MikeSlisher
White Belt
- Joined
- Nov 30, 2007
- Messages
- 13
- Reaction score
- 0
Terryl965… looks to me like you’ve been into the arts as long, or longer, than I have!
In the Dobok thread, you asked me what my background was. I didn't want to hijack that thread so I figured I start a new one.
Anyway, here’s my story.
In the spring of 1974, a friend of mine (Carl Rifenburgh) asked me if I had any interest in taking a ten-week class in karate that the Sturgis, MI Adult Education program was offering. I’d always had an interest in martial arts so I took him up on the offer.
We drove to Sturgis twice a week for the next ten weeks and took a class in Shorin-Ryu Okinawan karate from a local guy who has his 1st Dan. For whatever reason, after that ten-week class, he didn’t teach anything further.
Carl’s brother-in-law, Ned Haylett, had had a similar ten-week class but in judo. We all had had our appetites whetted for more and started looking for other classes in martial arts. Glen Oaks Community College in Centreville, MI had a Korean instructor driving down from Kalamazoo, MI twice a week to teach TaeKwon-Do. It was the closest thing any of us had found so beginning in the fall of ’74 the three of us would carpool over to the TKD classes.
These were in ITF TKD and being taught by (Robert) B.C. Yu. As I mentioned, he was out of Kalamazoo, MI where he had a dojang and taught full-time. After the three of us tested for our yellow belts we discovered that one of Master Yu’s students, “Bud” Herrick by name, was teaching classes in Union City, MI. Union City was marginally closer than Centreville, so we transferred there and continued attending formal classes twice a week and working out together on weekends.
Bud Herrick was a 1st Dan under Master Yu. In the very early spring of 1978, Carl called me and said he had a private black belt test arranged with Master Yu in Kalamazoo and needed a partner for the test. This was the first time either of us had heard of a private test, but didn’t question it at the time. Some time later we heard the story that Master Yu had gotten into an altercation with another Korean Master Instructor in Kalamazoo and beaten the crap out of him. As a result of the lawsuit / trial Master Yu agreed to cease teaching martial arts in lieu of paying any damages or receiving any jail time. (Details were unclear and I have never been able to confirm any of them. The only fact that I know for sure is that Robert Yu never taught again so far as I am aware.)
Carl got his black belt, I got some valuable experience, and that was the end of that era.
Mr. Herrick, our instructor, spent some months investigating other organizations and Master Instructors before deciding to affiliate our club with (James) B.C. Yu, Robert’s brother. Grandmaster James B.C. Yu was/is headquartered in Ann Arbor, MI, and still operates a dojang there to this day.
Ned Haylett and I tested before Grandmaster James B.C. Yu in October 1978. We had never met the man before and he put us through our paces. In around two hours time we went through all hyungs from Chon-Ji through Kwang-Gae, 1-Step Sparring, 3-Step Sparring, Free Sparring (1, 2, and 3 opponents), Self-defense against specific attacks, Knife Self-Defense, Korean Terminology, Questions on the Five Tenets, the Theories of Power, and Student Creed, Stretching exercises and demonstrations, and last but not least, board breaks with both hands and feet.
(FWIW, I still have the belt that GM Yu gave me that night. It’s just a black belt, standard “colored” belt thickness and width, no gold trim, stripes, names, etc. It’s not very black any more, and it’s pretty frayed where the knot gets tied, but it’s followed me through three marriages, six residence moves, and thousands of hours of classes.)
Carl, Ned, and I began teaching our own classes in 1978 after Carl got his black belt, in Bronson, MI. After a few years teaching in Bronson we eventually started teaching in the Sturgis, MI Adult Education program thereby completing the circle that started in ’74 with the Shorin-Ryu class that began it all.
During our student days, TaeKwon-Do, as taught in our schools, did not limit hand strikes to the head, ala WTF Olympic style. Sparring gear was just being introduced into martial arts classes across the country, so we fought “bare-knuckle”. Mr. Herrick was a former Marine, and we sparred light contact to the body / no contact to the head, but it usually ended up being medium to heavy contact to the body and light contact to the head. Self-defense techniques were deemed effective only when the attacker “tapped out”. We spent a lot of time on multiple attackers, even in free-sparring. (Take out the first one as violently and bloodily as you can if it’s for real. Make the remaining attackers think about what they risk.) We have tried to carry that same realism over into the classes that we taught.
We’ve never taught TaeKwon-Do as a career, and we’ve never made any real money doing so, even in the mid-90s when our club had 100+ active students. To be honest, in the area of the country we live, I don’t know that anyone could have made a living teaching martial arts. It’s always been a labor of love.
In 1989 I began expanding my martial arts horizons, taking classes in Uechi-Ryu karate and Okinawan Kobudo through John VanDeLaar at the Battle Creek Budokan, Aikido seminars through Rick Mirandette’s Martial Arts Center in Grand Rapids, MI, and some classes at the Town and Country Kyokushin Karate School here in Mishawaka, IN.
Ned still teaches in Sturgis, although the program has moved out of the school system and into a city-affiliated fitness center. I “retired” in 1999 after a particularly nasty set of heart surgeries. Carl got away from teaching when his kids began growing up, sometime in the mid-80s. FWIW, none of us have ever been zealous about promoting when we were able to. Ned eventually got his 4th Dan, I ended up getting my 3rd, and Carl was happy to stay with his 1st Dan. Students of ours have went beyond our own rankings as they moved out on their own, and we have been happy and proud for and of them in doing so.
Since Thankgiving I’ve been working out some on my own, trying to regain a little flexibility and aerobic capacity. I’ve been going through stretching exercises, basic techniques, and working my way up through the hyungs. (I’m embarrassed to admit that after doing it a minimum of three times a week for 25+ years I had to go back to the books to see if Chon-Ji ended with two forward and backward stepping punches or three!)
I will never be able to free-spar again, and there is some risk associated with having an ICD and getting hit in the chest. I have entertained the thought of taking on a couple of private students, gratis, however I’m not sure that I would be able to resist doing some 1-step and 3-step sparring if I did so.
I don't know what else I could say right now, but if anyone has any questions, I'd be happy to answer.
Not being shy, I'd be happy to offer my opinion on what I see of "modern" TKD, like Olympic sparring rules, the "sine-wave" theory, and other things of interest!
In the Dobok thread, you asked me what my background was. I didn't want to hijack that thread so I figured I start a new one.
Anyway, here’s my story.
In the spring of 1974, a friend of mine (Carl Rifenburgh) asked me if I had any interest in taking a ten-week class in karate that the Sturgis, MI Adult Education program was offering. I’d always had an interest in martial arts so I took him up on the offer.
We drove to Sturgis twice a week for the next ten weeks and took a class in Shorin-Ryu Okinawan karate from a local guy who has his 1st Dan. For whatever reason, after that ten-week class, he didn’t teach anything further.
Carl’s brother-in-law, Ned Haylett, had had a similar ten-week class but in judo. We all had had our appetites whetted for more and started looking for other classes in martial arts. Glen Oaks Community College in Centreville, MI had a Korean instructor driving down from Kalamazoo, MI twice a week to teach TaeKwon-Do. It was the closest thing any of us had found so beginning in the fall of ’74 the three of us would carpool over to the TKD classes.
These were in ITF TKD and being taught by (Robert) B.C. Yu. As I mentioned, he was out of Kalamazoo, MI where he had a dojang and taught full-time. After the three of us tested for our yellow belts we discovered that one of Master Yu’s students, “Bud” Herrick by name, was teaching classes in Union City, MI. Union City was marginally closer than Centreville, so we transferred there and continued attending formal classes twice a week and working out together on weekends.
Bud Herrick was a 1st Dan under Master Yu. In the very early spring of 1978, Carl called me and said he had a private black belt test arranged with Master Yu in Kalamazoo and needed a partner for the test. This was the first time either of us had heard of a private test, but didn’t question it at the time. Some time later we heard the story that Master Yu had gotten into an altercation with another Korean Master Instructor in Kalamazoo and beaten the crap out of him. As a result of the lawsuit / trial Master Yu agreed to cease teaching martial arts in lieu of paying any damages or receiving any jail time. (Details were unclear and I have never been able to confirm any of them. The only fact that I know for sure is that Robert Yu never taught again so far as I am aware.)
Carl got his black belt, I got some valuable experience, and that was the end of that era.
Mr. Herrick, our instructor, spent some months investigating other organizations and Master Instructors before deciding to affiliate our club with (James) B.C. Yu, Robert’s brother. Grandmaster James B.C. Yu was/is headquartered in Ann Arbor, MI, and still operates a dojang there to this day.
Ned Haylett and I tested before Grandmaster James B.C. Yu in October 1978. We had never met the man before and he put us through our paces. In around two hours time we went through all hyungs from Chon-Ji through Kwang-Gae, 1-Step Sparring, 3-Step Sparring, Free Sparring (1, 2, and 3 opponents), Self-defense against specific attacks, Knife Self-Defense, Korean Terminology, Questions on the Five Tenets, the Theories of Power, and Student Creed, Stretching exercises and demonstrations, and last but not least, board breaks with both hands and feet.
(FWIW, I still have the belt that GM Yu gave me that night. It’s just a black belt, standard “colored” belt thickness and width, no gold trim, stripes, names, etc. It’s not very black any more, and it’s pretty frayed where the knot gets tied, but it’s followed me through three marriages, six residence moves, and thousands of hours of classes.)
Carl, Ned, and I began teaching our own classes in 1978 after Carl got his black belt, in Bronson, MI. After a few years teaching in Bronson we eventually started teaching in the Sturgis, MI Adult Education program thereby completing the circle that started in ’74 with the Shorin-Ryu class that began it all.
During our student days, TaeKwon-Do, as taught in our schools, did not limit hand strikes to the head, ala WTF Olympic style. Sparring gear was just being introduced into martial arts classes across the country, so we fought “bare-knuckle”. Mr. Herrick was a former Marine, and we sparred light contact to the body / no contact to the head, but it usually ended up being medium to heavy contact to the body and light contact to the head. Self-defense techniques were deemed effective only when the attacker “tapped out”. We spent a lot of time on multiple attackers, even in free-sparring. (Take out the first one as violently and bloodily as you can if it’s for real. Make the remaining attackers think about what they risk.) We have tried to carry that same realism over into the classes that we taught.
We’ve never taught TaeKwon-Do as a career, and we’ve never made any real money doing so, even in the mid-90s when our club had 100+ active students. To be honest, in the area of the country we live, I don’t know that anyone could have made a living teaching martial arts. It’s always been a labor of love.
In 1989 I began expanding my martial arts horizons, taking classes in Uechi-Ryu karate and Okinawan Kobudo through John VanDeLaar at the Battle Creek Budokan, Aikido seminars through Rick Mirandette’s Martial Arts Center in Grand Rapids, MI, and some classes at the Town and Country Kyokushin Karate School here in Mishawaka, IN.
Ned still teaches in Sturgis, although the program has moved out of the school system and into a city-affiliated fitness center. I “retired” in 1999 after a particularly nasty set of heart surgeries. Carl got away from teaching when his kids began growing up, sometime in the mid-80s. FWIW, none of us have ever been zealous about promoting when we were able to. Ned eventually got his 4th Dan, I ended up getting my 3rd, and Carl was happy to stay with his 1st Dan. Students of ours have went beyond our own rankings as they moved out on their own, and we have been happy and proud for and of them in doing so.
Since Thankgiving I’ve been working out some on my own, trying to regain a little flexibility and aerobic capacity. I’ve been going through stretching exercises, basic techniques, and working my way up through the hyungs. (I’m embarrassed to admit that after doing it a minimum of three times a week for 25+ years I had to go back to the books to see if Chon-Ji ended with two forward and backward stepping punches or three!)
I will never be able to free-spar again, and there is some risk associated with having an ICD and getting hit in the chest. I have entertained the thought of taking on a couple of private students, gratis, however I’m not sure that I would be able to resist doing some 1-step and 3-step sparring if I did so.
I don't know what else I could say right now, but if anyone has any questions, I'd be happy to answer.
Not being shy, I'd be happy to offer my opinion on what I see of "modern" TKD, like Olympic sparring rules, the "sine-wave" theory, and other things of interest!
