Dr. Gyi

I had the opportunity to meet and talk with Dr. Myaung Gyi, courtesy of Joe Palanzo when he had be teach at his recent camp."Doc Gyi", as they call him, is the REAL DEAL.
I was privileged to sit and talk with him privately a few times during the event. He is a PhD in psycholinguistics and has an interesting background beypnd the fact he is fluent in nine languages. He is widely known as a grandmaster of Bando, a Burmese art. One portion of it looks like Muay Thai, but like many arts, there is way more to it.I had seen bando back when I was a brown belt in Chicago and thought it was pretty exotic.
Dr. Gyi had been the chief instructor for the United States Karate Association (USKA) for 15 years. I remember the USKA from my days as a new black belt and it was one of the biggest karate associations in America. Odd that a bando man would hold that position? I found he had trained with Gogen Yamaguchi, "The Cat", a famous Goju-Ryu master. Makes sense to me. Gyi was the boxing coach for a university in Ohio for years, and he worked with the US military when he was young.
We spoke of other things and I'll pass that on here soon in a second article. I was impressed with the Doctor and I'm looking forward to meeting him again.