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Weds night heard from a friend that my first coach, Alex Tam, passed away Tuesday night. He was late 70's or early 80's.
We lost contact through the years but I addressed him as "sifu" and he called me student. I had 5 to 10 lessons with him at most. He asked his senior student Richard Ling to work with me and I got a lot of coaching/practice from/with Richard, sometimes with Alex Tam watching.
Back in the late 1970's to early 1980's I think Alex Tam was one of the top players in US. Tam sifu was an oldschool penholder playing single side short pips and was a double-winged attacker. As fearsome as his FH was, his BH was just as good. He was an alternate on the Chinese National Team iirc and desiring freedom from communism, he literally swam from China to Hong Kong. From HK, somehow he made his way to US, first Texas I think, and then NYC.
RIP Alex Tam
We lost contact through the years but I addressed him as "sifu" and he called me student. I had 5 to 10 lessons with him at most. He asked his senior student Richard Ling to work with me and I got a lot of coaching/practice from/with Richard, sometimes with Alex Tam watching.
Back in the late 1970's to early 1980's I think Alex Tam was one of the top players in US. Tam sifu was an oldschool penholder playing single side short pips and was a double-winged attacker. As fearsome as his FH was, his BH was just as good. He was an alternate on the Chinese National Team iirc and desiring freedom from communism, he literally swam from China to Hong Kong. From HK, somehow he made his way to US, first Texas I think, and then NYC.
RIP Alex Tam