As I sat in his immaculate living room, listening to the tale of Tim Tackett unfold from the mouth of the man himself, I couldn't help but note the parallels between his life and mine.
Both of us started our martial arts journeys in the United States before going to Asia for non-martial arts reasons. Both of us, however, seized the opportunity to train as much as possible while in Asia.
Both of us found that local masters were flattered that a foreigner had come so far because of his passion for the arts and subsequently were very giving. Both of us returned from Asia and built a career in the martial arts that did not involve teaching what we'd learned in the Far East. That's where the parallels end.
Tackett's path led him to become a prominent jeet kune do teacher, while mine led me to become the editor of Black Belt. And that is why, as I sat on his sofa, Tim Tackett was doing 90 percent of the talking and I was happy to do 90 percent of the listening.