I'm Waysun Johnny Tsai

At eight years old he began his formal training as a “white sash” at what is now known as the “Sheridan School”. Sijo credits the retired full contact fighter and “Orlando Bad-Man” champion Master David Lewis as his first official instructor. It was “Sifu Dave” that ran the Sheridan school and oversaw the first couple of years of Sijo’s formal training. From the age of eight to nineteen years old, Sijo actively competed in local and national open Karate tournaments. While he was a formidable point fighter, Sijo enjoyed sparring with harder contact more than he did light point sparring. His hard-hitting antics resulted in him getting disqualified from almost as many matches as he won. While this did not win him any national championships, it earned the respect of the other competitors, who never seemed to enjoy fighting him because there was a clear understanding that a match with him, win or lose, would hurt.

At the age of fourteen years old, Sijo was awarded his “Brown/Red sash” earning him the rank of junior instructor. With this rank he would go on to teach the children’s and beginner classes at two locations, the Belmont/Ashland and Belmont/Oak Park schools. Sijo earned his first-degree black belt in 1988 at the age of sixteen years old. With this rank he was also tasked with creating and writing the entire Tsai’s Kung Fu International curriculum and testing requirements — these became the standards for all four of the family schools.

Sijo was responsible for opening and running the Harlem and Irving School, which he operated from open to close for the next three and a half years. It was not unusual to see 60 adults in one of his weeknight classes. It was during this time that one of his father’s most infamous master level instructors pulled Sijo into training. This master was none other than the late Grandmaster Steven G. Abbate — a highly decorated Vietnam veteran who did two tours of active duty as USMC Recon, and an accomplished full contact kickboxer finishing his career with over 64 wins and just five losses. It was Grandmaster Abbate that had planted the first painful seed of “combatives” into Sijo.

Grandmaster Abbate is most known for being the founder of the original Cobra Kai (Tai Kit Kuen / Grand Snake Fist) school. While scouting local tournaments, producers for an upcoming martial arts movie had learned of his reputation for running his school like a USMC boot camp. The then unknown movie was the now classic “Karate Kid”. When the movie came to light, the film studio had taken (without consent) the name “Cobra Kai” and portrayed this Vietnam War veteran in the vilest way possible. By the time Grandmaster Abbate passed away, Sijo had earned an eighth-degree black sash under him — a rank that would match and rival the eighth-degree black sash he had earned from his own father. Sijo’s goal is to one day pen a book entitled “The Real Cobra-Kai” with Grandmaster Abbate’s adult children to honor his legacy.

Sijo studied arts such as Kali/Escrima, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Boxing. He found a love for these arts and would bring them back to his schools. It was at the age of twenty that he wrote his own self-defense curriculum for the other Tsai Family Chuan-Fa Schools, such as his brother Kenny’s school “Iron-Fist”, and developed the reputation as the “Street Self Defense” instructor in the system.

The combatives seed that Grandmaster Abbate had planted many years ago was growing, and Sijo began calling his self-defense training program “Really 101”. Every family school system was calling on Sijo to demonstrate and teach self-defense to their students. The program’s curriculum was very fluid, always being tested and refined in Sijo’s Chicago apartment living room with private students such as Charlie Fusco.

At 31 years old, Sijo’s father invited him to return to the family’s Wicker Park (Chicago) school, and Sijo accepted ownership of “Grandmaster Tsai’s Chi-Body”. It was a beautiful school, but it only taught the internal arts. During this time, Sijo was promoted to his eighth-degree black sash and awarded the system’s title of “International Chief Instructor”. His father wanted to retire back to Taiwan and have Sijo take over the family system.

Under his direction the school transitioned from Grandmaster Tsai’s Chi-Body back into Tsai’s Kung Fu International. Unable to find time to travel and train in the other arts he enjoyed, Sijo started bringing in outside instructors to teach different arts just so he could attend classes. His father disagreed — his only preference was the Chinese martial arts — and his one request was that his son call all the training offered at the school “kung fu”, because Kung Fu was “the best”.

Another argument ensued; Sijo did not feel that simply calling these other systems kung fu would be honest to anyone. This ultimately gave birth to C.U.M.A. (Combined Universal Martial Applications) — Tradition, Progression, Evolution. The school moved locations three times in three years, landing at what was known as the Lawrence School (Kimball and Lawrence, Chicago), where Sijo finally had a school he could run the way he wanted. It was here that his direct student Robert Page created the classic green and yellow C.U.M.A. Brotherhood of Fighters logo. Even on this progressive path, Sijo continued to take a team from his school to demonstrate traditional kung fu on stage at the annual Chicago Chinatown Summer Parade. He also brought in seminars and workshops for Master level instructors from around the world — including the last seminar that Grandmaster Abbate would ever teach before his untimely passing.

Because of the distance to the Degerberg academy from his home, Sijo moved to a seminar format and began teaching at various gyms. At one of these gyms he took on a student named Scott Rowan, who worked for a book publishing company. After a short lunch meeting, Sijo was offered his first book deal and given 90 days to turn it in. That book, “Practical Kung Fu: 100 Ways To Stop An Attacker in 5 Moves or Less”, was released in 2008 by Triumph, and the now-defunct Borders bookstores ordered the first 2,500 copies. Now a published author, Sijo opened another school on the Southside of Chicago at 111th and Western — and it would change everything moving forward. His C.U.M.A. Combatives hybrid street defense system had launched, and classes were once again full.

He had just released his C.U.M.A. RAM Tactical Pen and decided to self-produce a series of three self-defense DVDs entitled Practical Tactical Street Defense. While filming, Sijo contacted several knife manufacturers — including TOPS Knives, Cold Steel, ESEE Knives and Taylor Brands (Schrade / Smith and Wesson Knives) — for knives to feature. Those phone calls were the beginning of a then-unknown career path.

Sijo stayed in touch with these companies and was invited by Schrade to produce two training DVDs for them. Schrade then flew Sijo to the 2008 SHOT Show to present the DVDs and pens. While there, he introduced himself to the companies that had provided knives for his projects. The late Mike Fuller (owner of TOPS / Sijo’s knife industry mentor) and Leo Espinosa welcomed Sijo into the TOPS Knives family, offering to make him his first knife — an evolution of an existing TOPS knife. The C.U.M.A. Evolution was released in 2010, and a legendary relationship with TOPS knives was born. It was immediately featured in an eight-page review by industry writer and martial artist Michael Janich in the now-defunct Tactical Knives Magazine.

Mike Fuller went on to mentor Sijo in both the knife industry and life in general, introducing him to many avenues into the knife, tactical training and survival industries — introductions that would forever change the direction of C.U.M.A. Between nine training DVDs, his book, his new TOPS knife, his YouTube channel and his RAM tactical pen, Sijo was catching the attention of the tactical industry. In 2010 he was flown by Laura Burgess Marketing into BLACKHAWK! headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia alongside what would be considered the gun industry’s top ten writers and firearms instructors, building a large network of professional and personal relationships that stand to this day.

Some of his 2020 and 2024 designs, such as the C.U.M.A. KING DESTRUCTO and the C.U.M.A. Mike’s Arrow (Work Tuff Gear), are manufactured in Taiwan and sold throughout the United States and Japan, and are featured in comic book projects by legendary artists and writers such as Larry Hama (GI Joe), Chuck Dixon (creator of the Batman villain BANE) and Guy Dorian Jr. (ROM the Space Knight / Blood Hammer). In between teaching classes and knife designing, Sijo is a regular contributor to several industry print magazines including Personal Defense World, SKILLSET Magazine, Survivor’s Edge, Prepper Survival Guide, Backwoods Survival Guide, Inside Kung Fu Magazine, The Truth About Guns (online) and Knife and Gear Review (online).

Sijo is currently working on his second book, C.U.M.A. COMBATIVES: The Art of Violence, and is in discussions to create a training curriculum for The Gun Camp, a firearm training company formed by the legendary Chicago rapper TWISTA and his partner Creative Scott. Sijo realizes that no man is an island — there is absolutely a team behind C.U.M.A. now.