All of her studies culminated at the 2002 rank camp in which she received her black belt in Combat Hapkido, a black belt in Shen Chuan and instructorships in both StreetBoxing and our main system, Shen Chuan.

As you can see from her accomplishments, we are very proud of Sensei Norma.

Continuing our installments of Shen Chuan history book submissions, we will include an excerpt from Sensei Norma Almanza.

I first started taking Tang Soo Do when I was fourteen. I had to beg my mother and convince her it was, "an investment in my safety". The truth be told, I have always thought it was cool and especially wanted to join and take lessons with my best friend. I didn't really shop around. Tang Soo Do just happened to be one of the only martial arts schools in my hometown. It ended up being a good choice. I learned the fundamentals of striking and kicking. I also got some good self-defense fundamentals when I started Combat Hapkido at this same school. At the time this school worked for me. It had lots of other students my age and appealed to my competitive nature (i.e. point sparring). The only reason I had to leave was because I went off to college; little did I know it would lead to a completely new perspective on martial arts.

About four months before I left for college I began asking my instructor if he knew any good schools in Nacogdoches. He eventually brought me a Combat Hapkido Newsletter, which mentioned some information about Lansdale's Self Defense in Nacogdoches. My instructor cautioned me, stating that the school might be a little to hard core for me. I still insisted on setting up some kind of meeting, after all, Combat Hapkido was better than nothing. I first met Eugene and Coy at a Combat Hapkido seminar in Deer Park, I remember not really being sure what to think. Eugene (the diplomat) of course, was polite and inviting. He even drew a map for me and said, " see you soon". My confusion came when Coy's introduction was less than cordial as it was kind of an intimidating first impression of someone who I thought was more likely to run me over on my way out of the parking lot (I now know that's just his style).

I waited until the end of my freshman year before heading out to Lansdale's. When I finally made it out that way I asked for Eugene and surprisingly he remembered me and gave me the run down and introduced me to Joe Lansdale. I began to ask Joe a few questions and was a little shocked to find that they didn't practice kata, and no point sparring. I was caught off guard because up until that point that was all I knew, but decided it couldn't be bad if they were members of the International Combat Hapkido Federation.

When I first started classes, I was taking Combat Hapkido and Kickboxing class. I was just staying in my comfort zone. The Combat Hapkido class was very small which I didn't understand, for some reason everyone else was more into the Shen Chuan class, something I'd never heard of before. Other than that for the most part it was no different from what I was use to but I did notice a very askew ratio of men to women. I was one of only a few women training at the time. In less than a year I was just taking the kickboxing class and was working my way up to black belt.

My first impression of the kickboxing class was that these guys didn't mess around. Being used to point sparring, I noticed that few of them kicked much higher than the waist if at all.

Really, when I got there, it was in the beginnings of a transition from the point sparring attitude to the self-defense attitude. The Kickboxing class was becoming the StreetBoxing class in that it was more geared towards practical techniques where you wouldn't kick high because high kicks, though very pretty, make you easier to unbalance. Plus you never knew what kind of ground you'd be standing on when defending yourself. The instructor of this class was a great teacher and changed my point sparring soft style into a combative hard style. I began to punch more and kick less. Punching was something I very much wanted to improve on. Coy was also in this class and man I was intimidated, but that was only because his ability to hit and strike me whenever and where ever he wanted during sparring both shocked and amazed me.

Then I took an interest in boxing and decided to ask Coy to train me for my first fight. He began training me by giving me some drills to work on, which were concepts and principles of Shen Chuan. I learned the theory of the Shen Chuan fist. I began to learn to work inside and hit close. I began to depend more on my hips for power and to use a push drag. After having such great success with Coy as a trainer for my first fight, I asked him to help me again with my second fight the following year. This time we focused on a more relaxed punch. This is the single hardest concept that all Shen Chuan students go through (it's actually a constant struggle). After one more year of Coy training me for Fight Night and then my fight falling through, I decided I would start Shen Chuan classes. I just thought if this little bit of time every year could make such a drastic improvement in my striking technique as a martial artist, then this is something I wanted to add to my bag of tricks. It was only three years after first walking into the dojo that I began taking the Shen Chuan classes. By this time I had already become a two-time fight night champion and had earned a black belt in the StreetBoxing class. I had learned so much from Coy during fight night training that I thought Shen Chuan class would be the way to go to become a better striker. Professor Lansdale thought that I could become a black belt in a short period time and so I began to work hard at learning the sets, and applying the concepts and principles that I learned in both in the StreetBoxing class and from Coy to them.

One of the first things I noticed when I began classes was the class structure was different. Every class begins like a seminar teaching students techniques and at the same time demonstrating multiple concepts and principles. For beginners it can be both intimidating and enticing when techniques that are demonstrated are at a higher level. But for all students this class structure increases the learning curve, I believe, exponentially. For example there are many cases when students gain a better understanding on a technique from a set they have to learn while practicing a technique at the beginning of class. Some students find it easier to do their set after working on more difficult techniques.

I like to think of the first part of class as being set up to demonstrate Shen Chuan at it's most rudimentary and most sophisticated levels, while also setting them up to be in the correct frame of mind and reference before they move back to the sets.

It's not your average dojo. There are a lot of advanced rank instructors in the Shen Chuan class. This is another reason I think that students of Shen Chuan are able to learn at such an increased rate. If you ask any black belt they will tell you they began to understand the techniques more after they first began teaching, but in Shen Chuan every student gets the opportunity to teach another. It starts, for example, by having an orange belt show a yellow belt the orange set. Most instructors would frown upon this sort of teaching, but for the orange belt it gives them the chance to really get a better understanding of the set they just finished and hopefully reinforce those concepts just one more time.

Also there happens to be a large number of black belt instructors at Lansdale's compared to other studio's where students purchase their belts and leave after reaching the "top". Any Shen Chuan black belt will tell you the journey had just begun after they have obtained their black belt. The belt signifies that you are someone with understanding of many of the concepts and principles of Shen Chuan, but what most of us hope to have is a mastery of these concepts and principles and that's why we stick around. If the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step then achieving a Shen Chuan black belt is that first step. As an instructor in Shen Chuan it is your job to teach those concepts and principles and for the most part it is an easy thing to do because all of the concepts and principles make sense.

The three most difficult concepts for all students to achieve are: balance, blending, and relaxation. These concepts are the most difficult to learn because they take time and practice, more than any other concepts, they require the students to search themselves for the answers and cause them to develop their own flavor of Shen Chuan. It's the reason, even though there are many black belts in Shen Chuan, you couldn't say we all came from the same cookie cutter. To begin understanding balance students must go through at least three stages. First students learn to make people fall, by mimicking instructors. Then you teach students the how and why a technique makes an opponent fall (it's the science behind the pain). Finally the student begins to apply the how and why to other techniques they are learning. The two most mind-bending concepts of Shen Chuan are blending and relaxation. These concepts are difficult to understand because they cannot be mimicked. They must be felt. It takes a lot of receiving on the students end (i.e. being an uke) in order to fully understand these concepts. Even black belts are constantly struggling with their own bodies to let these concepts take place (because they cannot be forced). Though I've explained them briefly, it takes time for students to develop these concepts into their own. It is the key to performing on a higher level in Shen Chuan.

Relaxation has been one of the toughest principles for me personally. At first I could not feel the difference in my body between being relaxed and tense. There would be little glimmers of relaxation during training (which tends to happen when your muscles begin to get fatigued from the tension) but it wasn't enough actual relaxation training for me. In order to make my body relaxed for training the Shen Chuan class I would train in the StreetBoxing class and run three to five miles all before Shen Chuan. I forced by body to feel fatigued so that I could train the entire class practicing relaxation. It was a bit extreme, but I just don't think I would have grasped this particular concept without having done this. When I use the term grasp I mean that I can now tell when I'm relaxed and not but I have minimum control of relaxation. I can't just turn it on or off, I have to have focus. Learning to be relaxed from Shen Chuan has really helped me learn to be more relaxed in my personal life. The reason we practice relaxation in Shen Chuan is not just because it helps with striking but also because with a more relaxed attitude you're less likely to start an altercation. You can deal better with the unsuspected in life and are better able to accept change, which also translates into self-defense. You will be less likely to lock up during an attack and accept whatever attack is given.

As a female I've gained a tremendous amount from this system since it works on balance and not muscle system. It's a softer system than it was when I first arrived in East Texas but it's more effective in my opinion. It is less stress on the body so that makes it more practical for people of all ages and sizes. It doesn't meet resistance with tension which leads to struggle of power, but it instead it receives attacks with out letting the attacker become aware that your defending yourself until it's too late. Really it's only a softer system if you take the time to put your blood, sweat and tears into it and you stick with it. For 90% of the people that walk in the door who won't make it a year they learn the hard system first. It doesn't take much skill level to grasp, but can be very effective and those students can walk away with some basic techniques. Overall I know my experience is limited, but what I've seen is not. I believe Shen Chuan is one of the most effective systems out there and I hope that someday more than just East Texas will have a Shen Chuan School.