It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Brendon McSmith due to cardiac arrest. Brendon McSmith studied Northen Shaolin and Xing Yi Quan with me, in the early 1990s. When Brendon joined class, he was only 17 and was in danger of being expelled from high school for fighting. Brendon’s mom hoped a good martial arts instructor would help him to mature into a good man. Luckily, she found my school and brought him to me.
McSmith had a formidable physique standing over 6 ft tall. As an adult he would be 6’ 4” tall and 285 + lbs of muscle. The majority of McSmith’s career was in the US military in the role of Special Amphibious Reconnaissance Corpsmen or SARC. This is a rare, elite class of soldier. There are very few SARCs. On a raid with 10, 20 or 50 Marines or other :operators” only one would be a Corpsmen. Corpsmen are the navy equivalent of an Army Medic. Navy corpsmen with Navy Seal training are attached to Marine Raider units. Marine Raiders are the most elite combat group within the Marines and are the equivalent of the Army Green Berets and Navy Seals. McSmith was able to become one of America’s most elite warriors and was a team member on many raider combat missions and missions with other elite forces combined together.
After retiring from active service as a Marin Raider Medic McSmith became a high level trainer of US elites in the role of combat shooting instructor and combat driving instructor for State Department and CIA personnel. Brendon McSmith was particularly praised for his skills as a combat medic trainer. His calm demeanor treating wounds and teaching others how to stay calm while treating intense wounds help saved many lives. His friends speculated that the training he gave so many other corpsmen, medics, agents, and other personal helped to save literally thousands of lives over the past twenty years.
Brendon McSmith had a great sense of humor and was extremely smart. He was also direct and honest. I think his most admirable trait however was his loyalty and love for his comrades. His true friends will all agree if you were in need, Brendon would immediately try to help. But, Brendon would also help total strangers in need as he demonstrated many times.


I’ll share a few stories of Brendan McSmith’s training with me. Not much point in lecturing a young man like Brendon, the wall between us would only get higher and thicker if I tried. For a good lesson to work sometimes the student needs to draw the right conclusions themselves from the situations they find themselves in.
When Brendon first came to class, he was young at 17, but already a huge teenager and starting to feel his strength. So, the first night of class I put him between two of my best female students who were well accomplished in the lengthy push routine we did every night. This routine involved 12 – 15 different types of push-ups, all done slowly, with perfect form and integrated deep breathing. Most beginners are advised to do 4 of each push up. Advanced students would do 10, 12, or even 15 of all 12 styles. This is way more push-ups than most people can do and results in extreme soreness. Despite his bravado, Brendon was completely crushed by the two small ladies who smiled pleasantly as they easily banged out all the push-ups. I think Brendon learned a little respect for women and humility that first lesson without a word being spoken. With strong resolve Brendon added momentum to his motivation to build a massive physique.
Knowing a lecture would not help Brendon solve his problems at school I told him a story. The story is called “Nasiruddin Trains a Rooster”.
The King wanted to gamble on rooster fights with the other kings. Having bought a magnificent rooster, he had heard Nasiruddin was the best rooster trainer in his kingdom and sent for him. When Nasiruddin arrived, he agreed to train the rooster on one condition, that he Nasiruddin was to say when the rooster was ready. Nasiruddin did not want the king to cut off his head if the rooster lost. So he wanted to make sure the rooster was ready for the King. The King agreed and gave the rooster to Nasiruddin to begin training. After a month the King grew and impatient and called Nasiruddin and asked how well the rooster was doing. Nasiruddin replied that as soon as the rooster saw another rooster it became extremely aggressive and would immediately try to start a fight. The King was delighted and asked if the rooster was ready. Nasiruddin replied “No the rooster is nowhere near ready and needed a lot more training or it would surely loose”.
Nasiruddin continued training the rooster and each time the king asked the rooster was less aggressive and showed fewer reactions to the other roosters. Finally, Nasiruddin judged the rooster to be ready and brought him before the King and explained. Now when this rooster sees another rooster it makes no movement or expression not even an eye twitches or a feather moves. No matter what the other roosters do they cannot excite this rooster. He is ready and you will earn lots of money form the other kings.
The King wasn’t sure but took the rooster and went to meet the other kings. When it came to fight the other roosters tried their best to intimidate and scare or even get a rise out of the King’s big rooster. When they couldn’t the other roosters simply ran away because they were frightened, and the King won vast sums of gold.”
Brendon obviously drew the right conclusions and all his problems at school disappeared.
In this story Brendon McSmith came to my house for “Karate Kid” or perhaps “Cobra Kai” style lessons. My house was at the bottom of a large hill and was subject to substantial rain runoff when it rained. I needed a new French drain system and to repair and seal my foundation to prevent water from being absorbed into the house walls. The problem was the local soil was pure yellow clay and the old gravel and broken red clay drainage pipes needed to be removed. This is like breaking apart concrete. Normal shoveling just won’t work. To make progress one needs to use a heavy breaker bar to knock some loose, a post hole digger to pick up the chunk and then after lots of work you have on shovel full or gravel and clay. It was hard work that builds hand and arm strength quickly. Since Brendon and two other young men were getting ready for a tournament, I traded them extra lessons for their labor and used the labor to build plenty of functional muscle especially hand strength. This was a big project, and it wasn’t finished before we left for the tournament. Everyone did extremely well in the tournament. When we returned back to my house to finish the project, I took the young men up the hill to my shed. We unlocked it and got out the electric jack hammer. I had the electric jackhammer the whole time. When my contractor friend Michael Reibin advised me on the project, he knew the ground would be arduous and lent me the jackhammer. I had it the entire time but wanted the guys to get stronger and they did. Everyone laughed hard and acknowledged they had been “Miyaged”. (a reference to the Karate Kid movie training sequences!) Then we quickly finished the job.



These were the stories I told to his best friends and comrades in arms from his service as a marine raider medic at the Quantico Marine Chapel during my turn to eulogize our Kung Fu family member. Brendon McSmith was laid to rest with full military honors including a twenty one gun salute, taps, and flag folding ceremony. It was dignified and he was honored and respected by an incredibly elite crew of operators and contractors including many marine raiders, special forces green berets, members of navy seal team six, state department, and CIA agents. Brendon McSmith was a huge guy and he had a huge impact on those around him.
Thank you to Brendon McSmith for his heroic service to our country and for his brotherhood in the martial arts of Northern Shaolin and Xing Yi Quan (Form and Will Boxing). He will be missed.
There may be a local afternoon cookout in August for the local friends and Kung Fu family. We will post details as they become available.
My condolences.
Thank you