Another Week

Another week has come to and end, another week ahead. Last Sunday I taught a Parkour workshop again. I enjoyed the group of people that attended, from various countries. They members also learned the techniques with a fair amount of ease, and after only about 30 minutes they were able to do a basic run.




On Thursday night last week the senior students, for whom the current semester is their final one, organized a banquet in honour of the teachers. In Korea senior students host such a banquet to thank their lecturers for what they have done for them during their years at university. As a teacher I can only say that it is a much appreciated gesture. This was the first such a banquet I've attended, and was definitely the best one so far. We were taken to the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Kangnam, which included an excellent buffet.

There are only two weeks of classes remaining at the university where I work, which means that we are very focussed on finish the material in time. Of course this means that I've started doing lots of grading in order to finish the assignments and class tests before the final exams start December 13.
Saturday night I met up with a dance instructor focussing on Jazz and contemporary dance. We had a very interesting conversation, mostly comparing the similarities between dance and the martial arts. I learned a lot.

Today (Sunday), I attended a Taekkyeon tournament (as a spectator). Although I have seen Taekkyeon tournaments online, todays one was the first time for me to see in person. Most of the events were group events, with five members per group. If a fighter wins his bout, he stays on to fight the next challenger from the opposing group. In one of the sets, a girl stepped up and won against all the members of the opposing team. She was quite good. Of course, I enjoyed the adults fights much better, as they used much more intriguing techniques. I took my video camera with and will put together a video once I have time.

The tournament ended around 7PM, it was supposed to end at 5PM. Starving by then two of my fellow Taekkyeon mates and I went to Itaewon for dinner. We had fabulous Thai food, including tongue smackingly good Thai deserts. While having dinner it started to snow.

By the time I headed home it was snowing quite hard. At first I was tempted to take a taxi from the subway station to my house so that I do not have to walk to far, but then I decided to rather take the bus and enjoy the fifteen minute walk in the snow to my apartment. Although I've experienced it now for a number of years, snow is still a novelty to me—I grew up in Africa, after all. That white blanket that covers everything is to me a beautiful spectacle year after year.

Today America and South Korea performed their joint naval exercises in the West Sea; the largest ever naval drills.I guess they were pretty intimidating as North Korea didn't react much. Then again, there is still a couple of days to go as the naval exercises are planned to continue till Wednesday.

A Dead Owl, a Red Haired Korean, Bomb Shock and an Exhibition Decision

The owlet I picked up in front of my apartment yesterday did not make it through the night. By the time I picked it up it was already in the afternoon. Someone told me that they saw it there in the morning already. I was planning to take it to a vet today, but unfortunately when I went to check on it after I got up it was dead. I'm guessing that having sat outside in the sun may have taken its toll, not having fed for so long. Since I don't keep meat in my home I had nothing to feed it. I tried to give it some egg on a spoon but it wasn't interested. Since I have little knowledge of caring for raptors I just hoped it would survive the night so that I could take it somewhere professional. So it goes . . .

At the Taekkyeon class tonight I saw something quite interesting. There was a bearded Korean man He had a read beard. I asked him about it and he assured me that it is indeed his natural beard colour. This is the first time for me to see a Korean with naturally red hair -- or at least a read beard. I told him I want to bring my camera next time so that I can take a picture of his red beared. He didn't seem to pleased with the idea. I've seen a number of Koreans with a slight red tint in their hair, but since many Koreans dye their hair all kinds of brown and auburn shades, it is quite difficult to judge if the red tint is natural or not. I've been thinking about writing a blog post about physical (genetic) differences between Koreans and Cocasions. I hope to do it soon.

After the Taekkyeon training I spent a little time getting to know some of my fellow practitioners. One Korean man and I struck up a conversation and since we live in the general same direction we took the same subway line and continued talking for another half an hour or so. His name is Beomseok -- it sounds a little like "Bomb Shock," so that's how I'm going to remember it. He is studing Oriental Medicine. It sounds quite interesting. I would probably have enjoyed it, but life don't always present you with opportunities for all your likes, and neither am I so passionate about Oriental Medicine that I'd quite my job and enroll myself as a freshmen again. To be honest, the idea of starting my academic career from scratch again just sounds to daunting. Now if I had the opportunity to get a degree in Taekwon-Do I would seriously consider it. Korea has a number of universities with Taekwon-Do as major; acutally, it is a major in Sport Science or Physical Education, while specialising in Taekwon-Do. There are about three universities that offers the course in English. It would even be better if I could work at a university teaching martial arts -- now that would be wonderful. Combining the job I like with my passion for the martial arts.

I'm planning to go to an art exhibit tomorrow. Either Greek sculptures or Rodin's sculptures. Maybe I should do it in historic sequence -- Classical idealism before naturalistic expressionism. Greek sculpture tomorrow and Rodin on Wednesday.

I Took Up Taekkyeon Again

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Since I suspended my formal training of Hapkido for the time being, I’ve taken up Taekkyeon again. I started with Taekkyeon on Monday and will be going to the dojang twice a week – Monday and Wednesday. The Taekkyeon gym is situated in Insadong, which is a tourist friendly street in Seoul, focused on mostly traditional Korean memorabilia, traditional teashops, and it seems also traditional martial arts.

I did Taekkyeon before, but stopped going for two reasons. The times clashed with my day job and my fellow practitioners were all old ladies. I don’t have anything against the elderly, it is just that after about two months of training my learning curve reached a plateau and I realized that it was not going to improve that much. One major reason being that the dojang caters for health enthusiasts, not for combat practitioners. If I wanted to learn about Taekkyeon’s martial applications I had to go to another school. Well at the time my program was already too full, so I just quit Taekkyeon for the time being. In the meantime, an opening in my program presented itself so I found a new Taekkyeon gym with the help of my Taekwon-Do instructor – it is the main Taekkyeon school in Seoul. Unfortunately, like with my Taekwon-Do school, it takes me more than an hour to commute from my home to the gym.

I’ve had two classes so far and have practically just practiced the basic stepping that is iconic of Taekkyeon. It is much more difficult than it looks, and it seems that my previous Taekkyeon exposure has taught me some wrong habits, which is somewhat hard to break. The instructor says that it takes about eight months to master the basic stepping. I understand the importance of building a sound foundation and basic training; however, I do hope that I’ll get the stepping right in less time.