I first tasted the martial arts when I was 16 years old. One night when I was walking down an unlit road ten kids my age jumped me and beat the living daylights out of me.  While I was lying on the road, covering my face with my hands and knees, a cousin of mine joined the melee and started punching and kicking the attackers until they started running. I was so fascinated with his speed and techniques in delivering those counters and blocks. This incident triggered my desire to either learn to fight back or run all my life. I didn't join my cousin, I learned Judo instead.

     After a year or so I gave up Judo went to Manila and enrolled in Industrial Ed. at the Philippine College of Arts and Trades. After three years I quit school and joined the U.S. Navy, to see the world (I hoped).

     My first duty station was the USS Ranger which was on its wait to Vietnam. There was a self defense class given by a combat instructor which I took and learned combat. The style was close to Kempo and a little bit of Judo. After six months I was still eager to learn the ancient martial arts so I started looking around for a good school.

     The ship went for a major overhaul in PSNS that was 1966. I tried to locate Bruce Lee's school in Seattle, But I found out that it was too far for me to commute, furthermore I couldn't afford it. The Navy didn't pay much in those days. I looked around Bremerton and found the Butokukan Karate Dojo at Burwell, right across the street from the Chinese restaurant.

     I watched the class twice and was fascinated by Harry Turnbull's agility and gratefulness in executing the basics and katas.  So I was hooked and joined the club.

     I was a green belt going on brown in my previous school (combat karate). I told myself that this was my chance to learn more about the ancient art of self defense.

     On my first day at the dojo I hurt everyone. I was still focused on the combat style of fighting, where the primary purpose is survival, kill or be killed, no mercy take no prisoners. Because of that I had to learn control, and that was the hardest part of the game. From that time on I became one of them. I worked out four days a week, not counting the hours I spent in the gym on weekends. This hard work and devotion to the style brought about so many friends (and enemies) from other styles.

     The school moved to Callow for a while and then to Kitsap Way.  This created a problem for me because I didn't have a car, I had to walk in the rain and snow to get to school, I guess the guys felt sorry for me because they began to give me a ride.  I owe Shihan Hill a lot because he picked me up most of the time; I will never forget that.

     I made brown belt very fast; but I didn't feel that I deserved it yet. I returned to the Philippines for three months and studied knife defenses, stick fighting, short knife, but mostly street fighting. After eight months in the overseas I returned to Bremerton.

      Three months after returning from overseas I attended the Bremerton Tournament.  Having visited numerous karate schools overseas my control was geared for full contact (no control).  I hurt a lot of opponents and received many warnings from the refs.  I won some matches and ended up in the finals against Bob Long who was also in Butokukan.  In 1968 I was transferred to Scotland, by this time I had made black belt.  I found a karate school in the local gym which was ran by a Kempo instructor from Hawaii and a Tae Kwon Do from Jhoon Rhee's school. I watched from the side lines with my gi on. The same way I gate crashed the Japanese Karate Dojo's in Japan, Hawaii, and the P.I.  I didn't say anything I just sat and waited until they got really mad and took me on.  It was fun and dangerous but I enjoyed it. The instructor was amazed and decided to let me teach.  After a year conflict arose between me and the other two instructors. The Kempo and Tae Kwon Do students began changing their style to Butokukan.  I quit teaching and began to visit other dojos and working out with black belts from other styles. I gave demos at tournaments in Glasgow and Edinburgh however, I was not allowed to compete.  In March 1971 I went on a tour of Europe in my old beat up car.  One of my stopover was in Essex, West Germany. There was a Tae Kwon Do school, a small one which I saw when I was coming into town. I invaded their dojo and fought everyone there.  This earned me a free pass to their main school where I fought again.  I won the hearts of the German students and instructors because this was the first time they had seen a little squirt that they couldn't catch. To make a long story short they gave me a pennant, a crest, and a membership card. I stayed for two days exchanging techniques with the German instructors, and students.

In May of 1971 I married a Scottish Lass. We stayed in Scotland until February of 1973 when I was transferred back to Norfolk, Virginia. A former student of mine, stationed in North Carolina, found out that I was back. He called me at work and persuaded me to teach there. After a while the distance I had to travel got to be to much and I gave it up.

In 1975 I went back overseas, this time to Spain. I found previous friends and students that I had known before. We worked out together and began to give demos at local fiestas.  I passed the test for a teaching permit in Seville Spain. I Started teaching in Caddie, Here, and San Lucre. After a year and a half I promoted some of my students to green belt. I took some of them to tournaments in Malagasy and Granada. But they couldn’t win due to some local practice or tradition that only the local style (Shotokan) could win.  The association started noticing this new breed of karatekas that threw kicks and punches with power and grace. For fear of being left out, the Spanish Karate Association slapped a memo against me which stated that foreigners couldn't teach.  I didn't give up teaching the police in San Lucar because I got free rides to the police academy in Madrid. Once a month we gave a demo to the generals to show them how well the Cadiz police force was doing in regard to self defense. This went on until my transfer to Hawaii.   I had a small class in Hawaii but because I was stationed on a sea going ship it didn't work out.

In 1983 I returned to the P.I. with my family on a vacation. I wanted to relax and work out. Some of my friends were still around and we worked out together and I learned more self defense techniques. The only problem was my style of street fighting was different from any of them. Mine stemmed from experience, survival on the street, and all of the styles of martial arts which I had studied throughout the world. The people who had originally introduced me to the local martial arts had all disappeared, no one knew where they had gone to.  I retired from the service in 1985 and settled in Bremerton.  For a while I worked in Seattle but it didn't take long for the every day ferry commute to get to me. In 1987 I applied for work in Keyport and was fortunate enough to be hired right away.

Early 1994, I took over the adult class at the West Bremerton School. I still love to teach Butokukan and street fighting. I consider myself a die hard Butokukan sensei. Shihan Hill has had a lot of influence over my life, it is this that keeps me going.  Without his advice I could have left teaching this art a long time ago.