Good Neighbor Podcast: Cobb County
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Good Neighbor Podcast: Cobb County
E46: Culture is Beautiful: The Heart Behind Chien Hong School of Kung Fu
Gary Mitchell's journey from martial arts-obsessed child to founder of Chien Hong School of Kung Fu reveals how passion and cultural appreciation can transform a life's path. After seeking authentic training in Taiwan, Gary brought traditional Chinese martial arts to Georgia in 1995, creating a unique cultural bridge that has flourished for nearly three decades.
Beyond teaching punches and kicks, Gary's approach emphasizes character development, respect, and humility – especially for younger students. "We don't want anyone to get the impression that it's about fighting," he explains, challenging the one-dimensional portrayal of martial arts in popular media. For adults, the school offers both vigorous kung fu training and meditative Tai Chi practice, helping students of all ages discover balance, health benefits, and personal growth through movement.
The school's lion dance and dragon dance performance troupe represents another dimension of Gary's cultural mission, bringing traditional Chinese celebrations to events throughout the region. These spectacular performances have graced everything from Lunar New Year festivities to weddings and even special events for dignitaries like former President Jimmy Carter. Despite once performing with a broken arm (drumstick ingeniously held within his cast), Gary's dedication to sharing these traditions remains unwavering.
At its heart, Chien H School embodies Gary's profound belief that "culture is beautiful" regardless of who presents it. As the school approaches its 30th anniversary, its diverse American students continue spreading this message of cultural appreciation through both martial excellence and artistic expression. Ready to explore this unique combination of physical discipline and cultural celebration? Visit chienhong.com to learn about classes or schedule the performance troupe for your next event.
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Millie.
Speaker 2:M. Hello everybody, welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast. I'm your host, millie M. Are you in need of martial arts training or an exciting performance troupe for your next event? Well, they might be closer than you think. I have the pleasure of introducing your good neighbor, gary Mitchell of Jen Hung School of Kung Fu. Hi, gary, how are you? That's a mouthful for me.
Speaker 3:Hi, wonderful Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. We're so excited to learn more about you and your business. Tell us more about Jen Hung.
Speaker 3:Well, our school itself, our main school, is headquarters in Taipei, taiwan, which is where I got my training. I opened our school in Georgia in 1995. And I'm the chief instructor and the director of not only our martial arts facility for training for adults and kids, but also the director and creative director for our lion dance, dragon dance and lion dance performance troupe. So we do both we do martial arts training, but we also do various performances for lots of different events for Lunar, new Year, asian themed parties, birthdays, weddings, cultural, multicultural events you name it, we do it.
Speaker 2:I bet that is so exciting to see. I lived in San Francisco for a number of years and they have a big Chinese New Year parade there and the costumes are just so ornate and beautiful. So I can only imagine having a birthday party or a wedding. So how did you get into this business? What made you open a school of martial arts in Georgia?
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, like many kids, I was fascinated by the movies and by, just, you know, the culture overall.
Speaker 3:I mean, there was a lot of things that resonated with me as a kid Just the overall sense of calm that person can get through studying something that you know most people would deem as they.
Speaker 3:They could even call it violent, or or you know something that would try to make you too, you know, macho minded or whatever. But really the martial arts is almost complete opposite of those things, because they don't harness those kind of ego kind of oriented things, and it really guided me in a way that kept me able to, you know, find the right and wrongs and things, but also love and appreciate a culture that wasn't my own. I embraced it and it was just something that as I grew up in it I mean, I started when I was about eight and as you go through your teenage years and those kind of things. But eventually I found myself in Taiwan, which is, you know, was the kind of. The main goal was to go kind of close to the area where the arts came from, because I wanted to get that connection. But I also wanted to when I taught it. I wanted the students to feel like they had that connection too.
Speaker 2:Some of us might not ever make it to Taiwan, but I love how you really wanted to keep that authenticity by actually studying there in that country. So I think you touched a little bit on it. But what are some of the myths and misconceptions about your industry or what you do in particular?
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, I think, because of today, the media and television movies have kind of given people a one-sided view of what martial arts is, or even what Kung Fu is, and you know, we don't, we don't want anyone to get the impression that it's about fighting really, because that's just that's. That's one component of the depth of it. And you know, like when we teach children, we want the kids to learn about building their character, building leadership qualities and things that are kind of going to help them later on, whereas a lot of them come into it with Ninja Turtles and you know movies, that kind of show them that kind of show them that, that part of it, and we want them to understand.
Speaker 3:there's more to it than that, because it is about, you know, learning respect, learning kindness, learning to be humble.
Speaker 3:These are character traits that are really, really important. And for the parents, we want them to know we're on their side. We want the same things for their kid as what they bring to us, because we know that we're reflective of that and we want to send them into the world with those good traits if possible, to make sure that they're on the right path. Because I mean, you know a lot of kids go astray and then you have, and you also got, kids that just aren't very active and I think that's pretty important because that's just health. You know, when you've got a kid that's, you know, preteens and they're a little overweight, you know that can be very that can mess with them. You know that can be very that can mess with them.
Speaker 3:You know we, we always want to try to look at it as here's an outlet, here's a way to keep physical but also keep it interesting. But you know, in other ways also know that you're not a doormat, know that you should, you know, learn to protect yourself, because those are valuable traits to have. And you know, in the adult situations as well, I mean it just balances itself out. I mean, like it or not, we, even as adults we tend to have, still have our kid-like traits. So sometimes coming into an environment that teaches us to be humble and even learn how to learn really, because as adults we kind of forget how to learn things because we lead the show as adults so it's kind of like, well, walking into an environment that you don't know anything about or you're not so savvy to, can be very enriching to you but also humbling, you know, because you you're allowing yourself to admit I don't know this thing and I don't understand it. So I want to, I want to grow and build from that.
Speaker 2:So those are. Those are some of the things some of the things yes, I was literally just talking to my friend about that today Like how vulnerable you feel in spaces where you just don't know and you have to, you know, give into that Great lessons for kids and adults for sure. So it sounds like you don't really have a target customer. You service everyone who wants to take a class. But who are your target customers and how do you reach them?
Speaker 3:Well, I mean a lot, of, a lot of people have either come into this from um, you know they always wanted to do it as a kid but they didn't get the chance to. And then as an adult, now they've got time and a little bit more freedom to do it without those restrictions. But then also some parents will say, hey, my kid's 15, 16 years old. I want to do something with my kid. We let them do a class together so they can actually, you know, have that moment. The younger kids, we kind of keep them in a separate situation because of their learning curve is quite different than that of an upper teenager and you know their struggles are very different than that of an adult. So so keeping them in different classes just kind of helps keep the the the understanding of what their purpose in the learning is. So, you know, other arts we teach.
Speaker 3:We teach Tai Chi, which is more of a meditative type practice. It's not, as it's not on the martial side of kicking, punching, you know, defending as much as just calming and centering the self, learning how to breathe properly, learning how to move your body and get circulation flow. And there are martial arts. You know content to it, you can learn how to apply the moves. But many people don't really go to learn Tai Chi for that. A lot of them will just want the health benefits which, as you get older, those are important. I mean balance, just blood flow, lower blood pressure. These kind of the Tai Chi have great potential to help a person in a lot of ways. It just depends on what their goals are. I mean, we have 65 year old students in our Kung Fu class who just won't take Tai Chi because they're they're stubborn. They say, oh, you know, I can still do it. So we just we let them do their thing.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, and I love that spirit. I think that spirit is so important, you know, I mean they're not going to, they're not letting anybody say they can't do anything.
Speaker 2:Can't is not a word in their vocabulary, right you? Can rile them up or you can cool them down Absolutely. And I tell people all the time I think. A lot of times they think of meditation, as you know, sitting in a in a quiet room, crisscross applesauce, doing chant and it's like. But there can be other things that are meditative.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, you are so right.
Speaker 2:It is true.
Speaker 3:It's kind of, I think. I think what people do is they get a mindset of what they think meditation is and it becomes kind of a meme, whereas the depth of it is so much more than just reading something that makes you resonate with it. Connecting to it is the doing, and you know, through the movements that we're doing and the actions we're doing, anybody can benefit from it. I mean, it's just a way of saying I want to give myself a gift of calming. You know, if you can do yoga, you can do Tai Chi. It's just Tai Chi is kind of like taking yoga and moving with it instead of just holding the postures.
Speaker 3:But you are so right that meditation is so beyond just sitting on the ground with your eyes closed. I mean there's many different ways to do it and I mean you could even just be sitting at a traffic light and some people will call it zoning out. But it is a meditational moment that you have, where this clarity of your mind is there. You see everything around you, but you're not in tune with any of it, and then the red light will change and you're back to normal and everything goes. That's kind of a connection. You know, just the clarity of like, no thought, no pressures, no negatives or positives, and you know that can be very, very helpful to us sometimes and you know that can be very, very helpful to us sometimes and it's just a clear line.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just clearing your mind is reassuring to me to know that movement can be involved with that, you know so let's talk about outside of work. What do you like to do for fun?
Speaker 3:well, to be honest, because I run this thing, you know it's a 24 7. I mean, you know it's a 24 seven. I mean, you know, because of our performances. We've, you know, we've been very blessed to do a lot of great things, for a lot of wonderful events, but also causes and just and people, I mean we've.
Speaker 3:We performed for the, you know, for the, the recently he passed away, the former president, jimmy Carter, at one time, and that was such an honor to perform for him because you know he had gone to China numerous times for diplomatic purposes or whatever, and he had seen these types of shows but he had said this was the first time he saw an American group do it and I was very honored that we were that group. Yes, I mean, the bad story of this I'll make it really quick is I had a broke arm doing the show and I had to hold a drumstick inside my cast to make the drum you know, to do the drumming, and he, he just thought that was the most amazing sacrifice and I was not going to go down without. I mean.
Speaker 2:I had to do that. You had to show your stuff for the former president. I don't blame you.
Speaker 3:Right, you had to show your stuff for the former president. I don't blame you. I mean it was so important to our school to even get that gig and it was. It was such an honor, you know. But and we just you know, we've we perform for Jane Fonda, we performed for Ludacris, I mean we've had a lot of really interesting people cross our paths to where we've been honored to be able to give them a show or give them a piece of us, and that's just something that I mean quite honestly. That creativity is something I'm constantly on 24 seven and I just love what I do. I mean, you know, my downtime really is just kind of boring and normal, just taking it easy. You know doing what I got to do and you know to keep things floating on the, on the, the, the outer world, as I like to call it, because I don't like to go out there very often. I like to stay in my school and do what I do.
Speaker 2:That was a very long way of saying nothing. I don't have fun outside of work.
Speaker 3:No, I mean, you know, just taking it easy is my way. I like traveling. You know traveling's good, Hiking's good, I like all those things just to kind of get away. But I do love what I do. There's no denying that.
Speaker 2:And that's what I was going to say, like when you. I know the cliche of if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life, but that truly shows how much you enjoy what you do. Is that that's your focus? And I'm glad you do get out to, you know, travel and hike and do those things just for you and you alone.
Speaker 3:It is true.
Speaker 2:So let's switch gears a little bit. Can you describe a hardship or a life challenge you overcame and how it made you stronger?
Speaker 3:Well, I would say, originally, when I went to Taiwan, I was actually supposed to go to mainland China and at that time Tiananmen Square happened, which was a democracy riot for the students in Beijing and they stood up against the government. And it was a really hard moment that I had to make a real decision on whether I was going to go to China or just scrap the idea entirely. And I knew I couldn't go to China at that time. I just didn't think it was a safe option to do so. I had to think about it and luckily Taiwan showed up on the doorstep. I had an opportunity and that would have been the most ridiculous thing in the world to not take it. So I mean I wouldn't call it a hardship, but I would say it was a a turning point of what brought me to where I was. I mean, I would say you know the hardship. I mean you know, about four years ago my mom passed and my mom was was.
Speaker 3:My mom was the. You know the light, I mean the beacon. You know this lady supported the dream when other relatives were not on board. A lot of them were like you know, don't do this, you're wasting your time, go do something practical and my mom was like you got to chase this thing, man, go do it.
Speaker 3:And my mom, my mother, was a very hardworking lady and her work ethics definitely made an impression on me to be that way in my adulthood. And she had to be mom and dad, you know, and that's hard to raise a boy. You had to be mom and dad, you know, and that's hard to raise a boy. I was not an easy one but I, but I, I I have nothing but admiration and respect for that woman and and she definitely put me in a position where it said you know, if you're going to, if you're going to make a pledge to do it, keep your word and do it, because if you're not, don't, there's no reason to say you're going to do anything you're not willing to do. And I have to stand by that. And I opened my school on that premise and we've been open, for actually August will be our 30th birthday.
Speaker 2:Happy birthday. Keeping your word, such a great lesson, and thank God for mom. You know she did a wonderful job because you are an amazing human. So, Gary, please tell us one thing you would like for our listeners to remember about Jen Hung.
Speaker 3:Well, I would like them to just be reminded that culture is beautiful, and I say this from the heart. I don't care who shows it to you, I don't care who demonstrates it for you. What I care about is that you get to see the beauty of culture, regardless of who demonstrates it or who presents it to you, because that means their heart was in to share it too. And you know, for a school like ours, you know we're an American school and our students are a diverse group of people and all we really want people to do is see that we love this thing that we are a part of, but we also just love the world. We want people to see culture because, I mean, you know, like it or not, whatever fence you stand on, this country is culture, and if you miss that, you miss everything about who we really are. And we need that. We just need culture and I just want people to embrace it. I want people to love culture. That's what I hope they get from Jen Hong.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and what a timely message. I'll just say that I have to ask before you go. What does Jen Hong mean? I'll just say that I have to ask before you go, what does Jen hung me?
Speaker 3:Well, it's my teacher's name. Actually, his, his family name is Lynn L I N and then Jen hung. So your Kung Fu teachers give you a kind of what they call a Kung Fu name. And my teacher's name meant or means actually the sword in the rainbow, and what that means is like the rainbow is what spreads across you know, a land or a massive area, and it's saying that he teaches the martial arts to anyone anywhere all over. Like the rainbow, it just goes across and shares.
Speaker 1:It's this art over like the rainbow.
Speaker 2:It just goes across and shares.
Speaker 3:It's this art and at the end you know if there's a if, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is the lessons and the learning. So I think that's such a cool thing to his name, so we named our school in honor of my teacher.
Speaker 2:So glad I asked that question. How can our listeners learn more about your school and how to participate and be a part of it?
Speaker 3:Well, our website is chienhongcom and that's you can find our. You can find our information about our classes, our schedules. If you'd like to schedule a class to come in and try to, or even to come and observe, you're welcome to do those things. If you have an event, a party, any kind of gathering, you just want something exciting, we we definitely can do lion dance, dragon dance, we have a drum troop, we have Kung Fu, martial arts we can show. So there's tons of things you'll be able to get out of that exciting moment If you, if you wish to have a performance.
Speaker 2:Perfect, I'm going to come out of the class and now I've got to find a husband so I can have a wedding so I can have you guys perform.
Speaker 3:Come on, we love it.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. I really appreciate you taking time to be with us today.
Speaker 3:Best of luck to you and your business.
Speaker 1:We are so honored to be here. Thank you for listening to the good neighbor podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnpcobbcountycom. That's gnpcobbcountycom, or call 470-470-4506.