Networking and Reminiscing and Traditions

If you've been following this blog, you know I'm a Tae Kwon Do master, that I'm back to teaching Tae Kwon Do and that I recently won the NJ State Forms Competition in the 1st Masters Division. I bring this up because, after almost twenty-six years involved in the martial arts, I feel like I'm becoming a real contributing member of the Tae Kwon Do community.

You see, in my younger days when I was competing and teaching with my own school, it was all about getting ahead and making a name for myself. It wasn't ALL about me - I was truly spreading the joy and benefits I've received through Tae Kwon Do practice - but I had a younger man's mind with a younger man's goals and dreams. Thing is, while I'd competed against and narrowly lost to some big names (David Martin of Eagle Tae Kwon Do in Hunterdon and Billy Petrone from Connecticut, who was a member of the US National Team, each by one point and against Billy it was in suddent death overtime), I never got known and I never shook hands with the brass, so to speak.

Well, since starting teaching classes this year and winning States, suddenly I'm making connections with big wigs and laughing and talking about going out for drinks on a Friday night after training. At the risk of name dropping, while preparing for States and after winning it, I've become cordial and friendly with Master Sungkeun Yoo. Who's Master Yoo? He's the current president of the NJ State Tae Kwon Do Association. We've corresponded via email on official matters, for sur, but at the first NJ Team practice we stretched side-by-side and talked about, of all things, women and Filipino food. We're even Facebook friends and we don't just talk Tae Kwon Do.

More recently, Master Mark Williams, who's a legend in American Tae Kwon Do, stopped by the Bodies In Motion studion and dropped off information on the tournament he's hostsing in May. Yesterday, as I was changing out of my dobok and back into my civvies, he stopped by again. For those of you who don't know Master Williams, the equivalent of his stopping would be, if you were a writer say, if Stephen King walked into your workspace and wanted to shoot the breeze and welcome you to the writing community. Or, if you're a dancer, it would be like Nureyev coming into your studio and saying hi. What was more humbling is that, remember, there's a rank system in Tae Kwon Do and Master Williams is two dans my senior. For him to come to me is like, as the saying goes, the mountain coming to Mohammed.

Aside from chance encounters at the local Pathmark Supermarket, I've only met Master Williams on the tournament circuit. At one event, we were in the ring together, ready for a sparring match, but the senior masters told him to go to his own weight division. I was glad because I wonder - doubt - if I'd have won if he had been my opponent. I ended up getting to the heavyweight final and placing second.

During his visit, he welcomed me in true martial arts spirit to the community as a martial arts master. He offered his assistance, too. This was so brilliant to me because many masters I know wouldn't have done that. Instead, they'd have been less than friendly and argue that I was fishing in their stream. I hate to say this but, from a business perspective of running your own school, I have known some masters to act this way. However, in my opinion, this is the wrong way to look at things. After all, we're all martial artists, Tae Kwon Doists and masters. It's all about sharing our art and acting appropriately. From a business standpoint, Master Williams put it nicely when recounting an incident he'd had with another school owner who'd been at his location for many years - "If they (the students) haven't come to you by now, they're not going to."

Anyway, I digress. Master Williams' visit was especially heartwarming because he and I come from the same tree. His master, the late Master Ki Chung Kim, was one of the pioneers of Tae Kwon Do in America. He was an "old school" master who studied Tae Kwon Do as it was practised when there were still individual kwans. My original master, Grandmaster Kwang Jae Lee, is one of those older schoolers as well and, if not peers, an older brother to Master Kim. Grandmaster Lee's background is in Mood Duk Kwan Tae Kwon Do. Recounting our own training and experience, Master Williams and I talked of what our masters had taught us and how things are different today.

So, since entering and winning States, I'm starting to make the inroads I'd always wanted to in the Tae Kwon Do community. However, while I'm enjoying that, my Tae Kwon Do involvement now isn't about the  connections and name-dropping. It's about being a master and living up to what the colour of my belt and the number of stripes on it mean. It's funny, too, and testimony that sometimes when you want something too much it won't happen. Now that I'm not focused on trying to gain entry into the inner circles of Tae Kwon Do doors are being opened and opportunities are popping up.

I'm enjoying this ride with every turn it takes. I just hope it doesn't end anytime soon and that  my students are benifitting from it as much as I am.