Early Training Influences

From 1989 to 2001, while living in New York City, I practiced at an independent Aikido dojo that focused on self-defense methods – goshin-jutsu – incorporating striking methods from Nippon Shorinji Kempo as its atemi-jutsu. The school marketed itself as a traditional form of aiki-jujutsu when that art was popular in NYC due to the teaching of Yonezawa Katsumi and others.

During that time, I remember fondly attending several seminars in classical and traditional martial arts while living in NYC – including Daito-ryū Takumakai and Yagyu Shinkage-ryū. A good friend of mine from Flushing was a practitioner of Chinese martial arts, and I told myself if I ever had the opportunity, I would learn a form of Baguazhang or Bajiquan.

In 2004, after I received my final teaching license in modern goshin-jutsu, I visited a koryū enbu, a demonstration of classical Japanese martial arts, at the St. Louis Botanical Garden. Schools such as Tenshinsho-den Katori Shinto-ryū, Shindo Muso-ryū, Araki-ryū, Toda-ha Buko-ryū, and Yagyu Shinkage-ryū were represented. Each of these seemed to have a more subtle and refined method of weapons practice than the rough and tumble practice I had been taught along side our modern jujutsu.

There, while talking with Ellis Amdur, he asked me what was next for me, since I had recently been awarded the highest rank in my current style of modern jujutsu. I told him about my desire to learn Baguazhang, and he told me he knew of teachers in Maryland – in fact, he had practiced Xingyiquan while in Japan under Su Dongchen, and was interested in its sister art of Gao Lineage Baguazhang.

Ellis introduced me to Bob Galeone, a Karate and Aikido teacher who had learned Gao Bagua from Allen Pittman and Paul Cote in the lineage of Hung Yimien, a student of Zhang Junfeng. I began training in Gao Bagua with Bob in 2004. I subsequently received feedback on my training from Paul Cote and also Su Dongchen during his Essence of Evolution seminars in Minneapolis.