| Chosun Taekwondo Academy & Hatha Yoga Center 62 Main St. Warwick NY www.chosuntkd.com | |
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Saturday, August 29, 2015
Yoga at CHOSUN " The Power of One More Breath"
Thursday, August 20, 2015
Yoga at Chosun "Patience and Practice
| Chosun Taekwondo Academy & Hatha Yoga Center 62 Main St. Warwick NY www.chosuntkd.com | |
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Monday, August 3, 2015
Chosun e-newsletter archive Volumn 6 #8 August, 2015
Dear Martial Arts Enthusiast,
Welcome to the August edition of the Chosun Taekwondo Academy e-newsletter! As the summer winds down we are looking to September and the 18th annual CHOSUN OPEN HOUSE. See details below...and PLEASE HELP SPREAD THE WORD! Kamsahamnida!
Don't miss our first advertiser, The Tokyo Plum House, with a special offer exclusively for CHOSUN students... see information below...
Read entire newsletter
Subscribe on the Chosun homepage: www.chosuntkd.com
Welcome to the August edition of the Chosun Taekwondo Academy e-newsletter! As the summer winds down we are looking to September and the 18th annual CHOSUN OPEN HOUSE. See details below...and PLEASE HELP SPREAD THE WORD! Kamsahamnida!
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| Chosun Taekwondo Academy 2nd Annual Summer Picnic |
Don't miss our first advertiser, The Tokyo Plum House, with a special offer exclusively for CHOSUN students... see information below...
Read entire newsletter
Subscribe on the Chosun homepage: www.chosuntkd.com
Friday, July 31, 2015
Ginseng Chicken
By Pamela Pyke, Chosun Taekwondo Academy 3rd Dan Instructor
During the hot summer months of July and August Koreans
fight fire with fire!You would think you would eat Ginseng Chicken (Samgyetang)
on a cold wintry night, but not in Korea! Ginseng Chicken is served at the
height of summer. Long lines are seen outside the Ginseng Chicken restaurants
as patrons wait to sweat away the heat of the summer. The idea behind this is
if you sweat bullets as you eat this amazing meal you will cool down. This is
A beautiful Cornish hen is stuffed with short grain rice,
garlic, jube-jube (date), ginseng root and lowered into a pot of boiling water.
This simmers away for about an hour. Each are served a stone pot with your own
chicken. Break open the super tender chicken to reveal the sticky rice, garlic,
jube-jube and ginseng root. The chicken and broth is seasoned at the table with
salt and pepper. The broth is heavenly. Eating the now tender ginseng root
revitalizes your entire being. On our last trip in 2014 the game was to see who
could empty their stone pot completely. Cheers would abound as each person
displayed their empty bowl!
This meal is easily enjoyed by Americans because it is quite
mild compared to some of the more exotic flavors we experience in Korea. I have
made this at home and was thrilled with the results. As my chicken simmered I
added sliced ginger to the broth to kick up the flavor. So easy and super
yummy!
Not all soups are served hot during the summer in Korea.
Mul-naengmyeon is a soup that is served icy cold. We experienced a bowl of this
at lunch with Master Ahn. A sweet and tangy icy broth served with chewy
buckwheat noodles, radish and beef brisket. It was so unusual! I thought I was
drinking a salad!
Please consider experiencing these amazing soups with us on
our tour in 2016. An adventure awaits your palate and your Taekwondo practice.
Haengbog meogneum
Happy Eating!
Pam Pyke
When it comes to researching Korean cuisine I follow two amazing Korean women who have shared their love of good home cooked Hansik (Korean food). Go to You Tube and check out maangchi.com and omma's kitchen.com
Plowing a Deep Furrow
By Master Doug Cook
Totally Taekwondo Magazine February, 2015 issue #72
Over the course of the past two and
a half decades, the martial arts community has experienced inroads by several
martial-oriented disciplines, some genuinely rooted in traditional arts, others
less so. In the early 1990’s Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, a form of the ancient Japanese
art refined by Brazil’s Gracie family, dominated the burgeoning UFC
competitions and became the defacto self-defense standard of many police forces
and military units. Shortly after, the Tae Bo craze swept the nation with
creator Billy Blanks motivating thousands of weight-conscious men and women
through a series of instructional videos. Then, Mixed Martial Arts or MMA made
its debut. With the exception of the Gracie family’s contribution, many of these
trends in non-traditional martial arts and martial arts-related programs, have,
or are likely to, reach their apex and begin to fade into the background along
with the general public’s waning interest and a lack of appreciation for
in-depth training. This leads us to a point of self-examination concerning the
unconditional commitment required for excellence in the classical martial arts.
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| Grandmaster Richard Chun & Master Doug Cook |
On average, the Western mind is a
questioning mind. It is also at times an impatient mind. We as a culture are
not content with unexplained actions but frequently require detailed, verbal clarification
for almost everything we do. Moreover, we place great emphasis on variety with
a plethora of choices at our fingertips including the food we eat, the clothes
we wear, and our wealth of leisure time activities. And then there is the
matter of respect for contrasting worldviews coupled with a reverence for the
traditions of the past. Being insulated between two vast oceans and surrounded
by friendly nations sharing similar customs, many in America are frequently
unaware regarding the life styles of others. Compound this with the fact that we
as a people presently live in the midst of a technological revolution, the
scope of which has never been seen before, and a picture begins to emerge
portraying a society that is ambitious, inquisitive and sophisticated, while at
the same time often cynical, anxious and mistrustful. Taken in sum, these
attributes define our social character and on a less overt level, have a direct
bearing on the martial arts we tend to popularize.
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| Drilling deep into taekwondo poomsae |
"The old
masters used to keep a narrow field but plow a deep furrow. Present day
students have a broad field but only plow a shallow furrow."
This viewpoint is further amplified when one takes
into account Funakoshi’s description of his nocturnal training sessions under
Azato Sensei (1827-1906) in his autobiography Karate-Do: My Way of Life. In it, he claims that countless
repetitions of a single kata were required by Azato nightly, for months on end,
almost to the point of humiliation.
Grandmaster
Richard Chun, too, in his fifth book Taekwondo
Spirit and Practice: Beyond Self-Defense, supports this notion as he
depicts the early years of his training under Grandmaster Chong Soo Hong at the
famed Moo Duk Kwan (Institute of Martial Virtue) in Seoul, South Korea:
“Our routine was very
demanding and followed the age-old traditions of taekwondo masters. Every few
days, our master demonstrated a specific technique to the students without
taking any questions or giving any explanation. We simply observed. Our usual
practice session, then, consisted of executing that technique two or three
hundred times a day.”
How then does this principle apply
today given the general public’s expectations concerning modern martial arts
like MMA that tend to sample many styles and cultures?
Without a doubt, a sincere practice
of the traditional martial arts
demands unyielding discipline, perseverance, patience, and the acceptance of
philosophical doctrines often foreign to the Western mind. Subsequently, given
our modern approach to living overshadowed by a desire for diversity, we can
see how these conditions might be
compromised. Remaining steadfast to a single discipline
such as taekwondo or karate, rather than becoming involved in the amalgam of
styles evident in MMA, requires an uncommon commitment and focus. Clearly, the
attraction of switching from a takedown found in Japanese judo to a kick
featured in Thai kickboxing, may hold a fascination for many. But, at least in
my estimation, we may be short changing ourselves by not interrogating a single,
traditional art to its core, finding that there is much more to discover beneath
the surface than initially meets the eye.
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| Karate practice at Shuri Castle |
At our school, the Chosun Taekwondo
Academy - a United States Taekwondo Association affiliate dojang under the
direction of Grandmaster Richard Chun - we focus on more than the superficial
aspects of our art, physically, intellectually and spiritually, by applying the
principles of taekwondo in their fullness. For example, we go beyond the deceptively
simple dynamics of a low block by investigating the purpose of the chamber, the
initial contact, and the ultimate follow through of the technique thus
revealing scenarios that make this basic skill more than a simple block.
Simultaneously, we pay close attention to Ki flow and the targeting of specific
pressure points. Unfortunately, a concentration on detailed technique such as
this appears to be sadly lacking in the many martial styles and practitioners that
leap from one discipline to another, clearly going wide rather than deep.
One of my students once said,
following a particularly demanding training session, that:
“There is no elevator to the top floor of
traditional taekwondo; instead it is a walk-up with many flights of stairs.”
In short, in order to gain pronounced
proficiency in their chosen art, the student must immerse themselves in deep training to the point where they
realize that everything they do is part of practice rather than accepting the
erroneous perception that practice is a limited part of their life.
Choosing to study MMA or any other
martial-related form of exercise in and of itself is not necessarily off the
mark. Rather, an attraction to these styles dovetails nicely with the general
public’s expectations of the martial arts as seen on television and the cinema and
given the hectic schedules entertained by most people today, they offer a
convenient method of becoming involved with the martial arts in the first place.
Yet, to the practitioner seeking a holistic understanding of a single martial
art that includes embracing the culture from which it is drawn, plowing a deep furrow rather than one that is wide, should be the obvious course to
take.
Master Doug Cook, 6th dan
black belt, is head instructor of the Chosun Taekwondo Academy located in
Warwick, New York, a senior student of Grandmaster Richard Chun, and author of
four best-selling books entitled: Taekwondo…Ancient
Wisdom for the Modern Warrior, Traditional
Taekwondo - Core Techniques, History and Philosophy, Taekwondo–A Path to Excellence, and Taekwondo Black Belt Poomsae: Original Koryo and Koryo, co-authored
with Grandmaster Chun along with its companion DVD. Master Cook can be reached
for Korea tours, seminars, workshops or questions at www.chosuntkd.com or info@chosuntkd.com.
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
YOGA at CHOSUN "Know and Go"
| Chosun Taekwondo Academy & Hatha Yoga Center 62 Main St. Warwick NY www.chosuntkd.com | ||
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Tuesday, July 14, 2015
Academic Taekwondo
by Master Doug Cook
Taekwondo Times Magazine "Traditions" Column January, 2015
Taekwondo Times Magazine "Traditions" Column January, 2015
Tae Kwon Do is composed of many components, most dominated
by physical qualities. Front kicks, round kicks, side kicks, hand and aerial
techniques abound, endowing the national Korean martial art with its unique
character. Yet, as the discipline matured from its humble beginnings in the
1940s and 50s, it gained both complexity and academic
dimensions until today,
modern educational institutes of higher learning located in Korea offer
Taekwondology, along with its comprehensive syllabus of technique, tradition,
rules and regulations, as a major.
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| Kukkiwon with Dr. Un Yong Kim (center) |
Regardless of the fact that the roots of tae kwon do date
back to antiquity, historians agree that during the mid-twentieth century, the primordial
forms of the art then known as kong soo do, tang soo do and for a brief period
of time, tae soo do, were heavily influenced by Okinawan karate-do coupled with
Chinese chuan fa, Japanese judo and, to some degree, aikido and jujutsu. While
in transition, ritual and practice fortifying the burgeoning discipline
innocently drew breath from these styles.
Then, just as the citizenry of the Korean nation were given
the opportunity to reestablish their cultural and technical infrastructure - admittedly
after immeasurable strife and bloodshed - so too did tae kwon do. Rising like a
phoenix from the ashes of war, the disparate styles that evolved into the single,
standardized national treasure that we know today, took on its own identity
within the pantheon of Asian combat disciplines. Distinctive skills and strategies
featuring philosophical underpinnings exclusive to Korean culture clearly began
to emerge. This process was not easy and came at great cost, both socially and politically,
to many of its founders and the organizations they would come to create. Yet,
today, tae kwon do stands tall as a battle-proven form of self-defense and a fully
recognized Olympic sport boasting a growth curve second to none, crystallized
in the span of a short sixty years.
Miracles of this magnitude cannot be accomplished purely on
a physical level. Rather, planning, forethought and the accumulation of
knowledge must be converted into action; action stoked by the uncorrupted
transmission of wisdom across generations. Lessons learned in battle during the
Silla (57 BC-AD 935), Koryo (918-1392) and Chosun (1392-1910) dynasties, exemplified
by warriors of the Hwarang and preserved by fighting Buddhist monks called on
to defend the nation against Japanese invaders in the late 1500s, are as valid
today as they were then. Couple these tactics with a contemporary understanding
of physiology, sports medicine and body mechanics, and a valid blueprint of
academic standards begins to materialize.
The academic approach to tae kwon do becomes abundantly
clear as one sifts through the many editorial contributions offered by scholars,
masters and enlightened practitioners dedicated to the worldwide proliferation
of the art. Through the magic of the Internet, technique, decorum and training
rituals have been exhaustively documented for current and future use. Books,
treatises and dissertations have been written to intellectually support
routines and principles. These, amplified by visual aids, amount to a supreme
body of knowledge that can quite literally take a lifetime to absorb. Great men
and women come to mind who have generously contributed to this paradigm of data
- more than not, at little or no personal gain above that of serving the art. Highly
qualified individuals such as Richard Chun, Sang Kyu Shim, Kyong Myong Lee, Son
Duk Sung, and Sihak Henry Cho share this distinction with others too numerous
to mention.
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| Grandmaster Chun and Master Cook |
And just what is being documented that justifies tae kwon do
as a discipline worthy of academic pursuit? First and foremost, the technical
catalog that defines the traditional Korean martial art. General Choi Hong Hi,
a primary founder who created the International Taekwon-Do Federation in March
of 1966, claimed an arsenal containing 3200 separate techniques, each with its
own distinct purpose and method of execution, many depicted in his fifteen-volume
Encyclopedia of Taekwon-Do. Similarly,
an updated version of the Kukkiwon
Textbook reissued in 2005 devotes over 700 pages to the proper articulation
of technique. But wisdom accumulated over the decades does not stop there.
Landmark works by Grandmaster Richard Chun and his contemporaries portray
defacto training standards and procedures relied upon worldwide by hundreds of
thousands of students.
Moreover, since tae kwon do is recognized as a comprehensive
form of self-defense with a pedigree reaching far back into the distant past,
there are metaphysical and well as physical concepts to ponder. Exploring the
use of meditation and ki, or internal
energy development, as essential elements of the art demands research that can
only be accomplished through the interrogation of Asian historical and, in some
cases, medical records compiled centuries ago. Valid examples of these are the Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon, a
cornerstone of Traditional Chinese Medicine, coupled with the physical lessons
posited by the Myue Dobo Tongji
(Illustrated Manual of Korean Martial Arts), authored in 1790.
Then, not to marginalize their significance, if one is to
accrue an absolute understanding of any classical martial art, it is equally
essential to survey influential native customs, physiological concepts that
power its engine, and moral doctrines that govern its use. Many of these can be
found in the teachings of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism.
Clearly, taken as a whole the ingredients cited above
compound to represent a body of academic knowledge profoundly worthy of
transmission from one generation to the next. One only need embrace it.
Naturally, as with any established sport, there exists a
majority of practitioners who will exclusively participate for competitive
purposes only. And because tae kwon do offers much in the way of physical
fitness and athletic recognition on the collegiate, state, national and
international level, and because just as a coin, it exhibits two sides, one
representing the game and the other the art, this is entirely understandable. Yet
it is important to recognize the difference between developing athletes and cultivating
holistically-trained martial artists - practitioners who are not only
proficient in the ring, but who wholeheartedly welcome the ancient wisdom that
composes the vast mosaic that is traditional tae kwon do.
Master Doug Cook, a 6th dan black belt, is head
instructor of the Chosun Taekwondo Academy located in Warwick, New York, a senior
student of Grandmaster Richard Chun, and author of four best-selling books
entitled: Taekwondo…Ancient Wisdom for
the Modern Warrior, Traditional
Taekwondo - Core Techniques, History and Philosophy, Taekwondo–A Path to Excellence, and Tae Kwon Do Poomsae: Original Koryo and Koryo, all published by
YMAA of Boston. He has been a staff columnist for TaeKwonDo Times for over fourteen years. Master Cook can be reached
for lectures, workshops or questions at www.chosuntkd.com
or info@chosuntkd.com.
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