My beginnings In Man Sau Gwoon -by Terry Rongo

[Terry rongo]

Awatea though it would be a good idea to write a few things about the time I joined MSG. Gee I don’t know if I can think that far back. The first memories I had was when I first got know Nathan who then invited me to come along to a kung fu school. So I did. I remember I was attempting to chain punch-I though I was doing pretty good, then I looked down at what I was doing and looked up at what Awatea was doing and I was doing it all wrong. Our seniors at that time were Hamish and Phil and a few others. I also seem to remember Awatea son running around in which you didn’t want to upset as his father was the teacher lol. From that time onward I started going along to the club every week. I think it was the relaxed atmosphere and the method of what was being taught that kept me coming back for more. Also I think it was my training brothers such as Nathan as well who got me even more pumped in learning this type on marital arts–This one time we went to the beach and had ‘little play around’ If you know any thing about what a little play around consist of then you know that I had few bumps and bruises after that. From that time onward I continued to go to the club to train. From there the club moved to George Street– to an upstairs studio which was our new training ground. There I became along with Nathan one of the senior students under Awatea once Phil left. Those days were fun and I learnt a few things from my time there such as- to respect those you train with and to have fun training in some thing you love doing. After returning to New Zealand from my mission in 2004 I got married and had a few kids and now the time has come to get back into training with the intention of opening a club in Rotorua in the future when the time is right. Thats my brief but continuous story with this wonderful style of Wing Chun hopefully once everything is up and running there will be more to add. Keep up the training. Later