Chris Santillo

In 2010, Gary had been helping his wife with her photography business when he was introduced to Potomac Kempo. The couple had shot family portraits for Master Santillo, and when they were reviewing the photos, the conversation turned to Gary’s fitness level.

“We looked at my belly — and my belly had gotten pretty big,” Gary says. “Chris said to me, ‘We could work on that.’ He was not pushy at all. He just said if it’s something you ever want to do, let me know.”

At that time, Gary had recently moved to Alexandria from Blacksburg, Va., to be closer to his fiancée. But he’d left behind his friends and support crew, and he was feeling a little out-of-sorts in D.C. — not to mention bored and overweight.

But it was another year before he took Master Santillo up on his offer. And that’s only because an email arrived in  July 2011 that changed everything. It was a save-the-date message for his 25th high school reunion in Appomattox, Va.

“I realized I needed to go back and see my friends I grew up with in five months,” he says. But he also knew he was no longer the skinny kid his school friends called Gilligan, and he decided to do something about it. “I wanted to be in shape.”

Wasting no time, Gary got in touch with Master Santillo, who promptly set him up for his first class that same day. As Gary describes it, he was put through the ringer by his instructor. He had never heard of a Burpee; he managed to do 15 but thought it was going to kill him. “I had my butt handed to me,” he says. “And I joined on the spot.”

To be fair, the reunion wasn’t Gary’s only motivation. He and his fiancee had married, and she had soon afterwards been diagnosed with M.S. It happened suddenly — she woke up one morning with tingling that quickly led to a loss of fine motor skills. Today, she largely controls the disease with medication, but at the time, it was difficult and scary, and there were a lot of unknowns about her condition and future. Gary felt like there wasn’t anything he could do to help her. So he decided to get himself in shape.

“Health was really on our minds,” he says. “So I decidedif I could be in better shape, that would allow me to do something I could really take control of.”

So having never played sports or been a gym rat (he played chess and Dungeons & Dragons in high school), and having spent the previous 12 years sitting at a desk for work, Gary committed to Kempo. His only experience with martial arts — beyond photographing tournaments — was as a young boy. His brother, older by six years, practiced American Freestyle Karate and would come home and try out his moves on Gary. “I’d practice with his nun-chucks and throwing stars, and we’d spar and wrestle,” he says. “I always wanted to do whatever he did, and he was a big influence in my life.”

Understanding that it would take time to learn a brand new discipline, Gary knew that he was making a long-term commitment. “I knew it would be difficult to master, and I didn’t really expect that I’d be any good at it,” he says.

The first few weeks were the hardest. He got deep gashes on his toes, carpet burns and bruises. “I was constantly sore, and my brain felt like it could not hold any additional Kempos,” he says. Yet he kept returning to the dojo, even when he could barely stand or stay awake.

As a white belt, he practiced nearly every day, and it paid off. He was invited to join the Academy shortly after earning his purple belt. To him, being asked to teach the new skills he’d learned was an incredible honor.

Three years later, Gary, 47, can do 40 pushups “in a heartbeat.” His upper body strength has improved, he’s lost 30 pounds, and he had to buy new clothes to accommodate his slimmer waistline.

He still works at home, as a consultant for an electrical engineering firm, mostly making phone calls. He also works part-time for Potomac Kempo, handling perspective student inquiries and managing much of the dojo’s social media and photography.

Gary has found that his fellow students have become family. He’s developed a nice network of friends and enjoys seeing them outside of classes. He says he has also been honored to photograph some of the students, including family portraits and the wedding of one couple he trains with.

 

In the fall of 2013, Gary talked to Master Santillo about going to China to train with the Shaolin Monks and test for his Black Belt. As the staff photographer, he had seen countless belt tests for other students, and he knew what to expect — in the dojo. But testing at the Shaolin Temple was a big unknown, so he began to train even harder. He started doing daily push-ups, increased his running and added extra sets during class. He even accepted the challenge of Sensei Dyer to run in a Tough Mudder race outside of Richmond, successfully running through 10 miles of mud and tackling obstacles.

As a third-degree brown belt, Gary traveled to China, his first ever overseas trip. He was surprised how difficult it was to climb the mountain with the other students. “The stone steps were designed as a defense mechanism, and there was no normal cadence going up,” he says. “You couldn’t just run up them. I found out quickly that I wasn’t in the shape I thought I was in.” He was also still tired from travel, and the previous two hours of kung fu. But he tested, and he earned the Black Belt for which he trained.

Then, at the bottom of the mountain, something magical happened. He was stretching and feeling very limber. He casually bent over at the hips and for the first time, he touched his toes. Two days after he returned from China, he said he was stiff as a board again, but now that he knows it’s possible, he will work harder to repeat the toe-touching. “I’m still working on the flexibility. People say that it’s a difficult goal for older males, so it will be hard to achieve,” he says.

He also realizes, now that he has his Black Belt, that more work lies ahead of him. “There is exponentially more to learn between Black Belt and Second-Degree Black Belt than between previous belts,” he says. “It’s like in music, when you have the chords and chord structure down, and then you can start putting it together to make music. I have the basic tools to make the art happen on my own without a step-by-step guide. The challenge now is putting it together myself.

When Gary returned from China, his wife – who has been a strong influence in pushing him along in his practice – had made a beautiful rack for his belts at her father’s woodworking shop. “When I got back, she had put all my belts on there, and one spot remains for a Black Belt. Rather than getting a second Black Belt to display, she said once I get my Second-Degree Black Belt, we will put the first one in the display case. She’s already expecting me to do more training.”

Gary says it felt great to put on the Black Belt. His first day wearing it inthe dojo, he was congratulated, and he swelled with pride. But as soon as he started practicing, he says the belt color didn’t matter – he was training just like he always had.

As for the reunion, he says, “I looked good!” But he stresses that he looks a whole lot better now. “I was confident, and I think that’s the bottom line. I felt like I could show up and smile and feel happy, and that’s because of the Kempo training.”

When Jordan first returned to the dojo after earning his adult Black Belt in 2013 — one of the youngest at Potomac Kempo to do so — he was on cloud nine. Passing the test was thrilling, but it even more, the experience was emotional.

“This was the goal ever since I started when I was a kid,” Jordan says. “I always thought Black Belt was the coolest thing. Attaining that goal was huge for me. It’s like, you have this dream for your sport, and you’ve finally done it. It’s a reality, yet it’s overwhelming.”

But it didn’t take long back at the dojo for a different reality to set in. One of Jordan’s fellow students told him that once a martial artist has his Black Belt, then the real learning can begin. “He said, ‘From white to black is just learning the basics, and then you really start understanding what you’re capable of as a martial artist when you get your Black Belt,’” Jordan remembers.

Although it might have somewhat dampened his celebratory mood, that comment didn’t necessarily come as a surprise to Jordan, because stopping after he earned his Black Belt was never a consideration. “I kind of accepted the fact that I have a lot more to go,” he says. “You don’t all of a sudden know everything when you’re a Black Belt.”

Jordan, 16, and a junior at Annandale High School, has been studying kempo since he was 5. He remembers going to a fair where Potomac Kempo had set up a tent. A promotional wheel allowed people to spin for free classes. “My dad had me spin the wheel, and I got a month of free lessons,” Jordan says.

At the beginning, Jordan remembers a class full of children in brand-new white uniforms and belts that were a little tricky to put on. He was skeptical, but it didn’t take long for him to learn some defensive maneuvers, which he would enthusiastically show off at home. “I come home and say, ‘Mom, look what I can do now!’ I just thought it was the coolest thing ever.”

Jordan’s family moved some furniture to the perimeter of the living room, giving him space to practice. Each time he tested for a new belt, he would worry about not getting it. “There was always this fear that you’d be the one person who didn’t advance,” Jordan says. “You go in and feel great about it, take the test with your friends, then you think you could be the one who doesn’t pass.” His parents always assured him that the instructors wouldn’t invite him to test if he weren’t ready for it.

Over the years, Jordan has taken several classes each week, occasionally needing to pause his practice for a week or two to catch up with homework or high school sports — he swims in the winter and is a saxophonist in the school band.

The discipline of martial arts training has helped Jordan’s endurance in swimming, but also his ability to focus and control his emotions and his body. “If you start feeling stressed out or freaked out, you can step back and relax for a minute,” he says.

At the end of his sophomore year, for example, Jordan and his classmates were given final projects for each class — which meant coming home with as many as four different final projects due within the month. “When you come home and start working on it, you realize it’s a lot more than you thought,” Jordan says. “You start thinking about getting it all done, not messing up, trying to get a good grade, and it’s easy to freak out.” Once he took a moment to step back and put everything in perspective, he was able to return to the work calmly and take on one assignment at a time.

Jordan began taking adult kempo classes in 2012. He is now 5’8”, but he still feels outsized by a lot of other students. It’s one thing to defend yourself against other kids, he says, but now he understands the advantage that adults may have over him in size or strength. His advantage is speed. “I’m faster than a lot of the adults I face. I try to use speed to my advantage, trying to move around, go to the side, find an opening.”

He says now that he is a Black Belt, it’s important for him to find his own style, and speed works to his advantage. “You can’t just go straight into someone, especially if you don’t have the height and weight. You need a style that works for you to defend yourself.”

These days, Jordan finds that much of his training returns him to the basics, and he understands that even the most complex maneuvers won’t be successful unless the student has nailed all the elementary components. “Great technique, a straight back, looking forward in the stances… Those kinds of things you have to do right,” Jordan says. If you’re not, the instructors will point them out, and that will stay in your mind for the rest of class.”

When people ask Jordan if he remembers a time before karate, he says, with the exception of one or two memories, not really. “I can’t even imagine the type of person I’d be like if I wasn’t in karate,” he says. “It’s been my life for so long, and it was such a big part of my childhood.”

To a 5-year-old today, he would say simply, “Don’t stop.” He would tell that young martial artist that there will be times when it seems like it’s taking forever to get the next belt, and there will be times when it’s really hard to keep going. “But when you do keep going,” he says, “it pays off.”

José, a 52-year-old software engineer with a small company in Arlington, likes to compare martial arts to graduate work.

“I got a masters degree from George Mason, and this feels like the same major commitment of time and effort,” he says. “That’s why so many people start and don’t finish. But I don’t like quitting. Plus, it’s good for me. If I wasn’t doing karate, I would be at home watching TV.”

Among the older students at Potomac Kempo, José began taking classes five years ago, when his son Stephen Rubio – an instructor at the dojo – gave him and his wife each a week of classes as a gift. At the time, José had been working out at a local gym twice a week. He had never practiced martial arts and didn’t consider himself an athlete or jock. Furthermore, he was somewhat concerned about being one of the older students, being a slow learner and not be able to keep up. But José found almost immediately that he enjoyed the practice and soon began realizing its benefits.

“This is a big step up from my gym workout,” he says. “At first, you learn all the strikes and stances, and then you have to practice, practice, practice. It was a challenge at the beginning. But the students are nice, and the instructors are patient.” He says there are some students who can do hundreds of burpees and some who can’t do any. “I’m not the best and not the worst; I’m about in the middle.”

José says he is in much better shape today, with improved balance and more options in his self-defense toolbox – tools he hopes he never has to use. His chronic back and knee pain have all but gone dormant the last few years, after plaguing him on a regular basis – he used to throw his back out every six months. And Kempo has also benefited him psychologically.

“One of the reasons I started the classes was to help with anger management – stuff like road rage,” he says. “When I leave work, sometimes I’m angry at a lot of little things, and if I go right to a class, then I go home in a much better mood. It helps with my level of happiness.”

 

In April, José successfully completed a black belt test, which was held outside at a park in Alexandria. “It was a pretty intense test, on one of the first hot days of the season, and I had no trouble doing it,” he says. His overall physical conditioning, he adds, is what enabled him to make it through a grueling day of physical challenges in energy-sapping weather.

These days, José is at the dojo three times a week, working particularly on forms that involve good balance and coordination, such as spinning kicks. “Some guys get it quickly,” he says. “It takes me more time. I’m also a little slow in sparring, with my reaction time to my opponent. So people have time to punch me. I need to improve that.”

Unlike a graduate degree, in Kempo, there isn’t one final commencement day, when the student can put everything behind him. But that’s one of the things José likes so much about the practice.

“Once you know the basic curriculum, you learn the more subtle and advanced stuff,” he says. “Things like take-downs on your knees, or where you barely use one hand to flip the other person onto their back. I’m like, wow! How do I do that? The training is continuous. If you quit, you go back to being fat, slow and out of breath. So as long as I can, I’m sticking to it and trying to improve.”

Growing up in Northern Virginia, Dyer was an overweight and out-of-shape kid. He dreamed about practicing martial arts, like his oldest brother, but he never had the opportunity to take classes. The closest he got was donning his brother’s yellow belt and running around the house, a make-believe kung fu master.

A couple decades later, Dyer returned to Northern Virginia from a year studying art renaissance history in Italy. Having succumbed to the Italian cuisine, and not having had a regular workout schedule, Dyer was 40 pounds overweight and again, out of shape.

Now armed with an English degree and not-so-dreamy day job (while seeking work at a museum), Dyer decided to make good on his childhood wish and explore the world of Kempo.

“I remember almost throwing up in my first lesson,” Dyer says. “I was so inflexible I couldn’t reach the kick bag, which was a foot off the floor. I realized I really needed to get in shape.”

 

Once Dyer made the decision, he was committed to the practice and worked hard to improve. Within a couple months, he says he was so in love with Kempo that he changed his goal; now, he wanted to train to become an instructor. He joined the Academy, a volunteer program for students who want to teach, and before long, he was begging Master Santillo for a full-time job as an instructor.

“They were taking on instructors, and from what I remember, there were not a lot of positions open,” Dyer says. “But I’d made it clear that I was looking to do it.” In 2008, just eight months after he first arrived at the dojo, he left his day job and found himself working for Master Santillo, putting in long weeks teaching Kempo.

These days, Dyer is among the hardest-training students in the dojo. He teaches instructors and some of the most advanced students. Each week includes teaching five group classes and as many as 30 private lessons. He also helps in what he calls “behind-the-scenes,” with ideas to improve the program, training methods and drills.

So who teaches one of the top teachers? That job falls to Master Santillo. “One of the most important things Master Santillo has taught instructors is that there is always something to work on,” Dyer says. “He’s a good example of that. It’s something I take seriously. I’m in the dojo 60 hours a week and put in a couple hours of training on my days off. The thing about martial arts is that once you understand it, you can apply it. It’s a never-ending process.”

Currently, for example, he is working on timing his weight shift into every move and maintaining longer and deeper stances. He also learns by comparing notes with his middle brother, who – coincidently – also did not practice martial arts as a child but today teaches the discipline in Georgia.

Dyer earned his Third Degree Black Belt last summer, in a private test administered on the mountains overlooking the Shaolin Temple in northern China. He will return this summer, as the guest of the family of two of his students, who will be testing for Junior Brown and Junior Black Belts.

Looking back, Dyer can see clearly what a different life he leads today. The obvious are his flexibility (“I don’t worry about busting my toe on the base of the kick bag anymore; I can kick over my head”), and he has lost a significant amount of weight and reached a healthy body fat percentage. The last time his heart rate was checked, the nurse had the doctor double-check it — because it was so low.

But the less obvious changes have to do with Dyer’s lifestyle. He and his wife eat all organic, all local food, and the discipline he has learned in Kempo has helped him manage his non-healthy urges. “You still have cravings for things, but with the discipline you can say, ‘I should probably stop eating this now,’ or ‘This is probably better for me than a cream-filled pastry.’” He says after a while of eating healthy, his body began craving different things. “The other day, I was sitting around the house, and I said, ‘I really want a carrot.’”

Dyer says Kempo has even helped in the way he communicates and how he carries himself around others. “I have worked very hard, and I think that’s inspiring to people,” he says. One of the most rewarding parts of reaching such a high level in his practice is that he knows people see how far he has come, and they can gain from it. “I think my experience getting in shape gets other people excited,” he says. “Being able to spread the enthusiasm for health and fitness is incredibly important and powerful.”

When Brianne moved to Washington after college, she decided to accompany a friend at a kempo class. The first thing she learned is just how out of shape she was. The second thing she learned – when she continued going to classes – is that there wasn’t going to be an easy out.

“I’d never been part of something that was such a shared experience with so many people,” she says. “I was embarrassed because I was so out of shape, but people would say, ‘We were all there at some point!’ And they would say, ‘See you Monday!’ If I wasn’t there, they would say, ‘We missed you Monday!’ And that’s what keeps me going back.” [Read more…] about Student Profile: Brianne

Kempo is sometimes compared to boot camp and occasionally likened to CrossFit. But it’s not often that you hear “Kempo” in the same breath as “Law School.”

Yet for Mike and Lisa Zarlenga, the correlation is clear.

“You go to law school for three years, but it’s not until you graduate that you start learning the law,” Mike says. “That’s kind of how Kempo is – up until Black Belt, there’s all this basic preparatory material, like how to punch and how to kick. It’s not until you get into higher ranks that you really feel like you’re doing Kempo. Master Santillo always says, ‘It’s not until you are a Black Belt that I can actually teach you anything.’” [Read more…] about Student Profile: Mike & Lisa