Tae Kwon

Tonight, we (and I mean all of us - parents and children) have Tae Kwon Do class. Bill is a second-degree black belt; the girls and I have red belts with a black stripe. We need to earn two more black stripes before we qualify to test for our black belts. I'm not a natural (yoga is my niche), but it's a great workout, a family activity, and we all adore our Saba Nim (venerated master instructor) Robert Zang.

Master Zang started with Tae Kwon Do at the age of 4, under the tutelage of a Grandmaster of Tae Kwon Do. He stayed with Quanja Nim (aka Grandmaster) for thirty years, ending up in charge of one of Quanja Nim's do jangs (I'm phonetically spelling all the TKD stuff). Master Zang was like a son to Quanja Nim. Ever the Korean patriarch, Quanja Nim would both shower him with praise and verbally eviscerate him.

At belt testings, Quanja Nim, Saba Nim, and other masters of Tae Kwon Do sit at a long table in the front of the room and evaluate the students as they perform their patterns, spar with fellow students, and break a number of boards. After everyone has been tested, protocol demands that Saba Nim give a little speech about how lucky we are to have our Grandmaster, what a great champion he was, and what a wonderful Quanja Nim he remains. Then Quanja Nim would riff on whatever topic seemed to cross his mind until he ran out of things to say.

I'll never forget the testing where Quanja Nim lost my respect (and respect is a foundation of Tae Kwon Do). We were all seated on the floor at his feet. As he was expounding, he noticed a boy about 8 years-old sitting on his mother's lap. He said to him, "You are not a baby. Do not sit on your mother's lap." This kid just nuzzled into his mother even more. Even my kids were able to spot that the boy was probably autistic. But Quanja Nim didn't. He harangued the boy, who never responded, reducing the kid's mom to tears. Because they were seated at the front of the room, with about about 50 people crammed in behind them, she couldn't even take her son and flee. The tears streaming down this woman's face did not deter Grandmaster at all. Later, I saw Saba Nim whisper to him, apparently explaining the situation, because Grandmaster then made a show of personally awarding the boy his next belt.

A few years later, in a fit of fury, Quanja Nim fired Master Zang. He soon regretted his outburst, said he didn't mean it, and expected things to continue as always. But Master Zang had had enough. Quanja Nim offered him the do jang outright, an established business with a large clientele. Master Zang would keep all profits, with testing fees still going to Quanja Nim (who has probably 5 other locations). And Master Zang said no. Master Zang decided that, even though he's the sole support of a wife and two young children, he'd had enough. He now has his own do jang, a business based on the idea of mutual respect not obeisance to the lord.

Of everything that he's taught my children, I think the most important is that security is not worth your soul. They saw that Master Zang could say, "You can't treat me this way. I'm worth more than that," and walk away. (Also, learning how to break multiple boards with your hands and feet is quite the rush.)