The name East West Martial Arts Studio is a reflection of the training I have recieved in Martial Arts over the year that has taken place in both the East and West. I started my training in 1974 at the age of 13 in Torrance Californa at the Filipino Kali Academy. It was a boom time for Martial Arts with its popularity growing because of Bruce Lee and Kung Fu movies in general. It was at this time with the passing of Bruce Lee that Sifu Dan Inosanto and Sifu Richard Bustillo opened the Filipino Kali Academy.
Having the good fortune of the Academy located a short bike ride from my home, I immediatedly scraped together what every money I could find to sign up. I started off for the first month in the children's class under Sifu Jerry Poteet and after one month was moved into the adults class under Sifu Dan Inosanto and sometime due to the time of week I attended class that was taught by Sifu Richard Bustillo. I was a regular student until about 1978 when I had to devote full time to undertake my university studies in Architecture.
Training during that period at the Filipino Kali Academy was nothing like any other martial arts schools around. The consists of what was called "Chinese Kickboxing" and Kali. The Chinese Kickboxing taught at that time is what most people refer today as Jun Fan JKD. It was probably one of the few martial arts school sduring that time that trained exclusively with contact sparring and focus mitt training, which has become the norm with the evolution of MMA. In addition it was one of the only places where Kali was openly taught.
After entering university the regular formal training ended and was limied to adhoc training with friends mostly to get in some regular exercise and take out some frustrations. Going to work in Architecture, time for training became more and more scarce in order to concentrate on a career. In 1991 I relocated to Singapore for my career and imagined one of the first things I will do in Asia is back into martial arts. Little did I realize time was even more scarce in the east!
It wasn't until about 2002 when my daughter and son were 8 and 6 years old that I started to teach them kick boxing and Kali. In 2003 a business trip to China took me Henan Province and the Shaolin Temple. In 2004 I enrolled my children in a Wushu class and in 2004 I started Wing Chun. In 2004 while on holiday in Thailand I trained at my first Muay Thai camp.
In 2005 in Singapore, I attended a JKD seminar by Sifu Mark Stewart who was a student of both Sifu Dan Inosanto and Sifu Ted Wong and taught JKD as taught by Sifu Ted. Sifu Mark moved to Singapore and I trained regularly with him in both JKD and Kali. Sifu Mark taught Kali as he learned from Guru Ted Lucay Lucay (also a former student of Sifu Dan Inosanto and someone I remember training with at the Filipino Kali Academy back in the 1970s).
In 2007 for careers reasons again, I relocated with my family to Hong Kong and immediately started looking for some training that has become part of my regular exercise routine since 2004. I was fortunate to come in contact with Ka Abner Anievas who developed his blend called KEAT Filipino Martial Arts. I trained regularly with Ka Abner until 2010 when we relocated back to Singapore. During my time in Hong Kong I also had the opportunity to attend JKD seminars by Sifu Ted Wong.
Since returning to Singapore, I continued to train with my family and occassionally with friends. In 2010 with the enquiry about KEAT training in Singapore to Ka Abner which he redirected to me, I began regular training sessions and the East West Martial Arts Studio was born. The name reflecting my training in both the east and the west and studio because I appreciate that art aspects.
The studio will focus on training in the Kali and JKD which are the foundations of my training, but as Bruce Lee put it, "absorb what is useful and reject what is useless and add what is specificlly your own". All that I use in training has to some extend my interpretation or at least how I understand it. In additon always looking for new arts, techniques and training methods to explore and learn from colleagues and students.
Bertram Wong
Singapore 2012
