The Monk of Park Avenue by Yun Rou

Author:Yun Rou
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mango Publishing Group
Published: 2022-04-28T00:00:00+00:00

I’ve been so busy trying to make a living that I haven’t found a school I can settle into and I’ve lost constancy of practice. Once again, Master Po recedes into the distance, leaving me with the nagging feeling that I need that connection to Asian wisdom and culture and practice if I am to sort out my life and find better health and more peace of mind. Halfway through 1990, I find an advertisement for aikido, a Japanese art I’ve always found intriguing, whirling circles and flowing skirts for men and all. The school is not too far from my modest studio apartment, so I go and watch a class. It looks nice to me, and the atmosphere is mellow. I realize I’m at Steven Seagal’s school and ask the instructor some questions.

Wow. Does he ever come into the school?

He travels. He does his movies. He’s busy. Sometimes he shows up.

Is he any good? I mean, the way he looks on film?

He’s big.

I got that, but is he good? I mean, skillful? I know he married his sensei’s daughter or something like that and got authentic training in Japan.

He’s big. Hard to fight a guy that big.

Yes, yes, but is any good at the art?

Did I mention that he’s really a big guy?

I keep looking. I find an advertisement for a Wing Chun school, the same style in which I have an instructor’s sash from my time in Connecticut. I’m in the San Fernando Valley and the school is on the other side of town, far west on Venice Boulevard, a bear of a drive through notorious LA traffic, particularly at the end of the workday when all of LA is on the freeway. Still, after the visit to the aikido school, I realize it would be best to stay with a familiar style. I make the drive, and a couple of times, traffic grinds to a halt under a layer of brown air. My eyes burn and my weak lungs ache. When I finally reach my destination, I find a small place with an office at the front and a training space at the back, replete with a couple of wooden dummies and shiny butterfly knives on the wall. Grandmaster Hawkins Cheung—Bruce Lee’s sparring partner and close disciple of Ip Man’s—gives me a nod. He’s a bug-eyed sprite of a man with comically thick glasses and he radiates an eagerness to argue, if not fight. I feel pretty much at home and I’m happy to have found a way to continue my training. I find myself hoping that maybe I will find something of Master Po in the grandmaster, so I ask if I may watch the beginner class. He agrees. I take a seat on the bench, wherefrom I notice some small stylistic differences between the version of the art I have been taught and this iteration of the same. Nothing major, though. I know I can adapt.

The beginners depart. A smaller, rougher crew trickles in, all Asians and Latinos with torn shirts, lean bodies, and tough looks.

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