Valery Prosvirov

Grandmaster of Chinese Martial Arts
Valery Prosvirov Valery Prosvirov - Owner, Founder and Headmaster of the School of Martial Arts "Golden Dragon". Year of birth 1966.

He began studying martial arts (Kyokushin Karate and Sambo) in 1978 at the age of 11.

Fr om the summer of 1979 to September 1985 he studied the basics of Chinese kung fu fr om the traditional martial arts  master Khan Ding Wang.

Master Khan (1902-1987) belonged to the pantheon of Chinese masters and taught in a traditional manner, so the study of the internal and external styles were held simultaneously. The instructor was a great specialist in Hong Jia Quan and Tai Chi Chuan Yang style. Valery's training went on for 5-6 hours every day, which took almost all his free time after school and work. In late 1984, at the insistence of the master he began teaching.



From his autobiography:

"At the age of 11 years, I began the serious study of martial arts. And since then, it has become an integral part of my life. At 14 years, at the insistence of the master, I began to make the first steps in teaching, and at 16 years, began professionally teaching martial arts. For my purpose, I choose to speak less about my master. My teacher always said - "It is not important who you are studying. It is important that you are able to do yourself. "And I absolutely agree with him. One may have many stories about learning from the great masters, told with intention to add rank to oneself, but it does not improve your skills. I mean, what world is full of incompetent artists who really learned from the great masters.  One's own style, training, and teachings should stand on their own, without reference to another's."



Formal education - Philosopher.
Occupation - Martial Arts Master, specializing in traditional Chinese Kung Fu. Owner, Founder and Chief Instructor of  “Kung Fu of Golden Dragon” Martial Arts School.
Teaching experience - 35 years.
Beliefs - Realist.

From his autobiography:

"I do not believe in pessimism, it simply drains your energy and gives nothing in return. In all, even in the most desperate situation, there is a solution!
Optimism - it's much better and positive, but I'm not an optimist ...
I'm a realist. I can do everything that I say. My actions are my truth.
What gives me the confidence to speak it? Because I practice what I speak every day."

Hobbies - real art in all its manifestations.


From his autobiography:

"I love art in all its forms; film, poetry, painting, music, or kung fu, It does not matter in what area, but that is important - it must be true. You know, the square of Malevich's" poem "Mayakovsky, or even some sort of avant-garde style "gangam-style" - it is not simply a show, it's art ... - that creativity of the human soul, which manifests itself in the outside world and resonates with virtually all people. Kung Fu, Bruce Lee, Pushkin's poems, the plays of Shakespeare, Madonna, Leonardo DaVinci, or Nocturne Frederic Chopin did not leave anyone out and excluded no one, of course except for the primitive man in the street that would pass it by instead of accepting its gifts. I think that selling on Thanksgiving Day - is the most important event of the year.
Art does not read like a sentence, and it is hard to explain, but you can see it only if you are not looking through the thick glasses perverted by alien influences designed to distract us from truth."

Valery Prosvirov has wide acceptance among the martial arts communities of China, the US, Australia, Europe, and Russia. He is also a member of the American Martial Arts Hall of Fame.

Award winning:

2013 - Master of the Year, Kung Fu
2014 - Master of the Year, Taichi
2015 - Grand Master of Kung Fu

In 2015 Valery Prosvirov received  American green card as a person with extraordinary ability in the field of martial arts.

School of Martial Arts "Golden Dragon" in the period from 2013 to 2015, holds the title - Best School Kung Fu in Los Angeles by rating organizations Los Angeles Award Program and the Los Angeles Business Hall of Fame.

Valery's story

Hi,

Welcome to the page of Valeriy Prosvirov, Chief of the Golden Dragon School. Now, I would like to introduce myself – I am Commercial Director of the Golden Dragon School of Kung Fu, Moscow, Russia.

I have been working with Valeriy at the Golden Dragon for many years and can only thank my lucky star for getting to know this man. Trust me, this is not an exaggeration: his company has given me more than two of my college diplomas and my unfinished postgraduate course. Of course, it is not about me. I want to tell you about my friend - a real master of martial arts and a very unusual person.

This story has being invoking long arguments between Valeriy and myself. I have been begging him to write something about his life for a long time, for years, actually. But whatever writings he could offer me to read were, in my opinion, just way too scant and unworthy of the real account of his life. It does not really surprise me, because he is an extraordinary person. He would see nothing amazing in any achievements of his, even if it was him landing on the Moon.

This was the reason why I finally realized after numerous unsuccessful attempts to get something out of Valeriy’s penmanship that it has to be up to someone else to do it. Someone who knows him well enough to write an account of his remarkable life. I decided I did not want to look for some stranger to do it. After some thinking, I realized it had to be done by a true friend. Who? What kind of question is that? No doubt it had to be me. I understand I am not being very modest about it, but it is true. I really hope this story can inspire you the same way it keeps inspiring me, over and over again…

Sincerely,
Commercial Director,
Golden Dragon School of Martial Arts, Moscow, Russia

“To me martial arts is not a hobby, a job, or even a part of my life. It is my entire life…”

Valeriy Prosvirov

Valeriy Prosvirov

Valeriy is one of those people who would never back up when confronted with hardship. His whole life is a great manifestation of true willpower.

He was born in a small town in the middle of a large country that does not exist anymore. Generally, in places like that people come into existence and die without leaving any memorable imprint of their lives. Nature had given him very few opportunities, not enough even to have a normal life, let alone do anything significant. He was born with a serious medical condition and his health had quickly deteriorated thanks to his poorly qualified physicians. In fact, he had little chance to live long enough to be of legal age. All in all, it was a standard course of events under such unfortunate circumstances. In cases like this, it is common to blame one’s fate and envy those with better luck. It is quite normal to humbly accept such course of life for most people, but not for Valeriy.

At a tender age this boy had learned one lesson - never give up. He made a decision to claim from nature everything it deprived him of. It had taken a tremendous effort on his part. At that time, just to do one pushup or run a few meters was a task impossible for him. Yet, he stood his ground asking his fate not for wealth and prosperity, but for strength and stamina to withstand the pain: there was a lot of it and not just of physical nature. He had no friends. Who would want to hang out with a skinny crippled boy? Peers usually make fun at kids like that, but young Valeriy had pride. Once he perceived the cruelty of life and people, he had resorted to fight to defend his place under the sun. Of course, in his first fights he was losing pretty badly, but he would never make a compromise with his fate or his own self. One can only guess why he was so confident that this was the right path to follow. As days, weeks, and months passed, Valeriy had begun to grow stronger – to the surprise of his parents and doctors. He was still a long way from being equal to his peers’ physical condition, but the effect was noticeable enough.

It was quite possible that Valeriy’s story would have ended at this point, but some new circumstances interfered with his life. Anybody can get a winning ticket, but not everyone is able to use it right. You know how it happens sometimes: a man just goes about his life without giving it much thought and then, all of a sudden, wins a million dollars. Yet, as it happens in this world, an easy gain often leaves you with nothing in the end. For instance, according to statistics, most lottery winners lose everything very fast and then feel miserable for the rest of their lives blaming their fate for injustice. I am sure you know many similar examples. When providence tells people that money is not everything, they think it is a joke and choose to ignore it. No, my friend did not win a million bucks. Knowing him, I am sure that he would not even appreciate something like that. As luck would have it, he came across something more valuable for him: a book about karate by Masutatsu Oyama that was banned in the USSR in those times. It was hardly an ordinary book – back then a man could end up in jail for owning something like that. People used to copy such books by hand, photograph pages and stitch images into binders. Sometimes these images were copied several times over until it was impossible to make out what they depict at all. One of such photocopied books has fallen into Valeriy’s hands. It had decent enough pictures, but there was one big drawback: the book was in Arabic.

All the same, Valeriy and his brother began their attempts to uncover the mysteries of karate by looking at the barely comprehensible pictures. They would go to the nearest woods outside the town and try to decipher all these stances, blocks, and blows. They saw it as their opportunity, a chance to show the unfriendly world that they had a right to exist, too. Hard to say whether they would have been able to learn anything from this kind of book if not for another stroke of luck in their lives.

Let us put Valeriy’s story aside for a while and talk about another man who was born in a very different country which culture can be totally inexplicable for Europeans.

In China, mid-twentieth century was a turbulent time for that part of the world. One revolution followed another leaving behind slogans calling for a better life along with disappointments, deaths, and unending repressions. A newly emerged government had shunned everything old and traditional. China had been building a new state with a new way of life and whatever could not fit in was doomed to die. The 5000-year old culture, arts and traditions, all had been turned into dangerous relics of the past that required instant eradication. Everyone who disagreed had ended up in the grindstones of repressions. Masters of martial arts were no exception. They became unwanted in that new life. Many had to leave their homes and disperse all over the world to save their families and themselves from persecution. One of these masters whose name had been lost to the history, after having a string of misadventures and losing all his family in long wanderings, had ended up in the same God-forsaken town as our main hero. He had nothing left except his skills and memories of his past life. Making his living by growing watermelons and hunting, he was already close to accept the fact that his art was going to be buried with him. It was an impossible task to find a worthy disciple in a strange country with a very different culture. But the world is full of wonders and, as it happens sometimes, a man’s life can change for the better if he keeps trying.

One day, the old master saw two boys at the edge of the woods. It is quite likely that when he saw what they were trying to perform, it had seemed amusing and surprising to him at the same time. He never expected to see the very thing he devoted his whole life to in these boondocks, thousands of kilometers from his homeland. Believe it or not, the old master did not waste any time. He approached Valeriy and said: “You must become my student.” That was how young Valeriy met his old master. As the saying goes, a teacher always comes along when a student is ready for him. What can I say? We should all put more trust in the wisdom of the ancients since it works, apparently. Then came long months, followed by years of daily training, from smaller to larger and almost always to the lim it of human potential. The master never bothered to explain much. Traditional training is very unlike saucy movies wh ere a student turns into a master in two weeks. What it takes is the total focus of one’s mind and power as well as lengthy repetitions of the same moves over and over again. A student must perceive the essence of martial arts on his own, through tedious routine and aching muscles and tendons. Only then this knowledge will belong to him and eventually lead him to mastery.

As time went by, Valeriy, although still in his teen years, had built a reputation of a “tough guy” not just among his schoolmates who used to give him hell until recently, but also among older kids. He kept training relentlessly, day and night, gradually turning into a real master. His older brother became his training partner. They would have real-life sparring sessions without any proper gear and strike each other with full force. As they realized there could be nothing conditional in martial arts, everything had to be for real. At the very beginning, there had been plenty of bruises and injuries, but as their skills grew, they happened less and less. The master’s maxim about how martial arts should prolong life instead of shorten it took on its real meaning as time went by. Valeriy had listened carefully to his master’s every instruction, even the shortest ones, and thus he was discovering his true way of life. I know he was born to become who he is now – a real master of martial arts and, for that matter, a real master of life itself. Since then a lot of things have changed for Valeriy. His existence was no longer bringing him as much anguish. Imperceptibly for others, he turned from an ugly duckling into a person they learned to respect, and not just for his strength, but also for his wisdom, so profound for his young age. Following his master’s insistence, Valeriy has started to teach kung fu and lecture on the basics of Chinese philosophy. Yet, life is life and nothing can stop its course. Six years later, its seemingly established order changed once again.

Valeriy’s master who had become more than a father to him, died. He had been very old already by the time they met. Perhaps, he lived that long because he had found an opportunity to pass along his knowledge. They barely had time to say good bye. I know the old master had been pleased with his last student. He passed away, but before that he spoke some very important words: “You are a master now.”

Thus, at the age of 16, Valeriy became a professional teacher of martial arts. He could have settled down at that, but life moves on, and one should not rest satisfied with one’s achievements. He started to set more and more difficult goals for himself. To understand martial arts better he started to study human anatomy and traditional Chinese medicine on his own. He went to university majoring in philosophy, founded a real kung fu school in Volgograd (the Golden Dragon School), and achieved recognition. Having conquered the provinces, he moved to Moscow with his family and started there from square one. Once again, he only had a few students. Once again, he had to struggle for a place under the sun.

Valeriy Prosvirov

He followed his path persistently, never surrendering to any problems, and reached his goal in Moscow, too. In just 10 years, his kung fu school grew from 10 students to 300 constant clients. The Golden Dragon has opened training centers in China and branches in Austria and Spain. Valeriy has hosted numerous seminars in Europe and China. In spite of the fact that training sessions at the Golden Dragon can be really rigorous and its gyms are quite austere, many successful people come here for training: businessmen, artists, and high-ranking government officials. I can assure you with full responsibility that all of them achieve what they come for.

Today Valeriy is in his late forties, but he can still give a head start to any 20-year old youth. In no circumstances he would stop his training even for a day. His day starts at 4 a.m. when he has his first three-hour training session. He spends up to 8 hours a day honing his technique and improving his physical shape. He demands for his instructors to do the same. Furthermore, only a student he trained personally can become an instructor at his school. The title of instructor can be granted only to those who completed the full 8-year course of his personal training program. In fact, the Golden Dragon basic principle is that, during a training session, an instructor must do everything he requires his students to do. Not only that, an instructor must be able to do at least twice as much as what he requires from his students.

Anyone else would have probably been satisfied with such achievements and rest enjoying success, but Valeriy is not interested in a quiet life style. To him, life is a never-ending process of cognition and progress. Never be happy with the achieved and learn to derive satisfaction from the very process of perpetual motion that never stops. This concept is the basis for achieving true excellence: a really worthy master keeps polishing his art until his death.

Presently, Valeriy has set a new goal. He is starting from scratch once again. Now the Golden Dragon is trying to clear a higher bar – on a different continent, in sunny Los Angeles. We will be very happy to see you willing to put your faith in us and share our values. Please come and draw upon what my friend and mentor Valeriy Prosvirov, true master of martial arts, is capable of giving. Never forget that life is in motion, so never stop.

Come to our Golden Dragon. Just stop by and join us for a cup of tea!