Football & MA

[GeneChing]

JKD is an interesting choice for NFL.

Saints rookie Alex Jenkins combines knowledge of martial arts with pass rushing skills


Saints international practice squad player Alex Jenkins (74) during Saints OTA's at the team's headquarters on Thursday, June 1, 2017. (Photo by Michael DeMocker, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
The Times-Picayune By Herbie Teope, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
on June 05, 2017 at 7:00 AM, updated June 05, 2017 at 7:02 AM

Defensive linemen often utilize numerous tools, such as speed, strength, leverage and the use of hands, to get past an offensive lineman.

So, it is a good thing New Orleans Saints rookie defensive end Alex Jenkins has worked his hands as long as he can remember while growing up in Bath, England.

The 24-year-old Jenkins couldn't avoid the workouts when considering his father, Peter, teaches Jeet Kune Do, a martial arts style founded by the legendary Bruce Lee and has roots in Wing Chun Kung Fu.

"I never took it officially," Jenkins said. "But every time I walked past him in the hallways, he'd grab my hands and start trapping."

The incorporation of hands come in a variety of Jeet Kune Do forms, such as the Pak Sao or Phon Sao, and the movements are designed to block or ensnare an opponent's hands and arms while simultaneously going on the offensive.



The skills learned from his father has translated well for the Saints rookie.

"Something I've been doing my whole life is something that relates to this game heavily, especially at my position," Jenkins said.

Martial arts blended with football isn't new, as some NFL pass rushers, such as Kansas City Chiefs outside linebacker Tamba Hali or Chicago Bears outside linebacker Lamarr Houston, incorporate both areas during offseason workouts.

When informed that Hali, who has trained with Ryron Gracie of the world-renowned Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Academy, and other NFL players are involved in various disciplines of martial arts to improve football skills, Jenkins became intrigued.

"I would definitely love to get into that," he said. "Maybe even get my dad out there because I show him some of the moves and he goes, 'Ah, that's this.' And he'll translate it to some sort of martial art, plus you have to put a little more hips into it in football."

The 6-foot-6, 270-pound Jenkins raises a good point on the game, of course, because while he uses forms of Jeet Kune Do on the football field, his primary goal is to become an NFL player.

Jenkins joins the Saints on a roster exemption as part of the league's new International Player Pathway initiative, which was awarded to the NFC South on a random draft in late May.

Each team in the division is allowed an 11th player on the practice squad, but the player is ineligible to be elevated to the 53-man roster during the regular season.

"It's a mixture of frustration, but then appreciation at the same time because it gives me a chance to learn and really focus on development," Jenkins said. "But being a competitor, an athlete and playing this game, you want to play.

"Ever since I started playing this game, I've always been the top guy, I've always been the guy getting the first-team reps, so it's an adjustment for me being on the sideline and watching. But, it's also a blessing to be able to learn, develop and see where I can be next season, how I can contribute to this team next year."

Jenkins caught the Saints' attention after flashing potential while playing at University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, where he was a three-year starter and recorded 3 1/2 sacks in his senior season.

He enjoyed success at UIW leading to his signing with the Saints, but Jenkins quickly realized the difference between college football and transitioning to the NFL level when he arrived days after organized team activities (OTAs) began.

"The speed of the game, the speed of how quickly you have to learn things, the size of the playbook," Jenkins said. "Obviously, I'm coming in a week late for OTAs, so I'm really trying to catch up, but those are definitely the things I think are a lot different than in college."

Jenkins admits to feeling anxious when he first hit the practice field, especially knowing the level of competition and going against NFL offensive linemen.

But it didn't take long for Jenkins to settle down, draw on martial arts skills he learned as a youth and gain the all-important confidence that he belonged.

"I won one of my first pass rushes with a spin," he said. "Soon as you get it out of your system, you feel good. I know I can play at this level."

[GeneChing]

Anyone know what style of Kung Fu Gordon practiced? Just curious.

He’s retired from competitive dance and kung fu, but Washington DB Kyler Gordon is still Mr. Spotlight
By Mike Vorel The Seattle Times (TNS) Apr 23, 2019 Updated Apr 23, 2019



SEATTLE — Kyler Gordon was an athlete before he was anything else.

Before he was a football player, a Husky, a four-star corner and a national recruit; before he was a Seattle Storm dancer and a kung fu fighter; before he was Mr. Spotlight, Kyler Gordon was already stealing it.

“Before he was a year old, his grandma and grandpa were like, ‘Uh, there’s something special about this little boy. He’s going to be something,’ ” Kyler’s mother, Evamarie Gordon, told The Seattle Times last week.

“It’s really weird. I know it sounds kind of stupid, but I had a vision as well. I just knew in my heart that there was something about him.”

Something, but what? Kyler was walking at nine months old. He was attempting somersaults and cartwheels before his first birthday. When he was 4, he tried kung fu, just for kicks. He dipped his fleet feet into dance — ballet, jazz, hip hop, lyrical, you name it — a year later. He used to stretch while watching cartoons to improve his flexibility.

Occasionally, Evamarie — a gymnastics coach — would take her son/pre-teen slinky with her to the gym, which is where he learned a backflip. For four years, Kyler devoted 20 hours a week to dance classes (and that’s not counting competitions).

At age 8, he moonwalked his way to being named “Mr. Spotlight” — with a pink bow tie and curly brown hair to boot — at the Spotlight Dance Cup national finals in California.

“Google him on the internet and you’ll see him,” Evamarie Gordon said. “It was like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ One of the guys from Broadway was one of the (competition’s) judges and he said, ‘This kid is going to go somewhere in the industry.’ ”

Kyler Gordon found football instead.

Or, maybe it’s more accurate to say that football found him.

“When he got to the field, I’ll never forget it,” Evamarie Gordon said of her 9-year-old son. “They’re like, ‘Where’s this kid been?’ I’m like, ‘He’s a dancer. He’s been in dance.’ ”

Despite adding yet another outlet for his athleticism, Kyler didn’t stop dancing. He joined the Seattle Storm’s hip hop dance troupe at age 9, performing at home games and events (while still making it to football practice). The activity itself almost seemed insignificant; Kyler’s athleticism was a universal currency, accepted everywhere. If he participated, he dominated — whether it be dance or defense.

“Everybody wanted him to play everything,” Evamarie Gordon said. “He did football. He did basketball. It didn’t matter what he did. He’d kill it.”

So it was that a budding defensive back, former kung fu fighter and decorated dancer arrived at Archbishop Murphy High School in Everett in the fall of 2014.

The question was never whether Kyler Gordon would be successful. The question was where, and the options were endless.

“When we saw Kyler as a freshman we could tell that he was special,” said Archbishop Murphy head football coach and former Washington linebacker Jerry Jensen. “He had a high ceiling in basically whatever he decided he wanted to do, whether that be track or football or basketball. He would have success at it.

“He really kind of took to football and worked on the craft and that allowed him to get his strength up. But the thing that really impressed me most about Kyler is probably his flexibility. That allows him to move as fluidly as he does and as effortlessly as it looks.”

It was effortless, and it was everywhere. In his senior season in 2017, Kyler was named to the Associated Press 2A all-state team both as a defensive back and an all-purpose player. The 2017 Star Times selection rushed for 517 yards and 12.9 yards per carry, caught 32 passes for 841 yards, threw an 88-yard touchdown pass and piled up 44 tackles and five interceptions. He averaged 19 yards per touch and was named offensive MVP of the Cascade Conference. He jumped as if each strip of turf was its own tiny trampoline.

And he put things on tape that Jensen had never seen.

“You would just see Kyler’s break on the ball or a one-handed catch or he would go up between two defenders and come down with the ball,” Jensen said. “He’s just a kid that has innate ability to rise above others and make plays.”

Was it innate, though? Were those physical gifts — the balance, the body control, the reflexes and instincts — just something he was born with? His mother was a gymnast and his aunt was a dancer, after all.

Or maybe that unique athletic background — the ballet, the kung fu, the Storm games and dance competitions and Mr. Spotlight crowns — all molded Kyler into a pass-catching, pick-snatching football machine. Perhaps each activity ultimately contributed to the final product, a four-star prospect ranked by 247Sports as the No. 102 overall player in the 2018 class.

Was it nature, nurture or a little bit of both?

“I think if you look at his background with dance, obviously that would help with his feet. Then kung fu (would help) with his stretching,” Jensen said. “You can see how those things just apply themselves to his athleticism.

“It just doesn’t look like he’s straining and overworking to do these things that you look at and they’re just jaw-dropping. So I do think those things played a key role in where he ended up as an athlete.”

Specifically, he ended up at Washington, where Kyler played in four games as a freshman and then essentially wrecked the competition at the Husky Combine last month. The redshirt freshman cornerback finished first on the team in the vertical jump (42.5 inches), second in the 3-cone drill (6.52 seconds) and pro agility drill (3.87 seconds) and third in the broad jump (10 feet, five inches).

But inside the program, at least, Kyler’s thorough domination didn’t open many eyes.

“We go play pick-up basketball and he’s dunking,” said senior defensive back Myles Bryant, “so that 42.5 (inch vertical jump) wasn’t a surprise.”

Still, a starting spot in his second season is far from a slam dunk. Through two and a half weeks of spring practice, Kyler — who, as a redshirt freshman, is not available to the media, by the way — has been sharing first-team reps with fellow redshirt freshman cornerback Dominique Hampton, opposite established starter Keith Taylor.

Kyler has always been an athlete. Now, he needs to prove he can play in the Pac-12.

“He’s got really good ball skills, which you know we’re always looking for in our corners — to be playmakers on the football,” defensive coordinator Jimmy Lake said last week. “Him and Keith Taylor are tied for the best hands in the room right now. They’ve got two picks apiece. So I’m expecting those guys to have a really good battle here for the rest of the camp.

“But Kyler’s athletic, can jump, can move side-to-side. It’s really more about him continuing to grow, continuing to attack the football and getting his man skills at a higher level, which he’s working at right now.”

Kyler’s still working, studying — and in between drills, he’s definitely dancing. He’s showing no signs of stopping.

His mother makes sure of that.

“I tell him, ‘You know what? There’s other kids better than you.’ So I think that’s why he’s so humble and quiet,” Evamarie Gordon said. “He has the love and passion for it. He knows there’s kids better than him, but he pays no mind to that.

“He’s always hard on himself and he knows he can do better, and he keeps pushing.”

The end goal, of course, is to crack a ridiculously deep rotation in Washington’s defensive secondary. It’s to demonstrate that a rebuilt defense can still produce the same results. It’s to star once again on a different kind of stage.

It’s to prove he’s still Mr. Spotlight.

Watch out. He’ll steal the show.

[MasterKiller]

Anyone know what style of Kung Fu Gordon practiced? Just curious.

Temple Kung Fu

[SPJ]

Kicking, running and dodging.

[GeneChing]

Ex-Phillies want the team to honor legendary strength coach, kung fu master Gus Hoefling
Mike Schmidt, Larry Bowa and others credit Hoefling's punishing workouts for fueling the team's 1980 World Series victory.


A generation of former Philly sports stars — including Phillies Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt, and former Eagles quarterback Roman Gabriel — credited Gus Hoefling with their on-field success. Hoefling died on July 4 at 88.Read more
DAVID MAIALETTI / Staff Photographer
by David Gambacorta
Published an hour ago

He operated in the shadows of Veterans Stadium, unseen by spectators.

Beginning in 1976, in a small, carpeted room just beyond the Philadelphia Phillies’ clubhouse, Gus Hoefling led a generation of players through daily workout routines that he’d concocted, a punishing blend of resistance exercises, stretching, and Northern Shaolin kung fu.

He was, by many accounts, major-league baseball’s first dedicated strength and conditioning coach, decades before it became customary for players to employ their own training entourages.

Hoefling was also a walking urban legend, a man whose mysterious backstory and unconventional methods transfixed otherwise hard-to-impress professional athletes.

“He came here with rumors of having been in competitive fights with Bruce Lee,” Mike Schmidt, the team’s Hall of Fame third baseman, wrote in an email, likening Hoefling’s training room to a “sweat dungeon.”

“Gus had lethal hands,” said former pitcher Larry Christenson, “and could break bamboo chopsticks with his throat.”


Mike Schmidt, and a core group of other Phillies who worked closely with Gus Hoefling, celebrated the franchise's first World Series championship at Veterans Stadium in 1980.

Hoefling, who coached 17 years with the Phillies, and four years with the Philadelphia Eagles, died July 4 in Tennessee, following a lengthy battle with head and neck cancer, said his wife, Maggie Hoefling. He was 88, and had requested to be cremated.

His death sent a ripple of heartbreak through a circle of former players who considered themselves his disciples, a group that included Schmidt, Christenson, Steve Carlton, Bob Boone, and Larry Bowa.

Each credited Hoefling with sharpening his mind as much as body. He urged the players to shed negative thoughts that gathered, like so many storm clouds, during difficult periods, and to instead believe that they could succeed.

That initial, core group of Phillies who worked with Hoefling went on to win the franchise’s first World Series championship, in 1980.

During a 2020 interview with The Inquirer, Hoefling summed up his philosophy in simple terms: “Anybody can quit. I want to win,” he said. “Turn negative knowledge into positive.”

Hoefling’s former pupils want the Phillies to publicly commemorate his legacy in some fashion, perhaps during the team’s alumni weekend festivities, which are scheduled to be held at Citizens Bank Park in August. (The Phillies did not respond to a request for comment.)

“It’s time to acknowledge him,” Schmidt said. “Actually, way past time.”

‘You gotta learn to move, move, move!’

It was the specter of an infamous day in U.S. history, and, later, a chance meeting with a down-on-his-luck quarterback that set Hoefling on a circuitous path to Philadelphia.

Hoefling grew up in Iowa, and was in third grade when Japanese fighter planes launched a surprise attack on a U.S. naval base in Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

A schoolteacher suggested that Iowa, the country’s bread basket, might be attacked, too, Hoefling previously told The Inquirer. He responded by sending some pocket change and a Wheaties box top to a radio show, Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy, and received a book on judo.

The judo book’s lessons ignited a lifelong passion for martial arts.

Years later, in Southern California, Hoefling studied tomari-te, a form of martial arts unique to Okinawa, and began teaching. One student was a doctor who introduced Hoefling in 1970 to Roman Gabriel, the Los Angeles Rams’ 6-foot-5 quarterback.




Elbow and leg injuries had derailed Gabriel’s career.

“[The Rams] thought I couldn’t take the pain,” Gabriel said during a recent interview, “which was bull—”

Hoefling began to train Gabriel, who had relied only on lifting weights and running to stay in shape. “He would throw punches at me and not let me block,” Gabriel recalled. “He’d say, ‘You gotta learn to move, move, move!’”

The Eagles traded for Gabriel in 1973, and Hoefling followed the quarterback to Philadelphia.

Guided by Hoefling, Gabriel shed 25 pounds, increased his flexibility, and turned inward.

“Gus was a great philosopher,” Gabriel said. “The most important wisdom he gave me was, ‘If you don’t know who you are, you won’t get respect from people.’”

During his first season with the Eagles, Gabriel threw for 3,219 yards and 23 touchdowns, and was named the NFL’s Comeback Player of the Year.

Hoefling won an admirer in the Phillies’ then-owner, Ruly Carpenter, who hired Hoefling after his tenure with the Eagles ended in 1976.

continued next post

[GeneChing]

Bob Carpenter, the son of former Phillies owner Ruly Carpenter, was among those who trained religiously with Gus Hoefling for years.
DAVID MAIALETTI / Staff Photographer

Ruly’s son, Bob Carpenter, was 13 when he first met Hoefling during spring training. The younger Carpenter grew curious about the “bald, jacked guy in shorts and boxing shoes” who was showing several Phillies what appeared to be unusual exercises.

Carpenter remembers Hoefling enlisted him to join with blunt humor: “Hey, kid, you can’t be a fat little **** all your life. Get up here and start training!”

Hoefling’s training room soon became the source of league-wide intrigue. Members of the team were challenged to reach to the bottom of a 55-gallon drum that was filled with rice, and move their arms around, a task at which Carlton, the future Hall of Fame lefthander, thrived. A dark, enclosed space — nicknamed the “mood room” — was used for meditation.

Players wore flat, thin-soled boxing shoes, which slipped easily on the carpeted floor. To disrupt their balance and focus, Hoefling would kick at their legs.

Schmidt compared Hoefling’s physique to Oddjob, the stout villain in Goldfinger, the 1964 James Bond film.

Bowa heard stories that Hoefling sometimes traveled the city’s subway in disguise, and grappled with muggers.

Hoefling told others, like pitcher Don Carman, of sneaking, years earlier, into China, to deepen his studies of kung fu — at a time when Americans were barred from visiting the country.

“This is where we weren’t sure if it was a myth,” Carman said, “or what really happened.”

“He had that mysterious martial arts tattoo on his arm,” Schmidt said. “He commanded tremendous respect. If he said ‘Do it,’ we did it.”


Steve Carlton was among Gus Hoefling's most devoted pupils. (AP Photo/Bill Ingraham)
ASSOCIATED PRESS

“If I had gotten into a fight with Gus the first year I worked with him,” said Boone, the former catcher, “he could have killed me in about 30 seconds.”

Hoefling’s most devoted followers continued their workouts at Veterans Stadium during the offseason, meeting five days a week. When the temperature outside turned bone-rattling cold, Hoefling had them run the stadium’s steep ramps.

For three consecutive seasons in the mid-to-late 1970s, the Phillies had suffered devastating losses in the National League Championship Series. Hoefling urged players to build a deeper resolve, to remember how fatigued they’d be in the summer, when the Vet’s AstroTurf could heat up to 165 degrees.

“He’d say, ‘Right now, you might think I’m nuts,” Bowa recalled. “But it’ll come into play when it’s August, and it’s the 8th inning, and the game is tied.’”

When his students excelled — Carlton won three of his four Cy Young awards while working with Hoefling, and Schmidt won three MVP awards — Hoefling didn’t seek any credit.

“I don’t think we would have won the World Series without him in 1980,” Carpenter said. “He had no idea the value he provided.”

‘He was our protector’

Hoefling’s career with the Phillies came to a quiet end in the early 1990s, after he was injured in an elevator accident. He continued to loom large, though, in the minds of former players, many of whom reflected on his lessons long after their playing careers ended.

“Gus was not just a teacher and a conditioning coach,” said Christenson, who remained close to Hoefling. “He was our friend. He was our protector.”

Left-handed pitcher Shane Rawley said he was “kind of floundering” when the New York Yankees traded him at age 28 to the Phillies in 1984.

“Gus became a major person in my life at that time,” he said. “I’d never been around someone like him.”

In 1987, Rawley led National League pitchers in starts, with 36.

Away from the game, Hoefling continued to enjoy sharing his training secrets, said his wife, Maggie. Sometimes that meant interrupting a restaurant dinner to discuss a waiter’s elbow pain, or inviting strangers into the garage of their Largo, Fla., home to exercise.

“If someone wanted to learn,” she said, “he’d go to the moon and back. He loved helping people.”


Former Phillies pitcher Larry Christenson said Gus Hoefling had "lethal hands," but used his abilities to motivate the team's players.
Copyright © The Phillies/Paul Roedig

Hoefling was slowed only by cancer — Stage IV squamous cell carcinoma of the left tonsil, which doctors discovered in 2018.

He believed the disease had been caused by a chewing tobacco addiction he developed in the 1970s, when the tobacco industry routinely provided their products to the Phillies and other teams, in an attempt to lure younger consumers into emulating their sports heroes, who played with puffed-out cheeks.

Hoefling endured grueling radiation and chemotherapy treatments, and unsuccessfully sued a pair of tobacco companies. Yet he remained capable, well into his 80s, of replicating the swift kung fu moves that had once enraptured members of the Phillies and Eagles.

“He was a phoenix that would rise from the ashes, no matter what,” Maggie Hofeling said. “He had such an aura — this forcefulness and positivity that he carried through his entire life.”

Like Hoefling’s former students, she hopes that that his pioneering work can now be celebrated, before memories of that magical era in the city’s sports history begin to fade.

Hoefling’s words still burn brightly in the mind of Roman Gabriel, who continues to repeat an instruction that he received long ago.

At night, Hoefling once told Gabriel, lie down in a dark room, and consider how fortunate you are to be alive, to play a game you love, to have people in your life who care for you.

“I miss him,” Gabriel said. “God, I miss him.”


Even after battling head and neck cancer in his 80s, Gus Hoefling remained capable of replicating kung fu moves that once enraptured a generation of Phillies and Eagles.
David Maialetti / Staff photographer


David Gambacorta
David Gambacorta
I work on the investigations team, and narrative-driven projects.

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