Tang soo do master's book brought me to tears!

[Himokiri Karate]

It's a book about the horrific upbringing of a tang soo do master that makes me grateful for my own life. But also it gives me inner strength knowing how others view things. It's called inside u.

I reading this book and observing people and human nature. It gives the impression that people today lack passion to dedicate themselves in long term basis. It seems like everything is flavor of the month.

[bushido_man96]

As much as we talk about it, I'm not so sure that passion actually existed to the extent we think it did. We see a lot of great stories from "back in the day," but if we look at the stories from our own "day," I think we'll see similar amounts of stories. The things that seem to change are the things people dedicate themselves to.

Anyways, just a thought, but I digress....

Who wrote this book you read? It sounds like he has quite the interesting story.

[OneKickWonder]

I think you'll find many masters tell of hard times and brutal teachers. I think it's just that life gets easier with each generation, and martial arts teachers used to be tough.

I could write a book about growing up in the 1970s and 80s. Having to do a paper round before and after school because my parents couldn't afford to pay for everything I wanted. Training at martial arts in an environment where the teacher could still knock you to the floor and bust lips were common in sparring. No point me writing it yet though. There's still far too many people around for whom all that is normal. Maybe in 30 years when the current batch of weaklings have grown up and many of the old boys have passed.

The 'flavour of the month' thing is absolutely nothing new. Most, if not all styles of martial arts around today are MMA. They just aren't called that. Funakoshi's shotokan is just the formalisation of several styles he practiced, and he chose which bits, in his opinion, we're the best bits to keep. Aikido was founded by a man well versed in many styles, as well as less rigid more practical military combatives. There's another man that chose which bits he thought were right. Some of Funakoshi's students decided that there were elements of shotokan that were not good. So of course they changed things. I may be mistaken, but I believe that wado came about following a disagreement with Funakoshi. There always has been flavour of the month and always will be. And it's right that that's the case. Otherwise martial arts would become useless. If you had a style that never evolved, and it's practitioners never pursued 'flavour of the month',then it wouldn't be long before their adversaries knew exactly how to defeat them every time, because they'd be too predictable, and their weaknesses would become common knowledge.

[Himokiri Karate]

As much as we talk about it, I'm not so sure that passion actually existed to the extent we think it did. We see a lot of great stories from "back in the day," but if we look at the stories from our own "day," I think we'll see similar amounts of stories. The things that seem to change are the things people dedicate themselves to.

Anyways, just a thought, but I digress....

Who wrote this book you read? It sounds like he has quite the interesting story.

I hear what you are saying, passion does fluctuate which is just human nature. Regarding the author, its Master Byong Yu. He had grown up with mental disability that has him get bullied by siblings and school mates. He then meets a Tang Soo Do master by the name of Master Ko.

Master Ko, instills the fact that his disability is not going to get him sympathy and that he should never receive anything for free and so, Master Ko makes him mop the floors as form of payment. Long story short, the author becomes a formidable martial artist but war happens and he gets drafted for three years and afterwards he returns to tang soo do and master Ko training. In doing so he becomes Master Ko number 1 dedicated student.

One day master Ko points to the author and says "you see him? a black belt is a white belt that NEVER gave up!!!" Anyway, Master Ko passes away but he makes a request to the author to go to America and promote tang soo do. In America he runs in to trouble and becomes homeless. He is now collecting food from a restaurant that is feeding homeless, remembering his masters words that " never receive anything for free" he feels shame so he decides to clean up the back alley and staff was impressed and they offered him a dishwashing job and his luck turns for the better.

its a beautiful story that shows the fact that Master Byon Yu has zero sense of entitlement. That back in the day, human beings had to contribute anyway they can and not expect hand out as if they are owed something. In doing so, his good deed was rewarded with an employment opportunity that allowed him to get back to his feet. Now I have only read half way and it gets even better but it is a beautiful story!

[sensei8]

I call it the "Rage of the Page"; what will it be today, that replaces what was favored yesterday?!?! I believe that the ways of yesterday were much more harsher, training wise, than they are of today.

Why??

The root of all evil...Money!!

Yesterday, the training was what it was, harsh or not, but solid quality, whereas, money was, and is necessary, but back in the days, the training was paramount over money.

Today, the training seems to be much more lackadaisical in the fear of losing students, which translate into losing money, which translate one P&L on a down spiral to their doors closing permanently.

An empty school of the MA can be a very quite somber place with no students whatsoever. So, the quality of the training suffers drastically across the board; students become the CI, and that's never ever a good thing for the betterment of the MA student. The students start to get a false security about what they're learning; the effectiveness is tossed out of the nearest window over doing whatever it takes to keep students happy: promote them whenever the student wants to, the absence of integrity becomes the new mindset, and whatever else drives their P&L.

When you look at one of the most powerful video/game rental retail giants that once dotted the landscape, and you discover what else killed them...Exorbitant late-fees, not Redbox or Netflix, but exorbitant out of control late-fees. Most of the late-fees were primarily due to the product being properly and timely checked back into the system...WHAM...now a member has late fees, all because the employees weren't doing their job correctly. By the time that the quality and effective customer service was correctly, the sink was already doomed to sink below the surface of the lost trust of the consumers.

I'm not suggesting that the schools of the MA need to return to the training methodologies and ideologies of yesterday...NO!! What I'm suggesting is that todays school of the MA needs to replace quantity with quality before the word Martial Arts becomes a punch line for some joke told.

Imho!!

[Himokiri Karate]

I call it the "Rage of the Page"; what will it be today, that replaces what was favored yesterday?!?! I believe that the ways of yesterday were much more harsher, training wise, than they are of today.

Why??

The root of all evil...Money!!

Yesterday, the training was what it was, harsh or not, but solid quality, whereas, money was, and is necessary, but back in the days, the training was paramount over money.

Today, the training seems to be much more lackadaisical in the fear of losing students, which translate into losing money, which translate one P&L on a down spiral to their doors closing permanently.

An empty school of the MA can be a very quite somber place with no students whatsoever. So, the quality of the training suffers drastically across the board; students become the CI, and that's never ever a good thing for the betterment of the MA student. The students start to get a false security about what they're learning; the effectiveness is tossed out of the nearest window over doing whatever it takes to keep students happy: promote them whenever the student wants to, the absence of integrity becomes the new mindset, and whatever else drives their P&L.

When you look at one of the most powerful video/game rental retail giants that once dotted the landscape, and you discover what else killed them...Exorbitant late-fees, not Redbox or Netflix, but exorbitant out of control late-fees. Most of the late-fees were primarily due to the product being properly and timely checked back into the system...WHAM...now a member has late fees, all because the employees weren't doing their job correctly. By the time that the quality and effective customer service was correctly, the sink was already doomed to sink below the surface of the lost trust of the consumers.

I'm not suggesting that the schools of the MA need to return to the training methodologies and ideologies of yesterday...NO!! What I'm suggesting is that todays school of the MA needs to replace quantity with quality before the word Martial Arts becomes a punch line for some joke told.

Imho!!

Good point. Also, it seems like with the rise of MMA and even with fitness based business models like boxercise,yoga and crossfit, you have people who might not consider martial arts places when it comes to exercising for fitness.

I have noticed that many martial arts places that teach traditional arts have a cardio kickboxing program.

[bushido_man96]

I think a lot of MA schools that run a cardio kickboxing program do so in order to expose more people to the possibility of what MA training can be. Through that exposure, I think most have the goal of trying to bring some of them into the actual MA classes.

Himokiri Karate, thanks for sharing that information. It sounds like a good story, indeed.

[Himokiri Karate]

I think a lot of MA schools that run a cardio kickboxing program do so in order to expose more people to the possibility of what MA training can be. Through that exposure, I think most have the goal of trying to bring some of them into the actual MA classes.

Himokiri Karate, thanks for sharing that information. It sounds like a good story, indeed.

No worries, I have continued reading the book and something was odd. Half way through the book, the author no longer mentions Tang Soo Do and simply calls it taekwondo. I don't know it kind of confused me, not sure if they are both interchangeable. Still a very good story but the author hasn't explained it.

P.S: Hopefully you got my reply. Sorry about that, the cobra kai character craze got the best of me which made me assume everyone is aware of the line.