His accent is the male version of “Modern Family” star Sofia Vergara’s, rolling Rs and all. He has an infectious laugh that often turns into a bubbling giggle and, at 5-foot-3 and 125 pounds, you might not think of Hector Cruz as a force to be reckoned with. But looks can be deceiving. The diminutive Cruz is the newly crowned National Blackbelt League World Champion in the Soft Creative Division and this year’s runner up on the Traditional Chinese and Open Chinese weapons division. The only openly gay competitor, Cruz hopes to inspire more LGBT people to enter the field of martial arts.
PGN: Where are you from? HC: I was born in Puerto Rico.
PGN: What was it like growing up there? HC: It was great: We were near but not in the city. So I grew up near the ocean. I miss that most of all. I was very much into sports — swimming, playing tennis and basketball, riding my bike, that sort of thing. I’m the oldest of three and I also have five stepbrothers and sisters. [Laughs.] Actually, I’m the oldest of all eight! I came to the U.S. in ’95 to go to Temple. It’s changed a bit now, but the culture was very homophobic at the time.
PGN: What was a favorite thing to do with your siblings? HC: Board games. We loved dominos, bingo, checkers, chess, you name it. One year we got one of those, how do you say, soccer tables? With the little men?
PGN: Foosball? HC: Yes! We played the heck out of that. We also loved going bowling. I still do. Since my sister was the only girl, she had to be a tomboy to play with us.
PGN: Favorite class in high school? HC: Spanish! I loved reading. Always. We had a real mean teacher but you came out of his class knowing perfect grammar.
PGN: So for you Spanish was not like we take Spanish, but like we take English to study literature and grammar. HC: Yes, though I hated the grammar part. The reading I loved, that and math. It was great to read and interpret books. It’s funny in Puerto Rico: There’s a big difference between public and private schools. Both are good, but you come out of private school speaking much better English.
PGN: Which did you go to? HC: Public! [Laughs.] Can’t you tell? We weren’t poor, but we weren’t rich either.
PGN: What did your parents do? HC: My mother was a homemaker while we were growing up. She waited until we were all grown to work. After my grandpa Paco passed away, she took a bartending course and later she started working as a cook in a vegetarian restaurant. And none of us are vegetarians! It’s crazy! My real dad did all sorts of blue-collar jobs: He was a mechanic and a bus driver, construction, you name it. My stepdad, who raised me, was a bartender all his life. He used to dress in a tuxedo every night, always, always, whether he was working in a bar, a bowling alley or a sweet 16 party.
PGN: What was your first job? HC: When I was about 17, there was a party and my dad was bartending and I got a job as a server. I put food in front of people. Then when I came to the States, I got a job at the Korean deli at 12th and Walnut, I worked there for seven years on the night shift. That was interesting.
PGN: What was your major at Temple? And what do you do now? HC: I got my graduate degree in anthropology from Temple and now I work for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as a social worker. I got the job at a job fair here in town.
PGN: How did you get started in martial arts? HC: My generation grew up watching Bruce Lee and Shaw Brothers kung fu movies. So ever since I was little I wanted to do martial arts but my parents couldn’t afford it. [Pauses.] The sad truth is that there was a domestic-violence incident when I was about 22. I met someone who turned out not to be the prince charming I thought he was. After that I vowed never to let myself be a victim again. It was a while before I started doing martial arts. My current partner Jerry helped me and it’s been great. Not only is it important from the physical side, it’s also very therapeutic.
PGN: How did Jerry help you? HC: [Laughs.] He was the voice of reason! I was looking at a popular school that was run by this really big tough guy. Jerry said, “What is he going to teach you? He’s 6-foot-4 and muscular. You’re short and skinny! You need someone like you who’s going to teach you how to fight like a little guy. I know a master at a kung fu school who is small and scrawny like you and he’s dangerous. That’s where you want to go.” He was right! It’s been seven years and counting and I’m now the newly crowned NBL World Champion in the Soft Creative Division.
PGN: I was looking up the sport and thought the titles were very interesting. In addition to having a Chinese division and a Japanese division and a Korean division, there were also categories for Hard Creative Forms and Hard Choreographed Musical Forms division, Choreographed Fight division and Hard Open Musical Forms division. I watched one of your competitions on YouTube: If I didn’t know what it was about, I would have looked at you funny if you’d asked me to watch your soft form video! HC: [Laughs.] That’s funny! Yes, we have many forms; there’s also point sparring and point fighting and so much more.
PGN: Well, congratulations on your Soft Creative championship. HC: Thank you, but I still want to win the traditional and the weapons. Hopefully this will be the year. I have to keep training and competing because I really want to win the traditional championship. My teacher won it for three years. He was happy for me for my title but scolded me, “We’re a traditional school! Where’s that title?” [Laughs.] I told him, “What can I say, I have the gay genes. We do better in the creative!”
PGN: What weapons do you work with? HC: I do the twin double swords, the staff and the miao dao, which is a sword that’s almost as big as me, Chinese daggers and I’m just learning the pu dao, which is known as the horse chopper. It’s a long staff with a blade at the end.
PGN: Ouch! Was it hard learning all that? HC: When I first started doing it, ooh, I wanted to quit. I had no balance, no coordination, no stamina — it was terrible. [Laughs.] I kept saying to myself, “I’m gay! Why am I volunteering to get beat up?” It was hard — definitely not for everybody — but I’m so glad I stuck with it. When I was down on myself because I seemed so far behind everyone else, my friend Frank gave me the best advice I’ve received. He said, “Don’t ever compare yourself to others. Everyone learns differently.” I realized that some people may have been faster at learning than me, but I learned more thoroughly.
PGN: What’s the worst accident you’ve had? HC: Oh boy, there are so many. I’ve hit myself with the staff and cut myself with the sword. One time I was fighting my friend A.J. and I got beat up so bad I could hardly walk the next day. And one time I accidentally punched this guy in the mouth and his teeth came loose. It was so embarrassing! It’s all part of the game but I felt so bad. And my boyfriend goes crazy. He’s like, “Oh my God, you’re so bruised, people are going to think I’m beating you up!”
PGN: When I first heard you did martial arts, I thought of Ultimate Fighting, the mixed martial arts bouts in a big cage. But what I saw in your video was more like ballet and very elegant. Do you think the Ultimate Fighting craze gives martial arts a bad rap? HC: No, because I consider that martial sports, whereas we are martial arts. And when you think about it, they’re in a ring with referees and equipment and it’s very regulated. On the street, you’re not wearing a cup. So if someone kicks you down there, it’s gonna hurt and there’s no tapping out!
PGN: Have you had to use your skills? HC: Thank God, no. And I don’t want to ever have to. I’m prepared, but the whole idea is not to have to use it.
PGN: But it must feel good to know you can defend yourself. HC: Oh yes, it does change you that way. It gives you more confidence. I really wish more LGBT people would participate.
PGN: You mentioned that it was a domestic-violence incident that got you into the art — were you picked on as a kid? HC: No, never. I was actually very popular. I never had a problem that way as a kid.
PGN: Favorite Bruce Lee movie? HC: “Enter the Dragon” of course!
PGN: I read that you’re a member of the chess club at William Way. HC: Yes! And we need more members! We used to have one woman and one transperson and they had to stop coming so we need more people. We’re open to everyone and we do more than just stare at the board. We laugh and have fun and sometimes go out for drinks or coffee.
PGN: Do you find similarities between chess and martial arts? HC: Both require discipline and focus and, in the point-sparring matches like chess, you have to think two moves ahead.
PGN: Tell me about coming out. HC: It was hard. My dad wasn’t so bad. Partly because since he and my mom divorced he’s lived near New York and maybe that helped him be a little more open-minded. Or maybe because he wasn’t there, he felt he had no say or was even responsible for me being gay. But with my mom and stepdad it was harder. Being the oldest, they had certain expectations for me. I came out in college and I was lucky that they had a support group there: It really helped me a lot.
PGN: How did you tell your mom? HC: You know, she brought it up. She noticed something and asked me if I needed to talk. She said, “You can tell me anything, mothers always understand … ” [Laughs.] Which of course was a big lie! She didn’t understand at all, not at all!
PGN: How long have you and Jerry been together? HC: On and off for about 14 years. We break up, we get back together, we break up … I was just telling him the other day, “Hey, it feels kind of weird, we haven’t broken up for a while! We’re overdue. We need to have an argument where I won’t speak to you for two weeks!” [Laughs.]
PGN: Now for some random questions. Who should play you in an action flick? HC: It would have to be somebody short, skinny and good-looking! I’d say Jerry Rivera. He’s a salsa singer.
PGN: If you could help one person change their life, who would it be? HC: I don’t know about one person, but it’s always been my dream to have a martial arts school that was open to everyone but especially catered to the LGBT community. I’ve been very lucky to have a gay-friendly teacher — he’s a good-enough friend that when he’s not calling me Kung Fu Chihuahua he just calls me the gay boy — but I would like to see us have a place of our own. Maybe because of the bullying, maybe because I know what it can do for your confidence, but that’s my dream. I’m the only gay guy in my school. It’s nice to have someone say, “Listen, he’s gay and he’s the world champion, I want to be a world champion too!” Hopefully, I can inspire people.
PGN: If you were to be reincarnated as an animal, what would you be and why? HC: A raccoon! [Said with a long rolling “R.”] I love them. I think they’re adorable!
PGN: What time period would you go back to? HC: The second half of the 19th century. That was such a time of change, the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and the time when Western philosophy shifted from a time of doubt to a time of optimism and hope. It felt like it was such a time of discovery, science could do no wrong, anything was possible. It was also the start of a lot of science fiction and I’m a big science-fiction geek.
PGN: “Dr. Who”? HC: I love “Dr. Who.” I watched it when I was little and still watch it now. I used to read all sorts of Jules Verne books.
PGN: Do you collect anything? HC: I collect bookmarks and magnets. Oh, and snow globes!
PGN: Favorite Valentine memory? HC: A few years ago, Jerry said he wasn’t going to get me anything for Valentine’s Day. We’d had an argument and he’d said, “I’m never going to buy you flowers again!” But then he surprised me with a card, a big stuffed animal, chocolates and I even got flowers, too! I was so excited because I thought I wasn’t going to get anything!
PGN: Something you’d like to learn how to do? HC: Drive! When I was a teenager I was always scared to drive and I never got a license.
PGN: So you mostly do Chinese martial arts — know any good curses in Chinese? HC: No, but after working in a Korean deli for seven years, I know plenty in Korean!
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