I totally forgot that my best friend Jay and I decided to visit another Taekwondo studio while we still were studying under our current instructor. I guess, the way I rationalized it was that I knew our "Sabumnim" or teacher, was and will always be our teacher. It was more like a vacation get away to visit another school then to come back home to our Sabumnim. That was where we learned to better appreciate the spinning round house kick and fake leg spin kicks. Our instructor was a Hapkido instructor first, then a Taekwondo instructor second. Until recently, did I realize how amazing his Hapkido was. He was the highest ranking american having trained by the late great grandmaster Choi Young Sool. When ever I see Hapkido, it does not quite look authentic as we trained in it.
I feel totally terrible that we took a short vacation from our instructor of 10 years. He dedicated his entire like to martial arts and was very well known in all of the circles. I hope he realizes how much we appreciated him as an instructor and in many cases as a mentor.
In martial arts loyalty to your instructor is a big deal, as the student teacher relationship is sacred. I guess I did find loyalty in martial arts as it introduced me to my best friend of almost 20 years. We were like Fight Quest as we would attend 4-5 classes a week, plus endless time practicing our "Taeguek" forms to perfection. I think I will know them to the day I die, and I owe that to the strong friendship I had for most of my years training martial arts.
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