Monday, May 26, 2014

[Terry's Tale] How I Came to be in Korea

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.

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