- So I was getting beat up in school.
I was getting bullied and I was getting beat up,
bullying not always physical,
but I got beat up multiple times
and I was just sick and tired of it.
So one night I was watching cable TV,
was flipping through the channel,
and I saw
this guy, this man,
and the the movie was Return of the Dragon by Bruce Lee.
And if you're a Bruce Lee fan,
if you ever watched that movie, you know,
it was Bruce Lee, a man who couldn't speak a word of english
went to Rome to help the restaurant owner
and he was there people at first were like,
"Who is this guy dressed in like Chinese
uniform, very traditional, and couldn't speak,
and looks kind of dorky and dumb?"
And before you know it halfway through the movie
he was doing nunchaku and kicking everyone's ass
and at the end fought with Chuck Norris
and then beat Chuck Norris and I was like,
"Oh my god, I found my hero!"
From that moment I wanna be like Bruce Lee.
I wanna learn martial arts.
So back then near my house there was a karate school,
kinda like TaeKwonDo school, and immediately
I join a class, and I was taking the class,
I was practicing, I was stretching
I was practicing my stuff.
Everyday I was obsessed,
I mean I would practice three or four hours everyday.
Because I was so skinny, I was 105 pounds,
but then I would do my pushups and workout
and started gaining a little bit of muscles.
So after I was training for about six months or so,
now if you ever done any martial arts you know,
after you practice martial arts
you develop this natural self confidence.
Not cockiness, but you develop this natural self confidence.
So I was walking around now my, I was no longer like this,
more like, okay.
Right, you know you could kinda take care of yourself.
So I was doing that and I guess
maybe I always have a teacher's heart.
Other kids would start asking me, "Oh, what are you doing?"
and I would show them different move
and I was showing them different move other kids would see,
"Oh this is cool, what are you doing?"
And I say, "Well, you know Chinese king fu, man."
Right, so, I was showing them different things,
right there, upstairs, every single lunch.
I would for about five or ten minutes, eat a sandwich.
The rest of the lunch, I was teaching.
I was teaching them martial arts right here.
Right there at that second floor, every single day.
And I loved it, not because I was teaching them
how to hurt people or even how to defend themselves,
but I noticed the kids I was teaching,
even though my martial wasn't particularly that good
back then I could see them transforming.
That they become just more confident
and they become a better version of themselves.
And I love seeing people just transform like that
and that's why I, until this day
I see myself as a teacher first
and as an entrepreneur second.
I love teaching.
Some people like to golf and some people like to fish,
and that's all cool,
I have zero interest in that, I love to teach.
I want when I die
on my gravestone, "Great teacher."
It all started here, now fast forward to story,
so I was now teaching and teaching teaching and Grade 12,
there was a talent show.
And because I'm such a fan of Bruce Lee,
if you know Bruce Lee, he likes, Bruce lee was not
just a great martial artist, he was a great showman
and he would do these demonstrations
and one-inch punch and the sidekick
and I always envision my hero
and keep in mind because my mom and dad got divorced,
so I didn't actually have a father figure.
So Bruce Lee kinda, he became this virtual father figure
for me.
And there's a stage right there in the back
and there's a talent show and some people were singing,
some people were dancing and stuff.
It's me, couple of my students.
I had the board, I was breaking the board.
I was doing the sidekick, sending people flying.
I was like doing the one-inch punch, I was doing
all kinds of stuff and all the Caucasian kids saw that.
Nobody beat me up afterwards, nobody would even
now they like leave me alone.
(laughs)
It's kinda interesting thinking about it.
You gotta keep in mind, talent show,
everybody's singing, everybody do different things,
suddenly I walked up and I was trying to imitate like Bruce,
so I would talk like him, I would be like,
"You know Chinese kung fu..."
And I would talk about karate, and karate punch
is like this, right.
It's like a bar, you go, "whack!"
But a kung fu punch is like an iron ball
with an iron chain attached to it.
And you go, "whang!
It hurt's inside, I don't talk like that onstage.
It's so hilarious now thinking about it.
I'll do my thing, you see this?
People think you need a lot of distance to generate power.
That's not true, look I can generate power
with just one inch and "poom,"
I would have phone book in front of the kid
and I would hit him and it would knock him down
and that kind of stuff and people were just like
mesmerized by it.
It didn't require too much talking, it was more expression
of my physicality, so I would still have stage fright
but when I'm in the zone, when I'm teaching,
my mind doesn't go there that I am speaking,
I'm just teaching, I'm doing my thing.
So, I guess indirectly that built my self esteem,
that build my self-confidence for sure.
That's why I owe a lot of what I have today,
my character, my personality, a lot of that
came from martial art, there's no doubt in my mind.
As a businessman, as an entrepreneur, as a husband,
a lot of philosophies I learned from martial art.
I learn a lot from Bruce Lee obviously, you learn to focus,
you learn self-discipline, you learn respect.
We learn how to bow, right?
You learn to be patient,
you learn to know that you need to put in effort,
you need to put in time to develop a skill set.
And also you learn to
be aware of your own flaw.
You learn to eliminate your own defect.
That's what martial is about.
Every step of the way you learn
how to eliminate your own defect.
You learned, "Hey, you know what?
I'm punching this way.
There's not enough power, there's not enough speed,
my timing is not good."
Or whatever it might be, but you learn to develop.
You learn to hone your skill set and that's through
that process you learn about yourself.
It's a self-actualization process.