Professor Terry Faircloth

I began training in the martial arts in 1978 under Sifu Jospeth Clarke, his method of Kajukenbo was called Emerging Center. His teacher was Ahgung Tony Ramos. Sifu Clarke was his 4th black Belt. Sifu Clarkes kjkb had taken a different look by 78 for he had incorporated 6yrs of pa qua 3 yrs of sil lum and 3 yrs of wing chun into his kjkb.
from 78-83 I earned my 1st degree , sifu Clarke moved to Florida in 82 his top student sifu Rick Winkel took me from brown to black sifu Clarke flew up in 83 to promote me to my 1st degree.
In 83 sifu Winkel walked away from martial arts and I took over the school. At the time I was working a full time truck driving job and teaching from 5 pm to 9pm every night.
I knew that i wanted to teach others martial art for the rest of my life because it gave me great joy helping others learn . but i had to think this out and come up with a plan on how I could do this the right way.
I felt I had to go at this full time to have all day working myself and teaching in order to get skilled at this. I also needed to learn other forms of M/Arts and last I needed to learn how to market myself as well as the school, you see I knew nothing about it.
So I had no choice but to quit work (scary) and go for it. My plan of attack was to teach at a local health club and thats where I would learn everything I needed to know about teaching marketing and as for students they were already there (the health club members. I made an agreement with the club if I could teach everyday every night my students , then I would also teach any of their members for free. You see my plan was tio be there a year and a half. Once I left I figured those members that were learning kungfu would then follow me to my new place .
They accepted this and actually loved the fact they could tell their members lessons were free. now my next move was I had a few hours during the day where I had free time, so I began studying arnis 2-to -3x’s a week and at the same time I learned sifu Al Dacascos had returned to the United States so my goal was to get him somehow to teach me. It took half a year but I did it, I got him to start teaching me his art. Since he was a full state away I had to accomplish this by making trips to Oregon on weekends and also got him to come to me 4 xs a year by doing seminars . I did all this and ran a full time school in the club.
By the time a year and half was up I had a total of 60 students who did follow me to my new school and I had learned many valuable lessons of marketing that I took with me. Even though I now had my own school again my schedule did not change i worked my training and teaching the art all day and made it to arnis classes thru out the week and traveled to see sifu Al on weekends if he was available.

In short I kept this schedule for 4 yrs or so then I had earned a ranking in arnis and I now was at the schhol full time…I saw sifu Al as many times as I could throughout the year. I was learning from him his method of what his street defense was and I was learning thje wunhopkuendo street drills and concepts, I was not learning the art persay (forms ) etc just street I kept my ch’uan-fa foundation. I was to create and do my own thing as I seen fit with the kjkb that I had . I was free and I liked it.
by 1988 I began learning aikido I was not trying to be ranked or become a member I just wanted to feel it to experience it and for a year and a half I got to do just that at the Phinney Center in Seattle Wa. In order to be ableto adapt t you first haveto feel whats it like to have it applied on you and thats exactly what I did , I got tossed here there and over there lol. but I got to feel it and I got to become it and I then began to incorporate it into the things I was doing .

The rest to date is and always has been teaching full time my school had become very successful by 1993. I took that year to bring everything I had learned and experienced from Ch’uanfa from Whkd, from Arnis and from aikido and I blended them into one form one concept with self expression. I had began to update the forms to fit the way I was now seeing self defense I had also been developing complete new forms and weapon forms out of my head.
I learned that by working all day on something you gain a greaty on iut and when teaching students I gained more than I ever gave out

By 1994 I was asked to fly to California with 4 of my blk belt students and test them in front of sijo. How ever when I arrived I discovered there was much more behind me being there. sijo had learned of my revising much of what I was taught he learned that I really didn’t teach the numbered sets but instead taught open concept , unfixed in method. there were 25 or more high ranking kjklb peers there and that was when I learned this was the day sijo was taking a look at whats up , it was a yea or nea day as for me using Kajukenbo as my base.

Sijo had me show him everything from yellow to black and in the end he and many many peers gave their approval Faircloths Method was sanctioned. by 1995 my school was well known in the 3 tri state area my students worked hard and didnt like second places they wanted first. By 1995 Black belt magazine voted my school as the number 10 school they felt to be top schools in the country that year, I to this day cant believe they even heard of o my school lol. But its true it did happen i was fortunate enough to be featured in 76 other magazine articles and again I say fortunate , Im thankful and grateful; for every interview ever that I had.
From my 1st degree to present I never was one who was interested in degrees in fact from my first black belt until my 4th degree 11 yrs had passed and I wore just a black sash. It was 93 when sifu Al stepped in and said Im putting you where you belong and I began for the first time wearing stripes. 20 full time years went by and I wore that 4th dgree until I was talked to by GM Vargas and Sifu Al Dacascos of the importance of being promoted to 8th level. I had by then 60 of my own black belts who needed to be promoted themselves but since I was not it held them back etc. In 2012 both GM Vargasand Dacascos had gotten together with 5 other grandmasters to view my material my students and caused my 8th to be done.

Today I semi retired from full time and teach only one on ones , I actually get to live life today …what a beautiful thing it is and still get to teach daily but only a few hours. My thing is you have to give to live and last “Be kind to people”

The martial art to me,
Im not interested in the word fighting or fight I believe in self Protection only. I have difused many many would be situations I have also been attacked for real in a violent encounter andmore than once. With witnesses , I truly did not want to fight and when it went all that came out was to defend , there was no thought process and thats what I teach, the other half of me holds protection coarses for home security etc car jacking counter measure s etc…
Respectfully, Terry Faircloth