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About Smoke signals. (Grand Ronde, Or.) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (April 15, 2008)
Smoke Signals APRIL 15, 2008 Maxrfti&IL asrfcs 'ftfae cost of my Mffe1 T7TTF 9 wH 12 Westley continued from front page evaluate yourself by watching others at the school. I'm teaching now, so I must be doing something right." So, it was not out of character when the first time Smoke Signals cornered Westley for a story, he declined. It was his GED teacher, Joanne Carr, the Tribe's Adult Education Coordinator, who kept after him: "Come on, come on," she said. "You've got to do this. To be an inspiration to other people. Tell where you came from and where you got to." "Now," Westley said, "I'm pretty much on the way. Martial arts have been the core of my life and my suc cess." He started with martial arts when he was 9 and he played soccer. "I was between 9 and 14 when I was really into the sports and school and everything," he said. "I watched him grow up since he was in third grade," said Frank Blair (Mississippi band of ChippewaAn ishinaabe in Minnesota), and a long time partner with Westley's mom, Tribal member Klairice Westley. "I know what's inside of him. Every thing I ever pointed him toward, he always came up on the good end. "When he was about 9, I said, 'Come with me. I'm going to intro duce you to my teacher.' Everyone has to have a teacher," Blair said. The teacher, their martial arts master, told Westley to stand in the corner and watch on the first visit. "An hour and a half later," Blair said, "he was still standing there. He had not moved an inch." "I think we've got something spe cial here," the master told Blair. Then, Westley moved from Port land to Grand Ronde. "I fell off track," he said. "I started doing things that was not me. I got into alcohol and marijuana. I was doing a lot of things that had noth ing to do with my life. I fell off track until I was 17." "I didn't think anything successful was possible in my world. College, good credit. It wasn't me. I was going to live my life, partying, pow wowing. "Inside, I always knew that this was not me. "These are things that went through my head. At same time, there was something that always threw me bnck. But I think it was ceremonies that kept me strong. Whenever I go back, I find myself drawn to them. There's harmony the way ceremony and martini arts play together. "I got in a lot of legal trouble. I didn't go to jail, well, I spent the night, once. I went to rehab twice, once on my 16th birthday, and again on my 18th birthday." He attended rehabilitation fa cilities for Native people in Spokane. Each time, he stayed for (50 days. The first time, he had a court order to go. The second time," he raid, "I went on my own to get away from bad influ ences. It's so hard to get away from bad habits when you're surrounded by people with bad habits." Fortunately, he said, "so many people were supporting me." And, he had good mentor in Frank Blair, the man he calls his dad. "He was with my mom, and stuck with . ' V ..3 i1'1 fj. . ' .- 7 n J I . V t ' J- - ' i f J I , , , . ' ... " , , Photo by Michelle Alaimo Tribal member Cedar Westley practices chen tai chi during a class at Gregory Fong's Chinese Martial Arts studio in Portland on Monday, April 7. us after they broke up. He got me into martial arts and all the sports. He was my main influence." Blair kept the faith with Westley when things went south. "I think the whole situation laid upon my not giving up on him," Blair said. "When he got in trouble, I didn't treat him any different than when he wasn't in trouble. "I told him his decisions were going to decide his fate. And that he's not a child anymore. 'Your decision has to be more mature,' I said. 'There's that fork in the road. I'd like to see you take the road less traveled. Ev eryone else seems to be going down that other road, hanging out on the corner, and it's nothing but trouble. The other road, you don't know what's down there.' "The trouble is," Blair said to Westley, "I want more for you than you want for yourself." But Blair had plenty of confidence that Westley was going to be fine. Westley had been into kung fu for a year before he went to rehab for the second time. "After that I was clean. I was good. 1 read a lot. I thought a lot about what I needed to do to be as good as I wanted to be, and do what I wanted to do. After I got solcr, things just started falling into place, man. "Once you have a strong body, a strong mind, and you see the connec tion between the two, the techniques fall in place," Westley said. "The techniques are nn expression of how the mind is in sync with the body. "My dad would send me quotes and books I should read," he recalled. "It was always profound. Something of his own writings or from a book. They were so deep, I could really think on them. "And I trained hard. One day, I did 1.000 pushups, lxit of thinking. About everything. About everyone. How dysfunction worked in my community and among my friends. I could see that something was not going right." Westley also had other Blair inspired experiences to keep him balanced. "Our people pray to the four direc tions," Blair said. "So, I took (West ley) to different ethnic groups when he was very young, to their celebra tions, feasts, dances, to give him a better understanding of the people who came here. These are the four colors. I wanted him to learn from each one of them. To listen to them. They all have something good." And that included his Native American heritage. "I grew up real ceremonial with sweat lodges, long houses and sun dances," Westley said. "Remembering those things is what kept me knowing there was something I was doing wrong with my life." He also credits his mother. "I come from a good family," he said. "My mom is a great woman. Maybe there were mistakes, but she did everything she could and it's not easy to rnise kids on your own." Today, Westley lives a pretty clean life. No coffee. No soda pop. No fast food. 1 Icavy workouts. "I eat a lot of salmon, a lot of pro tein. I train hard," he said. And then Blair said, "It's one thing to learn, but then you have to give back." Part of that for Westley is teach ing a kung fu class at the Donald E. Long Detention Center for youth in Portland once a month. He's just gotten started with it, but he hopes that it will give the audience "a taste of something different, open their minds up to something else." "They're interested," Westley said. "They're not sure about it, but they do it, they work out. I saw them re ally pay attention when 1 talked to them about myself and my life. It was amazing to see them listen. "People want to help. It makes peo ple feel good to help. They're going to help. It's just getting past that point of not believing you could do it. "When 1 got out of rehab, good things happened. When you do good things, good things happen. It's so simple." Also today, Westley has enrolled in Portland Community College for a transfer degree, possibly to con tinue his education at Oregon Stage University for a fitness and sports science degree. "I met him in Portland," said Carr, "and he was so close to get ting his GED. He just needed that connection. So, we looked up being a trainer, and classes at PCC, and I just saw that he was dedicated and very goal-oriented. Hey, and I cooked my meals (for class) and he kept showing up. He likes my lasagna. "He is a very humble fellow with a lot of talent. He just needed to take a look at all the possibilities." Success followed quickly when he got on the right track. "It's been hap pening so quick, I was just amazed," he said. From November of last year until recently, Westley worked at Spirit Mountain Casino bussing dishes, but he left recently to pursue his martial arts and college work. For the future, he said, "There's windows of opportunity that have been opening up and falling into place. If I continue doing what I'm doing, it looks like the opportunities are endless." This month, for the third time, Westley will go to I long Kong to train with different martial arts masters. "Excellence is right there," he said. "It doesn't take a long time to learn a thing. And when you're at a certain level, there's always something you can grab. When we go, I grab so much stuff that I can use and under stand. I train like a pro over there, for six or seven hours a day." His passion is to help "my own Na tive people. It feels so good when I see people who need some help and I can give it. "The littlest things (about the martial arts) can be applied in real life. There are advantages to going slow and advantages to going fast. Do you want to go directly at it or be circumspect? "Indian history left many of us trapped in our misery. But I focus on that warrior that's in all of us."
