Why did you choose Tae Kwon Do

[Manny]

Hi every one, I'm Manny from Mexico, I'm 39 years old, married for 13 years and with two lovely daughters. Well... why I choose TKD, nice question. It was 1983 was 16 years old and wanted to start in some martial arts, when I was a little boy I studied Judo but only achieved a yellow belt, however martial arts always like me.

So 16 years old and start scouting for w goos martial arts school, I saw some but did not like them, in one dojo I saw a wall covered with so many certificates in so many diferent martial arts that was very funy, how a person can have such sum of degrees in so many stiles, in other dojo I saw no uniformity, I mean the sensei dressed in a way so fancy and the students used a variety of gis from white, to black, to white/black some in t shirts, no,no,no.

In highschool a girlfried who was a blue belt in TKD herd about my desire to train in martial art so she introduced me with his samboknim I atend some clases and was hooked, the stile was Ji Do Kwan and my samboknim was a third degree black belt certified by KuKiWon.

Since the beginin I liked the kicks and the dinamics of TKD, TKD was so circular, so fast,fo furius, in sparring full contact was allowed (I dislike karate point fighting) and afther 4 full yers of training I got my firsth degree black belt.

Martial arts and TKD was everything for me, sadly college, parties and chicks (oh yessss!!!) began to distract me from training and TKD was evolving in a Olimpic Games sport, yes sport, and sadly (for me) TKD began loosing tha martiality and become sporty.

At around 22 years old I dropped TKD, now with 39 years old and a lot of bacon there is a slight chance I will return to TKD for two things, a) I love martial arts, jogging is not for me, foot ball soccer no way, baseball no way, it has to be martial arts period, and b) to gain some health and lose some weight.

Tonight I will atend an apointment with a TKD professor and will tell him what I want from TKD, I'm old to perform flying spining hook kicks, but want to start from the basics, get in shape,do some light sparring,be happy againg and do my best.

Wish me luck.

Manny

 

[Mellyn]

The style I had trained in, Tang Soo Do, wasn't available in the area I moved to for work (Northern CA).
I do enjoy the new style Tae Kwon Do (been over 10 yrs now), but the street-fighting I learned in TSD has stuck with me =) Generally the basics are pretty much identical - or were until they changed it all for TKD in the last few years. OUCH!

Mellyn

 

[Shaderon]

I trained in Aikido for 6 months, the Sensei and his wife were more insterested in all those ranks who were equal to and above their son's rank though, or had lots of money and could attend the seminars abroad. They seemed to be running the club for money reasons rather then anything else. I felt ignored as I was used to help the higher belts train mostly and I never heard anything about grading.

I left as I was dissilusioned and a couple of years later joined a gym for fitness. The gym held Karate classes, I was mildly interested and went to have a look. Even though it looked good and the instructor was friendly, I was left cold so I didn't join. Even though my daughter had a couple of lessons and wanted to continue I am afraid I said no and stopped her doing it too. It just felt wrong. I knew there was something else for us.

A couple of months later, a guy opened a TaeKwon-Do class in the same gym, I went to have a chat with him and instantly liked the guy, we clicked. I started lessons, just too late to train for the first grading, I was a bit unsure at first as I still liked the soft style of Aikido and in my first bout of sparring I didn't do very well and didn't like it. However when we finished and I told my husband what we had done, I realised I had learned more in that lesson than in the whole six months in Aikido, I was then hooked. As my daughter's swimming lessons were at the same time as the kids TKD ones, I made her finish them before she started TKD. She had the same reaction as me... the first lesson she came out unsure but when the instructor asked her to tell me what she'd learned she babbled lots of things out and told me she loved it.

I've never missed a lesson now apart from going on holiday and I doubt I'll stop. I plan to get my BB and be an instructor, TKD is now my life.

So I guess for me it's the speed of learning and the effectiveness of what I learned in a short space of time, also the rappor I have with my instructor, I can't learn off people I don't trust and I trust him implicitly.

 

[utb1528]

I have always been interested in the martial arts.

When I was a child my family did not have much money. I wanted to study at a Tae Kwon Do school close to the house but the money was not available.

The first thing I did when I went to college was look for a martial arts class. I found an advertisement in the school paper for Karate. I called the instructor. The Karate guy told me to show up for class on the wrong time or day.

When I showed up I could not find the Karate people, but I did meet Grandmaster Humesky who was teaching Tae Kwon Do. He was helpful and told me how to find the Karate people. Instead I joined TKD and have stuck with it for around 15 years.

 

[Kwan Jang]

My first MA was Jujitsu which I trained in from the age of six until I was nine when my instructor changed jobs and quit teaching his part time program. Then, a Kenpo school opened up and I started training there until it closed. Finally, a TKD school opened about three miles from my house and I hounded my parents to let me give that a try. I finally found a school that would stay open and 30 years later, I'm now a school owner myself and a 6th dan under the same instructors. We still use TKD as our traditional base, but we have more evolved into a MMA system now.

 

[GlassJaw]

Hi every one, I'm Manny from Mexico,

Hi, Manny. I'm Dan from Michigan. Your story in many ways parallels my own.

I'm 39 years old, married for 13 years and with two lovely daughters.

I'm now 40, married 16 years, have two brilliant daughters.

It was 1983 was 16 years old and wanted to start in some martial arts

It was maybe 1983 or 84; I was perhaps 17 or so. I had had an interest in martial arts for many years, but my "involvement" seldom extended much beyond my weekly ritual of watching two or three kung fu movies. Maybe it was because I was already too tied up in other activities (Boy Scouts, distance running, marching band, etc.), or maybe I thought my mom would think that my taking a martial arts class would be a silly waste of my time and money.

In highschool a girlfried who was a blue belt in TKD herd about my desire to train in martial art so she introduced me with his samboknim I atend some clases and was hooked, the stile was Ji Do Kwan and my samboknim was a third degree black belt certified by KuKiWon.

My highschool girlfriend, who was a brown belt in TKD, encouraged me to quit just thinking about martial arts and start doing it. I went to class with her, practiced a bit, and was, as you say, hooked. I joined up and never looked back. (Eventually, I even became accustomed to addressing my girlfriend as "Ma'am".)

Unfortunately, I didn't get very far in that school before I had to move away to attend university.

Martial arts and TKD was everything for me, sadly college, parties and chicks (oh yessss!!!) began to distract me from training
. . . . . .
At around 22 years old I dropped TKD

At university, I checked out a few martial arts opportunities and ended up joining one of the clubs. I jumped around a bit in that club and studied a few different styles, but as time went on, my attendance at practices became increasingly irregular. After a couple years, my training had ceased altogether.

and TKD was evolving in a Olimpic Games sport, yes sport, and sadly (for me) TKD began loosing tha martiality and become sporty.

That's an aspect I had never been all that fond of.

I always wanted to get back into TKD or karate. Occasionally I would take a peek at the schedules and fees for local schools, trying to convince myself that I could find the time to do it.

For several years, my older daughter had expressed interest in studying martial arts. When she learned that I had studied some before, she asked me to teach her. However, having once tried to homeschool her in playing guitar (something else she asked for), I knew that her dedication as a student (and mine as a teacher) is seriously eroded by our father-daughter relationship. I knew it would be better for both of us if we just joined a school...besides, I wanted to train, too.

Unfortunately, there aren't many opportunities around here. And opportunities that can be made to fit our schedule are even scarcer. Any class we go to involves about an hour of driving. This, combined with my work, her schoolwork, her bedtime, other evening commitments, and our need to eat and have some family time really affords us very little flexibility.

Thus, any school that wouldn't permit us to be in class at the same time was beyond our consideration, because we could not afford the extra time spent traveling and waiting for one another.

now with 39 years old and a lot of bacon there is a slight chance I will return to TKD

Just after I turned 39, I began thinking about it more in earnest (with much renewed prodding from my daughter). Then a woman, who had been a friend of mine for some twenty years and who also happened to be fourth dan in TKD, was telling me some about her club. It sounded reasonably family-friendly. Youths did not train in a separate class from the adults.

Nearly two decades had passed since I last did martial arts. We checked it out the next week, both really enjoyed it, and have been active ever since. A few months later, we brought my younger daughter into it as well, but that is another story.

for two things, a) I love martial arts, jogging is not for me, foot ball soccer no way, baseball no way, it has to be martial arts period, and b) to gain some health and lose some weight.

Yeah, same here. Additionally, I really wanted to introduce my daughters to some of the healthy attitudes I see fostered in martial arts. When you learn what you can do, you gain self confidence. And with that confidence, one tends to be less easily affected by the unfriendly actions of others or discouraged by challenges.

I'm not in it for the sport. That is not to say that I don't enjoy that aspect of TKD; I do. Tournaments are fun. But I suspect that I would probably enjoy TKD just as much or more if the sport aspect wasn't even there.

I'm also not in it for self-defense. Sure, it's good to learn how to defend onesself. But in all likelihood, self defense skills will probably never be as useful to me as, say, knowledge of the art of automobile maintenance. For me, SD skills are just a side-effect of my TKD training, not a purpose to it.

Tonight I will atend an apointment with a TKD professor and will tell him what I want from TKD, I'm old to perform flying spining hook kicks, but want to start from the basics, get in shape,do some light sparring,be happy againg and do my best.

Hope it works out for you.

Dan

 

[Manny]

Thank you GlassJaw for be so kind, it's funny how paralell our life is about TKD, I have two daugthers, Laura (10) is a gimnastic girl, and Ana (6) is takin swimming classes, Ana wants to train some kind of karate (she knows daddy is a retired black belt) but her mom does not want to.

Yeap, I want to train TKD againg for health and because I love MA, I was a state competitor in the golden years but tha's over, I got some broken noose and theets, a KO and those things but now I'm older.

I want to feel againg the happyness of deliver a good high round hose kick, or performing a good spining side kick as I did in the golden years.

One of my samboknim's was An Dae Sup from Texas and I was amazed to see how an old short man could deliver so good kicks.

Manny