THIS IS A MESSAGE

England

(Put pictures in afterwards.)

This is the page of people that I want to pay homage to because of their helping me practice

Ashley Acott

I really have to include Ashley. He's the man. If it wasn't for Ashley telling me what was right and wrong, well I'd probably be in prison. Back in the old days I would look for opportunities to show off what I could do. Not stupidly or anything, not like on a daily basis. Not 'Oh I have to tie my shoelaces, lets do the splits.' Like if somebody was to say, 'Liam, can you do the splits?' normally I would say 'yes' and show them. Ashley noticed me doing this a lot. It would draw a lot of attention to me and I'd feel on top of the world for a short while, but end up hating myself afterwards. Ashley was always there do tell me when it was right or wrong to do stuff like that.

Ashley also studied Wing Chun with me for a couple of years. We would do Chi sou outside of classes quite a bit and trade techniques. Whenever it was time for a grading he'd help me with the forms and the crazy martial arts lingo. Later on we started having sword fights in the fields with our bokken. This was quite fun until we had are names taken down by a passing policeman. That was awkward.  

Hidemasa Masui

Good ol' Madman Masa Masui. I met Masa about two years ago through a friend. After finding out that he was a black belt in Karate I challenged him to a fight, and he accepted. We've had a few fights since then. ALL OF WHICH I'VE WON MIGHT I ADD. That's harsh. I should add that Masa gets exhausted very quickly and would rather continue smoking then start jogging. Bastard. Masa, like me has this dark hatred for pretty much everyone. It's pretty hard to describe, but it's what makes both me and him train like we do. He's AMAZING with a sword. His family descended from Samurai, carrying down through the generation a unique swords-style that only the Masui family know. Masa taught me vaguely how to use a sword, he's good teacher. It's weird, he does NO training but he can still kick over my head and has one of the best punches I've felt. 

Masa carries a knife with him pretty much always. I think he'll stab me if I hang around much longer.

Masa is half responsible for the scar on my forehead. Then again so am I. 

Above: Me and Masa doing what we do best, being damn pretty fools. I don't know what's wrong with my face in this picture, I'm trying to smile. I miss my long hair...

Gary Payne (Sifu.)

Gary is my Wing Chun instructor. I met him about three years ago when I first joined his class. He's a great teacher, he really is. He awe inspiring. There's nothing better than having an instructor that can beat the crap out of you. In Wing Chun we have this thing called Chi Sou, which is a controlled fight with lots of contact and short distance strikes that helps you build up an automatic response to attacks. For as long as I remember I've been challenging Gary to Chi-Sou in every lesson, I've always lost, but I've hit him a few time dammit, and that's all I care about. Gary should be the end guy in a Jackie Chan film, who's standing there with like a damsel in distress or something, and Jackie goes to fight him. Even though in earlier scenes we've already scene Gary single handedly beat up about twenty guys. He's so invincible that it's funny.

i remember one of my early days in his class. he asked me why I always challenged him.

"I want to beat you." I said, purely as a reaction to being asked

"Is that what you want? Is it your goal to beat me?"

I thought about this, I knew that he didn't want me to reply the way that I did, but I was a passionate kid. "Yes, it is."

He smiled as he always did. We started rolling (chi sou.) He said "Fine, you come into my class every day with the objective of beating me, and someday you will. But until that day, I'm gonna hit you , and I'm gonna embarrass you and I'm going to enjoy it."

Ninjas would kill the parents of children to give them the rage to train harder and one day kill them for revenge. Gary just has to slap me and I'll run around the world for him.

well that was about two years ago and I still haven't beaten him. I think that he does make a conscious effort every time to embarrass and aggravate me. I think I'm doing a really clever and complicated attack, and he just slaps me again and again with no effort at all. I really do want to beat him, and I think that all of the teasing is his way of charging me up so I eventually will. Maybe when I get back from Shaolin I will.

Cool thing Gary would do is to walk around the class when we were training on a specific technique and smack us over the head with a plastic bottle and tell us to pay attention. I'm never sure if he's doing this because he's teaching us about spatial awareness or just because he's an evil bastard. I'm quite happy thinking that it's both.

I can't beat him as long as I'm a ladybird, I should be an Agatha Christy. He'll know what I mean. 

Michael Beale (My Dad.)

My Dad was an Aikido instructor and a Karate expert. He met my mother in a class (I think.) Wow, I was born of martial arts! Dad was doing locks on me for as long as I remember. I hate locks, and holds. And that's probably why. but because of this I've always been able to get out of them pretty easily. (Secret is to hold your hands together and use your weight.) Thing is no matter how often I asked him to teach me stuff, he'd just say 'no.'. I would ask him every week for about a year. It was frustrating. Then one day his reply changed a little. I stopped asking straight after that. He said 'Because you already know more than I do.' I was shocked. I never really saw him in action which was a shame. But the main thing is, is that I'm going to say something good about his methods of raising children/martial artists by being the best martial artist I can.