My name is Vern
Rochon and I have been training in and teaching martial arts since 1972. The traditional Japanese style of Goju Ryu karate under Sensei Kerry Fournet led me to a
modified form of that same style formulated by Kerry’s brother, Sensei Ernie Fournet, a veteran of the
United States Army’s Special Forces, commonly known as the “Green Berets.”
Ernie’s “Special
Forces-modified” karate included close quarters hand-to-hand combat with the
addition of blade, baton and firearms weapons training in which I received a
Black Belt certificate. Both Fournets
and I served in the New Iberia Police Department in Louisiana and were nationally
certified members of the Justice System Training Association’s PSDI-Police Self Defense Instructor
program which provided training in non-lethal hand-to-hand combat, suspect
restraint, weapon retention and other survival tactics to in-service law
enforcement personnel.
In 1982, I moved to
Los Angeles, California and enrolled in the fabled Filipino Kali Academy,
located in the Los Angeles suburb of Torrance and operated by Daniel
Inosanto. Two years with Guro Inosanto at the Torrance and Culver
City gyms grounded me firmly in the arts of Filipino kali and Jeet Kune Do.
In 1984, I was
introduced to Jerry Poteet by fellow student Fran Poteet-Joseph. Recognized even by his peers as an
outstanding talent in Jeet Kune Do, Sifu
Poteet diligently retained the integrity of his mentor’s art, preserving its elegant
simplicity, and had been a leading figure in teaching and promoting the art
since the early 1980’s, training many fortunate students privately and conducting
seminars all over the world. During
pre-production for the 1993 film “Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story,” Sifu Poteet was
selected by Universal Pictures to prepare actor Jason Scott Lee—a non-martial
artist at the time—for the title role.
I was very honored, privileged
and lucky to have trained privately with Sifu Poteet until 1996 and I am his
second graduate—after my esteemed senior, Fran Poteet-Joseph—achieving the ranks
of Full then Senior Instructor. During
those years, I taught Jeet Kune Do commercially and privately, contributed to
Sifu Poteet’s inaugural series of videos (now DVDs) on the art, assisted him
and Sifu Poteet-Joseph in the training, choreography and storyboarding of their
film projects, and published a number of articles appearing in Inside Kung Fu magazine’s regular and
collector editions.
In February, 2007, I
relocated to San Antonio where I became Sifu Poteet's only personal representative in the state of Texas.
