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TRADITIONAL MARTIAL ARTS
WINTER 1995
For 28 years, beginning in 1965, Master Raul Ries was a devoted
student of legendary Kung Fu Master Jimmy Woo. Over the years,
Woo became a father figure to Ries, whose own home life was
ravaged by his father’s violence and alcoholism. As
a result, by the time he was in high school, Ries was an angry
and violent young man himself, in many scrapes with the law
and ready to fight at the slightest provocation, real or imagined.
Perhaps that’s one of the reasons Woo took such a liking
to Ries. He, too, had led an extremely violent life as a youth,
fighting often and fighting to kill.
Woo, of Chinese ancestry, had inherited the ancient art and
fighting technique of Kung Fu San Soo from his great-great
grandfather, who, about 150 years before him, had been taught
the secrets of San Soo by Chinese monks who had taken him
in as an orpahn. The sacred book of the secrets of San Soo
was passed down to Woo’s great grandfather, then to
his grandfather, father and finally, to Woo himself.
Woo took his inheritance and legacy seriously, coming to America
and training some of the world’s finest and most respected
Kung Fu instructors, one of whom was Raul Ries.
Following a tour of duty in Vietnam as a U.S. Marine, Ries
began studying under Woo in 1968 like a man possessed. Deadly
determined and undaunted by anything, Ries quickly earned
his black belt and opened his own studio in Covina, California,
in 1971. By that time, though, he was already a husband, a
father, an adulterer, and a physical and verbal abuser of
his wife. His life was spiraling dangerously out of control
when something happened that would change his life forever.
On Easter Sunday evening, 1972, Ries anxiously paced the ransacked
living room of his home in Azusa, California, checking and
rechecking the rounds he had just loaded into his hunting
rifle. Having discovered the packed suitcases of his wife
and two young sons stacked neatly near the front door when
he arrived home from a weekend camping trip, Ries, in a rage,
had torn the house apart, smashing furniture, photos, and
punching holes in the drywall. He knew that his wife had had
enough after five long years of physical and verbal abuse.
He was determined, however, that she was not going to leave.
He would kill her and their sons before he would let her walk
out on him.
CONTINUE...
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© 2008 Kung Foo San Soo