paint the fence in sight. It just looked like hard work and everyone seemed to be enjoying doing it. Funnily, I never actually witnessed Sifu do anything at that time, but he had a presence about him and his friendly demeanor had me hooked. I decided to watch the rest of the session and start training the following week. I found the first month the most difficult. Give me a car to wax or fence to paint any day, but this new hobby had me using muscles that I didn’t even know existed. And the stretching !!#%*!! Prior to this, the closest thing I had encountered to a yogi was a bear on Saturday mornings with his little mate Booboo. Why on earth would somebody voluntarily contort themselves the way we had to - surely it was something you did to your opponents. But a friendly “That’s good,” or “harder/faster” from Sifu kept me wanting to try even harder. Stretching, for me, made the first month the hardest. A sore body everyday, and not being able to move, sometimes meant sitting out a couple of classes and just watch. But I’d bring along a pen and some paper to write the order of the basics and how many the instructor on stage was barking out. Ahhhh, fond memories of being a beginner, I’d hate to go through that again. What is your favorite element of karate? Within the first six months of starting, kata and self-defense became my favorite aspect of karate. My first grading as a white belt, Sifu asked a question of those my level. “Why do you do martial arts?” There were the usual answers: “It gets me fitter” “I like making new friends” “It helps me lose weight” “I learn how to fight” etc All of which are true of course, but it was his response after our answers that always stuck with me and I hold this thought to this day. He said, “The only reason to practice martial arts should be, to be able to defend yourself or those close to you.” To extend his statement and put my own slant on it, I would say if you want to focus on getting fitter/stronger – join a gym. Want to make friends? - Do an activity where there’s a lot of talking or socializing. Lose weight? – Eat less and go running. If on the other hand you want to learn to defend yourself, like self-discipline, doing a lot of hard work and still gain all the above benefits (and some) then do a martial art. It will give you something that cannot be found in any other activity. Reasons for this preference For me, kata hold the secrets. Being taught the movements and spending the time (years) perfecting those movements gives one balance, spirit, poise, strength, focus…I could go on, but I found, for myself the most compelling aspects are the self defense techniques. Kata hold a myriad of techniques – some really obvious, some not so. The most satisfying feeling a martial artist gets, I believe is when he/she begins to discover things for themselves that haven’t been shown to them by anyone else. Many karateka may suffer the trap of merely replicating what they have been shown themselves. Not pondering the techniques over time and hence not really grasping the brevity of what they are doing. Time, constant training, an open mind and willingness to keep learning changes that. It is a true statement when a student hears their instructor say, “Getting a black belt is just the beginning.” If one gets to the black belt stage, then the going really gets tough. But also one usually finds a surge of enthusiasm and is more open to the wealth of knowledge and experience out there. Their minds become sponges, soaking up anything, to eventually find what works best for themselves, their body type and their demeanor. A good practitioner does not discount what does not work for them though, so that they may pass it on to others who might benefit. How has your approach to training changed over time? From the beginning I had always liked the self-discipline side of karate training. I had always assumed it was something that was enforced by my instructors, but looking back I came to realize it was something that I mostly imposed on myself. Possibly from another comment Sifu use to make – “Martial arts is just like military arts.” Looking back, I recognize that my instructors and fellow students were actually very friendly and jovial. More likely than not, it was because of that, that I continued with my training. At the time I thought if I wanted to be a good martial artist, it meant being serious, training hard and doing the techniques over and over again. And you know what? It’s all true, so if you’re a student reading this, don’t think you can do it a different way and expect to be any good. Haha – maybe I jest, maybe I don’t. Now I’m rather more relaxed in my own training but hopefully still inspire the students by showing them what I believe it’s all about. In the old days there were only a few dojos around. Anyone wanting to train in the martial arts didn’t have many to choose from. This in turn meant the clubs were quite large and training/teaching was always done the way it had always been done. Did it matter if they lost a few members along the way? Nowadays, I believe it’s different. There are more choices when it comes to sport or hobbies. So in order to retain their members, it’s up to the instructors to find a way so that their students learn. That’s not to say the instructor must pander to the student, but more that some students need a different approach. A good instructor will try to find how the student learns and instruct accordingly. Having said that, here’s another Sifu Bill snippet. “I’m not teaching you, I’m only showing you.” - meaning it was still up to the student to put in the effort to learn. What advice would you give somebody starting martial arts? There’s so much advice for the budding martial artist. Attempting to note them all would be futile, but here are just a few bullet points.
“One sharp blade is better than ten blunt ones” My personal thought is that any one of the traditional arts, no matter which one, have all you will ever need in order to defend yourself. Give it time, delve into it deeply and you may find yourself unlocking areas that you didn’t know existed. |
Belt Colour: Black Years Training: Since 1995 Starting Inspiration:(What was your inspiration for first starting in the martial arts? Were your initial expectations met? Interesting stories about your first few lessons??) Well I never had to look far for some inspiration growing up. Whether it came from watching martial arts movies with my dad, Bruce Lee's in particular, or from having known and associating with Dai Si-hings Jay, Kevin and Russell from the time I was born. Some of my earliest memories are of the flying side kick at the end of “Fists of Fury,” the handful of hair Bruce rips from Chuck Norris's chest in “Way of the Dragon” and… well... if I’m being really honest... the topless woman dancing in Fists of Fury and the one who jumps out of the cake in Steven Seagal's “Under Siege.” But that’s another story!! Back to the Martial Arts!! Another favourite of mine would have to be Jackie Chan!! He and his movie “Legend of Drunken Master” would definitely have been two more huge inspirations for me starting in the Martial Arts. Legend of Drunken Master to this day would be either my favourite, or at the very least in my top 3 favourite Martial Arts movies. What is your favourite element of karate?(For example, do you prefer kata over sparring? Is there a reason you refer this element of karate? Do you think that this is your strongest skill?) If you were to look at it from just a Kata VS Sparring point of view, then I would have to say Kata. I'm not really a confrontational person and I have many memories of Dai Si-hing Jay trying to psyche me up and make me more aggressive!! But if you look at the whole spectrum of Martial Arts training, then I'd say my favourite element of karate is the basics. As obvious as it may sound, the basics are the building blocks for EVERYTHING. Good Kata and good Sparring technique both rely on your having a good grasp of the basics. Every little detail counts and can make a huge difference to the way techniques are ultimately performed. Often seen as boring, a lot of the time people would rather just get straight into learning new forms and techniques. However, if enough time is spent perfecting the basics, the practitioner will find that when learning new techniques, they are able to perform them much better and have less to fix or change once they have been learnt. Using stances in Kata as an example, it’s beneficial to have good stances from as early as possible to take with you through all of your Kata. It’s a hassle to find out one day while performing a more advanced form that your stances are still in need of improvement, as by this stage you generally have more to be focusing on than the depth of your horse stance!! Obviously perfect stances are not achieved from day one, but developing them early on by spending enough time on them really pays off in the end. How has your approach to training changed over time? I can’t really remember how I used to train, but from maybe 2nd Kyu I know that I started focusing a lot more on the fine points. It’s amazing what a difference it makes to a technique once you perform it with all of the fine points of that technique applied. For so long you can go on thinking that a punch is just a punch (and fair enough too!) just throw your fist out and that's it… right?? You could do your punch for a year or more thinking "Damn, this punch is getting pretty good," or for that matter, on the opposite side of the coin, "Damn, this punch is terrible," be it that you feel it's too slow or not overly powerful. Properly applied fine points here can either, in the first instance, make your punch even better than it already is, or, in the second instance, help you to achieve the power or speed that you were lacking. The fine points are the difference between good and great technique. In saying all this however, even once you have found out the fine points of a technique it is easy, unfortunately, to THINK that you're applying them when you're actually not!! For instance, during training you may get taught a new point and after "applying" this new information to your technique you might think "Well that changed nothing." This is generally because you're either not applying the new point correctly OR you may be applying the new point just fine but in doing so have changed, unwittingly, another part of the technique. Anyway, I won't go on and on about all this right now but it’s a great feeling you get when you have either mastered, or have come one step closer to mastering a technique. Personally I don't feel I've "mastered" anything at this early stage, but I do feel that I've at least taken a few steps!! What advice would you give to someone starting in the martial arts? I won't say anything like don't be afraid, scared or nervous, because these are natural feelings that most people have when starting something new!! So currently, the best advice I can attempt to give someone starting out would be the following two points: -As hard as it can be sometimes try to leave any questions for later. -If you can, just try to replicate exactly what it is you're being shown to the best of your ability. You should find things a lot easier AND everything else will either be answered later on, or in many cases answer itself!! The more you think about things the more difficult they can become. (Just like when writing a karate bio!! ^^)Sihing Orestis Lytras 
Belt: Black What was your starting inspiration?: As a traditional Chinese boy growing up in a little island, known by world for its PC, cell phone and technology merchandise, named “Taiwan”, martial Art movies and TV series (surely with Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung etc..) were part of our childhood. Usually, after a good episode of Kung-Fu program, silly kids like me would pick up a stick and start fighting with other kids in the neighborhood, just to try out our newly learnt techniques. Somehow those moves never went any further than waving and whacking. Another little martial art experience took place when I was 9 or 10: The principle of my elementary school had a great idea to improve our fitness and he decided to try out his idea on all year five students by bringing in an instructor to teach us Taekwondo. However, starting 7:30 in a cold winter morning with 10 minutes of horse stands, then 30 push ups on a gravel ground with bare knuckles, are not the kind of fun young kids enjoy. A mean looking instructor shouting at 9~10 years old kids didn’t help either. The sick fragile kid I was, I somehow decided to grade to the next belt in the following semester with another 5~6 students out of hundreds. By the time we started year 6, the training, just like all other subjects we had learnt, were long forgotten. Then in my intermediate school, under the influence of some kids’ program, I became a firm believer in “intelligence is stronger than strength”. Also even with all the enjoyable martial art movies and TVs, somehow the image of a mean looking instructor shouting at kids and rough martial art clubs stayed in my little mind. Martial art stay as cool as a legend but not something a common person (even right-minded person) will do. (I guess this is not the kind of inspiration people are expecting :p) What is your favorite element of karate?: My attitude of training has changed a lot over time. I started Karate with a routine to force myself to exercise since I was studying and working in front of the computer all day. It’s good to join a club for regular exercise and learn some self-defense. And this attitude lasted till my green or blue belt level.Sihing Joe Chiu 
The negative perception of martial art stayed all the way to my adult year. When I started contract work in IT few years after I lived in New Zealand I was surprised to learn that my manager was a karate instructor, after nearly a year of working with him without knowing. A friendly IT professional who jokes around to ease the nervous young worker who speaks little English is not a typical martial art practitioner in my mind (well, only the mysterious part fits the character of a kung fu master, he he).
This finding hit me in a big way and stirred up my curiosity to find out more about the martial art he was doing and why he was doing it. At the time he told me a little bit about the martial art and the club, the philosophy, other instructors and little stories of the club. Somehow I was most inspired by the history of the club, so I decided to join. When I stepped in the club the first time, I was even more surprised to find out that my manager was the Chief instructor Si-Fu Stan. He still possessed a friendly smile, the whole club was full of hard training students with shouting noise but still filled with friendly atmosphere. This shattered my perception of rough martial club with mean instructor in a big way.
I guess my inspiration comes from realising that martial art is neither the legend in the movies nor the tough looking instructor. Martial art has more to it, such as aspects of philosophy, health, sports, self-defence, sparring, and most importantly the discipline and the way of life. It is awaiting to be discovered by anyone search for it.
Years later I continue to be inspired by all the stories of Si-Fu Bill and other stories told frequently by all instructors.
There are so many aspects in karate and any martial arts. I enjoy the kata, self-defense and its philosophy. However, looking back on my limited duration of training since 1999, this may sounds cliché, but my favorite part is the discipline.
The discipline I describe here is not just the superficial part of listening and doing what the instructor says but the self-discipline of keep pushing oneself beyond one’s limit. As Dai Si-Hing Jay quoted what Si-Fu Bill say, “I’m not teaching you, I’m only showing you”. At the end of the day, it is up to us to learn what the instructor has shown to us. A good instructor is very important in the process of learning but willingness to learn is even more fundamental, willingness to learn without questioning whatsoever.
Put another way, the effect of this self-discipline can be seen in the situation when everything seems goes wrong. The only thing that will keep us going is the attitude, the spirit, or the driving force. To be able to keep motivating oneself in a time when one sees no hope, is the best way to push oneself beyond one’s own limit. Constantly pushing it, in one’s own pace and method of course, is the essence for this continuous progress. This essence can be found in all well known people in human history such as, but not limited to, great martial artists.
As the person that love to overly analyse everything ;p I realised this self-discipline to keep pushing myself beyond my limits, plays a crucial role in overcoming my fear of violence and confrontation. The journey was so slow and painful that I almost gave up. However, the outcome was fruitful. It let me become more confident with myself and more understanding of others.
The most surprising part is that all instructors, especially Si-Fu Stan, Dai Si-Hing Jay, keep telling us about it in every training session, we just somehow never understand it. I finally (and luckily) came to this realisation just around the time before I was graded to black belt.
I continue to be fascinated by the arts, the secrets behind all kata, the fine points, the effective and efficiency of techniques and body mechanisms. Somehow, fitness, self-defense, kata, training, everything all make sense once the mind stops questioning.
How has your approach to training changed over time?:
As a frail, weak person, in my intermediate belts, I started struggling in my training because I kept getting injured, pulling muscles and feeling unwell after almost every training session. On top of that I had a few bad jet-lags after flights, caught a flu, so I managed to attend only few classes that year. I had a dilemma to train or stop; giving up seemed an attractive option at the time.
Thankfully, Si-Fu Stan didn’t give me any pressure at all, especially when we saw each other in the office every day. One day he showed me some traditional Chinese forms in the car park at work during coffee break. He mentioned to me that Si-Fu Peter had came back to the club to show those forms, also Melissa was teaching Tai-Chi at the end of the class. I had always been interested in Chinese forms as I believed that my frail body didn’t suit the hard and strong Karate, it suited soft and flowing Chinese forms.
I decided to go back and check it out. After an hour basic of karate training I started to ache all over my body and wondered why I ever came back. However, I stayed till class finished and tried out Tai-Chi. Amazingly, after 10 minutes of Tai-Chi, my muscle aches were all gone and I felt really good, warm and relaxed. So I told myself I would come back to do Tai-Chi even though Karate is not my cup of tea.
After that slow and painful year, my fitness, energy level and physique somehow improved dramatically. I became stronger and the funniest part is that I started to sweat during training (believe it or not, I never sweated during training before that as my body was always cold no matter how hard I tried). I started feeling some power coming from my strikes and kicks. Chinese form and Tai-Chi were soothing and warmed up my aching cold body during that period. I have to thank Si-Fu Stan for introducing me to Si-Fu Peter and Chinese forms. Somehow Si-Fu Stan always understood what I needed better than myself.
After this breakthrough, both physical limitation and mental block, I started to enjoy training. It was around my advanced belt 4th kyu . I realised, after some guidance from Stan and Jay, that I needed to put on more muscles to absorb the impact of blocking and striking. So I decided to join the gym to do weight training between Karate sessions. For first two years of gym, the progress was slow, but I started growing a bit of muscle. 3 or 4 years of Karate broadened my bone structure. Weight training put on some muscle. It was then that I started enjoy Karate and felt good after each training session. Finally, a bit of strength came out of my technique.
The year I was preparing my black belt grading was tough. Apart from training in the class, I was also doing weight and cardio training 2~3 times a week between karate, and some weekend training sessions with friends. Also, I did lots of thinking before going to sleep to work out the self created kata and self-defense techniques required for the black belt.
After I was graded to black belt, my approach changed completely. The thinking stopped as I had no pressure of memorizing all syllabus, sets, techniques etc.. I just focused on the fine points of each technique and new kata that I was doing at the time or showing the young ones. Pure training and focus without questioning helps in a big way. During the first 6 months as a black belt, my techniques improved much more than in the previous 2~3 years of training, with plenty of help from Si-Hing Orestis. My body started learning the technique.
Just training and enjoying each training session without questioning in mind is a great approach to me now.
What advice would you give to someone starting in Martial Arts?:
DO NOT OVER ANALYSE everything. If you read Instructor Dai Si-Hing Jay’s profile, you may notice I am one of the worst. Just let the body do the learning, NOT the mouth or the mind. Once questioning starts, learning stops.
Learn to listen to the instructors not yourself, even if what they say sounds conflicting from one instructor to another, or conflicting between the current and the previous topic. Instructors try to put across some point in a way they think can be understood by students. So it may sound conflicting because everyone comprehends very differently from one student to another.
You may not appreciate that yet, but with your instructors being through the exact process, they have thought through what you are thinking in each level. They are thinking ahead of us as students. If you can understand whatever they say, you are not learning. We explore martial arts and ourselves by looking at the same thing in whole new eyes, with a new understanding.
Believe it or not, I spent nearly 7 years to finally understand this. So the earlier you appreciate this, the earlier you begin to appreciate the true meaning of martial arts. Enjoy training.
| Sihing Christian Flynn | | |
| Name: Christian Flynn Belt Colour: Black Years Training: Since 1999 Starting Inspiration: What was your inspiration for first starting in the martial arts? Were your initial expectations met? Interesting stories about your first few lessons? My inspiration for learning martial arts was fuelled by stories from friends who talked of their clubs, including; Jiu-jitsu, boxing and then the club I ultimately joined - Karate. My main aim was to gain self-defence skills. I tried Jiu-Jitsu with a friend, but was only able to attend the last week of classes for the year. I hung out for training over summer, having enjoyed immensely my first martial arts classes. My friend let me know of the Chinese Martial Arts association, which was close to where I lived. He pumped-up my imagination with stories from his childhood about the club, such as death defying punch evasions. Between his sales pitch, the convenient locality of the club and my imagination, we vowed to turn up to training on the first Tuesday of February. I turned up and my friend didn’t but his absence didn’t dissuade me that day and neither did the look of the menacing, yet friendly instructor who greeted me. On my first day I bowed into the dojo and thought before I’d even thrown a punch, my goal was black belt. I didn’t know what that meant, in terms of skill, ability or training time and frankly I didn’t think about it past my superficial preconceptions.The first class was fantastic! I survived gruelling horse stances, series after series of kick, punches and blocks, sets of sit-ups and push-ups and even learned an odd looking set of movements called Tai kyu ku one. What struck me was the skill level from instructors and the vibe of the club, a friendly open atmosphere with an underlying seriousness -reflected in the more formal Japanese etiquette. All of this just made me keener to train! |