Whatever happened to John Yee??

[TenTigers]

In the seventies, in two of the early issues of IKF, they did this series on him entitled,"Way of the Monk" Pts 1&II, where he relates growing up in Gee Lum Gee Monastery in China. He had a school I think it was called San Pablo Gung-Fu Club. Anyone know anything about him?

[drleungjohn]

--pulling a name out of the mothballs Rik- dang!!!

[TenTigers]

Hey, Sifu, you know I've had those magz since waayyyy back-as a matter of fact, I gave you one of the first issues as a gift once. I think it was the one that had Tadashi Yama****a twirling flaming Nunchakus between his legs. Still got it?(I bet it's worth a small fortune by now!)

[jdhowland]

He may still be around. I came across a picture of him just a couple of days ago. Try an internet search> "Yee's Academy"?

[drleungjohn]

yes,I remember and yes I still have it-thanks-but still-dang!

[TenTigers]

yeah, but my short-term memory is shot. I can remember standing up in my crib as a baby, but I'm lucky if I can find my glasses, and...um,what were we talking about? (great,ADHD and dementia):eek:

[jdhowland]

Yeah, I have those issues, too. My daughter thinks it's ridiculous that I still have martial arts magazines from the 1960s.

Yee was something of an inspiration to the young gung fu community in the Bay Area (1970s) because he encouraged sparring. Even in Chinatown there were few schools doing hard core sparring then.

[jdhowland]

http://www.yeesmartialarts.com/Contact%20Us.htm

[Onepath]

Many years ago, he had a school in San Pablo that was a mile from my house, I was still a teenager, I went there for a few months, If only I had stayed with him, but I was young. I can tell you that the training was traditional, tough, and for real full contact sparring with knockouts common. I saw basic iron hand conditioning taught to all students, wooden dummy,good strong forms, very practical application, weapons, he made his own form of Dit Da Jow, the other thing is, that I much later studied Boxing with an old guy in Point Richmond who said that he and John Yee would crosstrain some of each others students. John Yee also taught Judo. Once I was riding with him in his van on the way to a class and he told me about someone who tried to rob him with a gun some time back, and how he had taken the guys eye out. He produced some really tough students and was himself a very imposing person. He was an extremely sincere person very nice to me and I have never forgotten him.

[htowndragon]

what style does he train?

[Onepath]

I dont know what they might call it now, but at that time he said it was Shaolin, from the Temple where he learned it before the Communist takeover.

[IKAIJO]

In the seventies, in two of the early issues of IKF, they did this series on him entitled,"Way of the Monk" Pts 1&II, where he relates growing up in Gee Lum Gee Monastery in China. He had a school I think it was called San Pablo Gung-Fu Club. Anyone know anything about him?

It was the "Richmond - San Pablo Judo - Gung Fu Club". Once he had a big red banner that said "Judo-Karate Club", because he was under the impression that Karate was English for Gung Fu.

John Yee was my Sifu starting in 1967 at the Richmond Police department in the police gym, on the third floor. My judo instructor from the Richmond YMCA was John Neely, a Richmond police detective. He dragged me to his judo instructor, Sensei Yee so I could get additional lessons.

Dues for three classes per week were $6.50 per month, and everybody not taking his classes called him "Johnny Yee". At first, I called him Sensei, but after my first class ended at 09:00 pm, I saw a group line up and another class began doing some strange calisthenics. I asked Sensei about it, and started that night. After that, I called him Sifu. Back then, nobody had heard of Gung Fu.

Sifu called it Sil Lum (his cantonese dialect for Shaolin). A lot of students came and went, but I was addicted, and worked in his television shop on Barrett avenue for extra training, and dinners in Chinatown. His father had a partnership in an herb shop in Chinatown, and when I brought him deer shanks he would make me a special stew to "make you strong". We did mix up a five gallon batch of linament, starting with a big jug of bootleg liquor we bought in chinatown, and, if I recall correctly, fifty-four packages of herbs from his fathers shop. It sat for weeks before we used it for iron hand training, and it did work well. About half of the ingredients were to "tough the skin" and the other half were to ""kill the pain".

Sifu often took me to Chinatown to visit other schools, often tiny kwoons in a basement where the big drums were played for lion dancing, students would show off our forms. When some former classmates of Sifu's came to San Pablo watch, they nicknamed me Jufu (block the tiger) and it stuck.

It was a very good time. It still affects how and what I study.

[raventony2002]

Dear everyone,
How are you doing? Hope all is ok with you.
I read that Sifu John Yee was one of the first gung fu instructor who introduced full contact approach in some tournaments.
Was it true? Were there other gung fu instructors who followed him?
Take very good care.
Tony