When I was a little kid I was obsessed with martial arts. As early as 10 years old I was reading Iron Fist comic books and watching Kung-fu theatre. I would stand up wooden posts in my backyard as if they were opponents and then kick them over with a loud kiya! My next step up was martial arts movies. Thanks to my insistence the films of Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris filled my parents video rental history. That's when I started to bug them to sign me up for karate lessons.
A few years later the acclaimed film The Karate Kid changed it all. When I was 13 years old my family rented the movie and we all watched it together. I looked just like Daniel Larusso, black feathered hair, skinny physique and I already had my share of bullies. This movie was largely responsible for karate becoming a popular pursuit in America. After years of begging for lessons, my parents finally gave in and signed me up.
My first karate school was in Brockton, Massachusetts, the city I grew up around for the first 17 years of my life. The style was Isshin-ryu and I loved it! My teacher was a short, enthusiastic Italian guy who was very proud of his brick breaking abilities. However he did not stick around for long. After about six months he decided to move to Florida and leave the school behind. This sucked! I had graduated up to green belt but now my teacher was gone.
My second karate school was in Braintree, Massachusetts. The style was Goju-ryu and I loved it! My teacher was a Teamster and a friend of my father. He was balding with a beer gut but had trained his son up to black belt. His son was near my age and became my primary training partner. This was another non-traditional school, the classes varied from self-defense to demonstration to sparring. The variety kept me interested enough to earn an orange belt before an argument between my teacher and my Dad ended my classes.
My third school was not karate, it was Chung Moo Quan. This is a Korean martial art with Chinese roots that mixed eight different styles. It stresses that movements/techniques and even training should be matched to the individual's unique talents, abilities and body type. This idea really stuck with me. I earned first section in that style before my parents informed me that the distance was too far to keep driving.
At 15 years old my fascination with martial arts had peaked. In middle school they called me the karate kid. By high school I was taking on a whole new level of bullies. My martial arts training had become street level practice. I was mostly winning fights, dominating at submission wrestling with friends and battling through backyard boxing matches.
So why wasn't I studying at a Dojo? I didn't have transportation or enough money. For the next two years I would occasionally take free classes, train with friends and learn on my own but something was missing. I needed a structure, a system to combine all of the techniques so they could be more easily remembered and applied. Enter the birth of Wei Tai Jutsu.
The idea was to add every move that I had ever learned into a system to help me remember and master the techniques. From age 17 to 19 the possibilities about how to do this changed and grew until it evolved into one continuous long form dynamic kata. This was to be my methodology and I gave it the name Wei Tai Jutsu. Wei from Wu Wei (Taoist concept of Effortless Action) and Tai Jutsu is a Japanese synonym for body skill or technique. Essentially Wei Tai Jutsu means effortless technique.
Now that I had created the system, I decided to practice it. My self-taught class structure was similar to what I had learned in the various dojos but now I would add newly learned moves to the kata until it reached 500 moves. This took about two years. Having mastered the movements it seemed important to mark the occasion with a ceremony similar to a Black belt test. However, I was not done.
My fascination with the martial arts continued in part because there are simply so many to learn from. I read tons of books, studied videos and sparred with other martial artists. I attended a boxing gym, learned from a coach and progressed with more backyard boxing matches. For an additional two years (Four in total) I had built a 1000 move kata and mastered it. I had also honed in on a handful of moves that I was really spectacular at, these would become known as the Mighty Five. I marked the occasion with another ceremony similar to a 2nd degree Black belt.
By 23 years old I had developed and mastered my own martial arts system. The next step was to teach it. How do you teach a self-study system? It is exactly what it sounds like. You teach the students basic moves to start their katas and teach them the system so that they can continue it themselves when they decide to venture forward on their own.
Teaching requires stability, as an adventure writer that is a luxury I don't have. Typically I moved every couple years usually in sync with following a new pursuit or sport. My students moved on pretty quickly as well. As far as I know none of them continued with the Wei Tai system for very long. Admittedly the amount of passion and dedication along with the discipline to complete four years of self-guided study is a monumental task.
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| Alex (Left) and his students Nathan, James, Bruce, Rob and Paige (1996) |
I created Wei Tai 30 years ago to fill gaps in my training created by an overly active lifestyle. I'm only releasing this information now because lifestyles have changed. People are busier and more self-guided than ever before. People don't stick with the same job or dojo for decades anymore. If someone else decides to use this system then more power to them. I'm not writing a book about Wei Tai or trying to sell anything related to it. If that changes I'll let people know.
If you want to learn more about the Wei Tai Jutsu system including its philosophy, rankings and self-study recommendations check out the link below. As in all things, be true to yourself and enjoy the journey.
Wei Tai Jutsu - The Self-Study Martial Art
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