Martial Arts
Jimmy H Woo, Gordy Barrett, and me in Al Rubins studio
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Al Rubins studio
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The late 70’s and 80’s I spent a lot of my evenings learning Kung Fu San Soo from great instructors in Master Al Rubin’s studio on Magnolia in Riverside, California. My children hade started training months before me and had gained knowledge enough to help them if confronted by aggression. Master Al Rubin was such a nice, personable guy, and a true artist in martial arts. By the time I became a blackbelt, there were many who held that rank, or above, but only a few, a very few, could be as graceful and coordinated with such beauty, and devastating force as Master Al. I mostly worked out with two blackbelts of the same rank, Raphael Renta, a clinical psychologist, and Jim Goss, a talented car painter, both were good at martial arts, but between the three of us we could only muster about 1% of Al’s grace and beauty. The style was street fighting, and I think if it came down to it, we would be able to handle any situation before us, without our opponents commenting on our lack of grace. The Thursday night before Al died in 1987, he gave me some pointers on my technique, even though he had complained of what he thought was food poisoning. Then early Sunday morning he collapsed and died on the way to the bathroom. The whole studio was shocked and rallied around Ora, Al’s widow, a Master in her own right, in support of the studio. Through the coming months and years Al Rubins studio continued, then in 1992, Ora transferred the studio to Kurt Bellman, one of Al’s students, and now a Master. For some time prior to Al’s death, Raphael and myself were working out a two studio’s, Al’s when we could, and Bill Lassiters, studio in Ontario. Bill had given me a key to the studio, so that I could work out at hours, late at night and sometimes early in the morning, odd hours that my work schedule would allow. Bill like Al had earned his black belt degree’s all the way to Master, under the tutelage of Grand Master Jimmy H. Woo. What Bill lacked in grace he made up in aggression. Bill’s studio was in a really bad neighborhood and often some hardcase would walk into the studio to show what a real man could do. Bill would invite them to fight, and then show them the door after they had learned some appropriate respect for the San Soo Master. When watching his instructions, every move is slow and emphatic, but during a demo workout those same moves, practiced thousands of times in multiple combinations, are so fast the eye has a hard time following what has happened. Bill Lassiter is now Kung Fu San Soo’s Grand Master, and having seen or worked out with some of Jimmy Woo’s best, Bill gets my vote.