Unlike many other schools and martial artists who claim to be "authentic", students of the Sin Thé Karate School have a direct lineage to the Shaolin Temples in China. Our teacher, Elder Master Bill Leonard, and many of the students study directly under Grandmaster Sin Thé. His teacher was Grandmaster Ie Chang Ming, who began his studies at the Shaolin Temple as a young boy. His teacher was the legendary Su Kong Tai Djin, the first Grandmaster in the history of Shaolin! We are only two generations from them!
Grandmasters
The title of Grandmaster is bestowed upon the chosen leader of a martial arts system by the previous Grandmaster upon his death or retirement. Usually given to the highest ranking student, they are responsible for leading the entire system. There can only be one true and authentic Grandmaster of a martial arts system at any time.
Grandmaster Su Kong Tai Djin (1849 - 1928)
The first of the three grandmasters was born in the Fukien province of China in 1849. He was born with a rare genetic condition which resulted in his entire body being covered with hair. His parents, convinced they had given birth to a demon, abandoned the infant into a nearby forest. A group of passing monks heard the baby's cries, and being educated, realized he was human, and brought him to the Shaolin Temple. Given the child's appearance, the monks knew he would not be adopted by any family and decided to raise the child themselves.
This situation was unique from all others because Su Kong Tai Djin was raised from birth in the temple. He was not only raised with the monks' ideals in mind, he was also not limited in his studies to one master. He was treated as everyone's favorite son and could study with anyone. The masters responded to his rare enthusiasm for learning and he quickly mastered hundreds of forms which had never been accomplished by one man before.
It is important to understand the distinction between the grandmaster of the temple and the head abbot. The grandmaster was in charge of the monks' physical progress and the mastery of the martial arts by the warrior monks. The head abbot was in charge of the temple as a whole and the monks' religious and intellectual studies.
After learning the temple was going to be attacked by the government, the monks evacuated the temple, taking with them priceless books, scrolls, and artwork and fled into the mountains after setting fire to the temple themselves. One of the young disciples who fled the temple with Su Kong Tai Djin was a young boy name Ie Chang Ming. Su Kong Tai Djin died in 1928 at the age of 79.
Grandmaster Ie Chang Ming (1880 - 1976)
Ie Chang Ming was born in 1880 and admitted to the Fukien temple as a young boy. There he spent all of his time and energy learning the martial arts, specifically the Golden Snake system. Upon the death of Su Kong Tai Djin, the title of Grandmaster was passed to his top student, Ie Chang Ming.
Later in his life, after taking a wife and starting a family, Grandmaster Ie returned home to find his wife being attacked by some soldiers. After killing ten of them, a price was put on his head. He fled to Bandung, Indonesia and eventually established a Shaolin school there. In Indonesian culture, the Chinese were hated. To avoid conflict with the government, Grandmaster Ie Chang Ming added the Japanese word, Do to Shaolin to disguise it as a Japanese art rather than a Chinese art. At this time, he also adopted the Japanese gi (uniform) and belt ranking system that we still use today in his honor.
Grandmaster Ie was famous throughout Indonesia for his martial arts abilities, specifically his iron palm training, his high level of meditation, and his mastery of the Golden Snake system, the highest art of the Shaolin Temple. To demonstrate his iron palm skills to his students, Grandmaster Ie placed several grains of uncooked rice between two boards and then smacked it with his hand. After lifting the top board, the rice had been reduced to powder! In another demonstration, he instructed one of his students to fetch a river rock from the stream near the school. He placed the rock on the anvil, struck it with his palm, and left the room. His students, unimpressed and failing to realize what they had just witnessed, walked over to the rock which was still sitting on the anvil and tried to pick it up. It simply turned to dust and fell through their fingers!
Grandmaster Ie's meditation skills were so high that he did not sleep at night. He would place his head on one chair and his heels on another chair and suspend himself between them every night while meditating for hours. In the morning, he would instruct one of his students to place a chopstick in the hollow of his throat and strike it with a rock. Rather than penetrate his throat, the chopstick would shatter into hundreds of splintered shards!
To demonstrate his mastery of the Golden Snake system, Grandmaster Ie would have his students tie his hands and feet together and then lay on the ground. At this point, a member of the audience would be brought forward, given a sharpened spear, and told to try and stab him. He was never stabbed! At this point, Grandmaster Ie would "slither" over to a large wooden pole and proceed to climb it without using his hands or feet which were still tied! He would wrap his body around the pole and, using his extreme muscular control, would slither up and around the pole to the top!
Ie Chang Ming died in 1976 at the age of 96.
Grandmaster Sin Kwang Thé (1943 - )
In 1943, Sin Kwang Thé (pronounced Tay) was born in Bandung, Indonesia. His parents were Chinese but fled to Indonesia after the Communist Party came into power. Young Sin was drawn to the martial arts and actually began training in a lost art known as sandburn training at a very young age. In sandburn training, practitioners treat their hands with special medicine and then place them in buckets of heated sand. Over time, the sand is made hotter and the length of time one's hands are submerged is increased. This training toughens the hands but also makes the skin dangerous for other humans to touch, hence its attractiveness to martial artists. Sin Thé stopped the training after a sandburn master accidently picked up his grandchild without special gloves and the baby was killed. This master and all of his colleauges stopped teaching and all of their students were dismissed.
Not long after, a friend of the family and a close friend of Grandmaster Ie took young Sin Thé to his school to watch a class and be introduced. He was amazed by what he saw. Grandmaster Ie's students were practicing empty hand forms, weapon forms, and sparring. It was a far cry from being a student whose sole training was burning their hands! The seven-year-old asked to join, but was dismissed with polite excuses. After some time, he was allowed to join the school, and then the real tests began.
As it was at the Shaolin Temple, Grandmaster Ie was very strict in whom he admitted as a student. Potential students were studied from every conceivable angle to judge their temper, demeanor, and attitude. One wrong action would prevent a student from ever gaining admittance to the school. One night, Grandmaster Ie "tripped" and spilled a bowl of uncooked rice on the floor near Sin Thé. In Chinese culture, one way to diet is reduce your servings of rice by one grain each day. Grandmaster Ie instructed Sin Thé to find all 855 grains of rice that had been in the bowl. Late that night, long after all the students had left, he finally finished the task. In another test, Grandmaster Ie gave him a bowl filled with three different colors of beans and asked him to arrange them in triangles in the bowl, which from basic geometry, is impossible. It was a test of persistance and perseverance. In his final test, while Sin Thé watched a class, Grandmaster Ie poured a cup of hot tea over his head and looked directly into his eyes to gauge his reaction. Luckily for young Sin Thé, he was too shocked to be angry and was admitted into the school.
Just like at the temple, young Sin Thé's training began with stances. He would stand in horse stances, bow stances, and cat stances for hours at a time, especially while doing chores such as washing the dishes. To further build his leg strength, Grandmaster Ie required him to do one hundred one-legged squats every day! Eventually, after he had proven his trust in his teacher and built up his physical abilities, Sin Thé's instruction in Shaolin-Do began. At the age of thirteen, Sin tested for his black belt. This test was extremely difficult. At various times throughout his test, while performing his kata blindfolded, boards would be held in place to show that every punch and kick were properly executed. At the conclusion of the test, he had to spar seven other students while blindfolded!
As his training continued, Sin Thé's abilities increased greatly. He spent all of his time training with Grandmaster Ie and even stayed at his house on weekends and during his vactions from school. It was at this time that Grandmaster Ie saw Sin's potential and began grooming him to become the next grandmaster of Shaolin-Do. The pace of the training became frantic. Grandmaster Ie began teaching him one form every day of the week. But forms were not the only thing Sin was being taught. He was also being taught countless training exercises and forms of meditation, including Liu Fu Tao, or Sixth Sense training.
In 1964, Master Sin was preparing to leave for Berlin, Germany to study engineering and physics. But the breakout of a political crisis in Germany (the erection of the Berlin Wall) altered his plans. A friend of the family, who was a professor from the University of Kentucky, convinced Master Sin and his parents that he could get an equal education at a much cheaper cost. Master Sin flew to Cincinnati, Ohio, and took a taxi to Lexington, Kentucky, which cost him all of the money he had. Here he began his studies at Transylvania University and not long later began teaching Shaolin-Do (without his teacher's knowledge or permission) to suplement his income, the first time non-Chinese had ever learned the art of Shaolin-Do! Grandmaster Ie would later find out about his teaching and after some heartfelt correspondences, gave his student his blessing to teach Americans.
In 1968, his training was complete and Grandmaster Ie awarded Master Sin Thé the rank of 10th Degree Black Belt and the Grandmaster's Red Belt. Sin Kwang Thé had become the youngest Grandmaster in the history of the Shaolin martial arts! Grandmaster Sin Thé continued his education at the University of Kentucky and had nearly completed his Master's Degree in Nuclear Engineering when Ie Chang Ming died in 1976 at the age of 96. Grandmaster Sin realized that the world had plenty of engineers and scientists, but only one Shaolin Grandmaster. He quit his studies and devoted all of his time to teaching the art of Shaolin-Do.
A Shaolin-Do student is considered a Master once he or she has attained the rank of 5th Degree Black Belt or higher. Each rank also has a title — 5th Degree Black Belts are referred to as Associate Masters, 6th Degree Black Belts are Masters, 7th Degree Black Belts are Senior Masters, and 8th Degree Black Belts are Elder Masters.
Elder Master Bill Leonard — 8th Degree Black Belt
Elder Master Bill Leonard is Grandmaster Sin Thé's most senior student, having been with him since 1967 and was the first student to attain the rank of 8th Degree Black Belt, having been promoted to that rank in September 2003.
Elder Master Leonard is the head instructor at the Sin Thé Karate School and brings his unparalleled 40+ years of teaching experience to the students there. He not only teaches all ranks of students at the gym, but as a nationally respected instructor, he is often sought out by Shaolin-Do students and masters from across the country for private lessons. He has personally trained more than 10,000 students to the rank of black belt, not to mention the countless other students who have trained under his guidance over the years.
While known for his intense dedication, loyalty, and sense of honor, he is also known as an incredible instructor. He is often the reason many students give for continuing their studies in Shaolin-Do. He is regarded as the premier fighter in Shaolin-Do, having won countless Shaolin-Do and open tournaments over the years.
Along with his wife Dale, who is a 1st Degree Black Belt, they manage the Sin Thé Karate School. Elder Master Leonard has four children and four grandchildren.
Master Eric Burke — 6th Degree Black Belt
Master Eric began his training at the age of 10 early in 1983 under the teaching of Boyd Helton. Mr. Helton retired and turned the school over to Master Eric in 1990, which was the year he graduated High School and began College. In 1992 Master Eric began studying exclusively under Grandmaster Sin The’ and in 1994 became a student of Elder Master Bill Leonard. Master Eric was promoted by Grandmaster Sin The’ to the rank of 5th degree black in 2003. Master Eric along with Master Sean Elliott oversees the operation of 3 Tri-County Shao-Lin Do locations in Corbin, Barbourville and London KY. Master Eric graduated from Union College with a degree in Business Administration and is currently the Wellness Coordinator of Baptist Family Fitness where his main Corbin school is located.
Master Chris Dillingham— 6th Degree Black Belt
Bio-info coming soon.
Master Sean Elliott— 6th Degree Black Belt
Bio-info coming soon.
Instructor: David Brantley - 3rd Degree Black Belt
I began my training at age 18 in 1994. I earned my first degree black belt under Master Eric Burke in 1997. I earned my third degree in 2005. I have instructed students for over 10 years. I regulary attend seminars and tournaments under Grandmaster Sin and Elder Master Leonard. Currently I am a student of Master Sean Elliott and Master Chris Dillingham. I have a degree in science and work at Akron Children's Hospital in the IT department.
Left to Right, Andrea and David Brantley, Pictured above.
The first of the three grandmasters was born in the Fukien province of China in 1849. He was born with a rare genetic condition which resulted in his entire body being covered with hair. His parents, convinced they had given birth to a demon, abandoned the infant into a nearby forest. A group of passing monks heard the baby's cries, and being educated, realized he was human, and brought him to the Shaolin Temple. Given the child's appearance, the monks knew he would not be adopted by any family and decided to raise the child themselves.
It is important to understand the distinction between the grandmaster of the temple and the head abbot. The grandmaster was in charge of the monks' physical progress and the mastery of the martial arts by the warrior monks. The head abbot was in charge of the temple as a whole and the monks' religious and intellectual studies.
Ie Chang Ming was born in 1880 and admitted to the Fukien temple as a young boy. There he spent all of his time and energy learning the martial arts, specifically the Golden Snake system. Upon the death of Su Kong Tai Djin, the title of Grandmaster was passed to his top student, Ie Chang Ming.
Grandmaster Ie's meditation skills were so high that he did not sleep at night. He would place his head on one chair and his heels on another chair and suspend himself between them every night while meditating for hours. In the morning, he would instruct one of his students to place a chopstick in the hollow of his throat and strike it with a rock. Rather than penetrate his throat, the chopstick would shatter into hundreds of splintered shards!
In 1943, Sin Kwang Thé (pronounced Tay) was born in Bandung, Indonesia. His parents were Chinese but fled to Indonesia after the Communist Party came into power. Young Sin was drawn to the martial arts and actually began training in a lost art known as sandburn training at a very young age. In sandburn training, practitioners treat their hands with special medicine and then place them in buckets of heated sand. Over time, the sand is made hotter and the length of time one's hands are submerged is increased. This training toughens the hands but also makes the skin dangerous for other humans to touch, hence its attractiveness to martial artists. Sin Thé stopped the training after a sandburn master accidently picked up his grandchild without special gloves and the baby was killed. This master and all of his colleauges stopped teaching and all of their students were dismissed.
As it was at the Shaolin Temple, Grandmaster Ie was very strict in whom he admitted as a student. Potential students were studied from every conceivable angle to judge their temper, demeanor, and attitude. One wrong action would prevent a student from ever gaining admittance to the school. One night, Grandmaster Ie "tripped" and spilled a bowl of uncooked rice on the floor near Sin Thé. In Chinese culture, one way to diet is reduce your servings of rice by one grain each day. Grandmaster Ie instructed Sin Thé to find all 855 grains of rice that had been in the bowl. Late that night, long after all the students had left, he finally finished the task. In another test, Grandmaster Ie gave him a bowl filled with three different colors of beans and asked him to arrange them in triangles in the bowl, which from basic geometry, is impossible. It was a test of persistance and perseverance. In his final test, while Sin Thé watched a class, Grandmaster Ie poured a cup of hot tea over his head and looked directly into his eyes to gauge his reaction. Luckily for young Sin Thé, he was too shocked to be angry and was admitted into the school.
Just like at the temple, young Sin Thé's training began with stances. He would stand in horse stances, bow stances, and cat stances for hours at a time, especially while doing chores such as washing the dishes. To further build his leg strength, Grandmaster Ie required him to do one hundred one-legged squats every day! Eventually, after he had proven his trust in his teacher and built up his physical abilities, Sin Thé's instruction in Shaolin-Do began. At the age of thirteen, Sin tested for his black belt. This test was extremely difficult. At various times throughout his test, while performing his kata blindfolded, boards would be held in place to show that every punch and kick were properly executed. At the conclusion of the test, he had to spar seven other students while blindfolded!
In 1964, Master Sin was preparing to leave for Berlin, Germany to study engineering and physics. But the breakout of a political crisis in Germany (the erection of the Berlin Wall) altered his plans. A friend of the family, who was a professor from the University of Kentucky, convinced Master Sin and his parents that he could get an equal education at a much cheaper cost. Master Sin flew to Cincinnati, Ohio, and took a taxi to Lexington, Kentucky, which cost him all of the money he had. Here he began his studies at Transylvania University and not long later began teaching Shaolin-Do (without his teacher's knowledge or permission) to suplement his income, the first time non-Chinese had ever learned the art of Shaolin-Do! Grandmaster Ie would later find out about his teaching and after some heartfelt correspondences, gave his student his blessing to teach Americans.
Master Eric began his training at the age of 10 early in 1983 under the teaching of Boyd Helton. Mr. Helton retired and turned the school over to Master Eric in 1990, which was the year he graduated High School and began College. In 1992 Master Eric began studying exclusively under Grandmaster Sin The’ and in 1994 became a student of Elder Master Bill Leonard. Master Eric was promoted by Grandmaster Sin The’ to the rank of 5th degree black in 2003. Master Eric along with Master Sean Elliott oversees the operation of 3 Tri-County Shao-Lin Do locations in Corbin, Barbourville and London KY. Master Eric graduated from Union College with a degree in Business Administration and is currently the Wellness Coordinator of Baptist Family Fitness where his main Corbin school is located. 
Bio-info coming soon.
Bio-info coming soon.
I began my training at age 18 in 1994. I earned my first degree black belt under Master Eric Burke in 1997. I earned my third degree in 2005. I have instructed students for over 10 years. I regulary attend seminars and tournaments under Grandmaster Sin and Elder Master Leonard. Currently I am a student of Master Sean Elliott and Master Chris Dillingham. I have a degree in science and work at Akron Children's Hospital in the IT department.
