Early Influences

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. 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.

Bob was a senior Aikido disciple of Kanai and Saotome and working with him has been a very important gift in two parts. His own efforts to understand the implications of Bagua on his Aikido practice has helped me first understand my aiki-jujutsu was actually Aikido (conversations with Clyde Takeguchi helped inform me of the provenance of many of the techniques I knew – variants of Aikido techniques practiced by Tohei Koichi and at Iwama, dating my teacher's teacher's training to 1950's era Aikido and not a separate surviving line of aiki-jujutsu from Tanomo Saigo and others) and then allow me to begin to refine the practice into something more realistic and effective.

Bob also introduced me to Paul Cote's Wu Taijiquan class he was attending as well as the kenjutsu group practicing at Capital. I began learning Wu Taijiquan and the Yin and Liu Baguazhang Paul was teaching in Damascus and New Market, and eventually started going to Pittsburgh to learn Xingyiquan from Paul's teacher Zhang Yun.