I began my martial arts journey with a free class won at a national hemophilia charity event. Who knew the martial arts would be in my 'blood' for the next 40 years!
I began in TaeKwon-do under Master Kang Rhee in Memphis ,Tn. Master Rhee was instructor to Elvis Presley.
Master Rhee came to US in 1963 and established a well respected martial arts school in tennessee. His strengths to me were technical. he always pushed us beyond our current "capacity" which i deeply respect now 40 years hence.
I went for my brown belt test on a particularily hot afternoon and as was his custom we had to go through all the days class before testing which was about 2 hours and then we would begin testing. this day was undoubtly a bad day for Master Rhee in that our test ran about 1 1/2 hours and at the end of testing he told myself and a couple of other people testing to come back next week--we weren't ready!!!
I couldn't believe it. what would i know one week later i didn't know then.. Well, I learned, it was humility!!!
Went back the following week with my tail between my legs and saild through the same 3 hour test and never
blinked. I realized Master Rhee wanted to see if I would fold or return. Brown belt is that time in our training we are tested to see if we really can be TRUSTED with the training we have received and which was about to be more intense!!
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