Sensei Tony Verhoeven started his martial arts career like many other true masters throughout history. He watched a lot of Bruce Lee movies and made weird screeching noises at the TV. Once he realized that this was no way to practice he decided to look for a real teacher.
Sorry Bruce!!!
Sensei Verhoeven started his martial arts career at the tender age of 14 when he took up Tae Kwon Do at the Chatham YMCA. Though not extremely proficient at the art, he loved to don the sparring gear and get the crap kicked out of himself. He was REAL good at that as his instructors, Walt Burgoone and Garnet Johnson could attest to. Sensei Verhoeven stayed with TKD for a number of years while he practiced in Chatham during high school, then in London during college and then in Toronto after being posted to CFB Toronto. In 1990, Sensei Verhoeven was sent to Kingston, Ontario for a 6 month course with the military. Since he did not want to take that time off of training, he decided to visit the local TKD club in downtown Kingston. Much to his dismay, Sensei Verhoeven was told that he would have to start from white belt again since this particular school was of a different federation than the one he was currently affiliated with. This did not sit well with our Sensei, so he went back to the army base to speak with the Phys. Ed. staff there where a list of options were provided, one of them being some weird martial art called Akeedo, or so it sounded at the time.
On a cold blustery day in October 1990, our diligent Sensei walked the 2 km to find the RMC dojo which was located in the upstairs of what could only be described as a barn on the outskirts of the RMC campus. Sensei Verhoeven entered the room where this unheard of martial art was being taught and was immediately confronted with a site he has never forgotten.
“I walked into this rather small dojo to see a man of about 65, in a dress, doing some sort of dance like movement. Around him was a handful of people in white p.j.’s doing the exact same thing. I thought to myself, what the heck am I doing here? Once the dancing ended, this old fella in a dress approached me. He asked if I had ever done any martial arts before. I answered that I had done a bit of TKD. Now, at this point in my life I was 24 and had been practicing for about 10 years.
So the old guy introduces himself as Bill Bickford and goes on to explain to me what AIKIDO is all about. Getting rather bored by this story I thought I would ask the old guy to show me something.
NOW IT WAS TIME TO LEARN SOMETHING!!!
Bill said to me, “Go ahead and throw a punch at me”, so I punch at his head with the speed and strength of a 2 year old child. He laughs and says, “throw it like you mean it.” I smile and speed up the punch marginally. Once again he smiles and says, “no, no, throw a punch like you really REALLY mean it.” Well, I did not want to hurt him so I confessed, “listen man, I have been studying TKD for about 10 years and if I hit you like I MEAN it, I will kill you.” Bill Bickford just looked at me for a brief moment and then laughed saying, “if you do, then it is my fault.”
Fair enough I thought so I fired a hard shot at his noggin. Well I have to say I have never hit my butt on the ground so hard as I did that day. Having no idea of what just happened to me, I got up and asked the old fella if he knew how to defend against a kick. Without a real pause, I fired a front kick at his belly and wouldn’t you know it, I was on my butt AGAIN!!! So I got up again, mad as hell, and came at him with a fake side kick leading into a back kick which was one of my favourite moves. Well, anyone who does TKD knows that when you are going to throw a back kick, the last thing you do is look over your shoulder at the target then fire that evil kick. When I looked over my shoulder I saw nothing but windows and my heart sunk. The next thing I know, there is the feeling that a couple of bricks had just made contact with my shoulders and my butt was part of the mat again.
I got up the third and final time, bowed to Bickford Sensei and asked where to buy a gi and never looked back. He was truly an inspiration in my life.” Sensei Verhoeven went on to train with Bill Bickford sensei for more than 10 years achieving his nidan under Bill’s superior instruction.
Bickford Sensei fell ill with a stroke in February of 2001 and was never able to teach again. He passed a few short years later leaving a huge void in the Aikido community. Sensei Verhoeven grew restless after his teacher fell ill and felt that the Aikido organization to which he belonged was on a path he was no longer comfortable following. At this point, he started looking for a new affiliation that would be able to offer him and his students more opportunities to learn. Some time passed before Sensei affiliated with Hombu Dojo through Obata Sensei in Toronto.
Obata Sensei is a fantastic teacher and person who brings a great deal of experience and finesse to the Aikido community. Through his instruction, and that of many of his very fine students, Sensei Verhoeven was able to attain his nidan in Aikikai in a relatively short period. “Obata Sensei is a fantastic instructor. I always have such a great time practicing with him and his students in Toronto. It is a community event not just a classroom.”
Over the years, Tony has practiced other martial arts in combination with Aikido. For the better part of 7 years, he studied under Master Gus Michalik, founder of Black Arts Military Unarmed Combat. “What can I say about Gus? At first sight he is a quirky, funny looking guy. Short, a little chunky, kind of reminds you of Spanky from the Little Rascals. This guy always has a smile on his face and when you begin to train with him you find out why, REAL FAST! My first experience with Gus was at a TKD tournament in Chatham. Gus and his gang were there to compete in the self-defense portion of the tournament. My buddy, Fred, had been training with Gus for a couple of years and was always telling me about him. Fred points Gus out to me in a crowd and I thought to myself, “ahaha, that midget can teach ME something!” Well, about 10 minutes later, I had learned my lesson. This “midget” knocked me to my knees in a heart beat and I did not even know what happened.”
Tony traveled to London on a weekly basis to train with Gus and attained his 4th in the system. He has not been able to make that trip over the past few years since his work is 1.5 hours in the opposite direction. Tony and Gus do maintain a close personal relationship though, despite the lack of training and our Sensei still practices and teaches Black Arts to his current students.
“The Black Arts stuff is a great addition to what we already do. Using the pressure point and meridian theories to manipulate your attacker gives you that extra advantage in a self defense scenario. Also, the quick and dirty self defense moves taught by Gus come in real handy for those “OH CRAP” moments when you can’t think of anything else.”
In the past few years, Tony has also begun studying Wing Chun Kung Fu. He sought out an instructor in Windsor and trained with him for some months. Tony would have this sifu visit him in Chatham once a month or so and they would train for a few hours. Tony decided to advertise the classes in the local newspaper to try to get some more people together. The only person to answer the ad was a gentleman from Detroit who visited Chatham regularly. The two met at a Tim Horton’s (go figure) and here is Tony’s take on what happened.
“So I walk in to this Timmy’s to see this short black guy that had to be in his fifties.” I thought to myself, “I wonder what this guy wants to do, this wing chun stuff is a hard workout.” Anyway, we get to talking and this guy tells me he has been practicing traditional wing chun for years and is now seafood. My question is, “what is the difference between traditional and modified wing chun.” He proceeds to tell me the differences and I am thinking, “great, another self professed master in some unheard of system.”
BOY WAS I WRONG!!!
After speaking with this guy for about an hour, he decides to meet me at his place for some training and to show me some photos. Now you need to understand that all my life I wanted to meet one martial artist. That guy was Grandmaster William Cheung, friend and teacher of Bruce Lee.
So, here we are looking at photos and I see someone familiar in a lot of them. I ask more questions about this traditional wing chun system. I ask where it comes from, what are the principles, who are the founders, who is the current master. Then it comes to me. This guy in the picture that I recognize but don’t know why, this is GM William Cheung and he is standing in several pictures with this short black guy. Now I have to know more. So after more talk and photos, this guy tells me he is a provisional master in this system and his name is Phil Redmond. He decides to “show me some stuff” out in the yard. Sifu Redmond starts with some kata explaining the movements then proceeds to show me some punching drills and leg work.
For a guy in his fifties he can really move. I was so embarrassed at what I had thought of him earlier in the day. This guy was incredible. We play sparred a bit and I could not lay a hand on him. I got my butt handed to me.
I LOVE THAT!!!”
Unfortunately for Tony and all of Redmond’s students, Master Redmond moved to NY late in 2006 to help Master Mazza. Tony still pursues training in Wing Chun though working with his teacher is quite difficult at this time. There are many other arts our Sensei has “dabbled” in over the years including grappling, bojuka, karate and judo but his real love remains Aikido. We have seen him come to practice and train when ill, injured, and on all holidays. There have been times when only one student shows up for training and instead of going home, Tony says “well, if I have one student I have a class, let’s get to work.”