Charlie Conklin Degree 1
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Charlie's martial arts journey began at 10, when he discovered an illustrated Judo manual his older brother had discarded. Examining it carefully, he found that the Circle Throw looked suspiciously similar to something he had seen from the beautiful and devastatingly effective Emma Peel in the Avengers. Armed with this knowledge, he invited his younger brother try a scientific experiment. His brother agreed, and followed his instructions to run at him as fast as he could. The Circle Throw satisfyingly launched him to fly impressively through the air and land some feet away on his head.
Perfect!
Unfortunately the effectiveness of this manuever resulted in a severe lack of training partners, as his younger brother would have nothing further to do with him for quite a while...
Some years later he took up study with a very traditional Tang Soo Do group, who graciously provided training partners, and 2 and a bit years later, much to his surprise, he found himself a 1st Dan. During this time however, he had come across an article in Black Belt magazine about an American, Peter Ralston, winning a World Chinese Martial Arts Tournament in Taiwan, in an extraordinary way. After reading how Peter had defeated his opponents, which sounded more like a Zen exercise in awareness than any martial fight in his experience,
Charlie could only think, "That is how it should be done."
So a few years later when he was hitchhiking around the United States, he stopped by Peter's school, liked what he saw, and one year later moved out to California and started his romance with Cheng Hsin. This continued until 1990, at which time he ceased his study of Martial Arts for some time, until picking it up once again in 2004.
Charlie is also a professional computer geek, a qualified Clinical Hypnotherapist, has a wide variety of other interests, and since 2004 has been furthering his studies in Cheng Hsin T'ai Chi, T'ui Shou, Boxing, Ontological studies, and some grappling, through training in London and various workshops with Peter in Texas and elsewhere.