How much time and effort are you willing to put into your martial arts (or any other activity for that matter)? Are you willing to travel? Are you willing to pay the fees? If you answered “Yes” to those questions, you have probably traveled (or will travel) more than 50k miles and have (or will […]

I’ve had discussions about life over the past few years with people close to me and this phrase has come from them. It may seem as this is only a variation of To Take No Action Is An Action but it’s not. This one ties more closely to the question – How many times should you be […]

After a recent Pine Tree Taekwondo promotion test, one of the young (11 year old) students commented that the newly promoted 3rd Dan knows half as much as the 6th Dan teacher. It was a cute comment…but is it accurate? I know many of you are already going “not even close” but play along for […]

Why do we have test fees? The first reason that we use test fees is that we recognize that people learn and develop according to their schedule, not ours. It is most important the the student understands what they are trying to accomplish as they work toward promotions. Since the physical techniques are only 10% of […]

JRD Tata had a friend who used to say that he misplaces and loses his pen very often. He will use only very cheap pens so that he need not worry about losing them. He was worried about carelessness habit. JRD suggested to him to buy the costliest pen he could afford and see what […]

Discipline is one of the most difficult words that I know. No, it isn’t a spelling thing! The difficulty comes from all the aspects that it encompasses. All of the little things that are required to truly have discipline. The importance of goals will not be included here beyond the point that you NEED goals […]

Take a peek at Jesse Encamp’s video about the 2020 Olympic Karate inclusion. Now, it has been quite a while since Taekwondo was changed from a demonstration sport to a full medal winning event. This was good for Taekwondo in the same way. I think that the inclusion of Karate will benefit Taekwondo schools again, […]

Captain America (Steve Rogers) tells The Avengers in Age of Ultron “You get hurt, hurt ’em back. You get killed… walk it off.” In their situation, they couldn’t even let failure stop them from completing the mission – Save the World! How can they accomplish such a thing against an opponent that they’ve never seen […]

“Because life is so brief and time is a thief when you’re undecided. And like a fistful of sand, it can slip right through your hands.” (Rod Stewart – “Young Turks”) Being “undecided” is the same as choosing to not do something. At some point the decision MUST be made to take action. This is […]

I think that I’ve got a company that has motivated people who have found inspiration in the challenges of my curriculum – official and unofficial. In fact, they can’t get hired into my company without a very long audition that demonstrates their motivation. Their inspiration feeds their motivation to make a wonderful cycle of personal […]

That look I get when I ask students to work on a drill that moves differently than the other drill. Yeah, the one you just gave me…a bit of confusion. Part of the Haidong Gumdo curriculum are fighting combinations that we do mostly as a movement drill to develop footwork and cut lines. These combination […]

The idea of gaining rank, position or titles is a big draw. People like rewards and recognition. The problem is that true leadership has nothing to do with any of those. In fact, I’m old enough to remember people regularly commenting upon military officers coming out of ROTC programs. These officers were very educated but […]

I usually change “alone” to “by yourself” but for simplicity I’ll use “alone” here. If you can’t enjoy your own time to work on your goals/plans or do nothing, then you will never be able to truly help others. Since all of the dreams, goals and desires come from within you, you MUST be able […]

  This past weekend was full of Haidong Gumdo training for our Midwest group of masters and their students. We had three 90 minute training sessions that covered much of the required curriculum. The students got to hear the descriptions from several master instructors. The funny part is that, to me, they all sounded like […]

There are SO many aspects to this thought. When I saw the picture below posted on Alain Buresse’s Warrior’s Edge page, it struck me immediately. The irony of the game below, Go, has very few rules but can take hours, even days, to play. One aspect is that of academia. You can regularly see posts […]

General Stanley McChrystal discusses the ideas of leadership from his military experience. I think he hits several key points that carry over into the experiences that I’m having as I try to teach martial arts classes. One key point is the idea of generational leadership. The recognition that experiences can be vastly different from one […]

This came across a newsfeed recently. I think it is awesome! They may be a little blunt but they easily fit the rules for life. Taken from a combat setting, they can be applied to the every day World without much adjustment. There have been many posts about wanting “safe places” and trying to twist […]

The martial arts are centered around the personal development of the student. This development is for improving the quality of life for the student. Providing skills and techniques that provide the skills necessary to be successful at problem solving and leadership. In order to accomplish this, the student needs to develop physical  skills to introduce the […]