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Dr. U Maung Gyi
Dr. U Maung Gyi is the current Grandmaster of the Bando system.
It was Dr. Gyi's father, U Ba Than [ Gyi ] who undertook to
organize
Bando when he was a Minister for youth and the sports in Burma.
After helping to establish the Military Athletic Club, in
pre-WWII Burma, U Ba Than accepted the role of Director of the Burmese
program of physical education and athletics. This appointment
gave U Ba Than the opportunity to travel throughout the country,
studying and learning from the great Burmese masters who were forced
underground during the British and Japanese occupation.
Through his interactions with these great masters, U Ba Than
was able to incorporate aspects of the various systems that were 1)
easy to learn, 2) effective, and 3) efficient. From this he
helped develop what is Bando todayBy request of his father, Dr. U. Maung Gyi settled in the United States in 1959 to bring Bando to the United States and honor American veterans who fought in the China, Burma, India theater of war. Dr. Gyi is also very passionate that the memory of those who served during wartime are remembered so he created the American Bando Association.
In 1968, at the university of Ohio, Maung Gyi created American
Bando Association (ABA). Recognized as Grandmaster, he started to
organize, under the aegis of the IBA then of the ABA, boxing matches
utilizing feet and fists which were initially called Kick-Boxing, then
Bando Burmese Kick Boxing. The rules of these engagements
took as
a starting point the the bama lethwei. In the early 1970s
Maung
Gyi also took part in the development of the rules for the PKA
(professional karate association), which was the first federation to
govern the full contact.
In order to make Bando known Dr. Gyi continued these
activities
during many years,
accepting all the challenges that one proposed to him. He
fought
his last fight in 1971, at 48 years, against the champion of Japan,
whom he beat by KO.