Lee's Chinese Martial Arts Federation's

After 29 years of Kung-Fu experience--with four near-death experiences, were it not for my Kung-Fu, I would not be living. I must admit, I have no patience for the traditional politics or the Kung-Fu experts who can only talk about their teacher's teachers....or that group of Wing Chun experts who really believe that Yip Man (with all due respect) taught the only Wing Chun system. There are countless Kung-Fu instructors out there simply kicking and punching and truly believing that their program is complete. To be a true Sifu, you must live the lifestyle as well. That is why you can count the number of Kung Fu Schools in Missouri and Kansas on one hand. When you ask, "how many of those teach fighting?" you will be shocked. Lee's Chinese Martial Arts Federation is the only school in the three state area that sponsors Kung-Fu Tournaments. We are the only Kung-Fu school that sponsors bare-hand fighting tournaments in the United States. Why are we able to have bare-hand tournaments? Most schools do not teach their students how to control their power. Why? Their teachers do not have control over their power.

For example, a child can hit an adult in the head with a bottle and make him or her bleed. Does that make that child tough or does that qualify that child for a Black Belt? My point is simple, too much weight has been put on destroying the attacker without options. Lee's Chinese Martial Arts Federation takes it one step further by requiring students with higher rank never to hit a student of lower rank with force. This process helps to control their physical power while developing internal power. We destroy the belief that you have to get hit to learn.

Lee's Chinese Martial Arts Federation welcomes everyone--regardless of experience (we have kempo, karate and other kung fu instructors) or lack of . However, we do not sell belts. After 30 years, I have only given ten black belts. My intent is not to discourage you, but to make you aware that to receive a belt of any color at LCMA Federation, is an honor and to earn a BLACK BELT is a true achievement. I have searched from the east coast to the west coast for instructors who demonstrated their martial arts knowledge within a structured program who could produce the same quality in the majority of his/her students. I believe that there are some good instructors that can produce a high level of skill in many of their students, but they are few. I have found that the majority of people want to learn how to defend themselves. But if that's all we teach them, they will not be around very long. They will leave due to injuries or they may feel they have learned all your fighting skills because now they are getting blows in on the instructor.

It upsets me to see so many instructors not understanding the importance of being a role model. I hear stories of instructors who can't wait till class is over so they can go to the office to smoke. How about those instructors who talk about being kind and while sparring get rough on the student? Lets not forget the instructor who preaches health, yet has a 45 inch waist from the fat he or she eats at every meal. ....Or could it be that they really are not practicing their martial arts any more but that they are just taking your money to train them? To me this sounds crazy, but it is true. This is not an attempt to expose anyone--but it is a Call For Higher Standards.

As president and chief instructor of the largest Kung-Fu federation in the Mid West, I am fully aware that if I expect to raise the standards for how Kung-Fu is taught, I must first start with myself. I am a 49 year old man that weighs 230, 6' 5" with a 33 1/2 inch waist-line. For a 46 year old man to get an 6-pack stomach, it take more than diet and crunches, but a lifestyle. This lifestyle requires God, good eating habits (refer below) and a balanced work-out program that is visible, result-based and not simply weight results based. One could lose weight and look small, but to achieve visible improvement one would have to also do muscle development exercise and consume more protein in the diet.

Because of the standards I have set for myself, I can expect more from my students. If you have a thirst for life and living a higher quality of life....... If you are tired of simply growing old..... If you are tired of eating, sleeping, working and the same cycle every day..... If you have pains in your body that you never had before, read our website carefully, then come in and start living to live again. Come in and interview us while we interview you. I can teach anyone how to fight. What is hard is to teach people the power of being a good person and treating good people good. It is hard to understand this power if you don't know how to love yourself. If you have a hard time loving yourself, it will be hard to treat others good.

Being a Black Belt for Lee's Chinese Martial Arts Federation means more than having a good punch and/or a good kick. The most important requirement is to learn how to put GOD #1, eat healthy, train kung-fu everyday, increase body muscle weight, lower body fat, transfer the discipline to job or career interest (it will be hard to be a good instructor and to maintain your standards if you teach kung fu only for a living and have to worry about how the rent will get paid). Treat people good by controlling all forms of negative communication. You also have to remove your concepts of winning and losing. To learn turn kung-fu you must surrender your ego and seek humility. If your only focus while fighting is winning, how can anyone learn the arts of fighting (which involves the study of mistakes and efficient movement). Fighting to win is simply combat where one learns from the pain and the focus is speed and power.

Having a Black Belt mean getting control over your body, mind, finances, social life, career and realizing the greatest harms are done to us by ourselves. For that reason, we have to pray for balance and the ability to make the right choices daily. I know the above concepts sound easy at first.....look around, how many men do you know over 40 who finds time to simply keep up with their bodies? Some accept aging as if there is nothing they can do. They start being self-destructive--ie. drugs and drinking alcohol. These choices may allow you to live a long life--only God knows who will live or die. There are lots of people living longer lives, but how is their quality of life? There is a life of pain ahead for each and every one of us. So why do we have to add to this pain by knowingly making choices that hurt our body--all for the purpose of fun and or excitement?

I know this "eating for life" phrase sounds like something simple and easy to do--- it's not. There are people everyday killing themselves slowly with the food they put in their mouths. There are people who have life-threatening illnesses and are forbidden to eat certain foods, yet they eat them anyway. There are people dying everyday as a result of the foods they have put in their bodies over the years. So, as you see, it's not as simple as it seems.

The first thing one must do to get control over what they eat is to identify how difficult this challenge will be. The second thing one must do is study the subject of healthy eating. The third step is to identify all the harmful foods that you are currently putting into your mouth on a day by day basis. Fourthly, identify what harmful foods you are going to eliminate first and what healthful foods will take their places. The goal is not to eat less, but to eat higher quality foods. Whatever foods you remove from your diet must be replaced by healthy foods.

Foods to Reduce or Eliminate from your Diet:
ALL Meats, Coffee, Reduce Carbs (breads, deserts, sugars, junk foods, etc.)
Fried Foods: French fries, fried chicken, etc.
Saturated Fat: whole milk, ice cream, butter, chocolate, pork of any kind

Substitute These Instead:
Tofu, Refried Beans, Black Beans, Sunflower Seeds, Almonds, Soy nuts, Natural Peanut Butter, Egg Whites, Meatless Chicken Strips (made of soy), Meatless Ground Beef products (also made of soy), check your stores for other soy product substitutes like cheese. Vegetables: all colors
Brown Rice & Beans, Whole Wheat Bread & Pastas, Soy milk; Use only Virgin Olive Oil..

1 gallon of water daily, Soy &/or Egg protein shakes,
Stretch daily, Muscle development exercises: like weight-lifting and push-ups, squats, pumping iron.
No coffee (drink Green tea instead), Omega 3, Antioxidants
No soda
Try to eat your weight in protein daily--look for healthy protein supplements, like shakes, soy bean nuts, etc.

During the soft sparring week, the main focus is to slow down the body motion and making all contact very soft. This will allow the mind to calm itself. Slowing down your movements and calming the mind sets the foundation for instinctive fighting. (Instinctive fighting is when your skills are like a sixth sense--no planned movements nor power and speed are necessary. Attacks are based on the opponent's mistakes). This skill will give you the power to control the opponent's body without having to deliver a crushing blow. Anyone can hurt and be hurt. The real test of skill is when you can keep from being hit in addition to not hurting your opponent. This skill comes from being a morally solid person, spiritually grounded and using Kung-Fu in all parts of your lifestyle, which includes the way you eat, the way you hang your clothes up in your closet to the way you communicate and treat people day to day. Once you have balanced your life with the above, your mind will start becoming very clear (about the direction your life is taking) and peaceful.

The second week of the month is our testing and slow-sparring week. Slow-sparring week means that all fighting is done very slow and when a mistake is made all action is stopped to track down the cause of the mistake. Students are allowed to test monthly and are encouraged to test at least every other month. We are not a commercial school, so you can not buy our belts. Students are evaluated on a point system where 80% is passing. It normally takes 4 months to receive a belt promotion. There are 3 areas weighted when testing a student. 1# AGE : Students who are 9 are graded on a different scale than a 20 year old student. You can not expect a 60 year old student to perform with the same intensity of a 30 year old student. 2# PHYSICAL CONDITION : A person that has never been physically fit or 50 lbs. overweight, is not graded with the same expectation of an ex-college athlete that has very little body fat. 3# PHYSICAL DISABILITIES: If your body does not allow you to perform certain techniques due to a physical condition, those specific techniques would not count against you.

Fighting week is our most intense training week. This week we will start out with 100 push-ups and 100 crunches. For potential students, don't worry--these are not done all at once, but in sets of 10. Some of our women and men can barely do 5 the first time and that's okay because they will watch themselves being able to do more and more each month. Those same students that could not do 5 when they began are now doing the full 100 push-ups with pride. Fight week comes once per month, so students have something to prepare for next month.

Having the proper mental attitude is extremely important for fight week. First, higher ranked students cannot hit lower ranks. (This teaches responsibility and develops moral character. Power is not given to us for destructive reasons, but to improve our quality of life and to protect ourselves if threatened). Secondly, we do not discuss our mistakes, nor do we instruct--this week we fight using all our skill. This allows me to measure your instinctive abilities from one month to another. Higher ranked students who display egos, hit lower ranked students or who do not acknowledge when they have been hit, will be given push-ups. Fight week is not for the purpose of fun, but to get a real life picture of where your skill needs improvement.

Students are introduced to their new testing material. They will have 2 weeks to prepare for the test on the 2^nd week of the month. The focus of the sparring is to study all mistakes from the fight week by reviewing how the mistakes were made. During the sparring, one should keep his/her motion slow enough to acknowledge and review how he/she is hit—rather than sparring to win. Sparring in class should always be for the purpose of improving yourself and those around you. If you are off balance on a kick or strike, do not put value on the strike. You lost control of your body. The goal of this week is to make you aware of all the good things and the bad things you are doing during sparring.

Higher ranked students who hit lower ranked students will receive push-ups representative of their belt rank. Why? So higher ranked students cannot use their offense to discourage lower ranked students from attacking. Instead, the higher rank is forced to stay humble (lower ranked students can hit higher ranked) and develop new methods of defense. There are too many Kung-Fu teachers teaching the health and fitness aspects, but having no concept of how to use these movements in real fighting. Lee's Chinese Martial Arts Federation will not be one of those schools. Health and fitness should be our #1 goal. Why stop there when you can also learn how to protect yourself against common attacks?

How does our ranking differ from other schools? Most schools rank on the basis of how well the techniques and forms are executed. Some styles also look at whether the student can apply them in fighting. Lee's Chinese Martial Arts Federation is not a Black Belt factory. The only belt that does not require fighting in our system is the White Belt. You are probably thinking that there must be a lot of hitting going on. That is incorrect, you do not have to get beat up to learn how to fight. Students learn quickly that if you focus on learning how to control the opponent's body, you don't have to worry about getting hit. I have given 10 Black Belts in 30 years and I tell people every day that if you want to learn "blood and guts" fighting, go learn the hard styles. Kung Fu is not about destroying the opponent, but about improving all parts of your life through the study of Kung Fu.

For example, the following skills can be expected with each belt test. The average student will test every other month, while the above average student will test monthly. Below, I have high-lighted what you can expect at each belt level.

White Belt	Students learn basics techniques and basic hand defenses.
Yellow Belt	Before promotion to Green Belt, students must be able to stop all street punches.
Green Belt	Before promotion to Blue Belt, students must be able to stop any hand and kick attacks and attack at will.
Blue Belt	Before promotion to Red Belt, students must be able to fight 2 attackers without being hit.
Red Belt	Students must be able to shut down any attack with one movement.
Black Belt	Students must be able to defeat the opponent by controlling his body in a way that he cannot return the attack.

Master Lee has a dream! One day, he'd like to see a Christian School for kids (Kindergarten through 12th) where the Kung Fu lifestyle is taught right along with the regular courses.. where all teachers would also be required to train Kung Fu. Kung Fu and real life self-defense would be taught during Physical Education Classes--along with weight training & stretching. Meals would be healthy and promote the proper growth of bones and muscle development. No bullies would prevail in this school. No children would be left behind. Leadership skills would be taught right along with traditional required courses. High School students would have electives provided between 3:30pm and 6:30pm offering life and career skills: ie. Plumbing, Electrician, Drywall & Repair, Budgeting, Nursing, Law Enforcement, Cosmetology, Computer Technician, Auto Mechanics, Business Management, etc. When Jesus assembles the right team, watch this dream come to life!