the first traditional style of tkd i studied was itf. it was nine weeks. i learned chon ji. the next, five years later, was wtf, ji do kwan tae kwon do. i learned the first five pal gue forms in twenty weeks. got two double promotions. this was in 1976. my ji do kwan instructor got into a territorial contest with jong moon lee of rockford il and jong lee took over classes. i had to relearn the first five forms of itf tkd, chon ji, dan gun, do san, won hyo and yul gok. got my green belt blue stripe. i had to learn all those forms in ten weeks! but i did it and got promoted. went into the air force in 77. came back to this area in 1980 and had to re learn the five forms again, plus the sixth form for blue belt, which is what i was testing for. spent five months training. when testing time came, there was a visiting 3rd dan from korea. she gave me such a high score that i got double promoted again to blue belt red stripe. within a few months i moved to the center school in rockford. i slept on the dojang floor for a couple weeks, then a black belt took me in. i worked at the school for 100 bucks each week. this was 1981. i cleaned the floors, maintained the grounds and the olympic sized swimming pool. there were about two acres of ground which i mowed with a push mower. i attended one class at 8 am, one class at noon, and two classes each night. six days per week. when i wasnt training or working i was attending church. (mr. lee became a minister eventually). at my next promotion i was tested by a 4th dan from our school. he double promoted me to red belt black stripe. a couple days later mr. lee took away my black stripe and said that "we dont promote double after red belt". a week later he gave it back. i was two months away from testing for cho dan bo when i walked literally away from the school.
i had been training in various martial arts since 1969 and this was 1981. there was so much more going on at that school politically at the time that i felt, if this is what traditional martial arts is about, i dont want it. later i realized that this kind of thing tends to go on in any school. it had soured me against tkd early on but i got past that because of training in other schools and seeing that type of thing as well.
that is a little story about some of my roots...and thanks gary for suggesting that site...i had it in my favorites but never joined that forum. i just joined last week, with the same name as here.
and thanks again dan for sharing your forms. i was trying to figure out a way to post some video myself, but dont want to put it on youtube or any of those types of places where any idiot can post a comment....and ive seen some pretty bad comments....
