NEWS
Shuny Bee, founder of Bee Martial Arts Academy, shows reporter Matthew Graham some of the finer points of martial arts.
More than two decades ago, Nepal native Shuny Bee was working as a teenage actor in Bombay, India, doing commercials and TV shows, hoping for Bollywood stardom. A friend of his traveled from Nepal to enlist his help in rescuing two girls who had been brought to Bombay and sold into prostitution.
Bee and his friend risked their lives to take on a monolithic crime syndicate to free the girls and return them to Nepal.
Now 39 years old, Bee has written and stars in a film about the incident, �Gorkha Rakshyak� or �The Gorkha Protector,� which premieres in Portland on Saturday, Nov. 1, at the Hollywood Theatre. Gorkha is another name for the people of Nepal, which is where the movie was filmed and produced.
In the film, a fictional work based on the actual events, Bee�s character has spent his life in a Buddhist monastery meditating and training his body, mind and spirit. He experiences enlightenment in the form of a new concept of martial arts, which he calls Bajra. (�Bajra� is a Sanskrit word meaning �thunderbolt.�)
Upon leaving the monastery he encounters a world of gang violence and drugs, which he dedicates his life to fighting.
The film also stars Oregonian Robert Madrigal, 38, who has trained with Bee for about 10 years. In the film, Madrigal plays a student learning the philosophy and principles of the Bajra technique.
Bee operates Bee Martial Arts Academy on Southeast McLoughlin Boulevard in Milwaukie and spent 12 years developing the unique fighting style showcased in the film.
�Bajra martial art is more economic, direct, more strictly for survival,� Bee said. �You disable the opponent, and you get out. I studied a lot about the body and the pressure points. You don�t need to be a really powerful man to injure the eyes, just a little finger jab; the opponent is blinking their eyes, you escape. Same with the groin.�
The 39-year-old martial arts master holds a sixth-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do. He wrote a book on how to use nunchaku, a martial arts weapon, and produced a DVD tutorial based on it.
Following the recognition he received demonstrating the Bajra method in Long Beach, Calif. in 2005, Bee was encouraged to finish writing the script he�d been working on for years.
�I was doing the Black Belt magazine festival, which is like the Oscars night for us martial artists,� he explains. �I did a demonstration in front of Bruce Lee�s wife and a lot of big celebrities, and they really admired my performance. And after that, Black Belt magazine wrote about me, �He�s amazing.��
Akash Adhikari directed the film, which Bee hopes will bring further recognition to his martial arts style as well as to Nepal.
�This is definitive for me and all the Nepalese people, this is pride,� Bee says �I�m getting many e-mails from all over the world. This is a big thing for the Nepalese people.�
World premiere of �Gorkha Rakshyak� or �The Gorkha Protector,� 4 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 1, Hollywood Theatre, 4122 N.E. Sandy Blvd., 503-281-4215, $12.
Shuny Bee, founder of Bee Martial Arts Academy, shows reporter Matthew Graham some of the finer points of martial arts
More than two decades ago, Nepal native Shuny Bee was working as a teenage actor in Bombay, India, doing commercials and TV shows, hoping for Bollywood stardom. A friend of his traveled from Nepal to enlist his help in rescuing two girls who had been brought to Bombay and sold into prostitution. Bee and his friend risked their lives to take on a monolithic crime syndicate to free the girls and return them to Nepal.Now 39 years old, Bee has written and stars in a film about the incident, �Gorkha Rakshyak� or �The Gorkha Protector,� which premieres in Portland on Saturday, Nov. 1, at the Hollywood Theatre. Gorkha is another name for the people of Nepal, which is where the movie was filmed and produced.In the film, a fictional work based on the actual events, Bee�s character has spent his life in a Buddhist monastery meditating and training his body, mind and spirit. He experiences enlightenment in the form of a new concept of martial arts, which he calls Bajra. (�Bajra� is a Sanskrit word meaning �thunderbolt.�)Upon leaving the monastery he encounters a world of gang violence and drugs, which he dedicates his life to fighting.The film also stars Oregonian Robert Madrigal, 38, who has trained with Bee for about 10 years. In the film, Madrigal plays a student learning the philosophy and principles of the Bajra technique.Bee operates Bee Martial Arts Academy on Southeast McLoughlin Boulevard in Milwaukie and spent 12 years developing the unique fighting style showcased in the film.�Bajra martial art is more economic, direct, more strictly for survival,� Bee said. �You disable the opponent, and you get out. I studied a lot about the body and the pressure points. You don�t need to be a really powerful man to injure the eyes, just a little finger jab; the opponent is blinking their eyes, you escape. Same with the groin.�The 39-year-old martial arts master holds a sixth-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do. He wrote a book on how to use nunchaku, a martial arts weapon, and produced a DVD tutorial based on it.Following the recognition he received demonstrating the Bajra method in Long Beach, Calif. in 2005, Bee was encouraged to finish writing the script he�d been working on for years.�I was doing the Black Belt magazine festival, which is like the Oscars night for us martial artists,� he explains. �I did a demonstration in front of Bruce Lee�s wife and a lot of big celebrities, and they really admired my performance. And after that, Black Belt magazine wrote about me, �He�s amazing.��Akash Adhikari directed the film, which Bee hopes will bring further recognition to his martial arts style as well as to Nepal.�This is definitive for me and all the Nepalese people, this is pride,� Bee says �I�m getting many e-mails from all over the world. This is a big thing for the Nepalese people.�World premiere of �Gorkha Rakshyak� or �The Gorkha Protector,� 4 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 1, Hollywood Theatre, 4122 N.E. Sandy Blvd., 503-281-4215, $12.
jonathan house / pamplin media group
Shuny Bee, founder of Bee Martial Arts Academy, shows reporter Matthew Graham some of the finer points of martial arts.
More than two decades ago, Nepal native Shuny Bee was working as a teenage actor in Bombay, India, doing commercials and TV shows, hoping for Bollywood stardom. A friend of his traveled from Nepal to enlist his help in rescuing two girls who had been brought to Bombay and sold into prostitution.
Bee and his friend risked their lives to take on a monolithic crime syndicate to free the girls and return them to Nepal.
Now 39 years old, Bee has written and stars in a film about the incident, �Gorkha Rakshyak� or �The Gorkha Protector,� which premieres in Portland on Saturday, Nov. 1, at the Hollywood Theatre. Gorkha is another name for the people of Nepal, which is where the movie was filmed and produced.
In the film, a fictional work based on the actual events, Bee�s character has spent his life in a Buddhist monastery meditating and training his body, mind and spirit. He experiences enlightenment in the form of a new concept of martial arts, which he calls Bajra. (�Bajra� is a Sanskrit word meaning �thunderbolt.�)
Upon leaving the monastery he encounters a world of gang violence and drugs, which he dedicates his life to fighting.
The film also stars Oregonian Robert Madrigal, 38, who has trained with Bee for about 10 years. In the film, Madrigal plays a student learning the philosophy and principles of the Bajra technique.
Bee operates Bee Martial Arts Academy on Southeast McLoughlin Boulevard in Milwaukie and spent 12 years developing the unique fighting style showcased in the film.
�Bajra martial art is more economic, direct, more strictly for survival,� Bee said. �You disable the opponent, and you get out. I studied a lot about the body and the pressure points. You don�t need to be a really powerful man to injure the eyes, just a little finger jab; the opponent is blinking their eyes, you escape. Same with the groin.�
The 39-year-old martial arts master holds a sixth-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do. He wrote a book on how to use nunchaku, a martial arts weapon, and produced a DVD tutorial based on it.
Following the recognition he received demonstrating the Bajra method in Long Beach, Calif. in 2005, Bee was encouraged to finish writing the script he�d been working on for years.
�I was doing the Black Belt magazine festival, which is like the Oscars night for us martial artists,� he explains. �I did a demonstration in front of Bruce Lee�s wife and a lot of big celebrities, and they really admired my performance. And after that, Black Belt magazine wrote about me, �He�s amazing.��
Akash Adhikari directed the film, which Bee hopes will bring further recognition to his martial arts style as well as to Nepal.
�This is definitive for me and all the Nepalese people, this is pride,� Bee says �I�m getting many e-mails from all over the world. This is a big thing for the Nepalese people.�
World premiere of �Gorkha Rakshyak� or �The Gorkha Protector,� 4 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 1, Hollywood Theatre, 4122 N.E. Sandy Blvd., 503-281-4215, $12.
"A NEW KIND OF RESPECT"
Nepal native Shuny Bee has had to adjust his Eastern philosophy to life in the good ol� USA.
By � Damon Fouts
MILWAUKIE � The spinning pair of Nunchaku
were practically transparent as they revolved around the master instructor�s
wrists. In the blink of an eye, he draped one chain linked set of the handles
over his arm and unfurled a third from around his neck and set it spinning. He
repeated the rapid exchange over and over. The display is the trademark
maneuver of master instructor Shuny Bee. The Milwaukie Taekwondo instructor
says he is the 
only Nunchaku aficionado in the world to master. Now Shuny Bee,
a fourth-degree black belt, freely demonstrates his unique techniques to the
200 students enrolled in his classes. He teaches Taekwondo at his studio in
the Ross Center on southeast 82nd Avenue.
The students are impressed with his skills as a master of the Nunchaku, and as an instructor, said student Daniel Olvera. Olvera, 17, is a blue belt and works for Bee. �Dynamic�: is how Olvera describes his classes. �No other master instructor teaches what he teaches.�The difference is the kicks, which Olvera said are flashier, and the spinning and jumping kicks are higher. Bee demonstrated one, using Olvera as a target. Running the length of his studio, Bee launched into the air and sailed about five feet, his left knee raised and cocked. Just before he flew past over Olvera, his calf and ridge foot kicked out, missing Olvera by inches. Impressive as the demonstration was, Bee said his students learn more than fancy kicks. �It teaches you how to live life,� he said. �It�s not just kicking and punching.� It teaches discipline, respect and self-confidence, he said. And the lessons were taking hold with the students who milled about on Aug. 27. They bowed before entering and leaving the instruction area; and they bowed when they greeted each other. Bee himself punctuates almost ever sentence with �sir.� �Respect,� he said. �If you give it you�re going to get respect back.�
Bee, 30, learned about respect in Nepal, where he was born. He grew up in what he said was a small town of 100,000 people on the side of one of Nepal�s many hills. He learned not just about respect there, and later in India, but about discipline and the importance of family. Bee has never married because the people of Nepal �never divorce,� he said. He wants to make sure he chooses a mate for life. Such respect for tradition and one�s heritage come second nature to him � right down to the Nunchaku. As described as Bee, the chain-linked handles once were farming tools in ancient China, used as horse bits, and to beat rice and other crops from their shells.
When Asian warlords banned weapons years later, the indigenous people developed karate, Taekwondo and other martial arts forms. At the same time, those forms became symbols of the Eastern philosophy of people and harmony. As time went on, the invaders began using lethal weapons such as swords on the farmers. The farmers fashioned their tools of the land into weapons of self-defense. The Nunchaku was among them. Having lived a life steeped in such tradition, Bee found Western values challenging. When he moved to southern California six years ago, he learned that divorce rates are higher here, while respect � both for the self and others- is lower. Bee experienced some of that lack of respect shortly after moving here. After a failed attempt to continue instructing Taekwondo as he had in India, he became a security guard. One night on his rounds, two gang members jumped him. Suddenly their numbers swelled to five or six. Although he inflicted some pain, he was soon overwhelmed. One gang member pointed a pistol to his head but was startled of shooting by potential witnesses. Bee is lucky to be alive. His knee was severely injured in the fight though.
During the year it took for it to heal, Bee wrote a book titled The Way of the Nunchaku. After he got back on his feet, Bee made three martial arts movies in Hollywood. The last movie, Blazing Force, is set to be released any time, he said. Also, Bee taught martial arts to the unknown actors he worked with. The money from the book, from teaching and from the movies allowed Bee to buy the martial arts studio in Ross Center five months ago. Since then, business has been booming, he said.
"BORN TO THE DISCIPLINE"
Shuny Bee, owner of a Milwaukie martial-arts school, writes a book about the art of Nunchucks
THE OREGONIAN
MILWAUKIE � Shuny Bee is writing a book.
Fifth-degree black belt,
Taekwondo instructor and movie and television performer, Bee is sticking to
the author�s maxim: Write about what you 
know.�The Way of the Nunchaku�
revels the exotic practicalities of Bee�s style of wielding nunchucks in
sport and self-defense. Bee, 37 runs U.S.West Coast Tae Kwan Do, 6114 S.E.
King Road. The martial arts school, or Dojang, has about 235 students. Bee�s
school will celebrate its fifth anniversary March 30.
�The Way of the Nunchaku� is about the
central fascination of its author�s life. �As soon as I picked up my first
Nunchaku, I came out of the darkness and saw the light of my future,� Bee
writes in the introduction. �My destiny could not be altered.� The
Sunnyside-area bachelor is looking for a publisher. He hopes to bring out the
book in hardback with a supplemental CD-ROM and videotape. �People have
a misconception in the Western world that martial arts are all about fighting
and violence,� he said. �But I want to tell them that there�s a beauty
in the martial arts that comes from discipline.�
Nunchaku consists of two short wooden rods connected with a short length of chain. Bee said the weapon was derived from a horse�s bit. It can be used for striking, swinging or locking an attacker�s arm in a swift twisting of chain. Martial artists often wield nunchucks in pairs, but Bee swings three sets of nunchucks at once in what has become his trademark style. �He�s definitely very good with the nunchucks,� said Stephen Aalberg, 17 a first-degree black belt who is one of Bee�s Students. �They�re an extension of yourself once you get to know them. You can strike quickly and from many different directions.� �The Way of the Nunchaku� advocates hard work and self-discipline. �Perseverance and emotional control play a vital role,� Bee said. �It�s a challenge in all the martial arts. If you lose a little concentration, you�re going to get hurt.�
Bee was captivated by nunchucks as a 12-year-old in Nepal, where a cousin who was a martial artist demonstrated them. �I asked him to teach me, and he said, �You are too young, forget it,� Bee recalled. �I started anyway, with bamboo sticks tied with rope and I kept practicing. The technique automatically develops of itself.� Bee went to college in Katmandu to study medicine. But instead he concentrated on learning karate and then tae kwan do. �My father wanted me to be a doctor,� he said. �But I changed my mind. I was born to be a martial artist.� He went to Bombay, India, where he took martial arts roles in television and movies. He moved to Los Angeles in 1992. there, he taught tae kwon do and appeared in martial arts films, including �Blazing Force� and �Wounded by Fear.� �I always wanted to come up with a new concept, something extraordinary,� Bee said. �One day in India, I was watching a juggler keeping three balls in the air, and I thought, �Why not try three nunchucks?�
Bee has been working on his book for more than six years. He took up writing in 1994 in Los Angeles, after an attacker injured Bee�s right knee while Bee worked as a security guard. He was on crutches for nearly a year. �I was devastated,� he said. �Everything was like a nightmare when it came to day-to-day physical activities.� Temporarily unable to do martial arts, �I decided to express my talent on paper.� In June, Bee will return to Nepal at the invitation of its government for a month long stint teaching martial arts to members of the army and the police as well as to the public. He plans to publicize his book in Nepal and hopes the volume will come to the attention of the nation�s crown prince. But if Bee will enjoy visiting his original home, he also knows he�ll enjoy returning to his adopted one. �Headquarters is still going to be Oregon,� he said. �This place has enlightened me a lot. It�s a beautiful place.�