Doug Hall - 20 Years with Zac Walters

Doug Hall has been training with Zac since 1987. After learning Ju Jitsu as a teenager and Tae Kwon Do in his mid twenties, Doug became a Wu Shu practitioner when he joined Zac’s class at the Police Community Youth Club in Penrith in 1987. By 1988 he had gained his instructor’s certification and then took charge of the PCYC classes. In 1991 he was promoted to Master instructor. Doug ran the PCYC classes until 1996 when a change of job meant he was unable to continue teaching. This was also the year that Doug’s PCYC students made their first assault on the ISKA CCP Championships, collecting a number of gold, silver and bronze medals and Doug himself taking out the Grand Championship for weaponry, demonstrating the straight sword (“jian”). The 5 foot high trophy still takes pride of place in his lounge room. Doug was able to put in appearances at the Battle of the Dragons tournaments in 1997, but had to remain absent from teaching because of work commitments.
From 2001 Doug again began working with Zac behind the scenes to help develop plans for the expansion of sport Wu Shu and since then has continued to explore the range of forms and styles that Wu Shu students can perform, and helping out with teaching when able.

From Doug Hall-
What? 20 years? It couldn’t be! Wait a minute: 1987 … 2007. Yep – 20 years since I first walked into a Zac Walters Kung Fu class. How time flies! You know for the first couple of classes that I did, I had no idea who Zac was because his other instructors took those classes. Then one day I saw this big islander fellow, wearing dirty track suit pants and T-shirt, standing over at the side having a chat to someone. I wondered who that could be, and it didn’t take long before I found out – boy, did I find out. I thought the training I’d done so far was pretty intense, but when Zac took over the class I began to learn what training was all about! From that moment on Zac Walters carved out a place in my life, and now 20 years later he’s still there: still greeting me on the phone with “Hey Doug, how ya doing!”... and still asking me if I want to come down and do some training (yes Zac, but be gentle with me – I’m getting old!).

So it’s been 20 years of training, learning, dreaming, scheming, planning, teaching, and competing; 20 years of students coming and going – some you wish for all the world you could keep forever (and others you wish you could make disappear); 20 years of ups and downs, good and bad, tragedies and triumphs. 20 years on we’re still here: a bit older, hopefully a bit wiser, but definitely with the Wu Shu flame still burning brightly. Here’s to another 20.

A few things I’ve learned over 20 years:

You can always do better. I can remember plenty of times when I thought I’d done my form really well, only to have Zac look at me with that look of disgust he gets on his face sometimes, and say “That was pathetic”.

Train hard, set high goals and strive to achieve them with a serious mind, but always keep a sense of humour. Be ready to have a good laugh at yourself from time to time.

You need to be pushed to extremes to find out what you really are capable of, so don’t complain when your instructor makes you do 50 extra push-ups or when you have repeat a technique again and again and again and again and……

Keep a generous dose of humility in reserve, because there’ll be times when you’ll need it. Don’t claim to be something you know you’re not. Sooner or later you’ll have to live up to the claim.

Patience, patience, patience. People in our society want everything instantly, but there are no instant superstars in martial arts, so don’t expect to become one. The best martial artists become so by consistent, hard training and practice which enables a gradual development of skill to the higher levels.
Try to see martial arts as a project rather than a product.