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Sifu Bill Rosary with master Wei Yee Choi
From left: master Wei Yee Choi, Bill Rosary, Carl Totton, Tom Chan and Joe B. Chan.
Mutual love and respect shown by teacher and student. Bill Rosary (left) and master Wei Yee Choi enjoy some light-hearted moments.
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It was a crisp morning when I met sifu Bill Rosary at Alhambra Park, in Alhambra, Calif. My kung-fu brother for many years, Rosary had requested my presence at an event, a thread of urgency in his voice as he expressed his desire to give honor to his sifu, grandmaster Wei Yue Choy, within the pages of this magazine. It was on this day last April that sifu Choy presented Rosary with a plaque, delineating him as the successor of his school.
Later, Rosary and I sat down to discuss the events that had invariably, naturally, led to that defining moment, reinforcing the belief that there are no coincidences in life, only the purposeful flow of events that lead us to our destination.
In his youth, Rosary was a rising athlete who was driven by the encouragement from his father, William Rosary Sr. He learned Golden Gloves boxing from his stepfather, George Maddox, and became a Hall of Fame basketball player at Barnstable High School in Cape Cod, Mass. Later, at Northeastern University in Boston, with all the prospects of going pro, a back injury stalled Rosary's plan for a professional career before it ever took flight. Coincidentally, guiding that Northeastern team was Hall of Fame coach Jim Calhoun, who later would gain fame by taking the University of Connecticut to the NCAA Championship.
After extensive surgery, Rosary was told not only that his playing days were over, but that he would walk with a severe handicap. Defying the odds, Rosary lifted himself from the depths of despair with a fighting spirit that refused to be quelled by the doctors' diagnoses.
In 1984, Rosary moved to Los Angeles where the arid heat was more forgiving to his chronic back pain. There he began studying a Polynesian-American martial arts system called lima lama under the tutelage of Gilbert Garcia. Though his natural deftness allowed him to excel in the art, complications from his back injury forced him to seek healing from a traditional Chinese herbalist who recommended that he study tai chi to relieve the stress. He began learning a simple tai chi form from Dr. Bruce Babpti and immediately noticed the profound changes it made to his health.
"My experiences with tai chi have given me a new perspective...it has taken me to another level, much higher than I could ever imagine," Rosary explains.
One day on his way home from work, Rosary noticed a group practicing tai chi in a park near his home. He stopped to watch and one of the students invited him to participate. Enthusiastic to find tai chi so close to his home, Rosary joined the group that day, discovering later that the teacher was none other than master Wei Yue Choy, a tai chi expert and chairman of the Southern California Taijichuan Association.
Though tai chi would become the heart and soul of Rosary's martial arts training, the athlete inside propelled him to expand his martial arts knowledge. When his lima lama instructor stopped teaching, Al Garza, an eighth-degree black belt in the system, took over the class and Rosary quickly became one of his senior students. As time progressed, so did Garza's instruction, evolving into what is now known as the A.G. Matrix System-a highly specialized blueprint of combative martial arts movements.
Meanwhile, Rosary continued to quench his thirst for knowledge and began learning northern eagle claw from sifu Ken Edwards and five animal style kung-fu from sifu Carl Totton. However, it was the redeeming nature of tai chi that spared him from the grueling physical demands that his training rendered.
"Tai chi, at its highest level, is the answer to all movement," Rosary maintains.
Tony Bazley throws a left hook to the head (1) Rosary blocks with the forearm on the outside (1)
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Rosary thrusts his right arm in an upward motion under the opponent's left arm (2)
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He steps behind his opponent's left leg (3)
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and uses leverage to get the opponent off balance (4)
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