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History Of Yen Ch'ing Tao I wanted to be a combat solider, and even joined the Junior Marines at the young age of 11. At the age of 13 I went away to Military school and left my home and family, to become a professional Military officer. I learned a lot about military and fighting arts at a very young age. I was an Aeronautic Major at the University of California, and out of well over 200 applications, I took the test for a Naval Aviator and was the only one that passed. My father was a Crash Crew Driver at a Naval Base at Moffet Field near San Jose, and saw many pilots die. I never told my father how I use to fly planes. My friends and I did play games of War, Cowboy & Indians, but no one wanted to be an Indian, even though now we know how brave many were and great warriors many were. We would play cowboys and Indians and no one wanted to be an Indian because of all of the movies in Hollywood making Indians out to be evil. When my friends and myself played only the cowboy parts and we would have faked Indians, this way we could kill thousands of Indians by the end of the day. When I found out I was Scottish, I did not know until I was about twenty that the McLeod Clan, were famous warriors, until the famous movie came out about the highlanders, and then the weekly TV show .Our other favorite game was war games, I love those games and we made them as real as possible digging trenches, setup ambushes, and of course at Christmastime we all hoped for the newest Mattel machine gun. We would have contests and fight all day on Saturday and even after school. I remembered I was even joined the junior Marines at the age of 12 and then went to military school. My parents got a divorce so I chose to go to the Army and Navy Academy in California, one of the top military schools in the United States. I started learning military science at the age of 12, and stayed in military school for several years living on the school’s premises. I did military 24/7 until I was the age of 17. I received higher ranks and more special awards at military school than any other Cadet at my level in the first year of school. It was probably because it was my dream to become a professional solider, and an officer the rest of my life, and I was also in the Junior Marines at age of 11 and already knew how to march and do the manual of Arms with an M-1. I studied a martial arts known as Tang So Do while attending military school. Prior to going to military school I studied jujitsu at the YMCA, and at this time was the first time I ever saw karate. I remembered when I was young I want to be like James Bond 007 and wanted to emulate his style of living. Terry Mandel was my friend from across the street in my neighborhood he was like the Tough guy on the Television Show "Happy Days" and his dad was tough and taught him how to fight. Terry also had an older brother and they always wrestled and fought, like kittens learn how to fight, just playing around. However just like kittens sometimes they would push it and get mad and each other and have a real fight. Most the Kids on the Block were also scared of Terry as wells all the other kids in the fifth and sixth grade. But one day I decided to defend myself against Terry. Something happened inside of me and I decided to fight back, I did very well and I actually scared Terry and he never bothered me again. Many kids are afraid to fight for several reasons because they never were in a fight and their parents told them that finding was bad. But growing up is necessary to protect yourself and learn how to protect yourself in order to survive and empower your spirit. After fighting Terry, I realized I had much more empowerment and are realized that I could defend myself, it is important for a child to have this empowerment so that they do not go through life afraid and so they can deal with things at a more equal level with people. One of my best features was I was tall and had long arms and legs as well as I was in great physical shape and very athletic , I would play all types of sports such as football, basketball and any other type of sports. While in junior high school I had my first real fight, I had a cut on my left forearm from skateboarding and it still had not healed at this time. And junior high school if you do not defend yourself and others will think you were weak and pick on you or possibly attack your. One day while in gym class a so called wana-be tough guys was trying to join a so called gang, he decided to pick on me. While we were all getting ready for Physicial Education and changing in the locker room, this guy pushed me in front of the gang that he was trying to get into, I ask him to stop and he kept pushing, but I knew I had to act or in the future not only He would pick on me, but many others would think I was scared and also pick on me, especially the members of the gang, and they may see me as their next victim. And by the way my old friend terry Mendel was an next to gang watching, and also a member now. The person who attacked me was much smaller than me but thought he could beat me, because I was a nice person, but people do not understand, even today, I am nice, but it has nothing to do with ability to fight or empowerment and I decided to fight back. I remember hitting him about 30 times mostly with open hands, so I would not hurt him too bad, and then blood was flying everywhere because of the cut on my forearm from Skate boarding, and cut on my arm opened up as I was hitting him. He gave up and quit and then there was a dead silence and then everyone was so surprised how I stood up and fought him and they also saw all the blood as well, thinking it was his blood. The coach was screaming for the class to get outside for physical education, and then I realize where all the blood that came from; my left arm cut opened up so I had to go was it up and try to stop the bleeding, it also left blood all over my new white T-Shirt for Gym. Everyone went outside but I had to stop the bleeding, our coach was tough and if you are not to be late for roll call, you will do pushups until you almost are begging him to stop. Anyway I was 5 minutes late at roll call, because I had to stop the bleeding on my arm. As I came outside to roll call, the coach screamed out McLeod why you are late and what’s with all the blood on your shirt? I told him I cut my arm he just smiled and told the rest of the class go run laps, except me, and he wanted to talk to me. He said he wanted to talk to me in his office, I was actually scared what would now happen. Once in his office he said he saw the fight and the "punk" had what was coming to him. He even said good job and that kid is nothing but a trouble maker and punk, and he was tired of his attitude. The coach fixed up my arm and said he did not want me to report this fight or we both would get in trouble, because normally he had to report fights, but he said all I was doing was protecting myself, and maybe the punk learned his lesson. After that during junior high school everyone left me alone actually it even carried over to a high school as a freshman, where everyone left me alone. The next summer I joined military school and started my military career started as fulltime as child. I decided in my senior year of high school to quit military school. And at that time I decided to take more martial arts known as Kenpo. I lived near San Francisco in a small town of Saratoga and knew martial Arts Systems seemed to start on the West Coast, especially near San Francisco. When I first saw karate, I cannot see the value because you practice in on imaginary opponents from what I saw, and Jujitsu you needed a partner to practice your holds any new movements, and never saw how Karate would work in real fight until I joined Army and Navy Academy in Carlsbad California. The reason I join military school was because my parents got a divorce and I was given the opportunity to join a military school because of the divorce. While growing up I had no role models and my parent’s supervision was very bad because my father was a firefighter and my mother owned a newspaper and neither of my parents was around to supervise their children. Military school was much different than living at home, we had no parents to guide you only ex-officers of military and you were not to allow break any rules or you would be in serious trouble. I used to be a poor student before I joined military School, however with the discipline of military school I became a B plus student and was able to get into the University of California.My mother enrolled me and into Tracy’s Kenpo program in San Jose, which was Tracy’s largest school at the time. After I graduated from high school I went to the University of California at San Jose, were I studied judo for several years. Our coach was Olympic coach for judo, he believed in a lot of mat work. Even though I preferred throws, the mat work I learned was invaluable for the Streets, because eighty percent of the time in a fight you’ll end up on the ground, therefore being a good fighter you must learn how to fight while on the ground .After four years of college, having been on the varsity judo team I also received my first degree black belt in Tracy’s Kenpo karate. Of the summer of 71 I went to Europe for three months, and while in Copenhagen Denmark I rented my first building for my first building for a martial art school. However we could not get the permits and I went back to United States, where I open my first school in Santa Cruz , California. While managing and owning my school in Santa Cruz, California I studied from many different masters, such as great grandmaster Ed Parker, great Grandmaster to Tadashi Yamashita, Great Grandmaster Tino Tuiolosega, Grandmaster Wing lam, and then I opened a chain of martial arts school in Monterey County. I was very lucky having such Great Martial Art teachers, and by the time I was 16, I knew more about military arts than, many who had actually joined the military for years, because I was learning from one of the best Military Schools in the world, and from very high ranking Officers who retired from several branches of the services. I had a choice to be a pilot for the Navy or open a martial Arts school, I was glad I choose opening a martial arts school, because I was one of the true "Pioneers" of Martial Arts, and met Great Grand Masters, from China, Hawaii, Japan, and the United States. I also travel throughout the world teaching martial arts, and in about 1974, I started Yen Ch’ing Chuan, later changed to Yen Ch’ing Tao, "The Ever Changing Way", because the name was fitting with the martial arts constantly changing, but also our society.
Douglas G. McLeod Martial Arts Resume GRAND MASTER
McLeod started martial arts in the early “60’s” studying Ju
Jitsu.
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