Each week that went by I felt my confidence growing.  I saw the inches start to come off, and soon my blood sugars were in control and I did not need the medications any longer.  I was able to sleep better, my muscles grew stronger, the cholesterol and blood pressure readings dropped.

Now 9 months into my training I have lost 50 pounds, I have stopped taking all medications, I am down 4 sizes and I have regained the glow and confidence I had in my youth.

I owe my life to my teacher!  I feel it my duty to share with the whole world the changes kung-fu have brought to my life and my family.

It was a monday I remeber it well, it was raining and the wind was blowing.  I deceided to make a new life change and join a kung fu school.  I had a friend who recommended one by Green Lake.  I was sooooo nervous walking in the first time.  I will never forget the smell, the feeling, the sounds.  I knew I had come to the right place… people were definately working hard.  Although I could not see them, I could hear them.  I was met by my instructor and shown how to bow.  I was so nervous all I could do is laugh through my first lesson.  He showed me bow stance and horse stance, some punches and blocks.  I was so uncoordinated and awkward… I am surprised he kept a straight face.

As a poor child growing up on the mean streets of Seattle I learned alot from Kung Fu the TV series. In fact there wasn’t a day that I didn’t think about whipping some punks you know what with a Kung Fu move or two. 

Kung Fu follows the adventures of a Shaolin monk, Kwai Chang Caine (portrayed by David Carradine as an adult, Keith Carradine as a teenager and Radames Pera as a young boy) who travels through the American Old West (armed only with his skill in martial arts) as he seeks his half-brother, Danny Caine.

As an adult I now look back at the time and realize I learned a lot more from Kung Fu than how to fight.  I learned wisdom and peace.  I learned to avoid the fight and to honor my beliefs.

Seattle was litterally claimed from the sea. 

Seattle began filling in the vast tideflats south of Pioneer Square in the early twentieth century, producing Harbor Island and the area now occupied by Union Station, King Street Station, Seattle’s sports stadiums, and much of the city’s industrial base. Growing resentment of railroad and shipping monopolies led King County voters to create the Port of Seattle in 1911 in order to guide harbor development for the public interest.

Maritime development was aided by completion of the Lake Washington Ship Canal in 1917, allowing passage from Puget Sound to the fresh waters of Lake Union and Lake Washington. The shipping slump after World War I and during the Great Depression retarded further improvements. Thanks to federal aid, however, the city replaced the wooden Railroad Avenue with a seawall and Alaskan Way in the mid-1930s.

World War II boosted shipping and led the Port to develop the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Today’s central waterfront pier numbers also date from the 1940s, when the federal government imposed a uniform system in order to better manage shipments of troops and supplies.

The State and City constructed the Alaskan Way Viaduct in the early 1950s to divert Highway 99 traffic from downtown streets, but it also walled the harbor off from the city. Meanwhile, port activity stagnated as shipping technologies outstripped Seattle’s antiquated facilities. Little new was built on the waterfront other than the Edgewater Hotel, which was begun (but not quite finished in time) for the 1962 World’s Fair.

Chinese first arrived in Seattle around 1860. The Northern Pacific Railway completed the project of laying tracks from Lake Superior to Tacoma, Washington, in 1883, leaving many Chinese laborers without employment. In 1883, Chinese laborers played a key role in the first effort at digging the Montlake Cut to connect Lake Union‘s Portage Bay to Lake Washington‘s Union Bay.

Seattle’s Chinese district, located near the present day Occidental Park, was a mixed neighborhood of residences over stores, laundries, and other retail storefronts.^[20] In fall 1885, with a shortage of jobs in the West, many workers turned violently anti-Chinese, complaining of overly cheap labor competition. In the Pacific Northwest, this had the unusual character that the anti-Chinese mobs included significant numbers of the native Indians as well as European-Americans.