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Maple Grove Taekwondo Coach, Father Honored

On February 7, 2012

Grandmaster Eui Lee, the head instructor at the World Taekwondo Academy of Maple Grove and U.S.A. National Team Coach, was recently named U.S.A. Taekwondo 2011 Coach of the Year.

Coach Lee and his club have produced more National Champions and National Team members in the State of Minnesota then all the Minnesota clubs combined, according to a press release.

As part of a local elementary school’s physical education program, Coach Lee started a taekwondo program last year. “The goal of the program is to allow students who might not be able to afford a taekwondo lesson the ability to participate in martial arts,” according to the U.S.A. Taekwondo website.

This honor is also shared with his father who passed away two years ago and was also acknowledged for an award. Grandmaster Byung Yul Lee was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award throughU.S.A. Taekwondo.

Coach Lee was thrilled with his honor, according to the press release from World Taekwondo Academy, but what made everything even more special is that he was acknowledged with his father.

“His efforts helped taekwondo become one of the largest sports and martial arts in the world,” U.S.A. Taekwondo website.

Grandmaster Byung Yul Lee is one of the original Masters to come America in 1968 to help spread the art and sport of Taekwondo. The World Taekwondo Academy was established in 1969 by Grandmaster Byung Yul Lee.

Hotel Robber Nabbed by Good Samaritans Visiting Los Angeles for Martial Arts Tournament

By TSMA

On February 3, 2012

In Uncategorized

Los Angeles: On November 2, 2011, at around 11:40 p.m., Rampart Division officers responded to a radio call of an “Assault suspect armed with a gun” at a hotel located in the 300 block of
N. Vermont Avenue. When the officer’s arrived, they saw a man on the ground being held by two citizens.

Shortly before police arrived, the desk clerk at a local hotel took notice of a man with a back pack who walked into the lobby and began to suspiciously look around. He asked the clerk about the price of a room, and then pointed a gun at him and demanded money. The suspect walked around the counter where the clerk stood and told him to open the cash register. The clerk, fearing he was going to be shot, opened the register and gave the suspect money.

During the robbery, an elevator door opened, and two hotel guests who happened to be martial arts experts visiting Los Angeles from Oregon for a martial arts’ tournament heard the clerk’s cry for help and immediately took action. The pair grabbed the suspect who was holding a gun in his right hand. During the tussle with the suspect, the Good Samaritans repeatedly asked him to drop the gun and stop struggling. The pair was finally able to wrestle the gun from the suspect and took him to the ground with a leg sweep and then held him on the ground until Rampart Division officers arrived.

The suspect, identified as 31-year-old Luis Rosales, a resident of Los Angeles, was taken into custody without further incident. In addition, a loaded 9mm handgun and the money taken from the cash register were found inside Rosales’ backpack. Rosales was booked for armed robbery with a firearm. His bail is set at $101,250.

Martial arts legend Al Novak passes away

By TSMA

On February 2, 2012

In Uncategorized

San Francisco Bay Area martial arts legend Al Novak, who influenced movie icon Bruce Lee, died Saturday in a Fremont hospital after he was hit last week by a car while sitting in his wheelchair, friends said.

Novak, a Great Grandmaster and last surviving 10th degree black belt in the kajukenbo self-defence style, was in his late 80s. The Fremont resident broke down racial barriers once inherent in the sport, growing up training in San Francisco’s Chinatown, unheard of for a Caucasian in the 1920s and ’30s.

“He was beloved by everybody,” said Greg Lee, whose father, James Lee, was a business partner of Novak’s and Bruce Lee, Hollywood’s first martial arts star who died tragically in 1973. “When you’re a grandmaster, it means you’ve incorporated your own manoeuvres and changed other things around and developed an art, and that’s what Al did.”

Novak’s martial arts career spanned more than 50 years, according to a profile on usadojo.com. He became so accomplished that Bruce Lee would not spar with him publicly, according to the website.

Novak was confined to a wheelchair in 2005 after the van in which he was riding in as a passenger crashed. Both his femurs were crushed.

Even though he could not walk, he still split blocks of wood at the martial arts school he ran in Fremont and commanded enough respect that black belt recipients in their respective arts often wanted Novak to sign their certificates, said friend Jeff Finder.

Novak served on a PT boat during the Second World War, training alongside future U.S. president John F. Kennedy.

Son of martial arts expert who trained Bruce Lee honoured in hall of fame

By TSMA

On February 1, 2012

In Uncategorized

Son of martial arts expert who trained Bruce Lee honoured in hall of fame

The son of a martial arts expert who trained Bruce Lee, has been inducted into the Combat Martial Arts Hall of Fame.

Leon Jay, 56, has lived in Epsom for the last 21 years, but grew up in Hawaii and San Francisco, and teaches a form of jujitsu, founded by his father, in Leatherhead, Epsom and abroad.

His father, Wally Jay, who was also inducted into the hall of fame, was a renowned teacher having famously trained martial arts expert, actor and director, Bruce Lee.

He said: “When I was a kid I’d come home from school and there would be Bruce Lee sitting on our doorstep waiting for my father to come home from work so they could train together in the dojo behind our house.

“We were living in the San Francisco Bay area in California then and Bruce had moved from Seattle in Washington to Oakland about two miles down the road.

“That was in the 1960s in California, way before Bruce became famous.

“He was a really quick, keen student.

“He sought out my father because he was well respected in the martial arts community all around the world, in fact my father, Professor Wally Jay, wrote the foreword for Bruce’s first book, Chinese Gung Fu: The Philosophical Art of Defense.”

Mr Jay followed in his father’s footsteps beginning his martial arts training at the age of just two and is now a second generation 9th degree black belt Grandmaster of Small Circle Jujitsu – a form of jujitsu founded by his father in the 1940s.

He is frequently called upon to help adults and children with learning disabilities and anger management issues and is currently developing a national programme to aid the rehabilitation of young offenders.

His father, Wally Jay, died earlier this year at the age of 93 from a stroke and Bruce Lee’s widow, Linda Lee Cadwell, spoke at his funeral in California.

He said: “She was kind enough to say how my father had changed the way Bruce approached his training, the positive influence dad had had on him.”

Mr Jay and his late father were inducted in to the Combat Martial Arts Hall of Fame at a ceremony in Birmingham last month for their contribution to martial arts.

For more information visit smallcirclejujitsu.com