Tree of Many Branches
Hsin Lu Tree of Many Branches
Tree of Many Branches
Hsin Lu Tree of Many Branches
In 1973, friends who knew of my passion for the martial arts told me of kung fu classes being taught at St. Joseph’s Gym. Always being open to more training in the Arts, I invited a few others who joined me for our first day of lessons.
Having turned up a little ahead of class time we waited for the instructors to arrive, and while we did so, a steady stream of students began to file in. Being young and impressionable, we were immediately struck by the age and the size of the class participants.
At that time, we were all in our mid-teens. Yet, stepping into the gym were men whose age and physical appearance was significantly different from ours. For one, they had beards – something which for us was still somewhat of a dream rather than a reality. For another, they all looked notably intimidating; although the fact that each carried their neatly folded uniform in tow gave us a sorely needed sense of community.
As it turns out, the instruction was actually in Tae Kwon Do, not kung fu, and it was being taught by a Korean man of rather small stature and a thin, compact build. His name was Ching. Soon, my comrades and I were invited to suit up, which we did – proudly donning our Japanese gis and thinking nothing of it. I wore my white belt on which Sensei Koyama (one of my first instructors) had used a marker to write my name in Japanese characters.
After our warm-ups, and about half way through the class, Ching lines up the students in their appropriate positions then notices, and zeroes in on, my belt. Evidently I had failed to consider the effect that a white belt, with Japanese characters penned on it, would have on a class of Tae Kwon Do students being taught by an authentic Korean instructor.
Ching spoke very broken English. But when he selected a Blue Belt from his class and then, in direct succession, pointed at me, it was obvious he was choosing opponents for a sparring match. During the bow and the command to take up a fighting stance, I mentally sized up the man before me: he stood noticeably taller than I, was remarkably older, and wore a Blue Belt – all of which indicated to me that there stood a respectable adversary that would presumably handle himself well in the ring.
Since I had sparred with upper ranks before, it did not require a leap of faith for me to determine that I would have to fight and fight well in order to keep from being injured. So, given the command to fight I moved in quickly and threw a round-house kick to the side the man’s head. It was the first move I made, and it was also to be the last move of that particular match.
The side of my opponent’s head caught the kick square-on and he crumpled to the ground in an instant. Ching looked shocked! He stood over and looked down at the man on the floor. Then he walked a few paces in my direction and looked at me. A second later, he walked back to the man on the floor, stood over him again and said, “No good! No good! No block like that!”
He then pointed at me and said, “Good kick. Good kick. What kinda kick is that?!”
I explained to him that it was a round-house kick, and several times he asked me to demonstrate it which I did. When I was done, he pointed at my white belt and asked, “How long? How long?!”
“Eight years,” I replied matter-of-factly.
“Eight years?!” He retorted, alarmed. “No good. No good! Too long! You test. Learn kata, take test!”
So, over the course of the next two days, I learned three forms Ching would require of me in order to test for Blue Belt. Although the test would cost a whopping $15.00 – a fortune to a 16 year old kid who didn’t have it to spend – my friends would ultimately chip- in to make it possible. Two days later and still beardless, I tested for, and earned, my Blue Belt.
