13/10/2025
A beautiful testimonial from our Melbourne school in recognition of one of our past Instructors; Master Gary Brown.
Remembering Sa Bom Gary Brown.
Tonight, we dedicate our practice to Sa Bom Gary Brown, who died one year ago on the 14th of October 2024.
Gary trained in Tang Soo Tao for 29 years, and in several other methods prior. Despite his experience, he was totally unpretentious, even when he was head of our School, between 2019 and 2023. He was the leader the school needed after the difficulties of losing our previous head instructor, and the COVID lockdowns; Gary was calm, flexible and understated. Some martial artists talk about being humble, Gary didn’t talk about being humble, he was humble. He never hid his mistakes, he never blamed anyone else for his mistakes, he never abused his authority.
In keeping with the school’s values, he always promoted diversity and support for students with less, less financial means, less power, less confidence. Teaching, he was a man of few words, but every word he spoke was succinct, authentic, and gentle. He loved helping students translate theory into practice. And all our students knew that although he didn’t say a lot, he cared deeply about them and their martial development.
He loved martial arts and loved theorising and creating his own
approach to understanding it and teaching it. He was a thinker in life and a thinker about martial arts.
Gary faced his illness stoically. Only two weeks before he died, Gary
was training lightly and teaching white belts, despite his cancer
treatment. The Sunday he fell ill with a chest infection, and two days before he was placed into an induced coma, he texted me to apologise for not making class on the Monday, a week before he passed. His text read, “Sorry I can’t make training Monday I’ve got an infection … and I’m in hospital.”
We miss but cherish the memory of our previous head instructor, Sa Bom Gary Brown (5 th Dan). We remember him as a humble warrior, tough on the outside, soft on the inside, and totally ethical all the way through.
Sa Bom Jeff Young (5th Dan)
Head Instructor, Melbourne Tang Soo Tao.
