Among the many things I have done
in my life one that had great influence on me was my involvement in martial
arts. Yet, understand, that the martial
arts I became involved in were far different than the US martial arts of
today. Today the US the martial arts ‘industry’
as it is now referred to is a dirty little secret. Few schools are now run by people who are
actually knowledgeable in martial arts though they often make claims to such
knowledge; and many who have undergone very little, if any, real training make
piles of money. I know because I was
involved in Asian martial arts in the US for almost 35 years. I was one of the lucky few who learned not
only from a true, acknowledged master – as mentioned in my previous blogs he
came from South Korea having not only trained in the arts of Taekwondo, Judo,
and Hapkido, but had been during his days of training a world-class Judo
competitor – and from him I not only learned about martial arts, but I learned
much more.
I learned that with correct
training while you must train your body long and hard, training of the mind is
even more important. Ultimately, while under a true master you are learning how
to create great harm you are paradoxically learning to think in terms of
nonviolence. Train for Yin (Eum in
Korean) and simultaneously learn Yang (The ever popular symbol of the Yin/Yang
is the circle that is half black and half white). And, when the school in Greeneville, Tennessee
was opened up, I brought that thinking with me.
That thinking allowed me to continue running the school through both
good times and hard times. That
thinking, passed on to my students allowed all who earned at least a first
level black belt before going on to attend a college or university to achieve
membership in the academic National Honor
Society – 100% (I would hope there might be some martial arts or karate
schools out there that can make the same claim, and I would be happy if there
were, but I am doubtful). It allowed
them to learn how to keep flexible minds when facing challenges. It allowed them to understand the best way to
deal with a possible confrontational situation is not necessarily through
confrontation, especially since confrontation never creates winners, only
losers, but instead, by working through the situation and having an
understanding of the person who is acting adversarial. For example, if the
person is a bully they often are acting out of their own insecurities.
Further, my students learned to
reach beyond themselves allowing some of them to run straight up walls and then
perform back flips from some point on the wall.
Students learned to accomplish things few Americans will ever learn such
as how to kick apples off the ends of real swords. In fact, in a video on YouTube under "Greeneville
TTJC Karate Demonstration Pioneer Park 2010" and you will have a chance to
observe a fifteen year old student of mine (I am even holding one of the
swords) perform two different kicks off from a single jump to kick two apples
off from two different swords. I even had four students who, unbidden by me, performed
backflips and/or back handsprings the entire two mile length of the Greeneville Christmas Parade in December of 2012.Right: You would expect special ceremonies for Black Belt recipients, and they did receive those. Yet, even those receiving colored belts were awarded the belts in a special, though shorter, ceremony held in proper decorum.
Left: Running up a 14 foot wall - here to perform a backflip from the eight foot level.
Left: A Taekwondo competiton event. Even though competition was not the primary reason for training, competition was a means of enhancing the building of a knowledge and skills base.
Yet the school remained part-time
because the things I taught were not the kinds of things many people wanted
from “martial arts training”. I came
away from that school having proven that Americans are capable of learning real
martial arts But, for many that is not
what they seek either for themselves or their children. So, while I never earned any money in the
almost twenty years I ran the school, I believe that I did change for the
better the lives of those who came and spent any significant amount of time. Its
legacy on me was the desire to follow the path towards the people and the
culture at the origin of two of the arts I had learned – Taekwondo and Hapkido.
No comments:
Post a Comment