About Us

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Darryl Eng is a native Seattlelite. 

 
Throughout his life, he has maintained a passion for the outdoors and physical fitness. He has been in the Cub and Boy Scout program all his life and has been helping to run the Boy Scout troop he grew up in for over 33 years! He is a Personal Fitness Merit Badge Counselor. He enjoys backpacking, moun

Darryl Eng is a native Seattlelite. 

 
Throughout his life, he has maintained a passion for the outdoors and physical fitness. He has been in the Cub and Boy Scout program all his life and has been helping to run the Boy Scout troop he grew up in for over 33 years! He is a Personal Fitness Merit Badge Counselor. He enjoys backpacking, mountaineering, fly fishing, waterskiing, downhill skiing/racing, windsurfing, biking, teaching skiing and teaching physical fitness and martial arts. 

His martial arts life began around the tender age of 8 or 9 when his parents sent him to Chinatown to learn Kung Fu in the basement of the Wong Family Association with Sifu Wong.  By that time, he was already in his 70's!  Darryl would watch him move and kick high to the ceiling and right then he said to himself, "I want to be like that when I am old." That man lived till his mid 90's

From that time on, he learned various forms of Kung Fu but nothing ever serious, just for fun.  However, when he was 12, Jesse Glover, Bruce Lee's first student moved into the neighborhood. 

Darryl would watch him teach a few guys every few days in the back lot the apartment where Jesse lived. After awhile, Darryl went up and met Jesse and at first, Jesse said, "go see Taky Kimura, he teaches kids".  Darryl and his family knew of Taky so a few days later he rode his bike to Taky's grocery on 8th and Madison, knocked on the door where he lived. Taky was working downstairs at the time so Darryl tracked him down.  They spoke for a few minutes and Taky said to go back to Jesse as he actually didn't teach kids. So back he went, told Jesse and Jesse said, "ok, I'll teach you." Imagine, this 5'-10" or so, 200+ lbs black man and this scrawny 4-foot something not even 60lbs wet Chinese kid working out!  But after about 3 or so months, Darryl could do about a thousand ban sao/tan sao type repetition exercises with Jesse. Lessons went on until graduation from high school then college got in the way!

In college, Darryl lost touch with Jesse but he started learning to lift weights. However there is the precursor at Seattle Prep where kinesiology was taught so learning to weight lift was actually fascinating.  He also took some Shotukan Karate at the UW IMA for about 2 years. During that time, he also met UW student Maurice Smith who was to become the heavy weight Muy Thai champ. He remembers watching Maurice kick and punch and would hold the bag for him. He liked to do that just to get toughened up and boy, Maurice could kick! 

 
When Darryl was around 26, he decided it was time to talk to Taky Kimura again. Sifu Taky is Bruce Lee's best friend and bearer of the torch for JKD along with Guro Danny Inosanto. Going to the old grocery, he found Taky working in back and when Taky saw him, he said, "I remember you, you're the kid that rode his bike to come see me years ago!" Darryl was thrilled that he remembered and they got to talking and Taky invited him to come join the dojo in the store basement. Darryl studied under the tutelage of Sifu Taky and Roy Hollingsworth. The rest is history!

In 2001, Sifu Taky sold his store to retire.  For awhile there, the main guys of the club at that time, kept things going by teaching over at the Mercer Island community center.  Meanwhile, Sifu was prepping his barn out in Woodinville.  While that was still being prepped, Bob Hart, one the senior students was a contractor and built Allstar Fitness in West Seattle for an investor. Upon completion, the guys started working out there.  Sifu opened his barn about that time as well so some of the guys went to train with Sifu including Darryl.  After a few years, with Sifu's blessing, Darryl went to West Seattle to train with Mark Mitman, Bob Hart, Mike Bennett, Mike Look and Mark Allen. Mike Hilow, Abe Santos, Scott Lindemuth went back to Woodinville to help Sigung Taky and Sifu Andy Kimura teach and train.  
Currently, Abe Santos is now a Sifu and spreading the JKD locally and abroad. 

Currently at 54 years old, Darryl is a 4th level instructor with Mark Mitman over at their dojo in Issaquah.  The others have since retired. He's been teaching physical fitness along with JDK/Wing Chun with Mark for at least 10 years.  To this day though, he still doesn't take it too seriously in the sense that he says, "I work out to stay in shape and eat."  And he says, "the teacher is always the student." He constantly learns more about nutrition, exercise programs and routines, training methods, new techniques of self defense.  He loves seeing his students improve, have those light bulb moments, lose weight, get toned, fast and strong.  

Come on down and lets learn something together and get fit!