Taekwondo Pain

Warning: This is a rant.

This is rather obvious, but some teachers are better than others. Back when I was in Montana, I had a wonderful taekwondo teacher, Master A. Like with many activities, I was cautious and nervous at first to start a new activity. However, I started to enjoy taekwondo relatively quickly. There were days where I didn't want to go to where I would've rather played at home, by the time I got my black belt, going to taekwondo was a sort of comforting activity. I could compeletely disconnect from the rest of my day. No matter what I did during taekwondo, it wouldn't go any faster or slower, so I was able to fully enojoy the time without worring about homework or the test I had the next day. It was fun, I had friends there, and I appreciated the workout I got.

Things changed when I moved here. We looked around town for a new taekwondo dojang. There were a couple, but most were different styles/organizations of taekwondo where our progress wouldn't fully transfer. So we ended up at one place. First impressions were not bad, as the large open mat space and organized building set a better impression than the other tiny dojang that was in a basement with pillars everwhere. The teacher, or rather the Master there was very impressive too. He seemed strict, but he was old, and he seemed friendly enough. We met in his office to talk about us joining. Behind him, there were pictures of him as a literal olympic athelete competing in the olympics, then later pictures of him as a official taekwondo judge at the olympics. He had an 8th degree black belt, which was a lot higher than the 4th degree that Master A. had. I will admit, it was very impressive. The only slight gripe I had with the old taekwondo dojang in Montana was that it was starting to drift away from taekwondo and its focus on kicks and forms to more mixed martial arts. It was certainly more useful for self defense, but I missed some of the older stuff. I thought that this new place with this apparently cracked teacher would a good place to learn official standard taekwondo just like in Korea. Haha, what a thought.

It's been almost a year now since I left Montana and started learning at this new place. It's been bad. That's the simplest way I can put it. I don't even know where to start. Even ignoring the odd covid restrictions like staying in your own 9ft by 9ft square, this Master was weirdly strict. The advanced class was composed of mostly red and black belts with many middle-school aged children. He would scold them for every behavioral misdemeanor. It just killed the atmosphere of the place. Even in this draconian environment, I could recognize the young students who were really enthusiastic or clever. What I really didn't get though, is why he stifled correctness. When a student gave a technically correct answer, it was treated as totally wrong. When a student at least tried to give an answer instead of remaining completely silent, they were almost punished for not being perfectly correct. Why would you do this? Wouldn't you want to encourage people to think and try answering? Why would you discourage participation by punishing it? I will never know.

The most ironic thing I suppose, is that nobody was learning. Because I was a second degree black belt, I was in the advanced class. All of the other students were either red belts or above. I was in this class for one whole year. How much growth and learning was there? Almost none. From the start to the end, most of the students had the same flaws and mistakes. One student had the wrong angle for hand based blocks. This is a really, really simple fix. Just remember to extend your arm out a little farther. However, even though the Master had numerous, numerous classes where he pointed this out and gave annoyed explanations, they never improved. It's ironic being in a taekwondo "learning" environment where no one learned. Mind you, this wasn't a singular occurrence, there was a similar thing for every student. Even me. I improved anything he pointed out and changed lacking things. However, over the course of the year, I learned like 8 things max. Normally, I would learn dozens of new skills and improvements. It's really shocking how little I learned with so much time and effort.

Now going to taekwondo has lost its value. Going is just painful and annoying. When I wake up in the morning on Mondays and Wednesdays, I dread the day's taekwondo lesson. At least it's all over now. My last lesson was last week. I have made a great escape.

I would love to return to taekwondo, I really would. It has just been impossible in this terrible environment.