During the Holidays, besides diving my brains out and enjoying the local cuisine of Cozumel, I was watching one of my favorite sporting events, the Ultimate Fighting Championships.
But this time, it wasn't my normal venue for watching, which is at home in front of the big screen with the surround sound jacked up so every bone-jarring strike sounds like a hammer hitting a piece of wet wood.
No, this time I was in Mexico, in the outdoor courtyard of an Irish bar, watching the fights on a television that had been propped up on milk crates high enough for everyone to see and hot-wired into an electrical outlet for power.
Sandro, who was my dive master for the trip and a huge martial arts fan, knew what I did for a living and as we were talking martial arts one day he asked if I was going to watch the fights.
I told him I was looking for a place that was going to show it and if I found one, I would call him. Once I found out about Kelley's, I buzzed him and told him to meet me there.
While I was there waiting for him, I noticed something. Wave after wave of people coming in asking about the fights.
People on the islands for an extended vacation. Foreigners that had moved to the island and didn't have cable. Tourists off of the cruise ships not wanting to miss the fights and even locals who were martial arts fans.
I asked to sit with a nice couple from Missouri, Larry and Jane. They were there on vacation and Larry, who is an undercover narcotics officer and looks like a biker version of Hulk Hogan, was a huge fan of the martial arts.
As Larry and I got to talking about the arts, Sandro shows up with his friends. They jump in the conversation and then some people from the cruise ships show up, ask if they can hop in, and they start talking about it.
Pretty soon, we had a large crowd huddled around the milk crates waiting for the fights to start, all of us jabbering back and forth about the martial arts.
What was amazing was how everyone was drawn to the martial arts through this event. The more people I talked to, the more they all said that they admired the fights and fighters because of their skills, their knowledge and also the respect that they had for each other and the arts.
Larry asked me how the fighters did what they did and more detailed questions about the martial arts, so I told him about Secrets of the Shaolin Temple Volume I.
I shared with him that if he went to http://www.shaolinsecrets.com, he could get some of the oldest and most authentic information in the world on martial arts principles and training.
He would have access to the original written recorded history of the legendary Shaolin Temple of China. Ten volumes of secrets, principles, training tips, and more, all used to train martial artists from over fifteen hundred years ago to today.
As the fights were going on, I was showing him different fighters were using different principles taught in Secrets of the Shaolin Temple Volume I. How as they used them it changed what was happening and gave the fighter an advantage.
Larry was pretty blown away and asked for my e-mail and the website so he could go check it out for himself. We exchanged contact information and I thanked him for letting me park it with him and his wife and enjoy the fights together.
As I was leaving, I was inspired and amazed that the martial arts can bring so many different cultures and types of people together.
I was also fired up at how much Secrets of the Shaolin Temple Volume I could help all of them, regardless of their skill sets or experience in the martial arts. I just know that Larry is going to be stoked when he gets to http://www.shaolinsecrets.com.
Best,
William Huff
P.S. - If you haven't done it yet, get over to http://www.shaolinsecrets.com and get your copy before Larry does. I think once he sees how cool it is, he might try to arrest me for making this information available.