Some of us are old enough to remember Charles Atlas ads in comic books showing a 98-pound weakling having sand kicked in his face by a muscled bully.
Since we were that 98-pound weakling, we immediately wrote off for the Atlas weight-training program so someday we could give anyone who bullied us the comeuppance he received in the final frame of the ad.
Charles Mattera, a Shaolin Grandmaster (10th degree black belt) and chief executive of United Studios of Self Defense in Lake Forest, grew up as a skinny lad in a tough section of his native Boston.
But he already knew how to handle himself.
"There were always fights in the schoolyard," Mattera said. "I knew how to fight."
Mattera, 50, was speaking from his studios recently on behalf of the "Shaolin Warriors of China," who will appear Saturday at the Performing Arts Center as part of the Eclectic Orange Festival, sponsored by the Philharmonic Society. The program will feature a demonstration of the monks' martial arts prowess.
Founder and CEO of more than 130 United Studios of Self Defense in California and seven other states, Mattera and Steve DeMasco, president of East Coast studio operations, have earned the right to represent the monastery. They are the only two officially ordained Shaolin monks outside China. Both were also adopted by the abbot of the monastery as his sons.
Charles was given a new name in Chinese: Shi Yandeng. "It means, 'Enhancer of the Light,' " Mattera said. "It's such a cool name. I was: 'Wow.' " It was, he said, a crowning moment in his long career.
"I was always fascinated by the physics of the martial arts," Mattera said. "It's very scientific, the fact that a 120-pound man can beat a 250-pound man. That's pretty amazing."
As a kid, he studied various martial arts at the YMCA in downtown Boston, discovered Chinese Kenpo ("the Way of the Fist") by the time he was 16 and avidly read martial arts magazines long before Bruce Lee movies became popular.
"I remember reading magazine articles about Bruce Lee, which ridiculed him and questioned his legitimacy," he said. "Now they capitalize on his reputation."
Mattera wanted to land a government job after college, and he felt martial arts would help him secure a better position. And they did.
After graduating, he worked for a year at the Bureau of Customs in New York City.
