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From The President...

A Fallen Kenpo Brother

by Bryan Hawkins, President, UKS  

After studying martial arts in Northern California for some years, I moved to Los Angeles in late 1979 and began my Kenpo training in November of 1980. The very first group class that I attended was a large class of about 30 students jammed into a somewhat small training area. I remember being somewhat apprehensive being that I had only had one Kenpo lesson prior to being thrown into a group class with a variety of students, many of them intermediate belts and certainly looking like they knew what they were doing.

I got through the class just fine without too many bumps and bruises to my body or my ego, but the thing I remember thinking most about was how much I enjoyed the black belt who instructed the class. For being a relatively young guy – I figured him to be 24 or 25 years old – he had a very commanding presence in front of the group and at the same time I sensed a very sincere and caring attitude in the way he dealt with the students one-on-one while communicating the particular technique or concept he had chosen as his subject matter for that evening.

Not long after that evening, I got to know that instructor on a personal level and he divulged to me that he in fact had only received his black belt a few weeks before that class and he was also very nervous because just as it had been the first group class I had attended, it was the first group class he had taught as a black belt. We laughed about that many times over the years that our friendship spanned. As life would have it, we went in different directions about 10 years ago, but we still saw each other about once a year at various Kenpo Karate functions. This man’s name was David George.

Sadly, on Wednesday the 7^th of May 2003, David died of a heart attack at the age of 46. David’s death once again reminds us of life’s brevity and makes us reexamine our true priorities in life and most importantly in our interpersonal relationships. I wish I could take David out to dinner or bring him over to the house so I could have a good long conversation with him and not just the brief meetings we’ve had in the last 10 years – but of course it’s now too late. I personally am going to revisit some past relationships in my Kenpo history and try to re-associate with some old friends before the brevity of life comes knocking and tells me it’s too late again.

David was a good friend and very much a big brother figure to me in the early 1980s. I will never forget the knowledge and friendship that he shared with me. David George had a special place in the American Kenpo family, and will be sorely missed by the entire Kenpo community.

May David rest in peace.

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