Gene Chicoine

Gene Chicoine was born July 9, 1929. At 15 he lied about about his age to join the Army. He was exposed and discharged after he was wounded, but rejoined as soon as he could. He was stationed in Okinawa during the occupation where he studied martial arts under Master Oyama

He opened the first Karate school in the Akron area with Thurl McClanahan. It was there he became interested in Chinese martial arts and trained with Feeman Ong.

Sometime in the mid 1980's an advanced student started referring to Grandmaster Chicoine as "Teacher", somewhat tongue-in-cheek. The name stuck and he has been simply known as "Teacher" by everyone since.

Teacher had heard of Grandmaster Chang Tung-Sheng in Taiwan and went to meet him in 1980. Chang was impressed, made him his 13th Disciple, and started teaching him privately. In 1982 They founded the International Shuai Chiao Association, (ISCA), with Grandmaster Chang as President and Teacher as Vice-President. When Grandmaster Chang passed in 1986, Teacher took over the ISCA.

In 1996 Teacher and about 20 students went to Taiwan for a 10th anniversary tribute to the death of Grandmaster Chang. It was a week of banquets, demonstrations, and touring. They met with various government agencies, high schools, and martial arts schools. On the last day, Teacher was told the Taiwan Committee had promoted him to 10th Degree. He was now the highest ranking Master in Taiwan.

Teacher passed away Mar 2, 2020 at the age of 89.

Teacher has written many articles in martial arts magazines. He was awarded Newcomer Of The Year in Inside Kung-Fu in 1989, Martial Artist Of The Year in Black Belt Magazine 1998, and inducted into the Inside Kung-Fu Magazine Hall Of Fame.

He caused a lot of uproar for debunking Iron Palm myths and exposing non credited 'masters" in the late 1980's