For me, like so many other, families move to different parts of the United States. To began again a whole new life. Born in Metcalfe, Mississippi in 1965, then to Florida, then Chicago then Flint, Michigan, where I  started school on the Southside at Stewart Elementary. Where I got to see Martial Arts after school, then fining out they knew my mother. She wouldn't put me in class, then a couple situation with Tae Kwon Do students, Kim's Karate Downtown Flint, where they pulled the curtain's back, so everyone could see them. Drive by looking, staring, asking momma .....please ,,,,momma sign me up. Remember when we stayed at Lakeshore Apts. Don't go down by that water, Thread Lake was right outside the apartment complex, I knew how to use Karate sticks, that day down at the lake edge, me and Clarence, throwing big dirt balls into the lake, he was a class mate from Stewart Elementary School, we walked back and forth to school. This event that took place at the Thread Lake's edge. As we threw big dirt balls into the water, some how he got in the way of my big dirt ball, that made contact to the back of his head, I froze, watching how this situation just changed from fun to crying, my man Clarence holding his head, I'm in shock....until he said" I'm going to get you!" I was out, broke wide up the hill side of the Thread Lake, like lightening, I wasn't staying ...He was taking Tae Kwon Do......Read about this Flint story of my quest to become a Gung Fu Master/Teacher...in my book; Black Sifu: The Master Student....after that  my Uncle Clyde heard about that situation, so he introduced me the basic in Karate. Flint, Michigan is where it all started.......Black Lotus (Hei Ling) or Teacher Yu, now in Athens, Alabama.