Career Highlights

5th Dan - American Karate

I first became interested when I saw a pro wrestler named Duke Keomuka chopping Pepper Gomez in the throat, I thought, man, that would be cool. This was when I lived in Houston, Texas in the middle to late 50’s. Well, there wasn’t much going on in the martial arts at that time and didn’t get to see much again until the early 60’s when I moved from the back country of Tenn. and started living in Greenville, Miss. Then, I started reading anything I could find in any book store and magazine rack about any type of combative art.

As a freshmen in high school, I got my first taste of fighting in the “free fight” time in the gym when they would throw some 16 ounce gloves on the floor and say, “fight time”.

My best friend and I, Roy Morris went at each other like a pair of wild dogs. Neither of us had a mark on us after the dust settled so it couldn’t have been to bad. Well, this caught the attention of the local bully named “Butch” of all things and he yelled across the room, “I WANT YOU” … pointing at me. Not knowing better, I said OK!

It was my first time to encounter “changed time” where everything slows down. I realized that I could see what he was doing and thought, hey, he is dropping his shoulder just before he hits me in the face AGAIN. Well, I instantly put this knowledge to use and when he dropped his shoulder I hit him and he fell down. Much to the shock of everyone in the gym, he laid there for a second looking up at me, I stood with my mouth open and he got up. He says, “WOW you hit me” and then busted my lip, bloodied my nose and almost blacked my eye. Later in the dressing room he asked if I was ok and through swollen lips I said, “sure, why wouldn’t I be?” He laughed and walked out and I threw up.

2 years later I quit high school and joined the Army and started a serious quest of finding any place possible to learn martial arts.

I went to the local gym on the base and would look for guys doing something, anything that looked like fighting. Man, what a mess.

Then came my assignment to Hanau, Germany. Went to the gym as usual and what do I find, a poster for “KARATE CLASSES”. I knew I had died and gone to heaven. I went to the next class and a guy named George Dillon I think was teaching Kyokushinkai which was started by Mas Oyama.

Due to duty conflicts, I had to stop for about a year and started again with a 19 year old TaeKwon-Do instructor named John who was lightning fast and enjoyed busting me on the side of my face with a round house kick I never saw. I received my first belt promotion with him, receiving my blue belt after 3 months of training.

Then he was drafted and I was looking for another instructor. This was in 1966.

Fast forward to 1968 when I was sent to Viet Nam and wow, what a place to train. Out side of the normal stuff, I got to train with people from the Korean Army (ROK’s) and they were known to lay their weapons aside and use “hand to hand” methods to dispose of the Cong fighters in their area. These Korean gents were very serious about their fighting. Suffice to say that each new base camp I went to I sought out the guys who were training.

In May of ‘69 I packed my purple heart in my bag and headed back to FT. Worth. And what do I do, buy a sports car (Austin Healy 106) and start looking for a karate school. Well, my parents managed an apartment complex just off of the West Freeway and Pat Burleson had a karate school about 2 miles from there on Camp Bowie Blvd.

I remember when Butch Martin met me at the front door and took me back for my “introductory” lesson and to sign the contract. “You have done this before right?” Well, since I was only going to be there for a month before going back to Germany to finish my tour, I only worked out 5 or 6 times. Little did I know what a long trip this would be for me in association with the Burleson Karate system.

After another year in Germany and training with anyone who wanted to play but mostly training alone, I came back and really started working out seriously.

After starting over with Burleson, I would work out 3 or 4 nights a week and then would come into the school during the day and train.

I took my first test with Burleson under the International Tae Kwon-Do Federation on Sept. 26th, 1970. Achieved Green belt less than two months later on Nov. 8th, 1970. I waited almost 3 years before I tested again and this time it was with Burleson under the AKBBA (American Karate Black Belt Assoc.), and received my blue belt on June 17th of 1973 and then waited another 3 years and received my brown belt on the 19th of Dec. 1976.

During the slow times, I studied with 7th Degree Ed Johnson in Ishinryu Karate, and with some soft stylist in Arlington who wouldn’t let me fight with his advanced people, because I was to violent.

At one point I scouted school locations for Burleson and was supposed to run one with Ken Ketchens as head instructor. That location was on 28th street but other commitments kept me from opening the school.

I did run the downtown school until Burleson closed it and I then went to run the Hurst school where Bill Watson was head instructor with Danny McDonald.

I left the system because I moved out of the area and kept training and teaching. In 1980 I fought a 4 round fight against a heavy weight boxer (I weighed 165) and a middle weight black belt for my 1st degree black with Mark Fisher as my instructor. 18 months later I fought 3 rounds of kickboxing for my 2nd degree black. During this time I was training myself and 3 other fighters for kickboxing matches all over Texas. Super Heavy Weight Joe Boyd (325lb) won the Texas Heavy Weight title in El Paso.

It was also during this time I was certified as a judge for K.I.C.K and PKA (Kick International Council for Kickboxing and Professional Karate Association)

After I closed my school, Pyramid Karate Studio in Euless, Texas in 1985 I continued my martial arts training from a different angle. I worked with several people designing training programs for organizations outside of the US and staffed teams for deployment to those regions. I also worked covert operations in the private sector which included asset protection and high profile target protection or disposal.

In 1991 I fulfilled a life long dream and became a peace officer in the state of Texas. In 1993 another dream came true when I graduated from Advance SWAT school taught by LAPD SWAT Team. In the same year, I also graduated from Advanced Sniper school. I also became certified by the State of Texas to teach Handgun Retention classes and received Instructor certification for other law enforcement instruction.

In Feb. of 2006, I became involved with Mann’s Martial Arts with Erik Mann and have returned to the sport I love and has carried me all my life. Martial Arts.

I can honestly say that after 58 years of life having been a professional musician, professional dancer, stage actor, published author, painter and photographer, nothing feels as good as coming home to the thing that brought total happiness to me.

In October of 2006, I was promoted to 5th degree Black Belt.

Below is a list of only some of the people who have influenced my martial arts career.

J. Pat Burleson for allowing me to be me and for doing the right thing when it counted. Bill Watson for showing me what bridging the gap really means. Bill Wallace for spending quality time (5 min) talking about how he does what he does. Roy Kurban for getting me into the center ring as an official. Jim Choate for letting me work with Troy and Bryan Dorsey to learn how to work closely as a center judge and for answering the thousands of questions I had. J. Pat Burleson again for allowing me to join the fight nights as an orange belt with all those black belts. Man, what a trip. Raymond McCallum for letting me bring my fighters to his training school and watch some of the best in the world train and for taking the time to talk to my fighters.

There are others, thanks to you all.

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