User:SaLongBinh-Dinh/SANDBOX

Master Vũ Trung Nam (born June 4, 1935) was a prominent Vietnamese master of Bình-Định Sa Long Cương, and its chief instructor. He held the rank of 6th dan (Hoàng Đai Đệ Lục Đẳng) in Binh-Dinh Sa Long Cuong, and was a direct student of Grand Master Trương Thanh Đăng (1895-1985). Master Nam established the first Binh-Dinh Sa Long Cuong school in California in 1980. He was the chief instructor of the school, which was located in downtown San Jose. Master Nam also served as Vice President of the Vietnamese Martial Arts Federation, a nationwide organization he helped found in 1980. Master Nam would resign from this organization in 1988.

Early life
Master Nam was born on June 4, 1935, in the town of Kratie, Cambodia. He was born to Mr. Vu Van Đoan and Mrs. Do Thi Sang and was the eldest of four children. His father, Mr. Doan, was a construction entrepreneur, and traveled to different areas of the country during the French colonization. He was one of a few Vietnamese civilians allowed to carry a rifle for protection. The family would later settle in Saigon, Vietnam in 1947.

Master Nam’s ancestors include some military generals who served in the Vietnamese Imperial court in the 1700s. The generals collected taxes and maintained order in North Vietnam.

In 1951, at the age of 16, Master Nam began training in judo in Saigon. Around this time his parents decided to send him to study in France. Master Nam continued his secondary grades in Toulouse where he obtained his baccalauréat in mathematics (maths élém). Later, with a MPC (Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry) license in hand, he decided to attend the ENAC (Ecole Nationale de l'Aviation Civile) in Paris, a "French Civil Aviation University", ( Initially, the École Nationale de l'Aviation Civile was located on the outskirts of the runways of Paris-Orly Airport, but was moved to Toulouse in 1968). During the summer months he worked at a grape vineyard.

Master Nam returned to Saigon in 1961, and became the Deputy Director of Tan Son Nhut International Airport. Two years later, in 1963, he married Ms. Le My Hanh and they would later have two sons. In 1963 and ’64, Master Nam visited the United States as part of a FAA sponsored training program in air and ground facilities, navigational aids and radar. In 1968, he was hired to be the Vice President of Operations for Air Vietnam. Master Nam resigned his position in 1974.

Martial arts career
In 1955, when Master Nam went to Paris to study, he began spending his free time outside of class learning Karate and had earned a second-degree black belt in Karate in 1958. Previously, he already had a black belt in Judo. However, passionate about martial arts, he continued also to train in Aikido. In 1961, Master Nam returned to Saigon. Wanting to test his martial art skills, he began seeking out challenging other martial arts instructors in Saigon. After failing to find a challenge, he eventually challenged Grand Master Trương Thanh Đăng, who was the Founder of the Bình-Định Sa Long Cương style of Vietnamese Traditional Martial Arts. After failing to even touch Grand Master Dang in a sparring match, Master Nam joined his school the very next day (1962) and continued to train with the Grand Master until 1975. Master Nam was granted 6th dan black belt in 1974 and was the first official instructor (Võ Sư) of the Sa Long Cuong school. In 1985, before to pass away, the Grand Master Trương Thanh Đăng has decided to rise Master Vũ Trung Nam to the rank of 7th black belt (Hoàng Đai Đệ Thất Đẳng).



The Sa Long Cuong - Vietnamese Traditional Martial Arts descends directly from the “Võ Trận” (Military martial arts) originally from Bình Định, a province in Central Vietnam, and also the native region of the Tây Sơn Brothers, whose the protagonist Nguyễn-Huệ also known as the Emperor Quang Trung (光中皇帝;  Quang Trung Hoàng Đế )  is considered by the majority as the patriarch of the Traditional Vietnamese Martial Arts.

The Vietnamese Binh Dinh - Sa Long Cuong fighting style is based on the approach that in general, the Vietnameses opponents or invaders, are bigger and stronger than the Vietnameses themselves. Therefore, its fighting principles are based on fast changing foot work, and deceptive direction of movements to counter attack either by hardness or by softness. The counter-strikes usually by punch, stabbing, grappling, clawing, kicking aim mainly the opponent’s weakness points or vital points, with the first objective to injure the opponent and make him less efficient, then to knock him down after and only if necessary.

Imprisonment by the communists
In April 1975, the Fall of Saigon occurred and the communists took control of South Vietnam. Master Nam had strong ties to the Tan San Nhut International Airport administration, and made plans for his wife and two boys to leave on a cargo plane. This particular flight was intended only for women and children. After they left, Master Nam made plans for his mother and himself to leave by plane as well. However, the day they were supposed to leave, the airport was bombed and the airplane could not landed therefore, they were all stuck in Saigon. For the next three years, Master Nam made four attempts to escape Vietnam. On one occasion, Master Nam was captured and held in a detention center in Saigon.

“They thought I was a CIA agent, because I’d been to the United States," he remembers. After few months the communists released him. “I was so close to death so many times there,” he recalls. “My understanding of martial arts; the meditation, the breathing techniques, and the mental discipline it teaches, helped me survive."

In 1978, on his fourth and final attempt, Master Nam succeeded, escaping with his mother by boat. The escape took place at night, in Vung Tau, Vietnam. The boat sailed to Malaysia, with about 35 men, women, children. The boat was later scuttled, to prevent being turned away from shore by Malaysian authorities. “I went to the U.S. Embassy," Nam explains, “and my wife sponsored me to the United States.”

Later life
The Vu family briefly settled in Atlanta, Georgia, while awaiting to be reunited with Master Nam. His wife worked for a church-charity organization helping Vietnamese refugees. In 1978, Master Nam was reunited with his wife and children. He had heard about the high-tech opportunity of the Silicon Valley, and Master Nam decided to move his family to California in 1979. The family settled in the Bay Area. As he studied engineering at Foothill College, his wife studied computer programming. After a few months, his wife began work as a computer programmer. And Master Nam took a position with Applied Materials in Etch Final Test.

Master Nam was responsible for establishing the first Binh-Dinh Sa Long Cuong school in California in 1980. He was the chief instructor of the school, which was located in downtown San Jose. . Master Nam always considered his school as a second small family and tuition fees were kept to a minimum, just enough to pay the rent. He urged his students to respect mutually and be a good citizen.

Master Nam also served as Vice President of the Vietnamese Martial Arts Federation, a nationwide organization he helped found in 1980. Its roots hail from Vietnam. This organization was an effort to unite all Vietnamese martial schools and promote the Vietnamese martial arts. Master Nam shared his martial art skills with other Vietnamese schools, and also assisted with student belt testing in different cities and states. He resigned from this organization in 1988.

Master Nam and his wife became U.S. Citizens in 1984. In 1986, his wife died of a subarachnoid hemorrhage. He would later remarry and resettle his family in San Jose, California. Master Nam retired from Applied Materials in 1997, after working there for 18 years.

In early 2005, after being misdiagnosed by Kaiser Hospital for many years, he learned that he had stage four liver cancer. He would die a few months later on August 12, 2005 at his home in San Jose. Master Nam is buried at Oak Hill Funeral Home alongside his first wife, and is survived by his two sons and his second wife.