National Wushu Training Center, Los Angeles

Coach Eric Chen first began teaching kung fu at Penn State in 1973, where he started a campus group to celebrate the art. A mere year later, he found his small club's membership swelling in the wake of the Beijing Wushu Team's visit to the United States, where they performed for the president. The event also inspired him to continue his martial arts studies, so he headed to the Chinese Wushu Research Institute in Boston to study with the masters there. After a decade of intense training, he gained the opportunity to help put on a wushu exhibition for the opening ceremonies of the 1984 Olympics. Using the LA venue his team used for rehearsal, he opened his first school, the National Wushu Training Center, in 1986. Today, Coach Eric splits his time between Los Angeles and Beijing, lending his prodigious martial arts talents to the film industries in both cities. His filmography includes such credits as Kung Fu Panda, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Transporter.

Meanwhile, one of Coach Eric's disciples, Coach Matthew Osborne, runs things in the LA training center. Coach Matthew focuses on wushu's traditional, respected four-year black belt program, instilling into students the tenets of basic self defense, weapon forms, and empty-hand styles such as Long Fist. Defined by long, sweeping full-body extensions, high kicks, and low-to-the-ground stances, Long Fist requires strength, agility, and intense flexibility. He teaches students many compulsory forms of the Long Fist discipline, giving all students a common set of moves from which to begin before they start to diversify, specialize, or run along the tops of cubicles.