Who was Sgt Chiang?

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sgt M. Chiang was an instructor at Fort Deven's army base in Ayer, MA, in the 1960's, his connection to Gunshi Williams was only for a few years, then he was MIA in Vietnam.

    It all started when a guy poked his head in an open YMCA building in fitchburg, where Gunshi Williams was running a kids class and told Gunshi that his instructor said that if Gunshi didnt stop teaching these classes he would pay him a visit.

    The rest is history, Gunshi told the guy to get lost, and the following thursday, the guy showed with rather big korean, with poor english, dressed in a judogi.

    It was explained that this was a dojo challenge, a practice that was popular in the USA in that era, so, they agreed to a sparring match, full contact with Rembukai karate protective rules, with gloves and chest protectors.

   Gunshi had sparred full contact for years, he fought both amateur and professional boxing, was a judo champion, so the fight was over rather quick, a few jabs and a few hooks and the korean was sitting on his butt wondering what hit him, he was helped up, and they had another go at it, same results, then the korean left.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Normally the matter would be over. But a few weeks later, the korean came back to the YMCA, and Gunshi assumed he wanted another try, but this time he came alone and was not wearing a gi, so, Gunshi got the receptionist who spoke korean to help translate what the korean guy wanted.

 

    And he merely wanted to train with Gunshi, but Gunshi refused because he didn't trust the guy, so the guy explained that he trained under very well known teachers, including the legendary Mas Oyama, but that was before Oyama was famous or called his style kyokushin karate, as well as some guys in other systems, so Gunshi took him under his wing.

 

    In return, Chiang took him with him to Fort Devens which was not far from where Gunshi lived, to teach the green barets and ROK division before going to vietnam

 

 After a few months, Chiang introduced him to Pok Shen, a Chemist who worked in the same chemical plant as gunshi, and Gunshi began to learn daito-ryu, as Chiang was being groomed to inherit the system from Pok Shen.

 

    A few years later, Chiang went missing in Vietnam, and Gunshi was offered to train to inherit the system, and at first he refused, later he would accept it and train under Shen until, dying from excessive smoking, Shen relocated to Formosa to die!

        In those days, instructors rarely took pictures with their students, so there are few photos of Sgt Chiang, except the one at the top of this page of his teaching koreans to defend against an armed soldier.

 

  Chiang was mostly a yudo master, but he had trained in the korean arts as well, he was heavy into breaking techniques, no doubt taught to him by Mas Oyama, so he had a large following, (he trained with Mas Oyama befor Oyama created Kyokusin kare) whe he was learning from otyer teachers) but, as a fighter, he was slow, had no cardio, and very little power, so he was never that good, and when Pok Shen sent him to the Chinatown section of Boston to compete in the full contact matches there, he usually lost.

 

  One day, during a training session, Pok Shen asked Gunshi to spar with Chiang , he already knew that Gunshi had beaten him, but he wanted to see how:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Like before, Gunshi was too quick, he had lightning fast hands and real power, so Chiang was on his butt again, looking rather embaressed, and it was then that Pok Shen requested Gunshi started to compete in Chinatown bouts, and once he understood the way they fought, mostly chinese styles like Chinna, Wing Tsun, Choy lee fut, Hung Gar, whose attacks were usually a pattern that was the same every time,  a fast fake or side step, and he was in a position to strike, he quickly gained a reputation in the Chinese communty in Boston, winning almost every bout by KO! (Usually a body-shot because they were rarely muscular and couldn't take hard shots to the liver area)

 

   These bouts were held in the basement of a restaurant in China town, there was maybe three rows of chairs, everyone else stood up, cigarettte smoke was very thick, the bouts were on a big green carpet, and all the competitors were chinese except Gunshi and a guy from Haverhill, in MA, he was into Hung Gar or some other Chinee system, but he was usually beaten up by the fighters doing Northern Shaolin, because they had very good kicks.

 

   The fighters all wore shoes of some kind, but Gunshi fought bare feet, so they sometimes tried to stomp his feet with these hard shoes, and the only protection worn was a sort of silk hand wraps worn by these Chinese fighters.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

  He was called the Crazy  foreigner by the Chinese, Chiang no longer fought, he usually was Gunshi's corner man,and money was made by the betting crowd who used time to determin odds.

 

Gunshi fout almost every saturday nights in the kwoon fights for over 2 years, estuimated to be in roughly 90-plus fights.

 

         His last bout was in 1970, he beat a guy called Shunya, then, they gave him a guy who just came over from Formosa, and he beat Gunshi in the final bout, the bout lasted 23 minutes, and was won by armbar, both men were bloodied and bruised, and Pok Shen pulled him from these bouts because some of these Chinese teachers were trying to cheat to save face, and by getting the top fighter from Formosa to enter, it was getting too dangerous ..