Episode 388 - Sifu Clark Tang
Sifu Clark Tang is a martial arts instructor and practitioner. He is the founder of the Wing Chun Temple in California.
Being a warrior, being a martial artist, it's okay to be unhappy. It's okay not to go in your way. But let me tell you, you live a life that's not only for you, you live for something bigger.
Sifu Clark Tang - Episode 388
As a child, what are the odds that you'll be inside a kung fu theater that's showing a Shaw Brothers' film when you are not even supposed to be there? We can call it destiny but it definitely brought the best out of him. Sifu Tang has successfully related his faith with his martial arts through his spirituality. Sifu Clark Tang is the founder at the Wing Chun Temple and he is in the lineage of Ip Man. Get ready because Sifu Clark Tang gave us a very spiritual and emotional episode about his life and journey to the martial arts. Listen to find out more!
Show Notes
On this episode, we mentioned Bruce Lee and Sensei Fumio Demura[gallery type="slideshow" size="full" ids="6770,6771,6772,6773,6774,6775,6776,6777,6778,6779,6780,6781,6782,6783" orderby="rand"]
Show Transcript
You can read the transcript below or download here.
Hello, thanks for joining me! This is whistlekick martial arts radio episode 388. Today, I am joined by my guest, Sifu Clark Tang. My name is Jeremy Lesniak, I’m your host here at whistlekick martial arts radio. I’m the founder of whistlekick and we do stuff! we do so much different stuff. It's really hard to describe it in any other way. You can check out all the stuff we do at whistlekick.com. One of the things that we do is we make stuff and you can purchase any of that stuff with a discount. PODCAST15 gets you 15% off sparring gear, great apparel, uniforms and some other cool stuff so check that out. Of course, one of the other things that we do is this show. We do it twice a week, all for free, and we’ve been doing it for 4 years. Man, we’re closing in on episode 400 and you can see every one of those episodes at whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. We have photos and links, sometimes videos and other stuff to give you more context, more insight into the guest or the topic, whatever it is, and it is all because we love martial arts and we do too. As I said my guest today, Sifu Tang. We had a lot of different folks over the years and a lot of those people tell great stories but not all of them, in fact I would say few of them, tell those stories with as much heart, as much openness as Sifu Tang does. I was honestly transfixed at the way he told his stories whether they were simple anecdotes or some of the deeper experiences of his life. He goes deep and I mean that. He goes deep quite a few times through this episode and I hope you enjoy so here it is. Sifu Tang, welcome to whistlekick martial arts radio.
Clark Tang:
Hello. Thank you for having me. It's my great honor and a great pleasure to be here.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I’m looking forward to this and listeners, this doesn’t usually happen but we just spent about 15 minutes having great conversation, and selfishly, I let that go a little longer than maybe I should have because we were having a great time talking. I said, I got to bring this back and we have to start the show and there have been a couple times where I look up and it's 30 minutes later and I ask the guest to say hey, can we just make that the beginning of the show? It didn’t seem appropriate today so I didn’t do that but I’ve got a feeling that we’re going to have great conversation.
Clark Tang:
Oh yeah, definitely. Going back to my college years when I was younger, I am a morning person. By 10, everybody knows, my family, my friends, close friends, know they can go party at 1 or 2 but me, I don’t care nor I love it. I’ll be going to sleep because I don’t like that but I get up at 4, 4:30. That’s a biological alarm. I wake up, oomph. But let me tell you when my buddy from the martial art, we would get together at around probably evening and we’re going to sit and talk all day until 2 or 3 in the morning, my goodness, and I remember one of my ex-girlfriends said, you guys, I think you guys are gay. You guys start talking and sometimes you’re whispering to each other. You don’t normally, you go to sleep a certain time, you don’t go to sleep. Something’s wrong with you. It’s amazing, to me, with another martial artist when we start talking, it's almost like a fellowship. It's bringing that energy, at church we do the same thing, fellowship, and I think there’s no difference in martial art. We do fellowship with each other. We call something positive, something great, something bigger and also, like I mentioned earlier with you, Jeremy, you take this and I’m sure you’re thinking bigger than about making money and using it as a business. I’m thinking we’re doing this not only to save ourselves but to save a lot of people so I’m just thinking out loud.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Have you always been a morning person? How far back does that go?
Clark Tang:
Always. Always.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Even as a small child?
Clark Tang:
Yes, believe it or not.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Was someone forcing you to wake up that early?
Clark Tang:
Yes and no. I was adopted when I was one-year old by my grandmother and my grandmother, very strict. A certain time I have to get up and if I don’t get up, I will get whipped. Whipping, when I look back, it just like, oh, you got scared of the whip, but actually my grandmother she didn’t whip hard. You're thinking about a whipping you got scared. Only a couple of time I got whipped but most of the time, it was normal to wake up. That’s where my most productive hours start now, as of right now, I still do the same way. This year, I have a baby it’s different. After my baby, I get up, I just stare at her and I go, geez, how did this happen? I’m trying to think of a way, every time I started dating or start thinking about no babies please and all of a sudden, here, I’m just thinking, oh my God. I just can't believe it just like a miracle. How did God using me or use me as an instrument to produce another person? And also talking about my baby, I’m going to interject a little bit here, people tell me, hey, what is the most thing you learn about martial art and I look at my baby and I go, you know what? She is my great Grand Master. No one can teach me something better than her and they ask me, what is that? Patience. If she’s not my baby, oh lord, but she is my Grand Master, I’m telling you and I think this couple year, my Kung Fu improved way better than before. I look at patience in a different way, almost like a different side before patience is only like I talk, I walk, sort of walking but now, Jesus, I walk even though a certain thing, impossible I look at it, I make it possible so things like that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Wow, okay. So, we’ve got some information about you at the very beginning and now modern, now. So, let’s go back and kind of, in some way, split the difference. In your very early years, you weren’t a martial artist, at least you weren’t at some point, and you are now. Somehow that changed and I've got a feeling that you, no, I'm not going to say anything about that yet. I'm already starting to put a picture together of how you view martial arts in the world but I think we need some foundation for me to confirm that. So how did you first find martial arts?
Clark Tang:
Well, first of all, as a child and you tell people, you talk to anyone that’s an adopted child, they all have a similarity of going through this mental questioning or I would say, self-examine. As soon as you realize you and the world, and I think about four or maybe five, I can’t remember back and that’s what it came to my mind and said, Jesus, where’s my parents? Why am I living here? Why am I given to my grandmother to raise instead of my parents and all that so you have all these questions. What happened with my parents? My parents didn’t want me? Didn’t they care about me? All of these questions and in a way, those questions is a very despair question if you talk to any adopted child or without parents and it really bothers me a lot. It made me really sad, made me very…I don’t know how to fit into this world and then I remember one day, I think probably six years old, for some reason I didn’t know how I got in there, I got into a Kung Fu theater by myself. I know an adult outside and somehow, I sneak in there and I saw a Shaw Brother movie. Master [00:09:39] and Master [00:09:41] they start fighting and all that sudden, that moment I had the enlightenment. I got my answer, this is it! I can feel the movement and all that. I feel like wow, hey, I don’t care about anything that I do, I wonder if I can do this, empower myself. That move or you can feel the movement is very powerful and for some reason, that’s the tipping point that martial art really got into me and from there on, my God, you don’t believe it. Every day I start doing form by myself and all that and my uncle start training me, he trained me from there on and that was it.
Jeremy Lesniak:
We’ve heard a lot of different origin stories. A lot of these ways that people find martial arts and sometimes it's a family thing. Sometimes, it’s the parent saying that oh, we think you’re lacking something that martial arts may provide. I believe you are the first guest who wandered into a Kung Fu theater as a child and saw a movie. We’ve had people stumble on movies but certainly not at that age.
Clark Tang:
Yes.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It seems like destiny, doesn’t it?
Clark Tang:
I believe so. When I look at it, well, I’m a Christian and I’ll tell people, people know me around, I’m a Christian, I’m a Christ-lover, follower, everything but I’m not a religious person. No way. I don’t understand any religion. I don’t care. I'm a spiritual person outside and when I look at, this is almost like the, you call it the pre-destined, I think, like God put me in a certain situation and then having questioned then I followed this path and then I continue even though I didn’t know what I was doing because in the bible, again, God used situation to have his way. For example, I’ll give you the story about Joseph. He’s the most beloved son of all the brothers and the brother was jealous so throw him in a well and then sold him to be a slave and from there on, he became somebody. You know that? And then again when his brother came in, he met his brother and then what I like the twist about Christianity, you talk about forgiveness and you don’t judge at all. That’s one thing. Like for example, his brother came, hey, Joseph, and again, we’re so sorry we did this to you and Joseph said, oh, brother, it’s all God’s plan if you didn’t sold me as a slave or you didn’t beat me up or whatever, we wouldn’t have this day and I wouldn’t be able to save you this day and every time I talk about that, it made me a little emotional because that’s what Christ drive me to do and I think Kung Fu, in some way, have that spiritual level which a lot of people, most people, they focus on the fighting part, the physical part. How can I kick somebody’s ass? There’s a certain technique and all of that technical get on and I see some Grand Master and that’s all they stuck in their whole life and they’re like, I can do this technical and I go, oh man, give it up. Martial art, or anything, first, you train your body. Second, you train your mind and then your mind control your body and that is the highest level and people that practice martial art for years they understand this. Now, when you’re using your mind with all your body, the movement more fluid, movement faster, almost like lighting like almost like Wing Chun. In Wing Chun, my punch, I don’t care who you are, if you got to stop my punch, considers that one in a million and I test this over and over. I even get people I said, if you can stop my punch before it almost land to your face, okay. Most people can because it's already in their mind. The mind is already hit before the body get there. Let me give you an example, for example, if you move yourself, I’m going to go to, let’s say I'm in the house right now, okay, I'm going to go to the living room, I start walking. You see the body slow, you start walking because you’re in time but if I'm in using my mind, it's not about time. It's about the timing just like lightning, impulse. I said, okay, I'm thinking I’m in the back of the room when you get to that level just like it’s amazing. Anyway, what are we talking about? See, I’m going to do this a lot.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah and the listeners are probably laughing because this is what happens on this show is I just let people go and we started to get somewhere. So, here’s what I want to ask about because you're certainly not the first person to bring up their faith with regard to martial arts and I know there’s some folks out there who get a little bit uncomfortable when we start talking about faith and I want them to reserve that judgment and that resistance for a moment. In our initial conversation and you’re continuing this here, I've got a feeling that some of your perspectives on faith, we could strip the label off of them and a lot of people would just see them as an extension of martial arts philosophy. So, I’d love to know how the two, your martial arts training and your faith, how they blend together.
Clark Tang:
Okay, again, if I have about 10 seconds here, if I mention it but again, I don’t mention names so I respect everybody. If you do martial arts, you got my respect already but again, this is I’m talking about my perspective, I don’t mean to disrespect anybody. As you know, in the martial arts, we are in the warrior world. Start the respect and they respect and I don’t mean to step on anybody’s toes. Talking about martial art practice and my faith, let me put this way, you ever see a show called Shen Yun at all? You heard about it?
Jeremy Lesniak:
No.
Clark Tang:
Okay, no. This is a group of Chinese…
Jeremy Lesniak:
Actually, wait, yes, it's funny you bring that up. That’s coming to Vermont very shortly now. I just have to think back to these large banners being strung across some of the streets in Burlington so yeah, please continue.
Clark Tang:
Shen Yun, it mean when the movement and all of a sudden when I'm watching that and then I go, oh my God, I connect the dots! I go, voila! After the show, I watch the show and never get tired. The movement is beautiful, boom, bouncing, I’m like wow and toward the end, they come in and tell what Shen Yun mean. Shen Yun meaning the movement is from the heaven. Movement is from heaven and then all of a sudden, I connect the dots. Aha! If I go to church, the pastor is preaching the word and we start singing. Now, you praise to God in vocal speech and then singing. Well, again, martial art, we praise to God in our movement and that’s part of communication. So, and I feel, I go, man, no wonder if when every time I do my form, my mind’s not here. My mind is somewhere out. I’m in heaven. Somehow, I do a certain form and all of a sudden, I go, man, how do I do that? I forgot but it doesn’t matter. It’s the flow, the meaning behind is more important. Does that make sense? You go to church. You're singing, praise to God but hey, with martial art, we’re communicating with our movement. For example, the native tribe or I don’t know much about others but they do dances to their God, isn’t that right?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah.
Clark Tang:
Does that make sense? It depend on perspective. I think bad martial artists, I don’t call them martial artists because martial art is for the good. If people they use it for bad, I don’t think they’re martial artist, they’re just scumbag.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, I would agree. That really needed better instructor.
Clark Tang:
So, that was said, the way we pray. Now, my faith personally, I was born into the Buddhist family. It's not by choice, it just happened to be there and, of course, I was struggling with my life as I said earlier. Why my parents gave me away and why didn’t nobody…if I see now people and their parents hug them and all, I’m like man, what’s wrong with me? And I grew up with this mentality. This is a child without a parent. I’m not good enough. I'm not good enough. That’s not me. Are you going to go to college? No, that’s not me. That’s for people that have parents. They have parents that support them. That’s my mentality but when I had martial arts, I can see anything is possible. Almost like with God, anything is possible. To me, martial art is almost like [00:21:31] of God. They call it manna. Chi. I think the chi is God himself because chi is, if you look at it, it’s the good energy there. It is God. Everything belongs to God and now, let’s look at another level how my faith is applied to martial art. Now, before I studied Wing Chun, I studied other martial art. I don’t care what it is just, okay, a strong kick and punch, whatever, that gets me, whatever. So, I had kickboxing, Taekwondo and I even get a black belt in American Kenpo, [00:22:21] Kenpo, I did Tai Chi, I do Yoga, you name it all, I used to do it because martial art, when you start, it's hard to stop, you keep going and then, however, I know about Wing Chun a little bit and I knew it’s just like wow, I want to study that because I was inspired Bruce Lee. How come is Bruce Lee so good? His move and everything and I thought, man, I got to learn Jeet Kune Do so I can be like him a little bit and then, I bought his book and I start reading the book. Man, Wing Chun. If I study Wing Chun, it’s the root, I get Jeet Kune Do, I got everything else, I'm thinking, he started Wing Chun, I wanted to take the same path so my goodness, here in Long Beach, 1980 or 1990, it's very hard going to school so I did finally find one in [00:23:27] valley which is about almost 30-minute drive from Long Beach to there and I did, with my first sifu, Sifu [00:23:40], he’s still here with us. We have tea all the time, we start talking all the time. He just like, the word sifu meaning father. There’s a saying, one day teacher, a lifetime father which is Kung Fu. I mean, that’s something, it’s the difference between the other martial art in term of culture. Chinese culture is we tend to see things a different way, in terms of our philosophy of Kung Fu and all of that so that’s, anyway, that’s my first sifu and his lineage is not even Ip Man. His leanings come from Chan Wah-shun and you know Chan Wah-shun is the teacher of Grand Master Ip. So, I studied there so the Wing Chun is a little bit different and then for some reason, his school was in the verge of closing down so I went to study another teacher, he’s no longer with us. Sifu Jerry McKinley. In fact, he’s the one who trained Nicolas Cage if you watch that movie, Bangkok Dangerous if you saw those moves, it was by him when he was alive and he was under Grand Master Ip Man and then my last sifu which I have, because I study Wing Chun here and I go back and forth, back and forth to Hongkong and I met another sifu of mine, Sifu Grandmaster Wong Long, he’s still alive today. He practiced, he started Wing Chun under Grand Master Ip even before Bruce Lee so that made him the Kung Fu big brother of Bruce Lee [00:25:50]. He told us he start about 5 or 6 month before Bruce Lee and [00:25:54]. Now, why I'm telling you this is because why this had to do with faith? To me, two things in my life: martial arts, God. Those are the two things that I always seek and always improving, always. Now on my Christian side, I go to different church all the time. You name it, I go to different, I go to Catholic church, I go to different church. I was looking for what is the one? What is the closest way I can get to God better? And then I found my church, we were talking about love, about God, the reason why God came to Earth is because of love and from there on I feel like, man, I'm not a religion. Religion is very technical from A to B, that’s it. So, it's a technical and is very dry but when you get to the certain level as a Christian in life, you feel like yeah, if you start feeling God’s love and then God’s spirit in you, it really doesn’t matter. You go to Church this day, you don’t go to Church this day like how is that compared to my journey of the martial art? When I study other Taekwondo and all, it’s all about technical. There's no fluid there. It's all about kick, punch, kick, punch. When I start to take Wing Chun and then after a year later and I go, my God, everything else is almost like a religion. Wing Chun is more than religion, almost like Christ. Everybody go to East, well, no we’re going to West so Wing Chun is opposite. For example, Wing Chun, we don’t believe in instruction. We believe everything is going to be destroyed. We don’t believe in fire, we just like if you look at Karate it’s all about fire and hitting. Wing Chun, we’re relaxed and everything moves so fluid. This is, I even wrote my article, I said Wing Chun is a spiritual martial art. You got to believe it. I can prove it to you. You got to be in spirit in order to do your Wing Chun effectively. If you can see all the other Wing Chun around, it's very technical here and there. That level sometimes it looks great but you got to [00:29:02] another one because that’s what Wing Chun is all about. To describe Wing Chun let me give you some aerial. First, you saw the technical but Wing Chun is just like this: when you start driving a car and all of sudden, your car get to a pothole and it start flipping and you go, how is that possible? Pothole and all of a sudden you drive and the car get flipped. Now, there's a physics behind that and there's something behind that. Now to making the flipping, that’s Wing Chun. Wing Chun, a certain move we use the opponent energy to do that sort of stuff that’s why Wing Chun is just like, if you look at from the outer, it’s very dry. Later on, when you understand internal power, it’s like oh my God, it's just amazing and I think that’s what set us apart from other martial art is that, not that better or not, again, it's not a style who’s better. I think it's practitioner, again. I give example, do you know Grand Master Demura?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Fumio Demura? Yes, he’s been on the show.
Clark Tang:
Oh my God, yes, him. Now, I talked to him, he lived close by me about 20 minutes or so and he doing Karate. Now, people say oh, Karate is very technical but if you meet him, oh my God, he is so fluid, I don’t care what it is, he is that level and I said, I don’t care he’s learning whatever but man, he got [00:30:57] so again, yes, I compare the style again and I know other people go, oh man, it's just a different style well, when you're on a certain level, you got to compare. There's no way out around it. When you get to a certain level, that’s not style. It's just, again, it's a practitioner, practitioner. People can do, I don’t care what it is, most of their life, they go over and over and over, they can achieve that level, same level to almost like a spiritual level if you get what I’m saying.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I do. I do. I'm curious. I'm curious. I have this theory that everyone who finds and stays in martial arts was missing something and you’ve spoken several times so I feel comfortable bringing it up about the impact of being adopted and then, of course, you brought up the point that Sifu means father. Do you think there’s something there? Do you think maybe martial arts wouldn’t have resonated so strongly for you if you have remained with your birth parents?
Clark Tang:
You're absolutely right but you know me as a person. Gosh. I'm very independent, strong-minded and I have to believe what I do. If I don’t believe, I get kicked out, yeah. If I, that’s why I look at it, everything is just the way God direct my life and where I'm at, it’s just amazing, the journey and now, I went to Concordia University, I don’t know if you know, that’s a Christian…I was going to be a pastor. I want to be a pastor because when you go through what you went through and you see other people struggling, you want to help because you went through that and you have a way of unlocking that misery because, again, if you look at people around the world and they have all sorts of, I'm not going to say, stupid idea about it but stupid idea about things, stupid ideas about…these are all emotion and emotions good but you got to put emotion where it should be so, in other word, martial art is learning how to manage your emotion. There's a certain thing you should say, you should think like for example, I met way back like a friend of mine, like his girlfriend breaks up and all and he wants to kill himself and I go, oh, what a stupid thing and I went and talked to him and I said, okay, great, so you want her huh? Yes, I want her! I cannot live without her! Really? Gosh, what has she done to you? For you? is she God? If she’s God, yeah, go and kill yourself but she’s not God, , she’s another human being, man. There are other people there so this is the emotion you’re going through just like you want to have her. Okay great, you can have her, what are you going to do with her? You're going to eat her? What are you going to do with her? She’s another person and I told him and I said that’s not love, that’s selfish love. You want her to mold it your way. If you truly love her, no, you care about her happiness. What does she want? She want to leave you for another person? Good for her. You should be happy for her and then after the conversation, he sort of shelved his, he came out from it so I think that’s amazing part. For my part, I’m saying about God and martial art, if I can steer people a certain way and their emotion, because these people, they live with their parents, they think life is a La La Land, I want a certain way, I should be a certain way, I'm entitled this way. The way I see life, let me tell people, I look at the warrior way. For example, here, if there is a certain thing I need to do, I'm going to do. For example, one day, parents come over, my family, whatever, man, I'm going to kill them before they get over me now. That’s what I'm talking about. Martial art, again, let me transform to a warrior way. When we talk about the warrior way, we’re talking about the science. We’re not talking about the emotion. An emotion, you want to put where it’s supposed to be. I read Musashi, if anybody have not read about Musashi, oh my God, read about that. He talked about the warrior way.
Jeremy Lesniak:
The Book of Five Rings, that’s what you're referencing, right?
Clark Tang:
Yes. Yes! He talked about certain strike that you have the emotion and focus come to a certain point and I said, oh my God. I think everybody, when they don’t have martial art, they think life is just everything’s so grand. Everything just like, oh, I have to do my way, and I think most of it I blame on parent upbringing, spoil them. Well, anyway, hey, if you have parents, you’re a good son and good daughter, hey, you’re out, you're the exception. I’m talking about the other part and I think, also, the social media, including that part and they grow up and they have certain expectation of life and then their life is already disappointed because, of course, when you have high expectation, if it doesn’t go your way, guess what now? You get depressed, you're unhappy and I think being a warrior, being a martial artist, it's okay to be unhappy. It's okay to not go your way but let me tell you, you live a life that’s not only for you. You live for something bigger like we talked earlier. Like to me, when I was that 4 years old, almost 6 years old, when I saw martial art, I touched with martial arts. I go like, man, I can save the world. I’m telling you. With my Kung Fu, I kill all the bad guy in the world and world peace. That’s what a child is. That heroism, so life sometimes is not about you. for now, I have a daughter now and I really understand that and my faith with Christ, even right now, before, you say oh, well, God gave his son, die for you, for love. I say, okay, yeah, I got it. Now, I have my daughter. I go, oh my God, I can't believe this. With her, I give up my life, instant, without question. Like before, I tell people, oh yeah, I’m superhero and all that but I don’t know I always think really? Do I really want to do this? But your daughter and then I understand faith and Christ. What God has done, sacrificed own begotten son for us, I mean, come on, that should shook the world.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I think what it can draw a lot of correlations between faith and martial arts and I don’t think it's an accident that most of the time when faith comes up on this show it’s usually within the family of Christian denominations because I feel like that sacrificed ideal is so front and centered versus at least my understanding of other religion and yet in martial arts, in order to progress, you're making sacrifice. At the very least, you're sacrificing your body and your time but quite often, as any of us who have been training for a long time know, you're sacrificing sometimes friendships and personal relationships and sometimes you're sacrificing meals out and there's so much that we often ignore or neglect for the priority that we place on martial arts and that’s why I wanted you to go deeper on that because I think that there’s really something there. We don’t talk about martial arts from the perspective of sacrifice very often and I think it's easier for us to look at religion, faith, spirituality, whatever you choose to call it, I think it's easier to discuss that notion of sacrifice because it’s more front and center, it's more prominent when we talk about the story that come out of really any faith but martial arts, I guess I would argue, anything pursuit require sacrifice of something. Question is, is it worth it? So, I want to continue that in the sense and ask you about has it been worth it? You’ve told us a lot about you and your story and your upbringing and so if you look at where you are now as a martial artist, when you look at the challenges and the pain and however you choose to organize the past, when you look at it, has it been worth it? If you can undo it all, would you?
Clark Tang:
I’ll do it again.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay, I expected that answer. So, the question is why?
Clark Tang:
Yes. Now, as you know, going back to my childhood, the way I thought of the world, the way I go how can I fit in this world of my circumstances? And then I found God, I found martial arts. Now the reason why I take this, I feel like this, I need this. It's almost like a nourished food. If I don’t do this, I would die. If I don’t pursuit Christ, I'm going to…when I say I die, I mean spiritually dead, or maybe physically. You know what I’m saying? Going back, I remember somebody said, if you don’t eat food, you will die a certain way, maybe two weeks or water, it's thirty days or whatever and he said, if you spiritually die, you're already dead so when I pursue, when I get up and do martial art, I am getting closer and closer to my life, I’m getting closer and closer. It's almost like driving me that I'm pursuing something. I'm pursuing closer and closer to that notion of being free, being liberated, being, for example, again, I seen people when they’ve been in religion all their life especially older convert. They were a certain religion and all of a sudden, they feel guilty of a certain thing like their life they carry over and all of a sudden, they became a believer of Christ. They go, Christ died for me? Oh my God, you should see the tears in their eyes. I have all this. Isn’t that great now? I can take off that burden and give it to Christ and now you know that you’re not tied to that. You’re born meant to be free so why are you putting the burden on yourself like that so as for me, yes, sacrifice. When I go through martial art, when I go start dating and you say I demand time or whatever, that’s why I couldn’t stay in a lot of my relationship because of that because I choose martial art, I choose God, because that’s my life and if people can’t understand that, they just don’t get it. Plus, those two, I can sacrifice any of that. Is it worth it? Yes, it is worth it. That sacrifice because I needed it. I need to live, I need to…because I want to be free from whatever I'm thinking. All these like hey, I’m not for the world because you weren’t raised by your parents, you don’t have a certain way until today, I said oh my God, imagine if I can just hug onto my dad and say, oh, Dad, I love whatever. I mean, man, that would be…that’s the moment. You know I will get that and again, when I went to competition when I was younger, sorry, I’m a little emotional here.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It’s okay, take your time.
Clark Tang:
I seen other kids and they take like a…they start doing form, I go, oh, Lord and the parent, oh, honey, that’s really good! That’s really good! Yeah! And man, for me, I think, where I'm champion too, for me, nobody care for me. I feel like these…so, there’s a matter what I do with this. Nobody…anyway, so as you can see, very emotional about that side.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah.
Clark Tang:
So, I need God, I need martial arts to live, so yeah, if I’m going to sacrifice everything, yes, yeah, I’m going to sacrifice everything. This is my life on the line. I'm not doing martial arts to look good. I'm not doing martial arts to check off the bucket list, no, martial arts is my life and everybody around me knows that, so, yeah, anyway. Sorry.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Please don’t apologize, no. One of the things that’s nice about the podcast format is that people get to listen and listen however, wherever, whenever they choose and it allows them to sit with it and to press pause and to contemplate and to listen to parts again and I suspect that there are folks out there who may have listened to some of that again or might have pressed pause because they’re tearing up. Admittedly, I am fighting back some tears because I have to host the show so I don’t have the luxury of crying with you right now. I'm going to do that later and not everyone’s going to relate to every aspect to what you're talking about but many of us, maybe even most of us, is going to relate to some of it and there's a lot that you just talked about that hits home for me. I wasn’t adopted but pretty much everything else you're talking about is pretty square for my experience as a child.
Clark Tang:
Right, right.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So, I want to shift gears now. We’ve come through a pretty powerful place and I want to make sure that we take some time to use that as a foundation.
Clark Tang:
Excuse me.
Jeremy Lesniak:
No, by all means, quite warranted after what you’ve shared. I want to look forward, I want to look into the future. I have no doubt that your relationship to martial arts, your relationship to your faith is going to continue but I'm curious how you see that manifesting. You're going to continue to train, you're going to continue to be the person that you are but what are you hoping to accomplish if you're not going to be able to use your martial arts to bring about world peace by beating all the bad guys in the world, what are you going to do with it?
Clark Tang:
Well, you heard the Wing Chun temple, don’t you? Yeah, Wing Chun Temple, again, when my sifu told me, hey, I'm ready to go and start my own school, Wing Chun Temple, he said Wing Chun is the most, if you look at Shaolin, they got two or three hundred form, American Kenpo like probably 40 or 50 form or maybe more so all other martial arts style system have a lot of forms. Wing Chun only have what? Six forms. That’s it. 3 empty-hand, 1 wooden dummy, long-pole and a butterfly knife and when you do the form, one thing about Wing Chun and what I tell people, again, in college, I took music appreciation, so the way I listen to music is different now because I know how to listen now. I love most classical music like Mozart. If you look at it, his music is very balanced, symmetrical and what he set on the thesis, that’s what he’s going to present. Wing Chun is almost like that. It's a very elegant martial art. Like the first form Siu Lim Tao, the idea, first idea or little idea, they set out the thesis throughout the system. When you get toward the end, you're still coming back to the beginning. So, ending, beginning, ending, beginning, it's almost like very [00:52:39]. Again, the first form, it’s like that, it's like the alphabet. Whatever you write, you always use the alphabet so that’s why now, Wing Chun is that’s the way I look at it. It's just amazing. Now, so in order to be progressed in your learning of Wing Chun, you got to start, well, you got to, at school, we have a system. A little brother, a big brother, a newcomer so we always, and with sifu permission, of course, when we learn something, we sort of master a little bit, we start showing to other people. Again, we don’t use the word teach. When we teach someone that mean oh, I teach you. No, you cannot teach anybody. You show people. Now, who can they teach? They teach themselves. So, when you use the word teaching it’s like oh, I get the credit. I’m teaching. No. when it’s Kung Fu, it's different. You show the person and the person practiced thousand, thousands and thousands of time and they get it, they go, oh, man, see? So, they are teaching themselves. So, when you show other, you learn a little bit. Show other, learn a little bit. So anyway, I came, so when I go, okay, it's ready for me to get a school and plus, we don’t have a lot of Wing Chun school. Most of Wing Chun master, a lot of great Wing Chun master out there and let me tell you something, they are disguised, they don’t want to show their…their skills is phenomenal and I'm telling you they don’t even care about sharing with anyone because a certain thing that is so good when you share, it’s spoiled and I think one of those is Wing Chun is a bad one and again, for example, when Christ send his disciple to give the Good News of Christ, and if they don’t want it, it's almost, again, it’s just like oh, man, a slap in the face. You're telling me that Christ died for you, take all this, you get to be free all your life and you don’t want that? You're just like that is so insane. You're not in your right mind. Wing Chun is like that. When you met a certain master, they show you something and you're just like, oh my God, phenomenal and a certain tweak and you know what, you got to have the right mind, the right attitude, you got to earn their respect first before they start showing that because if you show them, they don’t understand, they make fun of it, they talk about just like oh, man. Being a martial artist, you learn all this here and the learning doesn’t come easy. You got to take a little bit here, a little bit there, fight here, fight there, you do all this. You start learning, it's not easy coming to that conclusion and now you got this, you give to another person and the person don’t understand and you go, ah! And that kind of hurts or again, it's almost like disrespect to the art itself. So, that’s why, I’m telling you, I know a lot of great Wing Chun Grand Master out there. They don’t want credit, they don’t want anything. You got to know them, those out there. Again, they don’t want to start school because it's commercialized, they don’t want to deal with that and I think that what I do is among a few that hey, you know what? I feel that this is important. When I look at it, it's beyond the skill of fighting skills, self-protecting and I tell people, I said, well, yeah you learn self-defense but you're learning one part of self-defense. Protecting your physical, that meaning if somebody hurt you, you're able to block and hit back, you hurt them, great! Nothing wrong with that. What if mentally, let me tell you, some people always say, you got bullied all your life or talked down by your parents or your guardian, you go, oh, you're no good, you're nothing, nothing. Imagine that’s beating down on the mind and look, how do you defend that? That’s why all these kids, no wonder they flip, , I don’t give an F. I’m going to shoot everybody else and I'm going to take my life and I’m done with this. Now, how do you explain that? See that? That’s defending the mind part but I look at it, yeah, you self-defense your physical, your mind, your spiritual and how do you defend your spiritual part? I'm telling you, you need God. If you don’t have God, evil is lurking. I’m just saying from my perspective but if for me, it's just like your spiritual part is almost like an empty cup. If you don’t fill it with something, guess what? Something’s going to be filling in there so might as well, fill it with something good and when you fill something good, bad stuff is hard to come in. It doesn’t mean it won’t come in, it will try like that but like, again, I work in the social service field. A lot of people came up [00:58:55] a lot and I’ll be able to share with people. A certain people there, they have difficulty a certain thing like for example, it's drug or whatever and they said, oh man, I can't go a certain time, it's just like I can't control, I got to do this a certain time. I say, okay, let’s say from 3 to 6, you can control that and I said, okay fine, from there on, do something else, fill the time with something else. Let’s see what happen, if you're busy with something else, guess what happen, the other stuff, Jesus, you forget about me now? So, after a while, they go, okay, you never mind, you don’t care about me so [00:59:38] will leave you alone. See, it's about gravitating. If you gravitate to something, this is what you're going to get, you reap what you sow. If you do good, the fruit is going to be good. That’s why I tell people, if you tell me you're Christian, your action is not Christian, oh no, you're not a Christian. If you're a Christian, the good tree will always give good fruit. That’s the bottom line, I don’t care. You're Christian, you're Muslim, you’re Buddhist, I don’t care who you are, it's just that is my baseline. Good tree will give good fruit.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I like that.
Clark Tang:
You can say whatever, do whatever but your action toward the end, the bottom line you're doing that, hey, you're not good yourself. So, I found Wing Chun Temple and why did I find it? Because when I was young, I always had my dream of Shaolin Temple. I didn’t mind at all like, hey, my grandmother gave a Shaolin Temple, I wanted to practice martial art, learn the knowledge part and then all of a sudden, I think, wow and also, I'm thinking about the Bible part of it. Man, the Old Testament and the New Testament. See, the Shaolin is Old Testament. They’ve been here for years and the tree, and all of a sudden, man, I got it! Let’s make a New Testament of martial art. Wing Chun temple. Forget about the traditional monk. You can shave your head and you put on, again, I don’t want to hurt and pretend to be a monk, really I don’t care your life. I know a lot of people, they're a monk but we’re all human being, come on. Then I go, Wing Chun temple is the New Testament of martial art and we’re a monk but we don’t need to shave our head or put on a robe. No, we’re a modern monk, what in our heart support. Just like Christ said, you can show yourself, like you said, this is on a sermon on the mount and a lot of people, oh, God, I never said. Okay great. Have you even hurt your brother, I mean kill your brother? And Christ asked, they said, no, I never killed my brother, I never kill anybody. Okay, great. You ever hate your brother? Yes, I hate him. Well, you already killed him in your mind. If you can, you would, I know that and I know a soul if I hate someone, gosh, if you can, oh man. I’ll be the Dexter. I’mma tear you apart to pieces in your mind so you already kill your brother already so what in our heart, our mind is more important than our…so yes, in Wing Chun temple, you can say that I'm trying to create an outlet for other people to seek their peace that I practice Wing Chun. I’ll tell people all the time, only practice it for the physical self-defense, mental and spiritual, this is what Wing Chun temple’s at and we’re the modern monk and what is our heart support and as you know, I've taught this to Wing Chun practitioner, in order to be a good Wing Chun practitioner, you have to have a clear mind and a clear heart. You got to have a good intention. In a way, it's almost like a Buddhist martial art. If you feel that day, you have a certain way, your fire coming out, that’s not Wing Chun. That’s to power. The power is to manifest a certain way, like water instead of fire. That’s the energy we’re talking about. Controlling, controlling, controlling like for example, I’ll give you an example, when Christ…this is the only time when Christ ever recorded to be sleeping if you look at it in the Bible, when the storm coming in, everybody like Lord, how could you sleep when there’s storm? And then Christ go, gosh, why you so unfaithful, little faith? He came and come down, see, that is what Wing Chun is all about. When you see the guy do all the flashy move and you’re just aha! You square a part and then don’t think about yourself, anticipate your move, so in other word, it's not about the past, the future, it's that moment, the present. How do you react to a certain thing? Not because that you want to do a certain thing, no, because of your opponent. That’s why Wing Chun is adaptive like for example, he’s using hard kick, side hard kick, what are you going to do with that? You can do, they call this [01:05:41] and then again, for Wing Chun, we don’t only block the strike, we do [01:05:47] and also break his knees at the same time and that’s one move we can counter but again, it's not in the mind, it's not planted, it's just in that moment so that’s what Wing Chun is and yeah. Is that sort of answer? I don’t know. I just get a lot of stuff.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I don’t even know. My job’s to keep you talking. My job’s to ask a question and just see where it goes.
Clark Tang:
Oh my God, I can talk forever!
Jeremy Lesniak:
I can tell.
Clark Tang:
You know when I gone to Wing Chun and…
Jeremy Lesniak:
I can tell and that’s a great skill to have and I think a common skill among martial arts instructors. I don’t think I’ve met a martial arts instructor who can't talk.
Clark Tang:
Well, a good way of my sifu, my last sifu, Sifu Wong Long, I'm pretty sure about Ip Man movie of Grand Master Ip Man.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Sure, yeah.
Clark Tang:
Grand Master Ip Man, I wrote down and said, there’s only two good-looking students. One Bruce Lee and one is my sifu, sifu Wong Long. Good looking guy. The difference between the two and I tell him to his face, Bruce Lee can talk, he can sell and Sifu, you can’t talk. When he talk, he doesn’t know what to do, oh, just go, come on, what do you want to show me? He just start doing chi sao, he said [01:07:13] I don’t want to talk.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I love it. I love it.
Clark Tang:
And you know what, let me tell you how I met him and I feel like oh man, he is the real deal. I'm telling you this now and the Wing Chun community and everybody knows this. If you hear Wong Long, they're all shaking because Grand Master Wong Long, oh my God, I'm going to say for him, even Bruce Lee, I don’t think will take him. He's that good, that good. I can say it. That good in the skills and also if you look at his arm, his leg conditioning, well…his arm, he condition, I mean, from what his wife’s telling me, he start kicking wood, kicking iron. Imagine. I’m good at kicking, I practice a lot of kicking and I condition all these years. When I got into him, oh my God, he really did hurt. Imagine, he kicked an iron bar, I said, okay, that’s it. So, with him, it's not only a good skill and I tell people, I said, you can have flashy moves but without good conditioning, you're not that great, in a sense. You have the move but if you cannot take punches or cannot take kicks, man, you’re still a step back and again, that’s what I tell Grand Master Demura, oh my God. He's the same way, conditioning, my goodness. You cannot touch him, he’s just bam, bam, bam so that’s what I'm talking about and not only that, look at his heart, this is how I met him. I'm going to share a little bit how I came and met my last sifu.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Please.
Clark Tang:
We’re going Hongkong back and forth, back and forth. We all practice and of course, as a Wing Chun practitioner, you always find way to sharpen your skill. You cannot stay where you're at because, again, Wing Chun is an organic martial art, it’s a living art. So, what I'm trying to say is organic, living art is like this: when you grow old, your body depleted a certain way, you got to come save something else so you start learning. That’s why you see this old man, my sifu is an old man, he’s older than Bruce Lee. He’s 80-something now. You cannot touch him, that’s why because he's that good. He can feel your movement even before you know and I think the same way when one of the student of Grand Master jerry Poteet, you know that guy is? Jerry Poteet?
Jeremy Lesniak:
I've heard the name but no.
Clark Tang:
Yeah, jerry, Grand Master Jerry Poteet, he passed away already. He's one of Bruce Lee’s student. Very close student. He’s also in Bruce Lee’s story, movie, with Jason Scott Lee, he was in that too and one of his student share with me when Bruce Lee went back to Hongkong and again tried to chi sao with Grand Master Ip Man and afterward he called to Grand Master Jerry, Jerry, Goddammit, this guy is old and he smokes, I cannot even get close to him, what the hell? That’s what Wing Chun is. Wing Chun when you get older, your body depletes, you come save with something else. I always say almost something like intrinsic anticipation of reaction ability. That’s what my sifu is, my goodness. I want to hit him here, I feel comfortable, I almost fall. If I want to move here, he go, and I go, oh man, there is no way, he’s like and I go, sifu, I am hopeless. He was laughing but now, let me share with how I met him. So, when I get back and forth and we have a gym over there at Hongkong, we go and practice and him again, he’s a very…to me, he’s like a living buddha, my goodness, all he does is good stuff. that’s why I'm telling you, we as practitioner, it's hard to be bad. When we go turn dark, when we turn back, guess what how Wing Chun is turned bad the same way so we got to be good. So, with him, when I met him and I go, one time, very noticeable and then when he start practicing and we stayed the whole thing and then he start, everybody start to leave, okay it’s time to go. Tradition is we go to eat, so we’re going to go and eat out there, great. So, everybody pack up, ready to leave but him, this is what he does: imagine he is a Grand Master. Grand Master Ip Man’s student, a big brother to Bruce Lee, he’s that but he just doesn’t care about that but that’s how we look at it and then he started looking under the couch, under the chair. I say, sifu, what are you looking at? He said, well in the past, people leave their cellphones, stuff like that and that’s the way he look at that. You see how he look out for his other student and all that and I say, okay, I see and then I say, are you ready to go? He said no, I need to sweep because if we don’t keep clean, they won’t let us practice here anymore. Man, he take sweep and, in that moment, I feel like oh my God, I can't believe this. How can you have this? Why don’t you use one of your students? He said no, no, they're busy, I’m okay and I only imagine this is Kung Fu. This is Kung Fu story that I read. One guy was looking for the master, went to the temple and he saw one old man start sweeping he said, I’m looking for the master and he said, well, what do you want? The old sweeping, asked him, what do you want? He said I want to look for the master and again he said, is there anything I can help you? and he said, no, not you, I want to look for the master and then later on he realized, oh my God, he is the master. Don’t you know in the Chinese martial art world, we said that the highest skill, the higher Grand Master will have no other problem is the guy who sweep so in other words, if you’re high in rank or you understand that you're wise, you don’t have a problem to do little stuff. again, let me reflect that to Christ, that moment, I reflect myself to Christ, remember when Palm Sunday, they're going to crucify Christ and then they wanted to wash his feet and all the disciple, Lord, let me wash your feet, no! and Christ said, no, I'm the one that’ll wash your feet, no, not you. that moment, I felt like that, sifu, I found my master because look at the real world, this is reality. Normal work, if you got status, you got power, you got fame, guess what happen? You can do whatever you want, seriously. You got that power or you got that, what did I say, the privilege to do it, you can do it. You know what? You choose not to do it. You choose to be common people, to be…to serve. I mean, to me, that’s what Kung Fu is all about: to serve. The more you serve, you feel like oh, you know what, that’s what we’re here for. See, that’s serve and trust me, I met a lot of Kung Fu master out there, they’re abusing their power. I'm not going to say whatever but I feel like that’s not the way Kung Fu is. From there on, my God, I'm going to follow him. I'm going to make him my teacher. It's almost like Christ. I’m going to make you fishermen, fishermen, fishermen. So, yeah, my sifu is so humble, so clean and oh my God, that’s a person I can be. With that inspiration and guess what, in the Wing Chun world, hardly anyone knows him until I came along and start talk about him and people go, who is he? In the Wing Chun world, they know but they shut their mouth. Don’t bring him out. Hey, don’t bring him out, like that but he’s that person.
Jeremy Lesniak:
That’s great.
Clark Tang:
So, my vision is, in a way, and I had this vision so I want to tell people that hey, the world’s going to have problems and that’s normal. There's a way to be out. You don’t have to buy into certain things and with martial art, when you practice, you have the will to free yourself and to make a certain decision or to say something back and give you that permission to say hey, you know what? I don’t need to do that. It's what I hold. We call it virtue ethics. Virtue ethics. You got to do what’s right even though nobody’s watching and being a martial artist, I feel that we in the warrior world, that we have to embrace that. Now, if we share that, imagine share that with the world and the world is going to be a better place.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I agree.
Clark Tang:
I see family fighting over stupid things and when you look at it, oh my God, because, again, it's about managing the emotion. They are temporary emotion, made them suffer or permanently in their lifetime and that doesn’t make sense at all.
Jeremy Lesniak:
No. I don’t agree.
Clark Tang:
A certain thing that you do, well, three things that we can control also. We can control other…first, start with our thinking. Always our thinking. Second, what we say, we can control that. Third, what we do, control that. So not only that…so, what you think, people can…my workplace, people oh man, I don’t like that guy and I could’ve go with oh yeah, I don’t like that guy too but I always think wait a minute, that’s some other point of view. I don’t have to say that . See, in other word, starting martial art gave you that power to say hey, hey, I'm making my own decision, not what you said. So that’s the freedom of that and then, you only look at the good thing about them. I don’t care, unless it's evil, take any bad people or whatever, you always see good thing in them and when you see good thing in them, you tell them that hey, that what they're doing is good, you bring that goodness out. You don’t care about the bad stuff. you want to bring the good out, all the bad stuff will leave because again, our spirit is like a cup. A cup only contain a certain volume or space and you fill it with something good and that stuff will leave by itself so, yeah, and what you do with it. To me, I feel like we should have as much as we should have compassion with ourselves, we have to have compassion for other people because again, we are them, them are we, we are the same. Even though we are different person, different nationality but I'm telling you we have the same heart, the same feeling, we eat the same in order to survive, you know what I mean? You got to look at it that way. You don’t want to look at it like black or he’s white, he must be [01:22:16], people is people. You got to start that pace. So, my hope, the future, I want Wing Chun Temple to have a place for education like people can educate the public school, again [01:22:41] they don’t care about that, it's all about funding and all that. Only a few that take initiative and talk about that. Now, as our modern move to the future, we’re losing all these stuff. Nowadays, they don’t care about respect, they don’t care about whatever. In Wing Chun temple, no, we’re going to take that back. We care about this. We do care about you. We care about your feelings. We care about…it will…you will be okay.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Great. You're not alone. You're not alone. There are a lot of listeners who are nodding their head and saying yeah. So, if people want to learn more about you or Wing Chun temple, where would they go online to do that?
Clark Tang:
They can go on a website, www.wingchuntemple.com and then I guess, I'm on Facebook, Sifu Clark Tang, Clark Tang there and yes, I do love to talk about Wing Chun. I talk to a lot of people. It's so funny Wing Chun community and most martial arts know that we have a lot of problems with politics which is internal conflicts. It's been like that for years and I think right now and I came over, I said, no, because you guys, because everybody think they're good and I tell people, you look at the world, if I'm here like for example you’re in Vermont. Right now, you're about almost 3 PM right now and we’re here in California, it's almost 12. You're both right but you're in a different place, come on, you look the same and I tell people, you're doing Wing Chun the same way and you're good, you're both good, you don’t need to be…no! This is how I look at it, look at the world, you win, I win. There’s no loser. If you lose, I lose like for example, if I help you, later you're going to help me, it's a win. If you don’t help other people, it's hard to offer help. Should be a shift in the paradigm. You win, I win.
Jeremy Lesniak:
That’s the perfect way.
Clark Tang:
And that’s why I travel and I know a lot of Wing Chun Grand Master and my sifu tell me, man, you're the first person that ever bring Wing Chun people come in a room and they start talking and I say, yeah, because we’re talking something that they can relate to. Wing Chun is just a customized art because when they get Wing Chun, they form formula like if you look at it, Wing Chun practitioner look at it, not a member thing. Because it’s almost like a formula like mc2. You apply to this person, you came for this person because the reason why because our body size, our personality, our stature is different and how we apply is different because again, Wing Chun is not technique, it's about physics behind it. If I'm taller, I want to hit down, if you're shorter than me, you want to hit up because that give you that leverage to overpower so that’s true physics there and I think people to…and also, I think, people said, oh, maybe you're big Asian so that’s why they're scared of you as an Asian, you practice martial art like Wing Chun because they're small and I said maybe or just…I don’t know. I just tell people, I just love people! Even though all my friend know, if they hate me, I said, I still love you, man. If you hate me because I'm sorry, hate is too heavy. Love is lighter.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And that, that’s what we’re going to start to wind down. That is the perfect…I've been looking for it. I've been looking for the perfect spot for us to take the transition. So of course, listeners, if you're new to the show, those links that Sifu dropped just a little bit ago, we’ll have all those linked at the show notes, whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. I’ve got a feeling you’ll get some folks reaching out to you because this has been a very unique conversation, at least as far as where our show goes and as listeners know we ask all our guests to kind of send us off in a similar fashion at the same time, and not that you haven’t been providing this sort of information the entire conversation, but what parting words would you give to the folks listening today?
Clark Tang:
I’ll tell people, I said, religion will fail you, politics will fail you, but not martial art. Put your kid in martial art. The earlier, plan a good seat so when they go shoot off even though for a short time, I will say, they always remember, oh my God, and I tell, I meet people all the time, I remember my parents put me in martial arts school, we learned this, we learned so much and those people that talk to me, they are something…they're not a bum. They don’t turn out to be a bum. They turn out to be something so I have to tell people, you know, yes, martial art is the way. I mean, stop living in the environment and adapting to the environment and social media, how we, oh yeah, it's called domestication. If you…I’m only to the full agreement if anybody that know about the full agreement that we grow up, we’re domesticated. Even our language, our environment, our way of living. I’m telling you, learn martial arts, put on a warrior, you can live the way your life.
Jeremy Lesniak:
One of the aspects of this show that listeners don’t get to see is the feedback and when we have an episode like this where a guest is this open, this honest and really lays it out there for everyone, I get a lot of feedback. People who identify with episodes, with the guest and with their experiences and I have no doubt that there are people typing away right now. Thank you so much, Sifu, for sharing of yourself today. I really appreciate it. You can find a lot more about Sifu Tang over at whistlekickmartialartsradio.com, a bunch of photos, links to everything he has going on and even a photo with him and a very recent past guest. Don’t forget whistlekick.com and the code PODCAST15 to get 15% off everything that we make whether it's sparring gear or maybe you're in the market for some fun new shirts, cozy sweatpants, hoodies, sneakers, we got a lot of great stuff. check it out if you haven't. we have new stuff all the time. You can find all of our social media with the handle @whistlekick. Facebook, twitter, YouTube and Instagram are our primary accounts and you can email me directly, jeremy@whistlekick.com. We keep it easy. Thanks for coming by today, I appreciate your support but that’s all I have until next time so train hard, smile and have a great day!