When our son Bud was four years old, he started going to
taekwondo classes, held in a do jang (gym, or studio) located in a
street corner shopping mall across the street from his pre-school.
It might have turned out to be nothing important in Bud’s life. His
pre-school headmaster made deals with all kinds of fellow education
merchants to trade off services, and a whole troop of the
Montessori pre-Ks and Ks used to march over to Chun’s Black Belt
Academy once a week for what amounted to little more than a gym
class.
But Master Vincent Chun was anything but ordinary. As a mother
of one black belted teenager told me, “We’ve been coming here eight
years, and he’s never phoned it in. Never. It’s always been
wonderful.”
From the very first class, Bud and his mates stood at attention,
yelled, “Yes, sir!” to every instruction, ran to obey, and worked
their little behinds off. Affecting a stern demeanor — but meaning
every word — Master Chun taught an infinitely varying routine of
stretches and strength exercises and a graduated series of kicks,
blocks, punches, stances, and postures. From the start, he knew
every child’s name, and never forgot one, this in a school that
included more than 150 children and adults. He knew that little
children see as in a mirror, so when he directed them to their
right, he always demonstrated with his own left, and vice
versa.
Master Chun’s bark entirely sufficed. He did not bite at all,
and everybody knew it. “You not trying!” he might warn one of his
young charges. “Fifty pushup!” Uh-huh.
When we moved from New Jersey to Massachusetts last year, Bud
had worked his way up to what Master Chun called a “high blue
belt.” (The belts start at white and move up in six colors to
black, with gradations at every level. Blue is the fourth.) Within
a few months, we found a new taekwondo school, Y.K. Kim’s Taekwondo
Institute, in a converted barn of a church in Lawrence, the
depressed mill town next over from North Andover, where we
live.
Grandmaster Kim, who interviewed us, was an imposing figure in
his fifties, awesomely fit. He had taught the Korean Coast Guard
and Navy, and had coached the first U.S. squad in its trip to the
Seoul Olympics, where taekwondo was introduced as a demonstration
sport. He read Bud’s blue belt certificate from Master Chun
(written in Korean, of course) and pronounced Bud accomplished to
the same standard in his own school. Bud got a new uniform, a new
belt, and started again.
Grandmaster Kim taught only black belt classes, though his
office faced the exercise floor and he watched every move. Master
Hong, a slender man in his twenties, taught the daily classes for
(mostly) children. After Master Hong, Bud will have no trouble
understanding an Army drill sergeant. Master Hong sings out his
commands in an impenetrable patois and a carrying tenor; I am never
quite sure whether he’s speaking Korean or English. Unlike Master
Chun, Master Hong is playful, setting his children to athletic
contests against one another, laughing with them, and demonstrating
his formidable abilities.
Indeed, athleticism gets displayed at an astonishingly high
level at the do jang. For some weeks last winter, three Korean
college students, essentially majoring in taekwondo, visited to
help instruct. The two boys and Master Hong could do flying side
kicks eight feet up a heavy bag, flip over, still aloft, and kick
the bag twice more before returning to earth. It looked like they
were walking sideways up the air. Emily, a 14-year-old black belt
who is one of my pals, can do a cartwheel and break a board with
her heel while fully extended upside down. Bud can perform a full
180-degree split, then bend and touch his head to his knees on
either side.
Semi-annual testing draws the whole school together for an
hours-long session with perhaps sixty students, adults and
children, going through routines, breaking boards and cement
blocks, and being interviewed by a panel of teachers, chaired by
Grandmaster Kim. It’s rough on the younger kids, who have to sit
still for a long time on the floor, watching the higher belts
finish their tasks. Here again, Master Hong’s playful nature helps
out. At the last test, for Emily’s climactic high vaulting kick,
Master Hong (unobserved by anyone) covered the top of the board
with candy bars, which scattered in a glorious shower when Emily
splintered the plank.
At that session, Grandmaster Kim, addressing David, a skinny,
scholarly-looking man of about 45, one of the top red belts, said,
“Now, I challenge you. Can you break three boards?” The boards are
half-inch pine planks. Breaking one is easy. Add another, and it
starts to get tough. Three definitely constitutes a challenge.
David broke the first two stacks, one with a punch, one with a
kick, on his first tries. But the final kick, an axe kick, requires
raising the leg straight over the head, then bringing it down hard
and striking the blow with the heel. He failed the first two tries,
bounced away with a wince and a limp, and steeled himself for the
third. The great hall fell completely silent. When David split the
three boards with his third try, the room erupted in cheers and
applause.
We were all with him, you see, just as we had been with every
student, from the tiniest five-year-old yellow belt on up.
David was bleeding, but with a big grin on his face. He was now
a black belt. He can properly regard that as a lifetime
achievement. As will Bud, who saw David go through every trial, and
come out on top.
