bluewaveschool
2nd Black Belt
I decided to withdraw from most of the internet due to, well, a lot of person reasons. I did grasp firm control of my class since I was last here, got my father back in and teaching with me, lots of good going on in my class.
So - when I showed up with my screen name, lots of people were quick to jump on it. Especially since I had no way to trace any lineage at all to anyone. I couldn't change my screen name, but I did stop pushing that bit of info on my students.
Then last week, I got a message to call the TKD instructor at the YMCA in the next town over. She had heard about us having a program and wanted to talk about meeting up. It turns out that she trained and got her black belt at my school in the late 80s/early 90s. There was apparently a huge shake up and everyone except the school head and 2 instructors left. And then she drops a bombshell on me. She knows, and has trained with, the person who taught our old head instructor, and this person happens to be a 9th degree Grandmaster.
Grandmaster Young Sik Choi trained the man that I received my black belt from, back in the late 70s/early 80s. For those of you that don't feel the urge to google right this second, he received his training at the Chung Do Kwan under Grandmaster Duk Sung Son. Obviously Chung Do Kwan was something that was impressed upon my school head during his training, and he repeated it to us.
Now, before you ask how come the head instructor never told us this - by the time I was training, the school head was never around. He was a farmer and was rarely able to make it. He had 2 3rd degrees teaching. He mostly showed up for black belt tests, and on the class nights he showed up, he either spent the class calling out people with bad side kicks, or beating the crap out of you sparring with his side kick. It didn't occur to me at 17 to say 'Hey, who trained you?'
I haven't met with the other instructor yet, we are doing that after thanksgiving break. If things work out well, she might one day be able to introduce me to him. I'm not really concerned with that at the moment, I want to build a working relationship with this other school first. I think it's just really damn cool to know that my personal black belt lineage is so few steps removed from the beginning of our art. I won't be using that to promote my classes, I don't know the man and that would be rude (and illegal). It's just a bit of knowledge that gets me excited about my class.
So - when I showed up with my screen name, lots of people were quick to jump on it. Especially since I had no way to trace any lineage at all to anyone. I couldn't change my screen name, but I did stop pushing that bit of info on my students.
Then last week, I got a message to call the TKD instructor at the YMCA in the next town over. She had heard about us having a program and wanted to talk about meeting up. It turns out that she trained and got her black belt at my school in the late 80s/early 90s. There was apparently a huge shake up and everyone except the school head and 2 instructors left. And then she drops a bombshell on me. She knows, and has trained with, the person who taught our old head instructor, and this person happens to be a 9th degree Grandmaster.
Grandmaster Young Sik Choi trained the man that I received my black belt from, back in the late 70s/early 80s. For those of you that don't feel the urge to google right this second, he received his training at the Chung Do Kwan under Grandmaster Duk Sung Son. Obviously Chung Do Kwan was something that was impressed upon my school head during his training, and he repeated it to us.
Now, before you ask how come the head instructor never told us this - by the time I was training, the school head was never around. He was a farmer and was rarely able to make it. He had 2 3rd degrees teaching. He mostly showed up for black belt tests, and on the class nights he showed up, he either spent the class calling out people with bad side kicks, or beating the crap out of you sparring with his side kick. It didn't occur to me at 17 to say 'Hey, who trained you?'
I haven't met with the other instructor yet, we are doing that after thanksgiving break. If things work out well, she might one day be able to introduce me to him. I'm not really concerned with that at the moment, I want to build a working relationship with this other school first. I think it's just really damn cool to know that my personal black belt lineage is so few steps removed from the beginning of our art. I won't be using that to promote my classes, I don't know the man and that would be rude (and illegal). It's just a bit of knowledge that gets me excited about my class.
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