PizDoff
7/02/2005 9:30pm,
http://www.santamariatimes.com/content/articles/2005/07/01/news/sports/sports45.jpg
Santa Maria resident Andy Wilson shows off his plaque that he received as an award of Lifetime Achievement from the Blackbelt Hall of Fame earlier this month. Wilson, originally from Skokie, Ill., holds black belts in three disciplines. - Aaron Lambert/Staff
SM's Wilson enters Hall of Fame
By Kenny Cress / Sports Writer
They said he couldn't do it.
That was all the incentive Andy Wilson needed to try.
Wilson, a Skokie, Ill. native and graduate of Father Flannigan's Boys Town in Nebraska who lives in Santa Maria now, had already become the first to win Ed Parker's International Karate Tournament championship blindfolded after all three divisional champions fought that way.
He had wowed the crowd with his nunchaku routine while wearing his blindfold. Now the 5-8, 149-pound Wilson was confronted with a different challenge.
On that day at the tournament in Long Beach in 1983, "The tournament directors said, 'Why don't you try and break the board blindfolded?' They were just joking. They didn't think there was any way I could do it," Wilson said.
The two-foot board was 12 feet at its apex on a scaffold. Wilson thought, "What the heck, I've already won (the tournament). The worst I can do is hit the scaffolding."
Wilson leaped, somersaulted - and his foot smashed the board at 11 feet. "The directors said that was the highest flip they'd ever seen," Wilson said during an interview at the Keichu Do Christian Karate School in Santa Maria earlier this week. Wilson trains at the school which Karl Marx, a member of the Louisiana Black Belt Hall of Fame, founded.
In fact, a press release said that Wilson's board-breaking kick that day WAS the highest ever.
On June 21 in Las Vegas, Wilson, who holds black belts in Tae-Kwon Do, Kung Fu and Karate, was inducted into the World Martial Arts Hall of Fame at the World Martial Arts Championships. Wilson received a Lifetime Achievement Award.
On the road to the martial arts' ultimate honors, Wilson made a habit of proving detractors wrong.
Wilson winning the Junior Olympics gymnastics competition in Nebraska? No way, doubters said. Wrong.
Wilson becoming a Florida state Kung Fu champion in 1981 after he had left the Navy? Can't happen, said scoffers. Wrong again.
There were probably those who didn't think it was possible that he could land a spot in the Olympic Trials for the 1972 U.S. gymnastics team that would go to Munich or earn himself a spot with Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Wrong on both counts.
He didn't make the U.S. team, but Wilson said he made a strong showing at the Trials. Meanwhile, Wilson said, he worked for Ringling Bros. as a trapeze flyer from 1976 through part of 1978.
The Santa Maria resident saw his hard work in and for the martial arts culminate in the sport's highest honor when he accepted his induction into the World Martial Arts Hall and his Lifetime Achievement award.
"My 14-year-old daughter Molly was with me, and I was really glad she was able to see it," Wilson said.
He chuckled. "I hurt my foot before the ceremony. Can you believe it? Thank god I didn't have to climb anything to accept the award."
Wilson, cerebral and well-spoken, said, "There's this temptation to label martial artists as aggressive, and I really don't like that.
"I'm totally non-aggressive," Wilson said, pointing out, as other martial artists have, that the martial arts focus on mental, not physical, aspects. Wilson said the martial arts are designed to be used in self defense.
In fact, in a 1989 letter to NOVA Enterprizes choreographer Mike Stone and producer Allen Amiel, Wilson politely declined an opportunity to play the part of the late martial arts actor Bruce Lee, citing what he saw as a conflict with his Christian beliefs.
A press release noting Wilson's accomplishments leading to his induction into the World Martial Arts Hall of Fame has an imposing list.
Wilson's win at the International Karate Championships came at the same tournament actor and martial arts expert Chuck Norris won.
Wilson won the World Championships.
He won the National Tae Kwon Do Championships.
He was responsible for efforts that inducted Lee on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Wilson has a letter from Lee's widow, Linda Lee, thanking him for his efforts.
Wilson and World Combat Aikido Master Mitz Yamashita co-created a self defense system named the Mitson System for the Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women (LACAAW) used in rape centers for women. It is also designed for college campus use. The defense system combines the creators' names.
He was the former staff instructor/special deputy for Al Thomas' International Police Training Team which included Norris and other world class martial arts champions, including Yamashita and 12-time World Kickboxing Champion Benny "The Jet" Urquidez.
Wilson produced and directed the first ever nationally televised All-Blackbelt competition, the American Black-Belt Championships in Santa Barbara, for pay-per-view in 1998. According to the release, the tournament had the biggest purse in American sport-karate history.
His story was a feature story for the millennial issue of Black Belt Magazine in 2000.
Pat Rivers, in a Black Belt Magazine article titled "One Giant Leap," details how Wilson stepped away from competition after a successful career on the sport-karate circuit during the 1980s and began envisioning how he and Parker, whom Rivers called "the father of American karate," in the article, could get Parker's International Karate Championships on pay-per-view.
Wilson was creator and chief promoter for the tournament. Would the winners get cash prizes of, say, $1,000 bucks? Nah, Wilson decided. "We'll give 'em cars."
Predictably, "The winners' eyes just lit up."
The event, which Max Net Entertainment televised, was the largest payday of any sport karate tournament in U.S. history.
Wilson said he first became interested in martial arts "by watching Batman. Those guys could really kick."
With his agility, Wilson was a natural at gymnastics and "that really helped me," when he became seriously interested in the martial arts.
Wilson's career path has been predictable in its unpredictability. Now, he and partner Dr. Bill McLane are working on perfecting a cellular tea.
"The tea is from Chinese herbs and is designed to help the body heal itself," Wilson said. "We saw the Pope last November and spoke with him about it."
McLane was an associate of Dr. Charles Brush (pronounced BROO-sh).
Brush "was a personal physician for President Kennedy and developed the first polio vaccine with Dr. (Jonas) Salk," Wilson said.
With all his accomplishments, all his experiences, all the people he has known, "You should write an autobiography," Marx said to Wilson as he was bantering with him.
Wilson said he will do just that.
His advice? "Don't take the path not taken. Make your own path."
Spoken by one who knows.
July 1, 2005
http://www.santamariatimes.com/articles/2005/07/01/news/sports/sports45.txt
Wish I had footage of that flip thing he did.
Santa Maria resident Andy Wilson shows off his plaque that he received as an award of Lifetime Achievement from the Blackbelt Hall of Fame earlier this month. Wilson, originally from Skokie, Ill., holds black belts in three disciplines. - Aaron Lambert/Staff
SM's Wilson enters Hall of Fame
By Kenny Cress / Sports Writer
They said he couldn't do it.
That was all the incentive Andy Wilson needed to try.
Wilson, a Skokie, Ill. native and graduate of Father Flannigan's Boys Town in Nebraska who lives in Santa Maria now, had already become the first to win Ed Parker's International Karate Tournament championship blindfolded after all three divisional champions fought that way.
He had wowed the crowd with his nunchaku routine while wearing his blindfold. Now the 5-8, 149-pound Wilson was confronted with a different challenge.
On that day at the tournament in Long Beach in 1983, "The tournament directors said, 'Why don't you try and break the board blindfolded?' They were just joking. They didn't think there was any way I could do it," Wilson said.
The two-foot board was 12 feet at its apex on a scaffold. Wilson thought, "What the heck, I've already won (the tournament). The worst I can do is hit the scaffolding."
Wilson leaped, somersaulted - and his foot smashed the board at 11 feet. "The directors said that was the highest flip they'd ever seen," Wilson said during an interview at the Keichu Do Christian Karate School in Santa Maria earlier this week. Wilson trains at the school which Karl Marx, a member of the Louisiana Black Belt Hall of Fame, founded.
In fact, a press release said that Wilson's board-breaking kick that day WAS the highest ever.
On June 21 in Las Vegas, Wilson, who holds black belts in Tae-Kwon Do, Kung Fu and Karate, was inducted into the World Martial Arts Hall of Fame at the World Martial Arts Championships. Wilson received a Lifetime Achievement Award.
On the road to the martial arts' ultimate honors, Wilson made a habit of proving detractors wrong.
Wilson winning the Junior Olympics gymnastics competition in Nebraska? No way, doubters said. Wrong.
Wilson becoming a Florida state Kung Fu champion in 1981 after he had left the Navy? Can't happen, said scoffers. Wrong again.
There were probably those who didn't think it was possible that he could land a spot in the Olympic Trials for the 1972 U.S. gymnastics team that would go to Munich or earn himself a spot with Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Wrong on both counts.
He didn't make the U.S. team, but Wilson said he made a strong showing at the Trials. Meanwhile, Wilson said, he worked for Ringling Bros. as a trapeze flyer from 1976 through part of 1978.
The Santa Maria resident saw his hard work in and for the martial arts culminate in the sport's highest honor when he accepted his induction into the World Martial Arts Hall and his Lifetime Achievement award.
"My 14-year-old daughter Molly was with me, and I was really glad she was able to see it," Wilson said.
He chuckled. "I hurt my foot before the ceremony. Can you believe it? Thank god I didn't have to climb anything to accept the award."
Wilson, cerebral and well-spoken, said, "There's this temptation to label martial artists as aggressive, and I really don't like that.
"I'm totally non-aggressive," Wilson said, pointing out, as other martial artists have, that the martial arts focus on mental, not physical, aspects. Wilson said the martial arts are designed to be used in self defense.
In fact, in a 1989 letter to NOVA Enterprizes choreographer Mike Stone and producer Allen Amiel, Wilson politely declined an opportunity to play the part of the late martial arts actor Bruce Lee, citing what he saw as a conflict with his Christian beliefs.
A press release noting Wilson's accomplishments leading to his induction into the World Martial Arts Hall of Fame has an imposing list.
Wilson's win at the International Karate Championships came at the same tournament actor and martial arts expert Chuck Norris won.
Wilson won the World Championships.
He won the National Tae Kwon Do Championships.
He was responsible for efforts that inducted Lee on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Wilson has a letter from Lee's widow, Linda Lee, thanking him for his efforts.
Wilson and World Combat Aikido Master Mitz Yamashita co-created a self defense system named the Mitson System for the Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women (LACAAW) used in rape centers for women. It is also designed for college campus use. The defense system combines the creators' names.
He was the former staff instructor/special deputy for Al Thomas' International Police Training Team which included Norris and other world class martial arts champions, including Yamashita and 12-time World Kickboxing Champion Benny "The Jet" Urquidez.
Wilson produced and directed the first ever nationally televised All-Blackbelt competition, the American Black-Belt Championships in Santa Barbara, for pay-per-view in 1998. According to the release, the tournament had the biggest purse in American sport-karate history.
His story was a feature story for the millennial issue of Black Belt Magazine in 2000.
Pat Rivers, in a Black Belt Magazine article titled "One Giant Leap," details how Wilson stepped away from competition after a successful career on the sport-karate circuit during the 1980s and began envisioning how he and Parker, whom Rivers called "the father of American karate," in the article, could get Parker's International Karate Championships on pay-per-view.
Wilson was creator and chief promoter for the tournament. Would the winners get cash prizes of, say, $1,000 bucks? Nah, Wilson decided. "We'll give 'em cars."
Predictably, "The winners' eyes just lit up."
The event, which Max Net Entertainment televised, was the largest payday of any sport karate tournament in U.S. history.
Wilson said he first became interested in martial arts "by watching Batman. Those guys could really kick."
With his agility, Wilson was a natural at gymnastics and "that really helped me," when he became seriously interested in the martial arts.
Wilson's career path has been predictable in its unpredictability. Now, he and partner Dr. Bill McLane are working on perfecting a cellular tea.
"The tea is from Chinese herbs and is designed to help the body heal itself," Wilson said. "We saw the Pope last November and spoke with him about it."
McLane was an associate of Dr. Charles Brush (pronounced BROO-sh).
Brush "was a personal physician for President Kennedy and developed the first polio vaccine with Dr. (Jonas) Salk," Wilson said.
With all his accomplishments, all his experiences, all the people he has known, "You should write an autobiography," Marx said to Wilson as he was bantering with him.
Wilson said he will do just that.
His advice? "Don't take the path not taken. Make your own path."
Spoken by one who knows.
July 1, 2005
http://www.santamariatimes.com/articles/2005/07/01/news/sports/sports45.txt
Wish I had footage of that flip thing he did.