30+ years on the mat. One system, built the hard way.
Shaun has spent more than three decades training and teaching martial arts, moving from student to instructor to founder — building a curriculum around the same principle every rank has to earn: your body and your breath are the first system you have to master.
That practice became KCJK™ — Korean Tai Chi breathwork built on six foundational movements — and grew into a broader ecosystem for men who train, families raising the next generation, and anyone ready to move from white belt thinking to black belt discipline.
10,000+ classes taught, across systems and decades, to students who kept showing up.
I grew up in and out of homelessness across Southern California — motels, a tent by the Colorado River, stretches where I was raising my two younger brothers myself while my parents cycled through addiction. Martial arts and structure got me through high school and gave me my first real footing.
Years later I lost that footing completely. A brutal divorce, crushing debt, and a slide into alcohol, prescription pills, and eventually cocaine took over. By the end of 2019 I was drinking through the workday and quietly planning to end my life. I survived two attempts — including a high-speed crash I walked away from with barely a scratch.
That crash led to a psychiatric hold, then nine months in residential treatment. I got sober through AA, faith, and going back to the one thing that had always given me structure: martial arts. Everything I teach now — the breathwork, the discipline, the community — isn’t theory. It’s what actually pulled me back.
Hear the Full Story →If you or someone you know is struggling, the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is available 24/7 — call or text 988.
Beast Life exists to close that gap — not with hype, not with guarantees, but with a structured practice: breath, posture, training, and community, delivered the way a martial arts lineage has always delivered it. One class at a time.
See the KCJK System
A custom GPT trained on the KCJK™ breathwork system and the Beast Life philosophy — ask it questions any time.
Open the GPT →Conversations on discipline, brotherhood, and the long game — the audio companion to the magazine.
Listen on Spotify →On authenticity, vulnerability, and rebuilding — a full interview on the story and the brands behind it.
Read the Interview →