As many of you must, we had to write an essay for our first dan test.  My test is Thursday, September eighteenth, so I will have to read it aloud before class.  Anyway, the subject we are required to write aboutt is how taekwondo has changed our life.  Here is my essay.

Daniel

How Taekwondo changed my life

 I was first introduced to the martial arts through a recreational department ‘karate’ class that was actually Tang Soo Do.  Later, I studied taekwondo at a local dojang, eventually at Jhoon Rhee in Kensington and finally, at Jae Kim’s Karate in Rockville in the late eighties. 

Marriage, kids, and professional life took me away from taekwondo for quite a while, but I was always happy to tell people that, “I took karate.”  Never mind that I hadn’t formally studied since 1988.  But when my son, Connor was eleven and wanted to take martial arts, he and I wound up here at Korean Martial Arts.  We were taking kumdo, but I was at least in the building, and after my first dan in kumdo, I began taking taekwondo again.

Being forty and starting fresh was not easy.  The forms that I had learned were all but forgotten and anyway, they’d been replaced by the Taegeuk forms that I’d never learned.  I’d lost a lot of the flexibility that I had once had, so in spite of several years of classes in my youth, I was really a beginner again.  Kumdo with Master Kim and Master Choi had gotten me back into shape, so I was at least going into the classes with solid strength, stamina, and reflexes.  At that time, Master Yeo had just joined our teaching staff, and most of my classes were with him.  Since beginning class, both of my sons, Patrick and Connor have begun taking taekwondo as well. 

Slowly, my flexibility has come back and I can once again kick higher than my own head.  I’ve learned the taegeuk forms, proving that you really can teach an old dog new tricks.  And something I’d never done, Olympic style sparring, I’ve gotten reasonably good at and enjoy.

I’ve been instructing kumdo here at Korean Martial Arts for about fourteen months now, which was a goal achieved for me.  When I am good enough with taekwondo, I would like to one day instruct that as well. 

Taekwondo has changed my life in that it has provided me with a solid base all my life, even when I took my near twenty year break, and testing for first dan has brought me to the achieving of a long unfinished goal.  Taekwondo has helped to give me a greater personal direction, and has certainly been good for my health and fitness.  Like Kumdo, Taekwondo is a way of life, one that I can keep with me for life.

Tags: First Dan Essay Blackbelt