Legend of the Street Fighter

Life is like a tree in many ways. From a seed sprouts a tree. Vines, roots, and limbs all intertwine, both past and present, to make one single living being. So this tale is not just my story, but also the tale of many extraordinary men. Most are great men who went unknown but to only a few. To me, they are the constant reminders of the duality of life, how the mysterious can exist alongside the ordinary and remain unknown.

I will begin simply by talking of a man who was as far from simple as he was from being a man. Some time around 1930-1940, there was a male child born named Thai Sunz. Little is known of his true origin other than it was somewhere in China, more than likely along the border that intersects with Asia Minor. I would describe him as an almond-colored man, oriental in appearance, and of average height and build. He was odd in appearance, mainly as not a single strand of hair grew on his body, not even his eyebrows. He was the direct head of an art translated loosely as the Iron Phantom. Some believe it to be descended from warrior monks, others an art from ancient Africa and Asia Minor.

Trained in the old ways of life and death combat, he was skilled and deadly. Thai Sunz, like many Asian immigrants, brought to America his art and culture. At the time, he was still a young man eager to feed his family, so he opened a school to teach kung fu. It was common at that time for instructors coming into the community of martial arts to compete against each other in tournaments. During one contest, he killed an opponent with one palm strike to the forehead. He later realized how the senseless contest cost someone their life for fortune and fame. He vowed never to follow this path again.

Thai Sunz would close his school never to teach openly again. He mainly taught to his children now, but later, he was vexed with one problem. The master had two daughters and no son. This was a very big problem as only a man-child could receive full transmission of the art. If there was no full transmission, the art would die with the last head.

Thai Sunz grew older and was unable to find an heir to his art. You see he was in a different time and place. He was now in America, and it was the late eighties. The world was in a craze of sports arts, and the old, rough dangerous training needed to master the ways of life and death were frowned upon. But as fate would have it, things would take an odd turn. Thai Sunz moved to Oakland and opened an apartment complex in the Bay area. He would later meet a young man who lived in Houston visiting the area and take him as a disciple. For those who don’t know, during the late eighties to early nineties, the area known as South Park was the center of a drug war in Houston. The main street that goes through the neighborhood was the murder capital of the city at one point doing that time.

Under these conditions, his art would find new use and relevance. In China, for thousands of years, there have been legends of martial arts masters. Now, with the changes of time, a man named Thai Sunz met a young man named Mike Harris, my teacher and friend. Mike was at a beach not far from Oakland, practicing a karate form called a Kata, when a man approached him, and on that day, a new legend began, The Legend of the Street Fighter.