Hi, this is David Beck.  I'm a full time performance engineer for Sabre Holdings and a part-time martial artist.  I grew up in Ohio and Iowa.  Started co-op internships with Texas Instruments between terms at Iowa State University, hired on with them after graduation, and have been in the Dallas area ever since.  Married with one daughter.

I started serious martial arts study in 1983, Hapkido with Master Yong Chin Pak.  Also studied Taekwondo with him beginning about 1985.  In those arts I'm now respectively 6th and 4th degrees.

My first experience with FMA was in 1993.  I went down to Houston and in conjunction with a comics convention Stan Lee was attending, there was also going on one of the 3 in one seminars with Professor Presas, Wally Jay, and George Dillman.  I *loved* the Professor's stuff.  I then attended 4 summer camps with him 1993-6, testing at 2 of them.  In the final one he was inserting the tapi-tapi stuff.  At the first one I met Guro Anding de Leon, and started studying with him, testing under him filling in his more complete syllabus and achieving 1st degree black belt in 1999 (IMAF).  After the Professor died and GM de Leon formed his own organization, achieved 1st degree in the International Arnis de Leon Federation in 2002. I have avoided the political stuff after the Professor's death...

I started my own school in 1993, Beck Martial Arts, see http://www.beckmartialarts.com, initially teaching Hapkido and Taekwondo.  For Arnis, for a long time I taught it just occasionally, once a month, and just doing crosstraining type stuff to my other students.  But towards the end of 2008 I worked up a curriculum and started teaching once a week, expanding that to twice a week in 2010, which is where it is now.  My curriculum is very close to GM de Leon's (he's fine with it) and I think any Modern Arnis people would be comfortable in it.  It places a little more stress on concepts, footwork, and joint locks; and a little less emphasis on forms and set responses.

How I heard of myfma.net:  Like pretty much anyone teaching, I occasionally do web searches for the martial arts I teach in my area.  Saw something on Guro Bain locally in Plano and saw myfma.net in the link.  That brought me to the site and I looked around a little.  I'll give a big hello to Mark Lynn. I expect there's some others here I know.