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History of Grand Master O. E. Simon |
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1960’s CONTINUED Master Olaf Simon was on the Board of Advisors of “Action Karate” Magazine along with the following individuals. Al Steen, Ed Parker, Stephen Armstrong, Aaron Hanks, James Harrison, James Jones, Lou Angel & Ralph Castro among others.
While in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada Olaf Simon worked with the likes of Stan Lee, Frank Lee, Ben Mah & Mark Chan. He apparently helped Frank Lee get in international tournaments in North America because at the time Frank didn’t have access to the United States. The two of them exchanged knowledge and were training partners. This was over a long period of time, with a total of up to 100 hours spent training together.
“Stanley Lee was very enamored with me. Well, I – he liked me intensely because I was promoting Kung Fu more than the Chinese ever could do in Alberta. I was really putting it on the map if you want me to say that. And he never taught me Kung Fu, but he showed me a form there once. It was too lengthy. I couldn't remember it. And I myself didn't like it. It was too wavy to -- I didn't just like it, but I was not a student of his. But he showed me things, yes. Nothing I already didn't know. The arts are very interrelated. Sometimes you would not know whether you were a Karate man or you were a Kung-Fu man. It is at times not discernible. If I referee students and I saw the different styles sometime I couldn't tell whether this man was a Japanese participant of a Japanese style or a Chinese one.”
Grand Master's S. Lee and M. Chan were both running a Kung Fu school in Edmonton called "Green Dragon Kung Fu" when Olaf Simon met them. Sometime later GM's Chan and Lee themselves had a falling out and went their separate ways. A source from GM Lee's Ging Wu school claims that Grand Master Lee showed Simon his first Kung Fu form. He said "That when Stan showed Olaf the form a week later Simon already had it split up into five pieces and was charging to learn each piece... Grandmaster Lee said that Simon knew his stuff and was good, just his business ethics were a little shady."
“I built on what I had been taught privately when I was a child. There was a substantial amount of knowledge I had then. I had weapon, sword forms, and the basic forms on which the style is built. I was taught then, and when I had enough knowledge I decided to develop my own style as most masters living did. There is a whole -- about 50 or 60 world-renowned masters who founded their own style and became world-renowned masters by going away from either Chinese, Japanese, or Korean just synthesizing the styles and creating their own.”
Above is a link to a page from the "1967 Western Canadian Centennial Karate Championships" that briefly explains Master Simon's history at the time. This tournament was hosted by the "International Zen Karate Association", both of these organizations being founded by Master Olaf E. Simon. This page specifically mentions how at a young age Olaf was taught a Shaolin style of Karate by a family member (Fu Yen?), and then later learning Japanese motions from his friend Major Rei Hanashiro from the Kyoto Military Academy. This reference to Major Hanashiro is the first and only one that has been found (so far), in regards to Olaf Simon's history.
Other pages in this same program discuss the following:
(without prejudice) |
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