February 17, 2000
The East Hampton High School gymnasium was packed to the rafters for Friday night's matchup between the East Hampton Bonackers and the Kings Park Kingsmen, a game the Bonackers were to win 69-54.
. . . The game was the fourth consecutive barn-burner for the Bonackers. On Feb. 3, two days after downing Our Savior New American in a nonleague showdown, the East Hampton boys upset a then-undefeated Amityville team, which, prior to that 51-46 loss, seemed to have the league title in the bag.
. . . The Bonackers will advance to the first round of the playoffs, facing an as-yet-to-be-determined squad at home Tuesday night.
—
"She's one of the martial arts heavyweights of the world," said Glen Rodriguez, who has been assisting Wei Chi, a Ross School teacher, in schooling a dozen youngsters in the ancient Chinese martial art of Wu Shu in a basement at the East Hampton Indoor Tennis Club.
Brought up under Chinese Communist rule, Wei Chi became a national (i.e., world) Wu Shu champion at 16.
. . . At 29, she turned to coaching and began turning out national-champion teams in her native Shanghai, to which she plans to take some of her best students for an international Wu Shu competition in early May.
. . . Wei Chi has students not only at Ross, but from around the world and throughout the United States. In the not-too-distant future, she would like to oversee an international Wu Shu training center at the Ross School.
. . . When she was young, in China, said Wei Chi, no one questioned authority. "Just listen — no mouth," she said with a laugh. "Only ear. No negotiable! No asking. Just listen."
But governing by fear was "not good," she said, though clearly discipline was a requisite to growth, and Americans, she found, were frequently in desperate need of it. Therefore, a balance needed to be struck, she said, between Eastern and Western ways in order to best educate the new generation. "Mrs. Ross sees this — she wants to combine the best of the East with the best of the West."
"Yes," said Wei Chi, "I push. But I push with my love. My students can accept that. And how they do in competition is the result. You can see the result. They can see it, their families, the school, everyone. . . . Less talk, more work!" she said with a laugh. "Then you see change. Then you see results."
