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Published: Friday, Dec. 30, 2011 / Updated: Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2012 01:56 PM

Steele Creek Master Sbarge topples competition

STEELE CREEK -- 

I’d never met a man who could narrate a high-dollar fortune cookie, or crack my head like a cheap one. Then I met Eric Sbarge.

It’s Master Sbarge to his students, the byproduct of lineage training tracing back through some of the heavyweight names of shuai chiao, tai chi and shaolin kung fu. To my ears its a polysyllabic mess. Between his, it’s a lifestyle.

“If you just want to learn to kick ass, there are gyms,” said the head instructor at The Peaceful Dragon in Steele Creek. “We have a lot more mental and spiritual capacity than we often work on cultivating.”

Sbarge is as calm and contemplative a man as his surroundings suggest. Peaceful Dragon sits on 12 wooded acres, a 10,000-foot custom facility surrounded by gardens, ponds, training space. All built and maintained by students, patrons and volunteers. It’s as relaxing as a place covered in broadswords, nunchucks and countless Eastern death devices can be.

The lady behind the desk tells me to relax, he’ll use “empty hand” with me. Which I’m hoping means no ancient weapons slicing me into tiny reporter bits. My guess is he could take me out with a used paper towel. He’s studied martial arts for more than 30 years, written for magazines, won numerous black belt tournaments including the United Nations Open. He performed at Madison Square Garden.

This guy’s in the U.S. Martial Arts Hall of Fame. Know what gets me into the U.S. Martial Arts Hall of Fame? A ticket. Get this. Sbarge achieving a higher rank than his current one would require the actual loss of human life. I’m not sure my mom signed the permission slip for this one. Or why my editor did.

“Hey,” she said, “it’s your skull.”

We’ll try tai chi push hands. It’s a training staple, learned in seconds and perfected in a lifetime. It’s the least likely contest to get me decapitated. Opponents toe a line with opposite feet, then push each other until the loser’s feet move. It’s an action and reaction game, a push for every pull until weakness exposes itself.

What Sbarge does with physical energy, I attempt with words. He insists Peaceful Dragon students aren’t about comparing themselves to others, but with themselves yesterday and today. Yesterday I didn’t know tai chi from chai tea. Today I’m grappling with the house master. So I win, right?

“Technically,” Sbarge said.

My confidence lasts as long as a bowling ball bout with gravity. I’m hurling toward a glass wall. So much for warm-up. My toe barely tickles the line, and I’m flailing the opposite direction, like being shot with an empty T-shirt canon. Not quite sure what just happened, or where it came from, but I can’t stay upright.

It’s an outcome Steele Creek computer programmer Natalia Hill saw coming. She’s a bad woman. A literal kung fu fighter, and probably the only lady I’ve ever called a bulldozer in print who’d likely thank me for it.

“Pushing people out of the ring is my preferred methodology,” Hill said.

Hill began training at Peaceful Dragon more than 11 years ago. Two years ago, she entered the full contact, infinite weight division lei tai competition at the International Kuo Shu Championship in Maryland. She won it, then repeated in 2011. She also won two push hands titles. But is she any help?

“No,” Hill said. “I haven’t beat him yet, so I’ve got nothing there.”

Rounds last 90 seconds, with two of three winning. Down several points and a dragon boatload of dignity, I catch a break. Sbarge leaves his knee a little too close. Maybe he’s being generous. Maybe his yin is tired of swallowing my yang whole. I grab the knee and lift. Judge George Lu, son-in-law and Peaceful Dragon manager, allows it. Round one to Sbarge, 3-1.

“I have taught thousands of students in my lifetime but few have done as well as he,” said Grand Master Frank DeMaria. “I have only made five master levels in my 60 years of teaching and he is one of them.”

Information that would’ve been useful before I agreed to duel the dragon. DeMaria is the adopted son of late Great Grandmaster Ch'ang Tung Sheng, a champion undefeated in his lifetime. He’s among the top Chinese masters ever, in several disciplines.

My knowledge of martial arts comes entirely from a childhood of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle” fandom. And vague recollections of a swan kick from “The Karate Kid.” If a mutant turtle on a steady diet of pineapple ice cream pizza and video games can master these things, how hard can it be?

My right knee buckles. I nearly fall on my face. Sbarge barely looks at me as I topple. He’s a mid-shift librarian. I’m sucking wind like tornado alley. One last break – my forearm catches and anchors in his armpit. Finally, being half his age and twice his weight might matter. One super deltoid lift, another point. Round two to Sbarge, 4-1.

Not that they’ll be framing my portrait atop any dojos, but maybe Master Splinter won’t disown me. Literally toe-to-toe with a man whose school won 10 titles and 26 placements in the past two national championships. Who legend DeMaria calls an “honor to our art.”

Sbarge runs a school that ranks in the top 1 percent nationally in active students, physical size, training equipment, instructor experience, revenue and students training into advanced ranks. Yet it’s what he hasn’t done – at least since his New York youth over street hockey – that boggles me.

Sbarge utilizes his tai chi and kung fu training every day, but hasn’t ever had to mutilate anyone with their combat applications. I’m deflated. No pickpockets in the big box parking lots, no young hooligans assaulting old women for their purses. Nearly four decades of mastery and not one “Mortal Kombat” moment?

It’s like getting your doctorate in finance only to graduate and join a convent.

“The biggest self-defense is cultivating love,” Sbarge said. “If you can cultivate love, you very rarely ever have to defend yourself.”

It’s a lesson I suppose I’ll take. I more need one in how to bandage up my pride. Then again, perhaps that’s exactly what Sbarge just gave me.

Competition: Martial arts Master Eric Sbarge of Steele Creek

Contest: Best two of three rounds, tai chi push hands at The Peaceful Dragon in Steele Creek

Score: In an actual tournament, the final score would’ve been two rounds to none. I’ll go with overall points, Sbarge winning 3-1 and 4-1. Final score: Sbarge 7, Marks 2.

Overall Record:Lake Wylie Pilot local talent 394.22, Marks 218.9.