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History of Grand Master O. E. Simon |
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1980’s In 1980/ 81 "Simon's Kung Fu Studios" changed their name to "Temple Kung Fu Studios". Master Philip MacAndrews left the organization and Roman Terlecki became the new heir apparent to Grand Master Simon. Roman also became the owner of a new Vancouver TKF studio location around this time. Richard Shergold, another future Master of Grand Master Simons Moh Kempo Style, started his teaching career with Temple Kung Fu in 1980 under the guidance of Master R. Terlecki. In 1986 Master Roman Terlecki separated ways with Grand Master Simon & Temple Kung Fu Studios. He now has his own school "The Shaolin Kung Fu Academy". It was shortly after this that all of the studios were sold to the four Masters presently at Temple Kung Fu: R. Shergold, D. McDonald, J. Jacubowski and D. Piercey; Though Grand Master Simon was apparently still a 50 percent shareholder in these companies.
Grand Master Simon created the Neo Ch'an Buddhist Temple around 1987 and become the self appointed leader of this spiritual group, referring to himself as the “Dalai Seng Shi”. Translated into English “Dalai” means His Holiness the Great White Ocean, and “Seng-Shi” means White Priest. Neo is Latin for new and Ch'an meaning enlightenment.
“It is different from classical Buddhism in that firstly we believe in God, whereas in the other (Buddhism) there is no relationship to God, and the secondary is that it is non-denominational. Meaning that a person can be a member of the Temple without severing the ties to his original whatever he has. It can remain intact or not, whatever they choose.”
The philosophy of the Neo Ch'an Buddhist Temple forms the foundation for the code of ethics and the code of behavior for the modern Temple Kung Fu system.
“I think that is quite important. For me it was important because I wanted to give the art a Temple where it came from simply because there was such disorganization out in the martial arts. It was impossible to unite them. Anybody could call himself anything which was all right because at one time the old masters had no masters to promote them, but finally entering the civilized age of 2,000 years later it was still chaos out there... If you start a temple and you have a philosophy and you want to set an example you set an outline in order to do that. But if you form anything you got to start having a system of concept by which people can relate to what you are doing.” “I basically do not believe that we have a much better religion than anybody else. We are most likely the worst there is in my opinion. We have no such ambition to be better than anybody. We just want to be pure as best as we know how to do that... We had the idea that we should have funds for people to help them out especially the brethren who were in the Pai Hu Shih, and usually that went over quite well. But there were never really enough funds, so we mainly send flowers. We watched for people who were sick. But not all the people either in the Pai Hu Shih are members of the Temple. There are very few members. And we have I think five, six, seven, five thousand students or so, and we may have about three hundred members I think”.
At the same time Grand Master Simon started to teach Ch'an Meditation in his Temple Kung Fu Studios.
“They are referred to as meditation seminars, but they involve quite a wide range of philosophy from Chinese to the integration of North America. I have a dislike for the fact that if a master is a non-Chinese that he is a lesser master. I don't like that”. “I also teach people who are not in the Temple without that I say this is Temple philosophy. There is a lot of people coming to my seminars and mainly I think -- our followers are there of course. They like to be there., But I would do the same thing if you would be a student. You can listen to it and say, oh, my God, this is a bunch of bunk or whatever. Or you would say, well, the man has some -- makes a point there. You might ascribe to it or not. You know what I am saying?”
Olaf Simon also started to teach his Pai Hu Shih style in the mid '80's. Pai Hu Shih is a style which he developed but held back from his students & teachers for years. Literally translated Pai Hu Shih means “White Tiger Style”.
"Is the “Pai Hu Shi”
a traditional Chinese martial art – No! Those who have made that claim
don’t know what they are talking about... That is why many of us in
Alberta for years have also referred to the Pai Hu Shi as “Simon’s Style”.
Many other founders of martial arts systems have done the exact same
thing, so why is this such a surprise? Morihei Ueshiba founded Aikido, Ed
Parker founded American Kenpo, Mas Oyama founded Kyokushin Karate, Bruce
Lee founded Jeet Kune Do, the Gracie’s formatted Gracie Jujitsu…each one
of these masters took the knowledge that they were taught and produced
their own unique style, that’s why they are masters. If this didn’t occur
we would all still be training only 20 motions from a thousand years ago,
so what’s the problem here? Yes, Grandmaster Simon was trained by a
Shaolin Priest, however it would be difficult for any style to claim that
they train “authentic” Shaolin Kung Fu in the same form as it was in the
Shaolin Temple since the original monks have all pasted away and the
Shaolin Temple is now under the direction of the Communist Chinese Army...
“I have patented myself and where I have a manuscript ready to be published. This is a very effective way, very destructive form of Kung Fu which I throughout my studio don't introduce... (Later) I introduced them to the true concept of Kung Fu which isn’t anywhere else which I was taught by my master, and he told me in time I will find out I will learn not to step forward but to stand still. And I understood that finally it came to me that is the only way it must have been designed because the monks never walked after anyone. And if danger comes to one it is easy to depose of it than going after danger. There are many scientific facts underlying to this, so I have actually proven and established a scientific concept to this method of dealing which no other style ever has attempted to have a scientific proven method in this style which cannot by means of signs discount it.”
As of November of 1988 there were two studios in Edmonton, one in Calgary, two in Vancouver, and three in Seattle. During the late 1980's & '90's, Master Shergold spent much time working with Olaf & June Simon at the Temple Kung Fu Studios head office in Grand Forks, British Columbia. He received his 7th degree Black Belt from Grand Master Simon and was one of the first people trained by GM Simon in the Pai Hu Shih style, training the "White Tiger Style" directly under Olaf for approximately 8 years. He eventually split from Grand Master Simon & Temple Kung Fu in 1992. There is much animosity between Olaf & Richard. Master Shergold has since moved far beyond his days with GM Olaf Simon and Temple Kung Fu. He has had his own school for many years, the "Shaolin Kung Fu Academy" (Not related to Master R. Terlecki's school of the same name), and has developed strong, positive relationships with many old associates of Olaf Simon from generations gone by. Though many people definitely share his opinion of Olaf Simon, Master Shergold is probably the most vocal in challenging Grand Master Simon's "unproven" claims.
(without prejudice) |
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