Owen Dyckhoff

Yesterday, I went to watch my father, 9 year old sister and 7 year old brother do their grading for orange belts at the sports hall in Pencoed. I was quite frankly fascinated with the experience, and impressed at the level of skill and respect all of the pupils had.I’d seen my brother and sister sparring (fighting, but without hard contact) at home many times, and thought they were coming on nicely and had a preconception of what to expect from them when I saw the grading, but the two of them blew me away with some solid kicks and some quality board breaking.

On the other side of the room, I could see my father pulling out some equally impressive double snap kicks (Dad, please correct my terminology if needs be; you have an admin account ).

The forms were delightful to watch. There was some kind of aura around the room when you see a neat grid of at least 60 people all doing the same forms at the same time to the time of the Master counting in Korean. It just seemed so right.

The whole event was a joy to watch, and all of the involved disciplines were equally as fascinating to behold. The one thing that really blew me away though, was the ultimate sense of respect everyone has for each other.

They bowed to each other before each encounter; they did some apology gesture if they accidentally clouted someone during sparring; every male is referred to as “sir”, and the females likewise referred to as “ma’am”; failed attempts at a manoeuvre were never rebuked, they were always constructively criticised and/or encouraged endlessly; various degrees of black belts bowed to each other upon handing out boards to each other. It is wondrous the discipline that these students of Tang Soo Do have.

Above all, the two people in the room who commanded the most respect were the two Masters Mr and Mrs Humphries. (For convenience, I shall refer to Mr. Humphries as “Sir” and Mrs Humphries as “Ma’am” from now on) The children all loved Sir for his talent and dry wit, and Ma’am was equally loved for her humour and way of approaching things. Ma’am only had to glance at a black belt and they would be rushing to her feet to assist with demonstrations of various kinds. Ma’am was the author of phrases such as “You have to be more aggressive! Don’t aim for the board, aim for the face that’s behind it!” and Sir cracked me up with phrases like “If you can kick yourself in the face, I’ll give you a t-shirt”.

All in all, I found the event inspiring, since I’ve had the conception that I’m “too old to start now”. I saw people of all ages in that room performing excellently and it left me wanting to start for myself. It’s just a shame there’s no Tang Soo Do institution anywhere in Aberystwyth really *sigh*

Anyway, to conclude, my father, brother and sister are all now the proud owners of an orange belt!

Tang Soo! (This, as I understand it, is a Korean compliment)

P.S. remind me to not annoy either my father, brother or sister ever again >_<