MASTER CHAD BEHREND – PERSEVERANCE PAYS OFF By Master Guy Edward Larke
Part Two
What was your first black belt test like? step,two step,three step sparring, then self-defense. Right after, we had to do Oh, well, in one of my articles. I talked weapons routines, followed by free about my first white belt test where sparring, one person, two person, GM Cho had me do the flying side three against one. Last was board kids through a full board. Now, that breaking. GM Cho was also very big was my white belt testing. So that was on the Korean terminology. You could really interesting. Then I got frustrated and would be asked Korean culture and upset because I couldn't break the and History questions by surprise. board. He said to me, No try! Break You had better know the answers. board! Which was his mentality, you So, part of testing you also to know the meaning of your highest forms know? My Black Belt testing was 1988. I want and what it stood for. And one that I to say there were probably 25 of us. remember, in my mind was that Kwang It was on concrete floors, no mats, Gae Toh Dae Wang (Dae Wang = great the floor carpeting smelled of sweaty king) was the 19th king of the Koreo feet. It was also winter time and I Dynasty. And then on and on and on, feel that the heat was turned to about so he would have you recite this stuff. 55 degrees. Needed to heat up by He's very strict on Korean terminology working out before testing. GM Pong and history. He had us recite, the 10 Ki Kim was there during that test. He tenants of Taekwondo and the 10 and GM Cho had us doing all these articles of faith for the Moo Duk Kwan, kicks, in combinations and jumping and other terminology depending on variations. So, we were all completely what rank you were. Sometimes he exhausted. We did, 30 minutes of would ask you something he knew combination kicking before we even you didn’t know. Then he'd go, Now, started anything else. Then all the you're gonna have to go home and forms (26). That was followed by one study it and write an article on it and
I'm gonna ask you about it at the next testing. You had to do it because if he asked you to produce it and you didn’t, it wasn't going to fly. I think a lot of modern instructors probably have gotten away from that. I think it's a very good thing to learn about Korean history. GM Cho also liked talking about his training in Korea. On his seventh-degree black belt test. He said, he had to report to this area that was in the middle of winter, and there was a tent set up outside. He thought he was going to be going through all of his forms and techniques and stuff like that. Instead for his testing, he had to sit there on the ground and meditate for hours without moving. That's what his test was. He said he got so cold, he got up and he had to run out of the tent because he was freezing, so they flunked him for seventh-degree black belt. So, he had to go back and do it again. It wasn't even anything physical. It was all mental discipline. And talk about mental training. One of my other black belt test scenes, I don't know I might have been third or fourth degree black belt. GM Pong Ki Kim was conducting black belt testing .GM Kim was at the desk giving a lecture and Master Cho was standing in front of him at attention wearing his fancy dress suit. There was a fly flying around the room and it was bothering
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