Dr Stephen Yan --- A matter of respect
Jon Dyer(Dai zhi qiang) was my student from 1994 until 2007. He was enthusiastic and had a keen interest in martial arts, in particular the Chinese styles. I had trained for many years so I had a lot of information to present to him, much of it unusual or even controversial because I had studied the histories and hierarchy of the styles I had practised and some of the details I discovered countered that normally taught in many popular schools. He was very fortunate I feel to meet me because I have such a passion and back this up with long hours of training and cultural study of the classics. I actually started formal training at age 13 , I am now 50 , have never stopped training during this period , and still train twice a day , and teaching every week, students from local and overseas .
I have even built a training hall in my yard at home to train in every day and to teach classes. Not only this but I have brought out many great masters to live with me for months at a time in order to get the true nuances of the systems and all this gets passed on to my valued students(13 masters from period of 25years) . It is my life! As my chosen vocation I am an acupuncturist and massage therapist (was a surgeon of general surgery before immigrate to NZ) and everything I do revolves around this philosophy of self-preservation and appreciation of natural remedies. I cannot honesty tell you how many hours I have studied the great books of wisdom and translated their worth into a language people can understand. Although I am Chinese I now live in New Zealand but make regular trips back to China for the sole reason of learning more about these national treasures. Many of these old masters are dying now year by year and I feel it my job to preserve and restore their collective knowledge and to treat it as gold. My students understand that they are being gifted precious information from my travels and teaching. Anyway, I have taken Jon to many destinations in China to act as guide and translator and mentor. This was a great privilege for him and I did my very best to make him comfortable and direct him to the best places and people to learn. I do not do this for just anybody, there is a trust and respect and caring in this – not merely a “favour” lavished on anybody walking through the front doors of my training hall.
Jon started with Northern Shaolin Kung Fu and then progressed to Xing Yi , Dai Xin Yi and then Qin Na. I knew in the beginning his lifestyle was far from perfect but do not need to go into that here. Although he did romanticise about Chinese Martial Arts in the beginning (Like many people) he soon realised that it was more about hard work and hard study than a theatrical performance. He was ordinary or regular in his training and did not particularly stand out so I decided that I treat our relationship as a business arrangement rather than a Mentor/Protégé type. This appeared to work well. We trained every week in private lessons.
Later I felt by his demeanour and by what he said that he had changed his lifestyle more in keeping with that held by serious martial artists from the past. With this understanding I decided to make him an inner disciple. This was witnessed by Master Yan (Xin Yi Master) and so it legitimised and lodged in history the deed as done. That would have been fine if he had actually changed and the story completely true. Unfortunately he has now left me and is saying unsavoury things which is irresponsible and in many cases unfounded. He has stumbled on some very public forums to hurt himself and others. It is very shameful to see a young man disintegrate and become so angry at the world and people providing him shelter and food in the form of teaching. I wish no harm or bad things to come to him of course but he needs help if this continues. I hope somebody else can offer some comfort to him and make him realise the mistakes he has made and the damage done to his nearest and dearest. Anyway my path lays ahead of me as it does for him also and hopefully people reading this can see through his delusions to get to the actual truth.
