I'm a bit of a collector. I'm a collector of black belts. What brought me to Korea was my desire to train Korean martial arts at the source. That was a good six years ago. What brought me back to Korea was a desire to earn a somewhat comfortable living. The first time I came to Korea I stayed for six weeks while doing some extreme Tae Kwon Do training at a high school outside of Seoul. I came back to get a Tesol certificate and to do a little English teaching. At that time I was a third degree black belt in Taekwondo. I had hoped to learn some more martial arts at that time. I had hoped to hook up with the University Taekwondo team to work out with them, but that didn't happen. Instead I did a little light training with a local master as a part of the tesol program. I took some classes with some other English teachers.
Since I had a good ten years experience on everyone else I didn't really find the classes that fulfilling. They were pretty fun, but I wanted some serious shit. That's when I hooked up with a Kumdo school. Kumdo gave me all kinds of new challenges. At first it was pretty easy, but after a month of swinging a stick around, the instructor called me into his office and invited me to the next level of training....training with the kendo armor. Little did I know that the stuff would cost about six hundred bucks. I ended up staying in Korea a little while longer just to pay for a plane ticket back since I had blown a good chunk of change away on some athletic equipment. This was in March of 2005.
I stuck with the Kumdo stuff until December of 2005 when I headed back home for a brief respite. I took all of my gear with me. I went back home and I stayed away from my old Taekwondo school for a few months. I'm not sure why I did that. For the year of 2004 I ran a Taekwondo dojang for my instructor. That was one of the hardest jobs I had ever had. It was hard because I didn't get paid well, and I felt like I was stuck there. I got paid eight bucks an hour and worked twenty hours a week. I felt marginalized after having been to Korea. I had big dreams of improving the school's curriculum, but I thought that I needed more scientific physical education. I was also second fiddle to a master that had been hired from Korea. This guy had a college degree in Tae Kwon Do, but I was kind of disappointed in his skill level. Anyway, my marginalization had a little to do with that and a little to do with the fact that I was teaching classes to what I considered the best of my ability, but the most important part of the job was to get people to sign up. That's why I left to get a Tesol certificate in the first place, and it was also why I was a bit reluctant to go back in 2006 and start up again for a few months.
Also in 2006 I got into contact with a local Kendo club that I joined. I was worried that my instructor would disapprove of my training Kendo at a different school in his area. (Yes I know that it is hard to believe that somebody would get upset about something like that, but old Korean men. That's right I'm not even going to explain this rational other than by saying old Korean men.) After about two months of looking for a job in South West Michigan, I picked up some shitty work in a flower greenhouse putting plug trays on carts for shipping to garden centers. At that time I figured I could go back to the Taekwondo school and start up again. I didn't want to be coerced into being a dojang master again so I had the leverage of having another job. Almost instantly I was offered the opportunity to give my instructor 900 bucks and test for my fourth degree black belt...which I took even though I didn't feel any better at Taekwondo.
I sailed through that test. I wasn't the slightest bit worried, and I didn't really take it that seriously. I joked around with some of the other black belts. Another black belt, a man from Mexico who had taught me many things about the art when I was a kid, happened upon a broken board when it was time to do our board breaking. I thought it would be funny if I stood on the other side of the room and made a punching motion as he pulled the already broken board apart. The truly funny thing about that was that some people didn't get the joke and actually thought that I had some how broken the board with my mind. I sailed through the test and had some fun with it.
That would be my last black belt test for a few years. That test was in June of 2006. I returned to Korea in August to work in a middle school . That middle school represented a huge missed opportunity for me. It turned out that a guy who works in the office there was on the Korean national Kumdo team that competed in Taiwan in the 2006 world championships. That year Korea took first in the team competition while a Japanese guy took first in the individual. I never really ended up practicing with that guy, but by December of that year word had gotten around that I was back in town, and my old instructor sent me a text. I was really appreciative towards him for wanting me to come back. By December of that year I didn't know what I was going to do with myself. I kind of hated my job, but it paid well. Starting back up with Kumdo was a real comfort.
Then in October of 2010 I did my Kumdo 1st dan test. The test was pretty easy. A real departure from the black belt test events that happen at Chung's Black Belt academy in Kalamazoo. Here is a short list of what is involved:
1. A three day fast.
2. A research paper about teaching Taekwondo or being a referee.
3. A speech about something.
4. A recitation of all of forms or poomse that are taught there....Those are:
a. the Taekwondo Taeguk forms.
b. The 5 Tang Soo Do pyung ang forms (Also practiced in Okinawan Karate)
c. Bassai.
d. Five forms invented by Grand Master Sun Hwan Chung called the Shim Shin forms.
e. A form called 21 basic motions, where a motion is done while calling it's name in Korean.
f. A very athletic form called 42 basic motions...Also invented by Grand Master Chung.
g. If you are high in rank you are supposed to make a creative form....although these are rarely done.
h. If you are over a first degree black belt you have to do the Taekwondo Dan forms Koryo, Geumgang, Taebek etc.
i. If you are over a first degree blackbelt you should to the Tangsoodo Dan forms: Nianchi, Shipsoo etc.
5. demonstrate your self defense ability.
6. demonstrate your one step sparring ability. (One step sparring is a self defense exercise that isn't widely practiced at modern Taekwondo schools. An attacker steps back into a low block and punches at the other person's face. The other person takes defensive and counter attacking postures.) Before I was a third degree black belt one step sparring was done in a free style manor. These days every belt up to and beyond black belt has three to five techniques that must be learned.
7. demonstrate your sparring ability.
8. demonstrate your sparring ability against more than one attacker.
9. break a board with a foot speed technique. What makes something a "speed" technique is the fact that the board holder only uses one hand to hold the board rather than two.
10. break a board with hand speed technique. Again, hold a board in one hand and break it with the other. This is really hard if you have never done it before.
11. Take a picture.
12. Eat something.
So when I took my 1st Dan in Kumdo test, I was expecting something a little more involved. Instead I just had to to an ancient Korean sword form called Bon Guk Gum bub. I messed that up pretty bad. By then a lot had happened since my fourth degree black belt test in Tae Kwon Do. I got married, and at that time my wife was pregnant. During the time of the test we were waiting for some D.N.A. results for our son. We wanted to see if he would have downs syndrome or not. Needless to say my mind was somewhere else. I also thought the hardest part of the test wouldn't be any of the physical stuff which I knew by heart, but the written test. The written test was in Korean. A few days before the test my instructor gave me the test questions and answers in Korean. This is a pretty common practice for everybody, but it was still pretty difficult for me to memorize all of that Korean. Anyway, I passed despite my flub.
October passed and it was onto November. On Thanksgiving I was walking around Jinju's Geumsan Myun during my lunch time when I happened upon a truck that had a phone number for a Tae Kyon school near my house. I had wanted to learn Tae Kyon for a long time. By then I had given up on on Taekowndo in Jinju. I tried it at two schools. One school was filled with bratty high school kids, and I was better than the instructor. The other school was just filled with kids. I made the discovery that adults in Korea don't practice Tae Kwon Do, unless they own a Tae Kwon Do school, or are college kids in training to be future Gym teachers or Do Jang owners.
I copied the number of the Taekyon school down in my phone and went home to celebrate Thanksgiving with my wife. (We also found out that day that our son didn't have Down's Syndrome. I don't think we would have loved him any less, but it was a pretty big relief...I don't mean to offend anybody by saying so, so I'm sorry if I do.) Anyway, that day I zapped some chicken in my dong yang magic with some mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie. My wife called up the Taekyon school and we went over to meet the master.
I joined the next week, and a year later I tested for my first dan. I have to say that the test was a little lack luster. I just had to do one form, and demonstrate a few techniques. Taekyon techniques are a lot like Taekwondo techniques, so in my opinion I looked like a goddamned master compared to a lot of the other people there. Think about it, if they had only been training 1 year too, they couldn't have developed the skills that I had after fifteen or sixteen. Also the kids testing suffered a bit from Korean kid syndrome, and that is a disease where you spend all of your time studying Math and English so when you go to your martial arts school you don't put fourth any effort. Their instructors could have also suffered from Korean master syndrome. Korean master syndrome is where you understand that the kids who come to your school spend all of their time studying, therefore to keep the kids interested, you don't really teach them how to kick or punch or concentrate on anything, you just spend the whole time having the kids run around in circles, play soccer, dodge ball, or do super annoying gym class leap frog activities. I can't vouch that any of the Tae Kyon masters did any of those things, but I did see that at Tae Kwon Do schools. That is one reason why when I would train Tae Kwon Do in Jinju, I would often leave in a fit of rage.
The test also made me a little sad about the state of Tae Kyon. Tae Kyon is said to be a root martial art of Tae Kwon Do. (Actually Karate is) Tae Kyon actually existed a few thousand years ago. It was probably a lot different than what it is today since it was outlawed by the Confucians and it was also banned by the Japanese. Modern Tae Kyon stems from one guy who learned it when he was a kid and he demonstrated it to one of the dictators. That guy taught a bunch of other people, and it has gone on to become recognized by the Unesco cultural heritage people. Because of all of that you would think that the Gyeongsangnamdo provincial competition and dan test would be able to muster a little more than the 40 or 50 people who showed up to my test. This was 40-50 people and about 7 masters. It is somewhat obvious that one cannot make a living as a Taekyon master in Korea. That is pretty sad I'd say. Comparing Tae Kyon and Tae Kwon Do, it is kind of sad that the thousand year old martial art isn't as popular as the sixty year old sport. That being said though, sometimes Tae Kyon can look a little silly. It sounds a little silly with the strange guttural ki-aps taht are said with each motion, but it isn't bad. It is a lot more gentle on the joints than TKD. I think that it is more suitable for older people who just want to have an exercise. It also provides some good crossover context for Tae Kwon Do and Hapkido. Tae Kyon doesn't have punching techniques, but the sparring combines kicking and take downs. The kicking and take downs aren't meant to hurt anybody, but you can learn how to knock someone down, and a Tae Kyon push kick has a lot of power behind it. Also if you a Tae Kwon Do person who isn't used to blocking hand attacks at your head or foot attacks at your legs, the sparring gives you a lot of new things to think about.
Anyhoo, I'll end this here. I have spent way too much time on this post.
See you all later.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Samurai Sword Gym Class
I had a similar idea for this type of thing. My long term dream now is to make enough money to go back to college to study dietetics. Later I would like to open a martial arts school that can put people on a diet and excise regimen to loose weight and get healthy. I've been training in the traditional Korean art of Tae Kyon since November, and I've practiced Korean Kendo on and off for about five years.
I think that Tae Kyon and Kendo are good work outs because they are both rather gentle. Kendo motions are simple and they provide a good arm, back, and ab workout. The footwork also gives some good cardio.
Taekyon is also quite gentle except it has potential to be hard on the knees.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Hmm, I Wonder if these Techniques Could be Used in Martial Arts Training
Martial artists often incorporate meditation into their training. I haven't encountered anything as frustrating as meditation. In my two days that I spent Go gool temple in Kyungju I spent a lot of time meditating. Nobody really gave me much of an explanation as to how to meditate. They often just say that you should focus on your breathing.
However, a recent article in the New York Times does a nice job of describing the process of memory training. The article is titled "Secrets of a Mind Gamer," and it describes how memory athletes build "memory palaces," in their brains so that they can memorize things better. It also talks about an ancient Greek book that details how to build these memory palaces.
There is also a section in the article about the differences in the way that professionals and amateurs practice. The article has a lot of interesting points for martial artists.
However, a recent article in the New York Times does a nice job of describing the process of memory training. The article is titled "Secrets of a Mind Gamer," and it describes how memory athletes build "memory palaces," in their brains so that they can memorize things better. It also talks about an ancient Greek book that details how to build these memory palaces.
There is also a section in the article about the differences in the way that professionals and amateurs practice. The article has a lot of interesting points for martial artists.
Saturday, January 1, 2011
TaeKyon Test
Last Thursday, after a month of training I received my 8th gup in Taekyon. Since this is my fourth martial art, I could really care less about the achievement. It was after only a month of training, but I think that it was well deserved because the test was the gateway to learning more techniques, and the techniques that I had already learned were fairly simple.
Up to this point I have found that Taekyon is a delightful martial art. After the test I went out for a few drinks with the master. He told me that his school is the only Taekyon school in Jinju. The school has only been there for about two months, and I am the only student. I'm a bit on edge about the place because if he doesn't get anymore students I'm afraid the place will close. It also made for a somewhat bizarre test.
The class on the night of the test was fairly straight forward.
Classes have followed a similar pattern since I started. First we do something called "cow walking." That is is we walk on our hands and feet up and down the room twice. Then we move on to basic stretches. The stretches are followed by Taekyon warm ups, which involves a lot of knee bending, leg kicking, knee raises, and foot raises hacky sack style.
After that comes the step patterns . To do these step patterns one has to bend the knees and do some outward hip thrusts. The step patterns are done in v and diamond formations. Then there are step patterns with hand motions, and step patterns with low leg attacks.
So for the test I had to do everything that I had learned up to that point.
The instructor opened the test with a formal introduction. He made a point of saluting the flags and bowing at the old masters of Taekyon, then he said something like this. "This is the first test of the Jinju do dong taekyon school....blah blah blah." What was weird about that was the over indulgence on formality to test one person. Then there was a formal finish too, where there was a closing ceremony with just me kind of standing there. Luckily things stopped being weird when we went out for drinks and octopus later.
And so that is my story about testing for an 8th gup in Taekyon. I'll be happy to learn new techniques next week.
Up to this point I have found that Taekyon is a delightful martial art. After the test I went out for a few drinks with the master. He told me that his school is the only Taekyon school in Jinju. The school has only been there for about two months, and I am the only student. I'm a bit on edge about the place because if he doesn't get anymore students I'm afraid the place will close. It also made for a somewhat bizarre test.
The class on the night of the test was fairly straight forward.
Classes have followed a similar pattern since I started. First we do something called "cow walking." That is is we walk on our hands and feet up and down the room twice. Then we move on to basic stretches. The stretches are followed by Taekyon warm ups, which involves a lot of knee bending, leg kicking, knee raises, and foot raises hacky sack style.
After that comes the step patterns . To do these step patterns one has to bend the knees and do some outward hip thrusts. The step patterns are done in v and diamond formations. Then there are step patterns with hand motions, and step patterns with low leg attacks.
So for the test I had to do everything that I had learned up to that point.
The instructor opened the test with a formal introduction. He made a point of saluting the flags and bowing at the old masters of Taekyon, then he said something like this. "This is the first test of the Jinju do dong taekyon school....blah blah blah." What was weird about that was the over indulgence on formality to test one person. Then there was a formal finish too, where there was a closing ceremony with just me kind of standing there. Luckily things stopped being weird when we went out for drinks and octopus later.
And so that is my story about testing for an 8th gup in Taekyon. I'll be happy to learn new techniques next week.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
The Power of Eels
I really like my mother in law. She is an incredibly sweet and generous lady. She has four children, four children in law, and by some time in April she will have six grand children. She is a real McGuiver with Korean food. She can make many many things. Her best dish is eel soup.
Koreans believe that different foods can give you power. They infamously believe that roast dog, or dog soup has the power to turn anybody into a Casanova. A lot of old people suck down the pungent ginseng candies, which smell a bit like strong celery, to give them stamina.
Another one of these energy foods is eel.
Last Sunday, my wife and the families of two brothers in law went to Haeinsa temple. My wife stayed back with a sister in law and played with the kids as the rest of us climbed up Mt. Gaya.
Mt. Gaya isn't the most challenging of mountains. There is a bout three kilometers of gradual escalation, then some steep hills, then about four hundred meters of steep rocks. It took about two hours to go up.
One of my wife's brothers used to be a gymnast. He went to a sports high school and to this day is in pretty good shape. As we climbed Mt. Gaya, I tried to keep pace with him, but had an asthma attack half way up the mountain. I was hoping that I would vomit, but I just stood still and coughed like a person with emphysema for about five minutes. When I get like that, the rest of my body gets tired as well, but I sucked it up and made it up the mountain a little bit further, and then my brother in law suggested that we take a rest and wait for the other brother in law and his wife. Anyway, I had a spell where I felt my energy drain on that day, but after I caught my breath we made it to the top.
When we got back home, we found that my mother in law made her specialty for everybody. It was all packed in large Tupperwear containers ready for us to take home. I have to say that mother in law's eel soup tastes great. It doesn't taste fishy at all. It just has a deep soupy flavor and has a body of bean paste blanched cabbage and some spices. I really can't explain the flavor because it has Jaepee in it. Jaepee is a spice that is used in Gyeongsangdo and Jeollado. I really don't know what it is in English, I can just describe it as being kind of minty and peppery at the same time.
On Monday I cooked up a four grain rice medly with white rice, brown rice, barley, and Korean black beans in the rice cooker. And when the wife got home we threw some eel soup on the stove and burned some up, tasted great. Later I went to Kumdo and felt powerful.
Today I did the same thing, except after Kumdo I went to the river side for some push ups, sit ups, and Taekwondo forms. After doing fifty sit ups and twenty push ups I did some white belt forms. I usually do these all wuss style when I'm by the river side because I want to warm up, but today I could have kicked and punched through the Berlin wall. Next, another fifty sit ups and twenty push ups, then the yellow belt forms. Same. Next another fifty sit ups and twenty push ups, the Pinyin forms and Bassai dae.
I'm starting to believe in the power of eel. Eel in many countries has traditionally been recognized as an energy food. British people thinks so, Japanese people think so, and check out what legendary boxer, Jack Johnson had to say about eel (According to wikipedia):
Johnson was pompous about his affection for white women, and imperious about his physical prowess, both in and out of the ring. Asked the secret of his staying power by a reporter who had watched a succession of women parade into, and out of, the champion's hotel room, Johnson supposedly said "Eat jellied eels and think distant thoughts".[9]
So come to Jinju. Try the Namgang grilled eel, then do something like climb a mountain. Feel za power.
Koreans believe that different foods can give you power. They infamously believe that roast dog, or dog soup has the power to turn anybody into a Casanova. A lot of old people suck down the pungent ginseng candies, which smell a bit like strong celery, to give them stamina.
Another one of these energy foods is eel.
Last Sunday, my wife and the families of two brothers in law went to Haeinsa temple. My wife stayed back with a sister in law and played with the kids as the rest of us climbed up Mt. Gaya.
Mt. Gaya isn't the most challenging of mountains. There is a bout three kilometers of gradual escalation, then some steep hills, then about four hundred meters of steep rocks. It took about two hours to go up.
One of my wife's brothers used to be a gymnast. He went to a sports high school and to this day is in pretty good shape. As we climbed Mt. Gaya, I tried to keep pace with him, but had an asthma attack half way up the mountain. I was hoping that I would vomit, but I just stood still and coughed like a person with emphysema for about five minutes. When I get like that, the rest of my body gets tired as well, but I sucked it up and made it up the mountain a little bit further, and then my brother in law suggested that we take a rest and wait for the other brother in law and his wife. Anyway, I had a spell where I felt my energy drain on that day, but after I caught my breath we made it to the top.
When we got back home, we found that my mother in law made her specialty for everybody. It was all packed in large Tupperwear containers ready for us to take home. I have to say that mother in law's eel soup tastes great. It doesn't taste fishy at all. It just has a deep soupy flavor and has a body of bean paste blanched cabbage and some spices. I really can't explain the flavor because it has Jaepee in it. Jaepee is a spice that is used in Gyeongsangdo and Jeollado. I really don't know what it is in English, I can just describe it as being kind of minty and peppery at the same time.
On Monday I cooked up a four grain rice medly with white rice, brown rice, barley, and Korean black beans in the rice cooker. And when the wife got home we threw some eel soup on the stove and burned some up, tasted great. Later I went to Kumdo and felt powerful.
Today I did the same thing, except after Kumdo I went to the river side for some push ups, sit ups, and Taekwondo forms. After doing fifty sit ups and twenty push ups I did some white belt forms. I usually do these all wuss style when I'm by the river side because I want to warm up, but today I could have kicked and punched through the Berlin wall. Next, another fifty sit ups and twenty push ups, then the yellow belt forms. Same. Next another fifty sit ups and twenty push ups, the Pinyin forms and Bassai dae.
I'm starting to believe in the power of eel. Eel in many countries has traditionally been recognized as an energy food. British people thinks so, Japanese people think so, and check out what legendary boxer, Jack Johnson had to say about eel (According to wikipedia):
Johnson was pompous about his affection for white women, and imperious about his physical prowess, both in and out of the ring. Asked the secret of his staying power by a reporter who had watched a succession of women parade into, and out of, the champion's hotel room, Johnson supposedly said "Eat jellied eels and think distant thoughts".[9]
So come to Jinju. Try the Namgang grilled eel, then do something like climb a mountain. Feel za power.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Dan Tests
Last Saturday I tested for my 1st dan in Dae Han Kumdo. Dae Han Kumdo is basically the same thing as Japanese Kendo except the motions are said in Korean and Korean Kumdoists learn a Korean sword form.
I now hold a black belt in three martial arts. I am a 4th degree black belt in Taekwondo, a 1st degree black belt in Hapkido, and a 1st degree black belt in Kumdo. In this post I will go over the details of my various black belt tests so as to give some examples of variances between martial arts and how tests are administered in different countries. I'm going to describe first my Kumdo test, since it is the freshest in my memory, and then I will go into my Taekwondo tests.
1. Korea, Kumdo.
This test was held in a high school in a city called Masan. Masan is a coastal industrial armpit that is famous for its steamed monk fish. Hearing that one has to go to Masan for something is like hearing that you are having meatloaf for dinner or finding out that you need dental surgery. I've considered refraining from telling enemies to go to Hell in favor for telling them to go to Masan. Nonetheless the testing gymnasium seemed new. The floor had a white tint to it that brightened up the room. So this trip to Masan wasn't all bad.
My Journey in Kumdo began 5 years ago when I first came to Jinju. It was February or March of 2006 and I had an itching to begin another martial art. At that time I took a small break from Taekwondo. I really just wanted to learn something new, after a long time of doing the same martial art, you realize that there aren't that many new techniques to learn after getting your second or third degree black belts, all you can do is improve the ones you already have, or try to learn how to do some kind of incredible acrobatic kick that will only earn oohs and ahs, but will never really come in handy in a fight, or impress a girl enough to want to go out for coffee.
This was after I worked at an English sweatshop for a month and after a trip to Japan and I thought I was flush with cash. I mentioned to a Canadian guy who had a Korean wife that I was interested in taking Kumdo lessons. He knew a local instructor and they took me to him. I signed up that day without much hesitation. After about a month of lessons the instructor pulled me into his office and showed me a picture of some armor. He then wrote down a price on a piece of paper. It said 550,000 won (At that time it was about $600) . Not knowing what to do, I ended up buying the equipment and having to stay another semester at Gyeongsang university, instead of buying a plane ticket home.
I ended up coming home again in December of 2006 after a few months of Kumdo training. While I was home, I sought out a local Kendo club in Battle Creek, called the Battle Creek Kendo Kai. I did some training there, and was satisfied with the instruction. The fee was only 30 bucks a month. I also attended my first Kendo tournament with those guys at Eastern Michigan University. In the end, I missed the woman who would become my wife too much, and the best work I could get in Michigan was in a box factory, so I found another job in Jinju.
I didn't start training again right away. My new job had some shitty aspects to it.
1. I was bad at it.
2. Some of the students acted like gangsters.
3. I had to do these awful night classes twice a week. I got mega hooked up on kimchi allowances from doing them, but I fled Michigan for having to work 13 hour days in a green house, and I ended up in Korea having to go to school at 8 in the morning and come home at 9 at night two nights a week. The worst part was that on those days that I taught night classes I only had about 3 or four classes during the day. My apartment is also a half hours bus ride from the school. I couldn't go home and there was nothing to do except hang around at the school and wait for the night classes to start. Then half way through the semester, they decided to delay the night classes an extra half hour, so instead of getting home at 8:30, I could get home at 9:00. The only exercise I was getting was through these volley ball games that seemed important on Thursdays. I hate volley ball.
As luck would have it though, one of the guys who worked in the office at my school was on the Korean national Kumdo team. I mentioned to a few people that I liked Kumdo. That guy must have run into my old instructor some where and said something about me being back. Around December of 2006 I got a text message from him and I rejoined the school. Since then I've trained sporadically. Sometimes I miss a few weeks, but I come back. I've competed in a few competitions, where I have scored points and won matches, I've also lost points and lost many matches, but that goes with the territory, and that brought me to last Saturday.
The test was rather simple. There were 4 parts.
Part 1 Bonguk Gum bub.
Gonguk Gum Bub, is supposedly a 1000 year old Korean sword form that has been revitalized by modern Koreans. It is in the old Korean marital arts book called "Muye Dobo Tongji." Unfortunately for me I made some pretty big mistakes in this form. I was the only white guy there and I turned the wrong way at one point, that screwed up the next few motions, but I faked it and ended well. I was pretty embarrassed about that. I know it pretty well, I just made a mistake, perhaps I'll climb a mountain a post a video of me doing it.
Part 2 Pon
These are the Japanese partner forms called, "pome," in Japanese. There are 10 of these forms, but people testing for black belt only do 1-5. My partner in doing these was a woman who also made a few mistakes in Bonguk Gum Bub. She seemed as nervous as I was in this, but we sailed through it without a hitch.
Part 3 Armor on.
After the pon, we put on our gear and did yun gyuk, or Kai Kaishi in Japanes. This is an exercise where one person attacks the others head and does five left and right head attacks stepping forward, and four left and right head attacks while stepping back, the other person blocks the strikes with their Jukdo (Shinai). This is done twice and then concludes with an attack to the head and the attacker moves past the blocker.
After that we just did some free fighting. I was paired with the same woman as before. She was about a foot shorter than me, so I just went easy.
Part 4 Written test.
This was the hardest part. The test was in Korean. I asked the instructor if I could get the questions beforehand so I could study them. He gave them to me with the answers in Korean. I had no choice but to memorize the page of Korean, and then copy verbatim on the test paper. When it came to test time, a few people were looking over my shoulder. One lady came up and told me that I could write the answers in English. Hell no I wasn't going to do that, I spent the whole day memorizing a bunch of Korean. Then there was this guy from my school who was taking the test with me. He was looking over my shoulder too, and trying to give me the answers in Korean. I had to sh him twice because I had to concentrate.
All in all it turned out to be an okay test, and I found out that I passed today. I was pretty disappointed about making those mistakes in the form, but live and learn I guess. The best part was the testing fee: 20,000 won or about sixteen bucks. I was surprised to learn today that I had to pay another 40,000 won because I passed, but still, the price really isn't too bad...as you will see.
America, Taekwondo 1st dan
I was 16. Grand Master Chung requires everyone testing for a black belt to fast for three days before testing. I drank milk and orange juice for three days. I didn't know that that was cheating.
We ended up working it all out, but three days before the test my foot met the shin of a well conditioned former Korean kick boxer. My foot swelled up pretty big, and I had trouble walking for a few months. I limped through my test, managing to do all of the forms and break all of the boards. Back then there was a guy at our school who was a complete asswipe. He was a third degree black belt, who was in his late thirties or early forties. Just a real son of a bitch, wasn't really that good at Taekwondo, and he was mean to the students that he taught, except for the women that he hit on. Just a real scumbag, a perfect guy to teach women's self defense, since women really need to defend themselves against people like him. There was a period of time when I had to take lessons from him. I really don't remember anything he taught me except for the fact that he was an asshole. Anyway, at that test we had to show some jump kicks or something. I was hopping around on my left foot trying to jump and kick with it since my right foot was useless that day, and this dude was trying to say stuff in Korean, and acting all frustrated when I didn't know what the hell he was talking about.
He disappeared soon after that. I heard that he got in trouble for spanking a kid during a kids class, or he had a heart attack or something.
Anyway the Taekwondo tests are pretty intense. We have to do all of the forms we learned, break some boards, fill out a written test, fight with a few different people, show the self defense techniques we learned, and demonstrate something called one step sparring. The tests usually take about 3 hours. The Kumdo test I did was only about 2 hours, but more people tested, and there were a few testing boards. The test was very efficient.
Teakwondo 2nd Dan
This test was much better. I did the full fast, and did everything Grand Master Chung asked me to do. This was a make up testing event so there were only about 5 of us there, more scrutiny. I loved it. I wanted to show off.
Taekwondo 3rd Dan.
I started my fast on a Wednesday and my car broke down outside of a KFC. They were reluctant about letting me use their phone. I had to point at my car that wasn't moving that was blocking their driveway for them to get a clue. The car's axles were about to fall out, so I ended up getting a brand new Corolla. That was pretty sweet. The test went alright too, I can't remember it much though.
Taekwondo 4th Dan.
By this time testing was so run of the mill that I really didn't care that much anymore.
Hapkido 1st Dan.
There was no test. I paid Grand Master Chung for lessons up to my black belt in Hapkido a few years back. He stopped teaching it, after a year of my training. I had a brown belt or 4th gup in Hapkido. Later he just went ahead and filed the papers for me to get a black belt. Again, it kind of pissed me off because I didn't pay him for belts, I wanted the training. But I guess I can use that to take advanced lessons here in Korea. I might join a school for that here, but I probably won't. I don't want to take a martial arts class with bunch of kids.
I now hold a black belt in three martial arts. I am a 4th degree black belt in Taekwondo, a 1st degree black belt in Hapkido, and a 1st degree black belt in Kumdo. In this post I will go over the details of my various black belt tests so as to give some examples of variances between martial arts and how tests are administered in different countries. I'm going to describe first my Kumdo test, since it is the freshest in my memory, and then I will go into my Taekwondo tests.
1. Korea, Kumdo.
This test was held in a high school in a city called Masan. Masan is a coastal industrial armpit that is famous for its steamed monk fish. Hearing that one has to go to Masan for something is like hearing that you are having meatloaf for dinner or finding out that you need dental surgery. I've considered refraining from telling enemies to go to Hell in favor for telling them to go to Masan. Nonetheless the testing gymnasium seemed new. The floor had a white tint to it that brightened up the room. So this trip to Masan wasn't all bad.
My Journey in Kumdo began 5 years ago when I first came to Jinju. It was February or March of 2006 and I had an itching to begin another martial art. At that time I took a small break from Taekwondo. I really just wanted to learn something new, after a long time of doing the same martial art, you realize that there aren't that many new techniques to learn after getting your second or third degree black belts, all you can do is improve the ones you already have, or try to learn how to do some kind of incredible acrobatic kick that will only earn oohs and ahs, but will never really come in handy in a fight, or impress a girl enough to want to go out for coffee.
This was after I worked at an English sweatshop for a month and after a trip to Japan and I thought I was flush with cash. I mentioned to a Canadian guy who had a Korean wife that I was interested in taking Kumdo lessons. He knew a local instructor and they took me to him. I signed up that day without much hesitation. After about a month of lessons the instructor pulled me into his office and showed me a picture of some armor. He then wrote down a price on a piece of paper. It said 550,000 won (At that time it was about $600) . Not knowing what to do, I ended up buying the equipment and having to stay another semester at Gyeongsang university, instead of buying a plane ticket home.
I ended up coming home again in December of 2006 after a few months of Kumdo training. While I was home, I sought out a local Kendo club in Battle Creek, called the Battle Creek Kendo Kai. I did some training there, and was satisfied with the instruction. The fee was only 30 bucks a month. I also attended my first Kendo tournament with those guys at Eastern Michigan University. In the end, I missed the woman who would become my wife too much, and the best work I could get in Michigan was in a box factory, so I found another job in Jinju.
I didn't start training again right away. My new job had some shitty aspects to it.
1. I was bad at it.
2. Some of the students acted like gangsters.
3. I had to do these awful night classes twice a week. I got mega hooked up on kimchi allowances from doing them, but I fled Michigan for having to work 13 hour days in a green house, and I ended up in Korea having to go to school at 8 in the morning and come home at 9 at night two nights a week. The worst part was that on those days that I taught night classes I only had about 3 or four classes during the day. My apartment is also a half hours bus ride from the school. I couldn't go home and there was nothing to do except hang around at the school and wait for the night classes to start. Then half way through the semester, they decided to delay the night classes an extra half hour, so instead of getting home at 8:30, I could get home at 9:00. The only exercise I was getting was through these volley ball games that seemed important on Thursdays. I hate volley ball.
As luck would have it though, one of the guys who worked in the office at my school was on the Korean national Kumdo team. I mentioned to a few people that I liked Kumdo. That guy must have run into my old instructor some where and said something about me being back. Around December of 2006 I got a text message from him and I rejoined the school. Since then I've trained sporadically. Sometimes I miss a few weeks, but I come back. I've competed in a few competitions, where I have scored points and won matches, I've also lost points and lost many matches, but that goes with the territory, and that brought me to last Saturday.
The test was rather simple. There were 4 parts.
Part 1 Bonguk Gum bub.
Gonguk Gum Bub, is supposedly a 1000 year old Korean sword form that has been revitalized by modern Koreans. It is in the old Korean marital arts book called "Muye Dobo Tongji." Unfortunately for me I made some pretty big mistakes in this form. I was the only white guy there and I turned the wrong way at one point, that screwed up the next few motions, but I faked it and ended well. I was pretty embarrassed about that. I know it pretty well, I just made a mistake, perhaps I'll climb a mountain a post a video of me doing it.
Part 2 Pon
These are the Japanese partner forms called, "pome," in Japanese. There are 10 of these forms, but people testing for black belt only do 1-5. My partner in doing these was a woman who also made a few mistakes in Bonguk Gum Bub. She seemed as nervous as I was in this, but we sailed through it without a hitch.
Part 3 Armor on.
After the pon, we put on our gear and did yun gyuk, or Kai Kaishi in Japanes. This is an exercise where one person attacks the others head and does five left and right head attacks stepping forward, and four left and right head attacks while stepping back, the other person blocks the strikes with their Jukdo (Shinai). This is done twice and then concludes with an attack to the head and the attacker moves past the blocker.
After that we just did some free fighting. I was paired with the same woman as before. She was about a foot shorter than me, so I just went easy.
Part 4 Written test.
This was the hardest part. The test was in Korean. I asked the instructor if I could get the questions beforehand so I could study them. He gave them to me with the answers in Korean. I had no choice but to memorize the page of Korean, and then copy verbatim on the test paper. When it came to test time, a few people were looking over my shoulder. One lady came up and told me that I could write the answers in English. Hell no I wasn't going to do that, I spent the whole day memorizing a bunch of Korean. Then there was this guy from my school who was taking the test with me. He was looking over my shoulder too, and trying to give me the answers in Korean. I had to sh him twice because I had to concentrate.
All in all it turned out to be an okay test, and I found out that I passed today. I was pretty disappointed about making those mistakes in the form, but live and learn I guess. The best part was the testing fee: 20,000 won or about sixteen bucks. I was surprised to learn today that I had to pay another 40,000 won because I passed, but still, the price really isn't too bad...as you will see.
America, Taekwondo 1st dan
I was 16. Grand Master Chung requires everyone testing for a black belt to fast for three days before testing. I drank milk and orange juice for three days. I didn't know that that was cheating.
We ended up working it all out, but three days before the test my foot met the shin of a well conditioned former Korean kick boxer. My foot swelled up pretty big, and I had trouble walking for a few months. I limped through my test, managing to do all of the forms and break all of the boards. Back then there was a guy at our school who was a complete asswipe. He was a third degree black belt, who was in his late thirties or early forties. Just a real son of a bitch, wasn't really that good at Taekwondo, and he was mean to the students that he taught, except for the women that he hit on. Just a real scumbag, a perfect guy to teach women's self defense, since women really need to defend themselves against people like him. There was a period of time when I had to take lessons from him. I really don't remember anything he taught me except for the fact that he was an asshole. Anyway, at that test we had to show some jump kicks or something. I was hopping around on my left foot trying to jump and kick with it since my right foot was useless that day, and this dude was trying to say stuff in Korean, and acting all frustrated when I didn't know what the hell he was talking about.
He disappeared soon after that. I heard that he got in trouble for spanking a kid during a kids class, or he had a heart attack or something.
Anyway the Taekwondo tests are pretty intense. We have to do all of the forms we learned, break some boards, fill out a written test, fight with a few different people, show the self defense techniques we learned, and demonstrate something called one step sparring. The tests usually take about 3 hours. The Kumdo test I did was only about 2 hours, but more people tested, and there were a few testing boards. The test was very efficient.
Teakwondo 2nd Dan
This test was much better. I did the full fast, and did everything Grand Master Chung asked me to do. This was a make up testing event so there were only about 5 of us there, more scrutiny. I loved it. I wanted to show off.
Taekwondo 3rd Dan.
I started my fast on a Wednesday and my car broke down outside of a KFC. They were reluctant about letting me use their phone. I had to point at my car that wasn't moving that was blocking their driveway for them to get a clue. The car's axles were about to fall out, so I ended up getting a brand new Corolla. That was pretty sweet. The test went alright too, I can't remember it much though.
Taekwondo 4th Dan.
By this time testing was so run of the mill that I really didn't care that much anymore.
Hapkido 1st Dan.
There was no test. I paid Grand Master Chung for lessons up to my black belt in Hapkido a few years back. He stopped teaching it, after a year of my training. I had a brown belt or 4th gup in Hapkido. Later he just went ahead and filed the papers for me to get a black belt. Again, it kind of pissed me off because I didn't pay him for belts, I wanted the training. But I guess I can use that to take advanced lessons here in Korea. I might join a school for that here, but I probably won't. I don't want to take a martial arts class with bunch of kids.
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