I would like to post a tribute to my friend the late David Belsky.

Thursday, September 8, 2022

I would like to post a tribute to my friend the late David Belsky.

I met him when I was studying Tai Chi Chaun with his instructor Ernest Rothrock. On Saturday afternoons I would travel to the Shaolin School in Wilkes Barre Pa to work out in the open training class at the school. Dave was one of Ernest’s senior students and at that class seniors would take the floor one after the other and continuously run forms. I joined in with that training. One at a time all would run a form to be followed by the next and so on. The school was teaching Pai Lum, but my personal studies encompassed forms from many styles. I remember Dave watching my performances.

When Ernest moved to the Pittsburgh school, in time Dave became the owner of the Wilkes Barre school. And I continued to go down and train with them.

As our personal friendship grew eventually Dave shared some other Pai Lum forms with me. Not ones I taught, just to give me more to work at.

Here are some photos of Ernest and Dave at work.

Dave passed away on May 10, 2022.

Here us a video Dave made in December of 1984. I was moving in New Hampshire and Dave spent that Saturday afternoon filming my forms so I could remember then as there would be no Shaolin School in that area.

As the filming went on I grew tired, so Dave noticing that took over and filmed one of the forms he shared with me to allow me to take a break.

This is him walking through the form Pai Lum Kuen to help me remember the form.