Note: This is the second of 2 essays I wrote as part of my test for Ee Dan (second degree black belt) in Tang Soo Do Mi Guk Kwan.
This topic brings to mind something that Kyo Sa Nim James Vasquez told me after I was promoted to Cho Dan. I'm having trouble finding his note, but essentially he said that the key to being a good Cho Dan is to remember that, above all other goals, we are responsible for the care-and-feeding of the gups, and that's what gives being a Cho Dan meaning. Essentially, I took this to mean that without that sense of responsibility to our juniors, that desire to help others along the path, it's just a bunch of kicking and punching.
As I approach the rank of Ee Dan, I think that my understanding of this role is in many ways unchanged, although it now has to encompass the rather different needs of responsibility toward newer Cho Dans as well. Given how many students choose to end their training after reaching Cho Dan I think this is a very significant addition to our responsibilities.
So, what actions enable us to support and nurture our juniors? In broad terms, I think that the real work of caring for our juniors falls into three broad categories: Acting as a teacher, acting as a role model, and acting as a community leader.
Teacher
I think the most obvious role of an Ee Dan is to act as a teacher for the junior members of the dojang. Whether it’s taking the path of training toward the Kyo Sa certification, or simply in assisting other instructors with warm ups, demonstrations, and class activities, this is clearly the most nuts-and-bolts way that senior students can take an active and supportive role in the dojang.
After I reached the rank of Cho Dan I quickly realized I wanted to teach more as a way of helping to give back to our dojang and to our instructor. What I quickly realized was that, while I may have learned my gup-level curriculum well enough to test for Cho Dan, I felt I had a long way to go in learning it well enough to demonstrate and teach it correctly to other students. I knew after I received my promotion to Cho Dan that I had a lot of work to do in improving the ways in which I articulated how to perform techniques if I were going to be a reasonably good teacher one day and help my juniors adequately
This was a pretty big challenge for me personally as I find that for me there’s a very big difference between how I learn and how I am best able to teach someone else. I’m a very visual learner, and a very visual thinker as well. So when I learn new techniques I usually learn them best by watching my instructor or my seniors demonstrate them, or by viewing videos, and then by sort of “playing them back” in my head. And while this method of learning works for me, it doesn’t really translate well into a teaching method unless the other students are also visually oriented learners and can learn by watching me demonstrate technique.
So, to best serve the needs of my juniors I needed to work on improving my own abilities. I spent a lot of time forcing myself to explain techniques using words, breaking them down into individual steps and verbalizing them as an instructor. I forced myself to use language first, then use physical demonstration as an example of what I’d said, instead of as the primary way of teaching. I think I’ve come a long way in this, although I find that sometimes I still get tongue-tied when trying to explain myself and I wind up resorting to “uh, just do it like this….” But I’m getting there, and hopefully my progress and efforts to improve in this area of my own training has proven beneficial to my juniors as well.
Role Model
I think another of the prime roles of an Ee Dan is to continue to act as a role model for the lower ranking students., but now with the added responsibility of showing Cho Dans their path forward as well. Given how many students tend to quit after attaining the rank of Cho Dan, I feel that Ee Dans have a unique opportunity and responsibility to communicate what keeps them going to the new Cho Dans and the first gups preparing to test for Cho Dan. We need to share with our juniors the reasons why we keep training, and to express the satisfaction we get from staying on the path in spite of the lengthy periods between testing, if we are going to encourage students that may have viewed the midnight blue belt as their primary goal to instead look at training as an ongoing journey with Cho Dan simply a mile marker along the way.
One of the best ways we can do this is by acting as a good role model, and by showing through our words and deeds the continued benefits we realize from continuing to train in the Tang Soo Do Mi Guik Kwan. One of the best ways I’ve found to do this is to really try to find ways to apply the 8 Key Concepts to my life and behavior both inside and outside the dojang. By exemplifying the ongoing, life-changing aspects of our art, we can encourage others to stick with it even when things are tough, and to think of Tang Soo Do as an integral part of their life or lifestyle, instead of simply as an activity.
Community Leader
Given the relatively small number of Ee Dans in most dojangs clearly they can be expected to hold a certain amount of responsibility for helping to foster a greater sense of community and family within the dojang. Based simply on the number of years that we have been training with each other, and the number of juniors we have who are more recent additions to the Mi Guk Kwan family, it just makes sense that we are perceived as leaders and organizers within the dojang by the newer members.
As such, I think it’s important for Ee Dans to take an active role in both organizing dojang community activities (in-school tournaments, celebrations, clinics, etc.) as well as actively participating whenever possible in other organizationally-oriented events (regional tournaments, Weekends with the Masters, Nationals) whenever possible. If our juniors don’t see us participating in these events as often as possible, to the best of our ability, they will almost certainly be less inclined to participate in them themselves. So, for the good of the dojang, regional, and organizational communities I think it’s very important that we continue to demonstrate our support for these events, and encourage others to join us as well.
Friday, November 04, 2011
Why I Continued to Study Tang Soo Do Mi Guk Kwan Past the Rank of Cho Dan
Note: This is the first of 2 essays I wrote as part of my test for Ee Dan (second degree black belt) in Tang Soo Do Mi Guk Kwan.
There are several primary reasons that I continued to train after I attained the rank of Cho Dan. The most obvious is the desire to continue learning more about our art. Training also offers me wonderful opportunities to spend time alongside my wife and children as we grow in the art together. And finally, continued training in Tang Soo Do Mi Guk Kwan helps enrich my life by keeping me integrated with our NAC, Region 6, and TSDMGK communities. By being a part of these communities, and by working to help them continue to grow and thrive, I express my gratitude and help to ensure that others can benefit from these things as well.
More, Please
The desire to continue learning new material was one of the most obvious and significant reasons. Frankly, it never even occurred to me to consider stopping. My only desire after I received my new rank was to … keep going. Learn more. Continue. One of the things I love about Tang Soo Do Mi Guk Kwan is the breadth and depth of the curriculum, and continuing to train and work toward my Ee Dan provided me with the opportunity to continue immersing myself in that curriculum. Once I’d learned I had passed my Cho Dan test I could hardly wait to begin learning new hyungs, sleeve grabs, elbow strikes, knife defense … MORE!
Without continuing I wouldn’t have the chance to feel the sense of accomplishment I get from learning a new form: from the early stages where I can barely manage to remember all of the individual techniques in order, to committing it to memory and beginning the difficult, sometimes frustrating process of getting it “right,” to the final steps of polishing it to the level of skill and proficiency that is required to demonstrate it at a tournament as well as before a Shim Sa for testing and promotion purposes. I love these challenges, and the hard work and dedication it takes to overcome these challenges. I can’t imagine walking away from them just because I’ve attained a specific rank.
Training with Family, Sharing with Our Community
One of the best aspects of training for me has been all of the time I have gotten to spend with my family on the mat. Testing alongside my daughter and my mother for our Cho Dans was an experience I’ll treasure for the rest of my life, and training with my wife and son to prepare for our Ee Dan test has been wonderful as well. I know that continuing to train in TSDMGK with my entire family – now including my brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew – will continue to provide us with opportunities to create incredible new memories together. We all lead very busy lives, and having Tang Soo Do as a common shared experience really helps us all to stay connected with one another.
And then there’s simply being a part of a larger family, the Tang Soo Do Mik Guk Kwan community. From an organizational level, I’ve made many friends around the entire country through my participation in our organizational events such as Nationals, Weekends with the Masters, and so forth. I eagerly look forward to attending these events because they give me the chance to reconnect with these wonderful people.
Then there’s the Region 6 family. Again, I’ve made so many good, trusted friends here in Texas, and it’s always exciting to get together and catch up at local tournaments, or at red belt tests when Kyo Sa Nim Pugh’s students test alongside ours, or at the dan classings. We’re a very varied group here in Region 6, and it’s always a good time when we share fellowship with each other.
Finally, there’s our TSDA/NAC community. The friendships I’ve made here are incredibly important to me, and there’s just no way I can imagine not being an active part of that community, or perhaps more importantly of not having our dojang community and the friendships I’ve built there to help sustain me though tough times. Like everyone, my life can be a bit heavier to bear than I care to admit sometimes. This year, in particular, has been tougher than most.
Shortly after Easter, my oldest and closest friend died suddenly from an aneurism. I’d known him for 38 years, from the time he babysat me and my brother when we were young, to going out and partying in NYC as roommates, to him standing beside me as one of my groomsmen on the day I made the single best decision of my life, and finally to his accepting the role of godfather to my son Trevor. He was my best friend for decades, one of my wife’s closest confidantes, a dear friend to my mother and brother, an incredibly important part of our entire family.
His health was not good, so he’d moved here to Austin from New York to live with his brother, and as a result we got to spend some wonderful times together in the last year of his life. We knew he wasn’t well, but it looked like he had a several solid years to go. The aneurism came out of nowhere -- a complete, horrible shock. Losing him was devastating to us all, and without the support of my dojang family I don’t know how I would have coped those first few weeks. And without the chance to go in and train, to work through the grief in a constructive way, I don’t know how I could have coped the past 6 months.
And this is, again, why I love what we do here so much and why it never occurred to me to stop training, to stop being a part of this community. With the help of this dojang, and its students, I’m taking this awful event and channeling it into activity that helps me to release the anger and stress in a safe and healthy way, but that also brings me closer to my family and to my friends instead of turning away from them and retreating from the world to lick my wounds.
Better Lives, Better People
I can’t possibly be more grateful to Sa Bom Nim Nunan, to my brothers and sisters in the dojang and here in Region 6, and to the Tang Soo Do Mi Guk Kwan for the ways in which they’ve enriched my life. An essential part of expressing that gratitude is helping those things to grow and thrive so that others can experience them as well. And that, at the end of the day, is the most significant reason I continued to train after I attained Cho Dan.
I always tell people that, while martial arts is a terrific physical activity, what we do here is so much bigger than the simple, technical content of the curriculum and the physical acts of punching, kicking, and so forth. What we do creates better lives. What we do creates better people. Yes, it’s important that we develop ourselves physically and that we learn the skills necessary to defend ourselves if necessary, but those skills are just tools to extend what we’ve learned out into our lives.
To paraphrase something Master Nunan often says, I believe people are made almost entirely of flaws. We are all broken, each in our own way. I believe that by continuing to train, by continuing to work to extend the gains I make in the dojang out into the rest of my life, I am using the tools of our art to fix some of my own flaws. This, ultimately, is what I feel is the life-long goal of studying our art: transformation. And I know that even after over 6 years of training I am only beginning to scratch the surface of this process.
There are several primary reasons that I continued to train after I attained the rank of Cho Dan. The most obvious is the desire to continue learning more about our art. Training also offers me wonderful opportunities to spend time alongside my wife and children as we grow in the art together. And finally, continued training in Tang Soo Do Mi Guk Kwan helps enrich my life by keeping me integrated with our NAC, Region 6, and TSDMGK communities. By being a part of these communities, and by working to help them continue to grow and thrive, I express my gratitude and help to ensure that others can benefit from these things as well.
More, Please
The desire to continue learning new material was one of the most obvious and significant reasons. Frankly, it never even occurred to me to consider stopping. My only desire after I received my new rank was to … keep going. Learn more. Continue. One of the things I love about Tang Soo Do Mi Guk Kwan is the breadth and depth of the curriculum, and continuing to train and work toward my Ee Dan provided me with the opportunity to continue immersing myself in that curriculum. Once I’d learned I had passed my Cho Dan test I could hardly wait to begin learning new hyungs, sleeve grabs, elbow strikes, knife defense … MORE!
Without continuing I wouldn’t have the chance to feel the sense of accomplishment I get from learning a new form: from the early stages where I can barely manage to remember all of the individual techniques in order, to committing it to memory and beginning the difficult, sometimes frustrating process of getting it “right,” to the final steps of polishing it to the level of skill and proficiency that is required to demonstrate it at a tournament as well as before a Shim Sa for testing and promotion purposes. I love these challenges, and the hard work and dedication it takes to overcome these challenges. I can’t imagine walking away from them just because I’ve attained a specific rank.
Training with Family, Sharing with Our Community
One of the best aspects of training for me has been all of the time I have gotten to spend with my family on the mat. Testing alongside my daughter and my mother for our Cho Dans was an experience I’ll treasure for the rest of my life, and training with my wife and son to prepare for our Ee Dan test has been wonderful as well. I know that continuing to train in TSDMGK with my entire family – now including my brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew – will continue to provide us with opportunities to create incredible new memories together. We all lead very busy lives, and having Tang Soo Do as a common shared experience really helps us all to stay connected with one another.
And then there’s simply being a part of a larger family, the Tang Soo Do Mik Guk Kwan community. From an organizational level, I’ve made many friends around the entire country through my participation in our organizational events such as Nationals, Weekends with the Masters, and so forth. I eagerly look forward to attending these events because they give me the chance to reconnect with these wonderful people.
Then there’s the Region 6 family. Again, I’ve made so many good, trusted friends here in Texas, and it’s always exciting to get together and catch up at local tournaments, or at red belt tests when Kyo Sa Nim Pugh’s students test alongside ours, or at the dan classings. We’re a very varied group here in Region 6, and it’s always a good time when we share fellowship with each other.
Finally, there’s our TSDA/NAC community. The friendships I’ve made here are incredibly important to me, and there’s just no way I can imagine not being an active part of that community, or perhaps more importantly of not having our dojang community and the friendships I’ve built there to help sustain me though tough times. Like everyone, my life can be a bit heavier to bear than I care to admit sometimes. This year, in particular, has been tougher than most.
Shortly after Easter, my oldest and closest friend died suddenly from an aneurism. I’d known him for 38 years, from the time he babysat me and my brother when we were young, to going out and partying in NYC as roommates, to him standing beside me as one of my groomsmen on the day I made the single best decision of my life, and finally to his accepting the role of godfather to my son Trevor. He was my best friend for decades, one of my wife’s closest confidantes, a dear friend to my mother and brother, an incredibly important part of our entire family.
His health was not good, so he’d moved here to Austin from New York to live with his brother, and as a result we got to spend some wonderful times together in the last year of his life. We knew he wasn’t well, but it looked like he had a several solid years to go. The aneurism came out of nowhere -- a complete, horrible shock. Losing him was devastating to us all, and without the support of my dojang family I don’t know how I would have coped those first few weeks. And without the chance to go in and train, to work through the grief in a constructive way, I don’t know how I could have coped the past 6 months.
And this is, again, why I love what we do here so much and why it never occurred to me to stop training, to stop being a part of this community. With the help of this dojang, and its students, I’m taking this awful event and channeling it into activity that helps me to release the anger and stress in a safe and healthy way, but that also brings me closer to my family and to my friends instead of turning away from them and retreating from the world to lick my wounds.
Better Lives, Better People
I can’t possibly be more grateful to Sa Bom Nim Nunan, to my brothers and sisters in the dojang and here in Region 6, and to the Tang Soo Do Mi Guk Kwan for the ways in which they’ve enriched my life. An essential part of expressing that gratitude is helping those things to grow and thrive so that others can experience them as well. And that, at the end of the day, is the most significant reason I continued to train after I attained Cho Dan.
I always tell people that, while martial arts is a terrific physical activity, what we do here is so much bigger than the simple, technical content of the curriculum and the physical acts of punching, kicking, and so forth. What we do creates better lives. What we do creates better people. Yes, it’s important that we develop ourselves physically and that we learn the skills necessary to defend ourselves if necessary, but those skills are just tools to extend what we’ve learned out into our lives.
To paraphrase something Master Nunan often says, I believe people are made almost entirely of flaws. We are all broken, each in our own way. I believe that by continuing to train, by continuing to work to extend the gains I make in the dojang out into the rest of my life, I am using the tools of our art to fix some of my own flaws. This, ultimately, is what I feel is the life-long goal of studying our art: transformation. And I know that even after over 6 years of training I am only beginning to scratch the surface of this process.
Here We Go Again
Yeah, yeah. I know. It's been, what? Oh, jeez, OVER A YEAR since I last wrote in this blog. I guess I owe my massive horde of fans (both of you) an apology. I had many points over the past year when I was ready to write an entry here, but for whatever reason the inspiration fled and that was that.
Then back in April I was going to begin writing about the run up to my Ee Dan/Kyo Sa testing (scheduled for May 29th), but life intervened again, thjis time is a more pointed and brutal fashion. The sudden death of my oldest, dearest friend Gregory at the end of April. This event led directly to the easiest (if most frustrating) choice I've ever had to make: attending his memorial service or attending my dan classing and Kyo Sa test. Obviously, I chose to attend the memorial.
And, as a result, here I am, November 2011, 8 days out from my Ee Dan and Kyo Sa test. Six months later than planned, but as the Song of the Sip Sam Seh says, "surprising things will happen when you meet your opponent." Sometimes your opponent is life. Surprise!
So, anyway, it's been a rough, rough year on our end. In addition to losing Gregory we have all too many friends battling illnesses (Cancer! It's the new black!) and losing loved ones and family members (sometimes they're the same thing) of their own as we stand there and wish we could do something to help, knowing there's nothing. Distant relations committing suicide. Friends with deeply troubled kids suffering under the strain. Other "friends" revealing themselves to be anything but the people we took them to be. And work. Work work work.
You name it. 2011 has sucked. Hard.
Through this all, the dojang and my dojang family have been there, and I can't express the gratitude I feel for this. Well, I *can* express it, but I tend to get all weepy and "I love you man!" when I do, so it's kind of embarrassing for all involved. But you get the idea. The dojang and Tang Soo Do Mi Guk Kwan continue to be a source of peace, a place to go when things are great, and a place to turn when things are awful. I am incredibly fortunate to have this art, and these people, in my life.
As with all of my previous testing, the Ee Dan (second degree black belt) and Kyo Sa (certified instructor) tests include essays. I have written 4, which I will be publishing in additional blog entries following this one. I hope their content is helpful to my brothers and sisters in the martial arts. And if they're not helpful, I hope you'll at least find them entertaining.
Then back in April I was going to begin writing about the run up to my Ee Dan/Kyo Sa testing (scheduled for May 29th), but life intervened again, thjis time is a more pointed and brutal fashion. The sudden death of my oldest, dearest friend Gregory at the end of April. This event led directly to the easiest (if most frustrating) choice I've ever had to make: attending his memorial service or attending my dan classing and Kyo Sa test. Obviously, I chose to attend the memorial.
And, as a result, here I am, November 2011, 8 days out from my Ee Dan and Kyo Sa test. Six months later than planned, but as the Song of the Sip Sam Seh says, "surprising things will happen when you meet your opponent." Sometimes your opponent is life. Surprise!
So, anyway, it's been a rough, rough year on our end. In addition to losing Gregory we have all too many friends battling illnesses (Cancer! It's the new black!) and losing loved ones and family members (sometimes they're the same thing) of their own as we stand there and wish we could do something to help, knowing there's nothing. Distant relations committing suicide. Friends with deeply troubled kids suffering under the strain. Other "friends" revealing themselves to be anything but the people we took them to be. And work. Work work work.
You name it. 2011 has sucked. Hard.
Through this all, the dojang and my dojang family have been there, and I can't express the gratitude I feel for this. Well, I *can* express it, but I tend to get all weepy and "I love you man!" when I do, so it's kind of embarrassing for all involved. But you get the idea. The dojang and Tang Soo Do Mi Guk Kwan continue to be a source of peace, a place to go when things are great, and a place to turn when things are awful. I am incredibly fortunate to have this art, and these people, in my life.
As with all of my previous testing, the Ee Dan (second degree black belt) and Kyo Sa (certified instructor) tests include essays. I have written 4, which I will be publishing in additional blog entries following this one. I hope their content is helpful to my brothers and sisters in the martial arts. And if they're not helpful, I hope you'll at least find them entertaining.
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