A Brief History
James Wing Woo was born September 26, 1922, on the property of a Standard Oil refinery in Oleum California, north of Oakland. His father had a restaurant there and lived nearby with his wife and children. The Woo family would grow to a number of eight boys (James was the second). Before it did, however, the Woos moved to China. It was 1928, and James was six. But his father had gotten involved in tong wars in the Bay Area, and, as James recalls, had “a price on his head.”
The Woos lived in Canton, the capitol of Kwantung province in the southern part of China, and, within a couple of years, James began learning Tai-Chi from a godfather and various family friends. “I was playing volleyball and I had friends who studied martial arts in the park.” He had plenty of potential mentors. In 1929, Japan invaded the northern part of China and many martial artists in Manchuria and Shanghai moved to Canton. “So I got to meet them and got interested in all of them.” By age 12, he began learning the art of fighting, Shaolin style. He also had a gym teacher who taught martial arts.
As the Japanese threatened to take Canton, the Woo family split up, some members staying as long as they could; others going to Kowloon, and the rest fleeing back to California. In 1938, James and a brother settled in San Francisco. The 16 year-old James attended school and found work as a waiter. He also found use for his martial arts education.
“One day, a guy didn’t want to pay and skipped, and I went after him. He took a swing at me. I blocked and hit him, and one of the cooks looked at me and said, ‘You trained a little bit, huh?’ I said, ‘A little bit.’ He said, ‘Let’s see you do this.’ He comes at me. I was by the sink, I go down, and he goes over the sink. Needless to say, I didn’t have that job any more.”
Despite getting into fights worthy of the movies, he was interested in neither. He continued to work as a waiter, and, in 1942, became a military man. He’d been inspired by President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s speech, after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, to join the Marines, but when he tried to sign up in Oakland on December 8th, 1941, he was told he’d be accepted only for mess duty. After getting into another fight with a restaurant customer, who filed charges against him, James joined the Navy, enlisting in Winslow, Arizona. He did his boot camp training in Idaho and wound up as a ship’s cook, traveling to New Guinea and the Philippines.
Once, while on shore patrol on Treasure Island near San Francisco, he was in Chinatown and, sure enough, got into a fight. “I saw this couple fighting, and I wanted to break it up, and the girl hit me. And then, later on, years later, her girlfriend says to me, ‘Come, I want you to meet my girlfriend.’ I looked at her and said, ‘I know her. She hit me!’ We started going out to dances.” The girl’s name was Eve, and they would marry in 1951.
Out of the Navy by 1945, James took on a variety of jobs, including waiting tables, working in sales, peddling everything from Rena chinaware to automobiles. In the early ‘50s, he was also a cable car conductor. Away from work, he practiced Tai Chi in local parks. Many evenings, he would visit a studio run by Lau Bin, who knew James’ father as a fellow member of the social organization, the Hop Sing Tong. James enjoyed spending time with professor Lau and his students, but preferred to work out by himself. One evening, he met a group of Kenpo Karate artists who were visiting from Los Angeles. In the summer of 1960, James, along with a group of professor Lau Bin’s students, went to Los Angeles, staying with a prominent Kenpo Karate instructor in Pasadena. “I got enticed by this teacher, who was writing a book on Chinese martial arts,” says James, who prefers not to identify the man by name. The instructor asked James if he could help him write the book.
After assuring his family of his plans, he returned to Pasadena and assisted the instructor on the book. James also began helping to teach the higher belt classes in the Pasadena gym, for free. James had never thought of himself as a teacher, but, as he reasons, “I was staying there, and I wasn’t really doing anything.” Actually, he was giving the instructor information for his book, and he was having impact in his classes. “You look at these students,” he says, “and they’re all fast and sloppy. So I slowed them down and taught them forms.”
With the book finished, James went home to San Francisco, where he learned that the Pasadena instructor had found a publisher. However, according to James, it was a bad deal, and he declined to sign the contract. “So I was going to go back to San Francisco, and all these brown belt class students, the higher-ranked students, said, ‘Don’t go back. We’ll find another place to open up, and you can teach there.’”
James decided to move south, and, in 1961, the Academy of Karate Kung Fu opened in a large storefront at 5440 Hollywood Boulevard. “All the people came,” James remembers, including students of the Pasadena instructor. His wife Eve, with whom he would have three children, stayed in San Francisco, but would join him later. In 1963, he and a partner relocated to a new gym, at 5156 Hollywood Boulevard, and his school was renamed The Chinese Martial Arts Association. In 1986 he would move to Sunset Plaza and, finally, to his current location.
In the 1970’s, with Bruce Lee and other martial artists taking kung fu fighting to the big screen, James and his most accomplished students began drawing attention from Hollywood producers and directors. James got his first role in Sam Peckinpah’s The Killer Elite in 1975, after he’d almost tossed the director out of his studio. “One day I’m at 5156 Hollywood and I smell somebody coming in with liquor on his breath. I was ready to throw him out. Then his whole entourage came in. ‘Don’t you know who he is? That’s Sam Peckinpah.’ I didn’t know.”
James wound up playing “Tao Yi,” but notes that he never actually performed martial arts in any of the 15 roles he has had, from Killer Elite to Lethal Weapon 4 (in 1998) to a recent episode of the TV mystery series, Monk.
He has portrayed a priest, a criminal clan leader, an elder martial arts master, and “a dead Chinese man.” And he’s never taken acting lessons. “I just let it happen,” he says.
I studied James Wing Woos style from Richard Kaplan in Berkeley. My dad sent me to LA 5156 Hollywood Blvd when I was 14 to study from James Woo. It was the experience of a lifetime…slippery concrete floors, hot studio, hot tea to quench your thirst…I should have stayed there for 10 years to study. I still love martial arts today and have my kids involved. I go to SF on weekends to watch classes but dont have the time to study now. If I can get my kids engaged in evening classes I will restart my martial arts career at 50 years old…thanks to James Wing Woo
I started my Martial Arts journey in 1964 with the Ed Parker schools. I transitioned to the James Wing Woo Chinese Martial Arts program in or about 1968 under the instruction of John (Gus) Hoefling. Sifu Hoefling’s school was in Hermosa Beach California. After a year of intense study, Gus started sending me up to Sifu Woo’s school in Hollywood. We wore leather bottom boxing shoes. Jimmy would wax and polish the cement floor. If you could not control your balance, you would end up on the floor. I know because I landed there on a couple of occasions. You always needed two tee shirts to get through the workouts. The skills you learned were transitional. Every move was broken down to it’s biomechanical roots. Absolutely the best instruction available.
James Wing Woo is legendary in our Colorado study with Bob Cook. Not a class goes by that Sifu’s name isn’t mentioned or expressed in one form or another. His teachings inspire us from afar and contribute profoundly to our learning. I had the honor and pleasure of studying with Jimmy Woo in LA a few years ago for a couple of weeks. The experience was indescribable, like going back to the roots, the essential skeleton and sinews of all that we are doing. Bob studied with Sifu decades ago for countless hours and many years and his immense respect and appreciation for this phenomenal teacher of the ancient arts translates to us all.
Ms. Waters:
I studied under a student of Sifi’s in California many years ago. What I learned became a significant part of who I am today (I hope). I now live in the greater Denver area. I am not familiar with Bob Cook, but was curious to find out where in Colorado are you located and what is the extent of your connection to James Wing Woo and his school.
Best Regards,
Anthony
Anthony, I see that some time has passed since you commented on my post. My apologies. I live on the western slope of CO, sometimes in Hotchkiss and at others in Basalt. The extent of my connection with Sifu Woo is all of my training with Bob Cook and my brief visit to Sifu Woo’s school a few years ago. As described above, this influence has been and continues to be profound. And you?
The last one I discovered was a Taekwondo Forum wherein they seem to now have a very busy and expanding forum, however , the factor which struck me was the reality that they have 5th and 6th level experts in the forum which are all too prepared to reply to queries with out coming over all high and mighty unlike several user discussion forums I have saw.
When I got out of the Navy in 1981, I trained with Jimmy Woo 3 times a week, by far the best one hour workout you can get. My plastic bottom shoes and his freshly waxed floors, made balance of utmost importance. You were wringing wet by the time the class was over, he taught me to breath, and as we drank our tea, he would tell us to go to Chinatown and “look for trouble” for extra training. He would recommend movies from the Shaw brothers, and when I started going their four times a week, he taught me the meaning of endurance as he always seem to pit me against someone larger than myself. I felt as though I betrayed him when I went to Florida to work for my uncle. I shall remember his teachings as long as I live. He is amazing!
I was an on again off again student of James Wing Woo in the 1980′s. The truth is that I was never really very good, but it helped me a lot psychologically with my confidence. I get migraines, and the prescription interferes with working out. Plus I’m basically lazy, although I did about 3 years of karate and judo in San Francisco as a young teenager. I spent about 15 years in India with a guru. I had a problem in a cafe near Bangalore. I was arguing with a women who sat down next to me and lit a cigarette practically right under my nose. Then the owner, who was kind of a bully, started giving me a hard time. He grabbed me by my left shoulder. I went down into my stance and did a counter clockwise move around his left arm with mine, pushing my open palm into his chest. He took a wild swing which missed me. That was about it. 4 days later, my friend Daniel came by and said, “You know, you broke that guy’s arm!” The funny part is that for years after that, whenever his wife saw me on the street, she would smile at me so sweetly.
Here’s a slight correction. It would have had to have been his right arm that I wrapped my left arm around. If he had let go of his grip on my shoulder, he would have avoided the broken arm, but he wasn’t that bright.
I was living in NYC in 1968 and picked up a copy of Black Belt Magazine and read about SiFu Jimmy Woo. One year later I moved to LA and visited SiFu. He gave me Bob cook’s phone number and told me to train with him for 2 years, and if I did, I could train with him. Two years later, I started with Jimmy. The advanced class was made of of Bart White, Bob Cook, George Cadena, Glenn Starrling, Leo Wong, Joe Nash. At that time, Richard Montgomery was SiFu’s star student.We all watched in awe when Richard worked out. But when I asked him who he’d want to have back him up in a street fight among all his students he said, Glenn.
The Hollywood studio had a trap door that went into a basement that had no windows, and a concrete support poles, so when the door closed you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. We did 2 man fighting forms in ptich blackness. The stone floor we trained on in the studio was sand blasted, covered with dancer’s wax, and we wore leather soled boxing shoes.You could slide 10 ft. just like being on ice skates. Keeping your balance was difficult especially when you didn twerling kicks etc. SiFu would put us in a front cross over stance and leave for an hour or more. It hurt. When he’d return he’d tell us that we were pussies if we complained from being cramped up. I was honored to have trained with the SiFu, and the guys. There was no quarter, and it didn’t matter if you were sick with 105 degree temperature, because you were expected to show for class..and we did!. SiFu told us it would take 5 years to learn how to throw a Flat Punch..It did! Years later, I moved to Dallas and started boxing. My first sparring encounter was with the Regional Light Heavy Weight boxing champ. I made it 2 round, and sucked soup out of a straw for a month. I wasn’t used to how fast a boxer’s hands were, and I tightened up when I got hit with multiple punches, and forgot everything I learned. He enjoyed punishing me. I saw it in his eyes. One month later, I decided that I needed to go back and do it again. I realized what I had done wrong. This time, my training showed and the Flat Punch, short Round House punches, my balance, and training in the basement which allowed me to feel punches coming, all kicked in. I enjoyed this experience and can only say that the training that the SiFu had drilled Into me made me into a fighting machine. SiFu gave me the technique & experience to handle a strong boxer with lots of experience. SiFu’s dedication to his students if they showed a commitment to learning, was remarkable.Thank you SiFu, for all you gave me/us.