Taum Dell’Armo was an advertising executive at Ogilvy & Mather, instructed tennis in Beverly Hills, served on the boards of various nonprofits, and is a member of the StillWater Club for men in Pebble Beach. But here’s a twist.
Starting five decades ago he’s also studied karate, judo, aikido and tai chi.
“In the West, we don’t understand it,” he says. “It’s ‘How soon can I get a black belt? How soon can I graduate?’ In the East, a black belt is the beginning. It takes 15 years to get there. The end is nothing. The road is all.”
Born in the South Bronx and now living at Quail Lodge, he’s been a student of Eastern religions. Locally he found a world-renowned chi master who practices “soft martial arts” but does not indulge easily in teaching. Dell’Armo implored him for three years to study.
“All the masters say the same thing: ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ He’s about 4-foot-2 and can throw you with two fingers. Like in Kill Bill movies.”
He also found a sensei (teacher) who taught the combative art of the sword, called iaijutse. He’s since moved on to zen ken ichi, a rare martial art of sword movement, taught by his master, Shi han Hargrove, a 10th degree black belt.
“The cuts and movements are not just combat, but spiritual. You’re slaying the enemy within.”
That enemy could include the fear of death, or the ego that insists on a separation between the self and the universe. How does a former ad man reconcile his Western self with Eastern teachings? That may be a subject that comes up in a Gentrain lecture he’s giving at MPC on June 6. It’s called “The Way of the Samurai.”