Gil Asakawa
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This article was written for Boulder Magazine.

Boulder's Chinese Kung Fu Connection

By Gil Asakawa

Howie Solow laughs when he's asked if there's a dichotomy in his teaching Kung Fu to eager students, including many Chinese.

"Yeah, there's a dichotomy in a Brooklyn-born man of the Jewish faith teaching Chinese stuff to Chinese people," he says.

In fact, he's arguably more Chinese than many Chinese Americans. "I'm absolutely sure he was Chinese in a previous life, probably several lives in fact," says John Chin, Chief Academic Officer at Front Range Community College and a friend of Solow for nine years.

"I happen to be drawn to things that are ancient, including Jewish history and Egyptian history, and it happens that Chinese history works very well with my interest in martial arts," says Solow.

Solow, 50, often finds himself teaching younger Chinese immigrants about culture they were never taught growing up in China, because Solow learned from a teacher in New York whose family left China to settle in Indonesia before the country's Cultural Revolution squelched the teaching of traditional Chinese culture.

Because of his Shifu, or Teacher, Solow is accepted within the Shaolin Hung Mei order. He has even visited his Shifu's home town in Indonesia, and traveled to China and met with masters of other martial arts, and recently visited the refurbished Shaolin Temple. But in the early 1970s, when Solow first learned about Kung Fu, it was almost impossible to find a Chinese teacher who would accept a non-Chinese student.

A friend who played drums in a band at a Polynesian restaurant near New York City told him about a waiter who was teaching Chinese martial arts, and was willing to teach non-Chinese. "So I went to see him teach a class, and I was sitting there with my jaw hanging down at my knees," Solow says.

He had been studying Tae Kwon Do, the Korean martial art, and was familiar with Japanese styles. But at the time, Chinese martial arts were mostly unknown in the US, and he was drawn to the mystery of the discipline. "It was in the '70s when we started hearing bits and pieces about Chinese martial arts, and there was just a fascination with things that are mysterious. Plus, the more I learned about it the more I understood there was this whole philosophical element to Chinese martial arts. I'm sure other martial arts have that, but I didn't have the sense that they were taught that way."

At the time, it was almost unheard of for a Shaolin Shifu to be teaching non-Chinese the secrets of the ancient form. "My Teacher, Hsu King Tong, flew all the way back to Indonesia to ask his Teacher for permission to teach non-Chinese," Solow says. His Teacher said no, but a senior training brother pointed out that sharing Shaolin Hung Mei Kung Fu with non-Chinese would help the art stay alive. So Shi was told to stay in Indonesia for a month, after which he could ask again about teaching non-Chinese.

"That extent of reverence for his Teacher blew me away," Solow says, and he became one of the first non-Chinese students. "That whole depth of culture is what got me started."

Solow is still a student of Hsu 30 years later. In fact, Solow has taught his Shifu's son Rama Kho, who is also a Shifu at Boulder's Academy of Chinese Martial and Cultural Arts.

Learning the ways of Shaolin Kung Fu wasn't just memorizing a bunch of moves. "To really internalize the techniques, you have to have an understanding of the culture that spawned the martial art," Solow says. "I learned pretty early in my training that I'd learn about Chinese medicine and other things. Chinese martial arts is so integrated into their culture that you can't separate the parts."

Solow advanced to a black sash status and became a Shifu himself. An engineer by trade, Solow moved to Boulder 10 years ago and initially kept up his Kung Fu by participating in tournaments. But soon after, he started teaching when an insistent observer kept asking for lessons.

Lance Melting, a 34-year-old special education teacher, was that first student. A personal trainer at the rec center where Solow was training for a tournament, he was impressed enough after watching him to ask Solow for Kung Fu lessons. Although it took four months before Solow agreed to teach Melting, he was shocked when Solow agreed to teach him for free, in the tradition of the Shaolin monks of China.

"I thought it lent credibility and integrity to the art he was teaching," Melting says. "He wasn't a capitalist just out to get my money, he was sharing his knowledge with me."

From just one student, Solow's teaching has grown to 130 students taking classes at three locations in the area under the name Shaolin Hung Mei Kung Fu Association. Aside from the Boulder class, there are satellite classes at the Rocky Mountain Chinese School at Front Range Community College in Westminster and the Colorado Chinese Language School based at West Middle School in Littleton.

Lessons remained free through the Shaolin Hung Mei Kung Fu Association; classes were funded entirely by public performances. Most of those come every February, during Chinese New Year, when Solow and his students are hired at Chinese restaurants and Asian businesses all over the Denver area to perform raucous and colorful Lion and Dragon Dances and their Kung Fu.

Until this summer, the Boulder classes were given at the East Boulder Community Center, but the conditions weren't ideal. "We'd be in a room and there would be tap dancing next door, and they couldn't give us storage space, so we had to make special arrangements every time we needed to do something where we needed our equipment," he says.

"That's just the logistical issues. From a spiritual environment viewpoint, it didn't have what we needed. But it helped create a foundation where we could do different things. A couple of years ago, I felt we had a strong enough foundation, not just with the students but in the community at large, and started looking for our own space."

Early this year Solow found a permanent space for the Academy of Chinese Martial and Cultural Arts, where he could teach Kung Fu and also showcase other Chinese cultural and martial arts groups, at 1750 38th Street.

"The way the whole thing came together, no individual has put any funds in," Solow says proudly. "All the funding was dollars we earned over the years though performances." Now, to underwrite the ongoing costs of the new facility, the Association charges a nominal tuition of $40 a month for up to five classes a week.

Solow and his students remodeled the 4,800-square-feet former auto repair shop from top to bottom, including installing a suspended floor with several layers to soften the impact of the techniques, which Solow designed using his engineering skills.

Although the space is still a work in progress, Solow says, "the vision is right on the money."

Chin, a board member of the Academy, calls him a visionary. "The Academy is an example of Howie's visionary attributes," he says. "It's not just a school for Kung Fu. He saw the need for a broader cultural center to serve the community."

The Kung Fu classes share the space with classes by the Gu Feng Tai Chi Club and Qi Gong and Taoist Martial Arts Programs, and Solow plans to include other partners within the space. The facility has also already hosted special events such as photo exhibits, a display of traditional Chinese paper-cutting and a sold-out slide show and lecture with a woman who bicycled the perimeter of China.

But the core of the Academy is the Kung Fu taught by Solow and the other Shifus. "We offer some traditional teaching in philosophy, theory, culture and history," he says. "We offer a good environment for learning."

But, he adds, anybody interested in learning a martial art should try out several styles and schools to find the one that best suits them. "They need to see what they're most comfortable with. The important thing is compliance: if you're not willing to spend a lot of time practicing, maybe you should be studying some other form of exercise."

The Academy of Chinese Martial and Cultural Arts is located at 1750 38th Street, (303) 507-3800. http://shaolinhungmei.org for more information.