I started calling around North America looking to purchase a Mook. We were renting at the time so I wanted one with a stand. I got answers like 'Well, we bore holes through the body so you can get some wood and bolt it to the wall", or "Try to make a stand yourself'. I was astonished to find that the most portable, somewhat traditional Mook available had a ticket price of $1,000 (U.S.) plus the 6' X 5' X 4' stand was extra and would have to be trucked up at my expense.

The thought of building wall mount brackets or a stand didn't scare me. I owned a company named Leechild Renovations at the time and I'm an accomplished carpenter. However, I realized there must be other people who wanted a truly portable Mook. I began experimenting.

For the next year or so I tried many different ways to secure one (floor-to-ceiling poles, gluing it to a door jam, etc.). But they all caused considerable surface, if not structural, damage to the house. Finally in the summer of 1993 while enjoying the shade of my patio umbrella I noticed it was partially supported by a water-filled base. By the end of the day, with a blob of plastercine and a six inch piece of broomstick, I had my first prototype. By the following summer, after consulting with my father-in-law, the physicist, my brother-in-law, the JKD instructor, and a bunch of plastics companies and their engineers, I had the perfect portable, roll away base and a new company - Leechild Innovations, Inc.

The next year was spent perfecting the dummies and The Sidekick. We decided that rather than the usual piece or two of padding most practitioners taped on to simulate hitting bone through muscle, that our dummies should be padded from top to bottom to accommodate the conditioning of fists, elbows, knees, shins...tools common to JKD and many other arts.

The Sidekick was designed to be a lower impact, accuracy trainer that allows more movement and zoning and gives the type of resistance felt from a body retreating from your blows and weapons. The summer of 1994 was spent on final testing of all The Warrior's components. I got the toughest and most skilled people I could find instructors, students, street brawlers. You name it - they hit it. Early on in the development I had decided to use only top quality materials, right down to the five dollar-a-spool nylon thread, so there were very few problems to iron out.

When we felt it was ready, my training partner, Jason Lancucki (who had helped from concept to completion), The Warrior, and I boarded a plane bound for LA in search of our first testimonial. We were a bit nervous about meeting Paul Vunak, a man whose Mook Jong tape we had studied from for years. But just as we imagined, he, as well as his instructors and other students loved it.

Upon our return we planned a tour of seminars and tournaments. Students and instructors from all over the continent got to experience the feel of the Warrior and Sidekick first hand. The response has been excellent.

In February of 1996, Guru Dan Inosanto and Sifu Ted taught seminars in the Great Lakes region and The Warrior was there. Guru Inosanto said it was an "absolutely wonderful product - A+ ! " Sifu Wong, after holding up the seminar for half and hour while he checked it out, said he thought it was "ideal for traditional, as well as more modern, martial arts like western boxing". Sifu Lamar Davis II liked them so much he stopped selling his own dummies and made The Warrior the official dummy of his organization. When we took The Warrior to the Canadian Open Koh Shu Tournament, vice-president Augustine Ngu liked it enough to ask if we would supply one of our Wing Chun dummies for their Mook forms competition the following year.