RN-lightens your nature gift (ritual, tradition, spiritual)

[gongfufiske]

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[Master Vigil]

Welcome gongfufiske!!! I will test for my master in Tang Soo Do in 6 years. I also believe martial arts to be the greatest thing for the body, mind, and soul. Although gong fu and tang soo do are slightly different, some say that moo duk kwan has some influence from wushu. This I cannot say for certain, I do not believe it to be so. Our roots go back to soo bahk and tae kyon (not tae kwon do). I've been teaching tang soo do and muk nyum do for a few years now. And I can see the wonderful benefits by training with my grand master Chun Sik Kim and all the masters in the international tang soo do federation. I do hope you find students to pass on your tradition and knowledge. The martial arts are truely one of the greatest things known to man.

Go in peace.

[Runt]

Hey Fiske! Welcome to the forum! I too am a martial artist, though not nearly as accomplished as you or Master Vigil. I am a blue belt in taekwondo. I absolutely love martial arts; there are so many benefits beyond merely staying in shape.

[Rex]

I never got into martial arts. Was always baseball and golf for me. But I tell you must have lots of discipline to do some of thing martial arts people do. I envy them.

[Master Vigil]

Karate wasn't founded by a korean. Karate is a japanese martial art. As kung fu is a chinese martial art. While much of the martial arts in japan were greatly influenced by the korean arts, none of the karate styles (shotokan, ishu ryu, etc...) were "founded" by a korean. When I said our roots go back to soo bahk and tae kyon, I meant the korean martial arts. Especially tang soo do. And no I haven't seen the film, perhaps someday though.

[cfer]

I think martial arts are awesome! There's definitely a spiritualness to them that the practitioner usually sees that the general public doesn't, thanks to the way they're portrayed in the movies.

Ten years ago when I was at a different college, I got interested in aikido and joined the aikido club on that campus. It was awesome! I love the way aikido blends with an attack, the twirling and tumbling, and the way that it even treats the attacker with respect. What I mean by that is that the aikidoist doesn't try to injure the attacker, just neutralize/diffuse the situation so no one gets hurt. For that reason aikido has often been called the "loving martial art". But I think all martial arts are like that, if the practitioner is truly serious about his art and keeps in mind that it is for self-defense and not offense.

When I was living in a different area about 8 years ago, I got into chung moo do, but found out it's kind of got a shady reputation/history. My instructor knew that also and tried to shy away from calling his style chung moo do. Instead he gave it a generic name relating to the 8 different styles taught...aikido, tae kwon do, kung fu, ju jitsu, ship pal gae (Chinese and Korean weapons forms), bagwa chung, tai chi, and the samurai sword. It was good exercise, a fun time, but I moved out of the area.

Most recently I tried tae kwon do for 2 months. That is another excellent martial art! It's a tremendous workout and has some very effective techniques. But I still think aikido is the one for me.

Having said all that on the different martial arts I've participated in, I can say that they all had the opportunity to incorporate a spiritualness to them. The only reason they didn't was in the way that they were taught. They were all taught wonderfully by very considerate and skilled individuals, but I think 2 of the instructors were afraid to incorporate any kind of spiritualness in the instruction for fear of coming across as pushy, weak (regarding effectiveness of the art), or somehow "New-Agey". It's too bad, because I believe that the martial arts were and are supposed to have that element of spirituality in them. IMHO it makes them that much more appealing and effective.

[Master Vigil]

Its true Cfer. It is hard to teach the spiritual side to it, because in this society, we can be sued. That is why at CS Kim Karate we teach it with different words. We use the words Chung Shin, which means spirit in korean. We teach good Chung Shin but we conceal what it really is by saying it is simply how you act. But through the teaching the students learn it through meditation, discipline, "ki'ups" (spirit yells), etc... The students eventually realize it but the parents are none the wiser. Pretty sneaky huh. Also, I have never heard of chung moo do. When was it founded? I know of chung moo kwan, it was one of the last korean "kwans" or schools to be founded before the govt tried to call them all tae kwon do. Did it stem off of the kwan?

[cfer]

You know, I'm not really sure when or how it started. I can give you some links on it, though. It looks like they've started calling it Oom Yung Doe now. But when I was participating, it was called Chung Moo Do.

http://www.freedomofmind.com/resourc...roups/c/chung/

http://www.oomyungdoeschool.com/

http://www.oomyungdoe.com/

[Prima]

I tried Tae Kwon Do, but unfortunately, my teachers were not exactly what I had hoped for. I'm very interested in being taught by someone who is more interested in the martial art itself, and the health of his/her students, than in how much money they are making. Does anyone have any ideas for how I can find a teacher like that?

[Master Vigil]

Wow. Interesting. Neither of the sites said which country it originated from. It is an "american" martial art that has evolved from asia. Thats a little suspicious to me. Some of the terms they use were not korean, and most of the techniques looked chinese. So I definitely think it is a chinese martial art. Especially because of the hip placement in the flying sidekick and other sidekick pictures. Very chinese. You would see more hip extension in a korean technique (which is why the koreans developed higher kicks before the chinese). Very interesting, it definitely doesn't sound like a traditional martial art at all.