Misrepresentation

As you know from reading this blog, the ITF-K, led by Kim Beom Suk, misled myself and other foreign Instructors as to the purpose of our time in South Korea. I do not endorse in any form the activities of this organisation or this person. How is it then, that my image is still in use on the ITF-K website? I have asked for this to stop, and I’m awaiting a reply, weeks later. Perhaps those who are being approached to follow in our footsteps will learn something of the character of the organisation from this.

To Clarify

Sorry all, had some bad info there, ITF-K still seems to be affiliated to Vienna. However, there are good reasons for caution when dealing with this organisation. What had, and indeed has, the potential to be a great opportunity for ITF Taekwon-Do in Korea is being treated by the principals as a money making exercise. Come teach English in a Dobok.

Reply to Christoffer

Hey, I’m sorry I can’t help you there, Christoffer. As I’ve mentioned there is no longer an ITF (Vienna) organisation in Korea. I know of someone who works in Seoul, a first degree, but I don’t know if they are training or instructing.

The Great Helmsman Plots a New Course

Seems in his wisdom President Kim has opted to take his organisation (what’s left of it – no foreign instructors, Korean ones leaving too) over to the Chang Ung group. Pity. I’m sure there’s a really good, honourable reason…

Patience

Still working on things here. For those of you who haven’t seen them yet, blogs by other Instructors who visited Korea can be found on the ITFNZ website: www.itfnz.org.nz .

…

Beloved family member is recovering amazingly fast.

A serious illness in the family. Recovering well. The future…?

To be continued

Had to return home in a hurry, watch this space…

Tuesday Snoozeday

Tuesday 3rd of March

The title’s a lie actually. I only had one nap today. Seriously, spent a lot of the morning researching and preparing various things for class and ITFK.

Today at Yang Jeong we covered the same things as at Yonsei yesterday; the Tenets, Oath, and Saju’s, which will be the basis of the first grading. There were a pair of yellow belts in one of the evening classes, which was refreshing. Only so many parallel stance punches a guy can take, even if he is a total TK-D nut!

With these guys I went through basics in linework, addressing sinewave, facings and tool angles, and making sure movements were clean and scientific (ITF-style in other words). I used Master McPhail’s reverse teaching method for one of the Yellow belts who is learning Dan-Gun Tul.

He sat down and I performed the first move. He showed me the first move, and I showed him the second. He then showed me the first and second moves, and I showed him the third. Each time we added a single movement and then returned to the beginning. By the end (21 laps for Dan-Gun!) he was able to lead me through the entire sequence. Borrowing a leaf from Mr Butcher’s book as well, we counted aloud as a memory aid.

This method is an excellent way of teaching the sequence to the student, and of getting some practice for the Instructor’s own Tul. You certainly have plenty of opportunity to correct yourself with so many rep’s. Even better at Yang Jeong because of the mirrors. Win-win.

Yummy din-dins tonight, iron-pan chicken, vegie and cheese fried rice. Choooiice! And even better (“What could be better than cheesey fried rice?”, I hear you gasp), it was cooked on the table in front of us by our very own Waitress Chef. And noodles, she fried noodles (2 kinds!) for us as well!

And kimchi.

*sigh*, nearly perfect day…

Time well spent

Monday 2nd of April

I’m turning into a bit of a Nana with all these after breakfast naps. Certainly helping get over this ‘flu tho’. Know your own weakness. “The term of stronger applies to the one who is able to defeat himself rather than someone else” – Lao Tzu (Lou Ja in Korean) – see the Colourbelt handbook or grill a 3rd Gup/3rd Dan for more on that.

There was time before class so I worked on a little project for me, ITFK, ITFNZ maybe. I’ve learned the sounds of the Korean alphabet, so wrote out how to pronounce the Tenets of Taekwon-Do/Taekwon-do Jongshin in English. It was painfully slow going, ’cause I can’t type in English either! Got there in enough time to practice writing in Hangul by putting it up on the whiteboard for today’s students.

Still plenty of finetuning to do, posters and handouts to make, bit of graphic design, but it’ll save loads of teaching/learning time in the long run. Rather than have the students just try and reproduce what they hear the Sabum say, they can hear it, read it and say it all at once. Yeah I know, I’m a nerd, but I’m a nerd teaching Taekwon-Do in Korea!

Each class today started with the Tenets. Depending how long they needed for that, they played some balance games or moved straight on to Saju Jirugi. Most of them have picked up the “don’t move the other foot or Sabumnim will nail it to the floor” rule. A few are still doing anuro makgi instead of bakuro makgi for the middle block, but not many.

Now they’re settling into the sequence we can start looking at the details like facing, angles, sinewave, etc. I’m probably pushing them further than I would Kiwi jeja, but with Mrs and Master Rounthwaite and then Master Tran (our ITF President) visiting later this year, why not?!

Besides, there’s no reason to believe you can successfully weed out bad habits “later”. Start as you mean to continue.

Am thinking about home a lot (hi Narin!), missing family, training, green things, everyone at Dragon’s Spirit Papatoetoe. Will have to work out hard to come home fit!