Master Victor: [00:00:00] Welcome back everybody to another episode of The Unlimited You. My name is Master Victor. If you have not been watching this show, today, we’re going to talk about Taekwondo, the way of the hand and foot.
A lot of people think that Taekwondo is essentially just kicking and fancy kicks and what they see in the Olympics. A lot more than that, and it’s origin stemmed really deep. There’s a lot of misconceptions about what Taekwondo is.
First, we’re going to talk about where Taekwondo is today. It’s become more of a sport in the eyes of a lot of people because it was introduced into the Olympics. And the way it was introduced into the Olympics that it prized point scoring over self-defense.
And when you do that to a martial arts, you compromise the self-defense aspect of it. So the Taekwondo in the Olympics involves a lot of front leg fast kicks, swiveling around. In that [00:01:00] respect of its training, it has lost its route to old school Taekwondo, as we call it, or traditional Taekwondo. And that’s where it is right now. And there’s a collection of masters and grandmasters who recognize that, and are actively trying to move the discipline into the right direction. It’s an ever evolving martial arts that was a culmination of different styles of similar philosophy that originated from Sanatan Dharma. And we’re going to delve completely in all the way into its depths of that today.
And a good starting point for the history of it is 1945, World War II ended, Korea was liberated as a subsidiary of China at that point, and it became more of a free state, free country. And in order to unify, the martial arts that was being practiced in Korea. There were five Kwans that were unified, [00:02:00] and created what is now known as Taekwondo.
I studied a style of Taekwondo called Chung Do Kwan. There are five different ones that came together. They’re each have their own separate disciplines. And I wrote an entire article on our website. It says the history of Taekwondo, if you want to look into kind of the depths of this, because I can make a whole episode on just the history of Taekwondo.
And each one of those Kwans took different things from Kung Fu, Karate, Chi work, Tai Chi, meditation, breath work, calisthenics, essentially what we do at Fera Academy, makes sense. And they took all of these styles, combined them together to make the way of the hand and foot. And Taekwondo has many different hand strikes, punches, many different styles of punching that involve different techniques. And as you learn them, you get to understand the depth of [00:03:00] this art.
Taekwondo itself is a mixture of a little bit of Kung Fu, a little bit of Karate, taking in a philosophy of prizing movement to not be hit. We have a sideways fighting stance that allows you to move very quickly in and out, that way you don’t get hit. Because let’s say, there’s somebody that’s twice your size, super strong, they throw a blow and you block, that’s gonna break your arm and go through you. And that’s going to cause an injury. And if you’re in the middle of a battlefield and you get injured, you’re not going to be able to defend yourself against the next guy.
Taekwondo prizes the ability to not be there when the strike is thrown, and that gives you a very important aspect in martial arts that I think a lot of other mentalities or ways of going about it have lost, where you just block.
Blocking is extremely important. If you can’t get out of the way, then you need to block. But it is better not to be there when the strike hits. Then, you’re not going to take the chance of having what happened [00:04:00] to Anderson Silva in UFC, where he got hit in his leg and then broke out. It’s absolutely nasty. If you haven’t seen it, you may not want to watch it.
And that philosophy stems through a lot of different Korean martial arts. Haedong Kumdo, for example, very fast strikes, moves, and it’s called the way of the sword, Haedong Kumdo. And it’s also based in a very similar way that it prizes movement over the karate or the way of thinking of the philosophy of Bushido, that you want to do one strike and kill your enemy, right away. Of course, we do also do that. We practice our strikes, very powerfully. We do damaging strikes, our back kick, spinning hook kick, side kick, flying side kick, all of the butterfly kicks. And they’re extremely dangerous and they’re extremely powerful.
And we do practice power, but it is practice with the intention of being ready for the next strike, and being able [00:05:00] to throw a second or third move, because what if that first strike misses? That person’s not going to be there, right? So you need to have maybe two or three in combination put together, that then you can move forward and actually be able to hit your opponent. Cause if you just throw one strike and then you stop, they may move, and then now you’re exposed, and now you can be hit, and that’s very dangerous.
I love the philosophy of Taekwondo. It does have its weaknesses, as does every single style, which is why Bruce Lee said, styles are limiting. They put you in a box. This is why we study mixed martial arts. We study different styles of martial arts, to cover those weaknesses, to create a well rounded martial artist.
In Taekwondo specifically, your front leg is exposed. If I’m in my fighting stance and I’m sitting here, trying to throw my punches, my front knee can be Muay Thai kick right there, boom. It’s really easy to hit, versus if you look here, my legs are more under me for more of a [00:06:00] boxing Muay Thai fighting stance. So that front leg is a little bit compromised.
And also when you get into close distance in Taekwondo, that also becomes a problem, because at a close distance in a sideways stance, it becomes harder to throw strikes with your back hand, and it becomes easier for them to strike the side of your body. And it’s harder for you to defend in a sideways position. This is why a close range, we train with Thai at a further distance, we use Taekwondo, and learning both of them together is really powerful.
I learned initially at a school called Kim’s Karate when I started training when I was about eight years old. Got my black belt under Mr. Mike. There was a master at the time, I totally forgot his name. My teacher was Mr. Mike. Love him. I haven’t really seen him in a while. Wishing you the best, sir. I’m very grateful for what you have taught me. I ended up stopping [00:07:00] training when I was about 12. Went to play football, went to college.
When I got back from college, I got back into Taekwondo. And I went back to my same school. And it had been bought out. And we used to train like a karate style of Taekwondo, really prizing that one hit, not so much movement. The school got bought out by grandmaster, Richard Kong. Quadra name, Minchul Kang, is a 9th degree black belt in Chung Do Kwan, the 7th degree black belt and cookie one, and a very skilled practitioner of martial arts of Muay Thai and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Studied Gracie style Jiu Jitsu and has his black belt in Jiu Jitsu. That’s pretty much where I learned the level of martial arts that I’m studying and teaching today, was from Grandmaster Richard, and his brother, senior master, Martin Kong, wonderful teachers. And showed me the importance of discipline in my training [00:08:00] and the values of it. And this kind of transitions into the values of Taekwondo.
We have five tenets in Taekwondo. They are courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self-control, and indomitable spirit. I make my students say those five tenets every single day in class, because they’re really important.
Let’s go at each one. Courtesy, it is important to be courteous to other people, and showing kindness, and showing that it is not all about you, letting people go in front of you, holding the door for somebody, doing things for others and showing kindness and love. We spread that feeling and we are able to connect with these people and show them that we’re all here together, we’re all connected, and we can choose kindness, and that is important. Because the entire reason of practicing martial arts is to establish peace within yourself.
Integrity. I can’t overstate how important integrity is. To have integrity in your training within yourself and the things you say and [00:09:00] do establishes a routine of doing things that way. If you don’t have integrity in your training and you don’t have the discipline to integrity establishes discipline, very well connected.
You don’t have the discipline to train, you’re going to lose your technique. If you don’t have the discipline and integrity to train correctly, you’re not going to progress. You need to be able to do push ups correctly, throw your punches correctly, because it’s not training makes things perfect, it is practice makes permanent. What you practice is what you do. So having integrity in your training is going to build your muscle memory, your mind in the way of actually holding that integrity. And that is critical in learning martial arts.
Perseverance. Things are hard. Life is hard. Training is hard. And when it gets tough, when it gets painful, when it gets hard, when you feel like your legs are jello, when you can’t breathe because you have exerted yourself, you need to persevere through the hardship, and push yourself [00:10:00] so that you can grow. If you don’t push yourself, if you don’t know how far you can go, you’re always going to stay at that same level. So persevering through the hardship of life in itself makes you stronger. It builds the neural pathways in your brain to allow you to then do it again, rather than, having it weak minded, where if you quit, you get used to quitting. And then when things get hard, you get used to stopping. But if you develop perseverance, when life comes at you, you know that if you just keep going, if you have the passion and the drive and the discipline that you can make it through to see the other side is really important.
Self-control. Self-control is oftentimes, in my opinion, one of the hardest things to practice. Because the only thing we can control is ourselves. And our ego tells us that we need to control other people. And it is so wrong. We can only control ourselves, we can [00:11:00] control how we see the things that happen to us.
I cannot control someone who wants to punch me, someone who wants to yell at me, somebody who dislikes me, I can’t change that. That is on them. That is their perspective. That is their journey. Somebody is mad and they’re yelling at me, I can choose not to take that madness in here. I can choose to see that person as they’re dealing with something. And I will retain my calmness and my peace. And that is invaluable. That is beautiful because it shows compassion and it helps de-escalate situations. It allows you to treat people with love. And it helps you deal with trauma. It helps you deal with difficult situations.
And self-control is extremely important, the more skilled you get at martial arts because you can hurt people knowing this stuff. You can severely hurt people knowing martial arts. And I don’t teach martial arts [00:12:00] without teaching self control. It is how you choose to look at a situation, and your attitude towards the situation. And through our practice, through meditation, through our breathwork, we can not only rewire our brains, not only connect with a sense of calmness that always exists inside of us, and that love, we can do breath work, release emotions, breathing, pushing all of that air out, breathing when things are hard and allowing that energy to elevate and come up the spine into the brain and getting out of the emotion. Self control requires not only the knowledge, but the wisdom to apply it. And that is even harder to do.
And then we come to indomitable spirit, because life is hard and things will happen, life will happen to you. And you can choose to be beat up by it, or you can choose to stand up and follow your passion with everything you have, knowing that if you [00:13:00] persevere through the hardship with integrity, with self-control, and you’re courteous to others to come many all that, your spirit is indomitable. No matter what others say, what others do, amidst the crashes, what our guru Paramahansa Yogananda says, amidst the crash of breaking worlds, we can remain unshaken with calmness in our hearts. And in the midst of chaos, in the midst of a battlefield, to hold comes within yourself is beautiful.
It is untouchable because only you can touch that feeling, once you connect with it. Only you have the power to diminish yourself and your self-worth based on how you look at yourself. So the indomitable spirit becomes what takes us through everything that happens to us, where we victimize ourselves through the toughness of life. And it happens. And that’s okay.
But connect with that calmness inside, [00:14:00] connect with that integrity, that perseverance, and that self control, and understanding how to work through things, and you can get through anything. You can follow your passion and do what needs to be done.
Taking a quick side note here, I’m sitting on a gazebo deck, we’re about to be building here. It’s a 35 foot circle that we’re going to be training in here in Temple Hills, Maryland. And this is where we’re going to be training Taekwondo. This is where we’re going to be training outside in this beautiful, wonderful, natural, quiet, peaceful area. And I just wanted to show you guys because we’ve been traveling and then moving. We were at a limbo state and this is the next evolution of our chapter here of our journey. And I’m going to be really taking our school and our teachings to the next level, as I, myself, and going through my journey and evolving, as we all are. As part of the martial arts is that you are constantly learning, you’re constantly bettering yourself.
Let’s get back to Taekwondo. Old [00:15:00] school taekwondo is about power, speed, combinations, fast double, hitting things with power in creating endurance in the body. We hit hard things to create micro fractures in our fists, in our shins, in the ball, or in the inlet of your foot. We train flexibility and mobility to allow us to kick high and move with control. We perform poomse, which are forms or in Japanese, we call in karate, they call them katas. As far as I have understood them is a way that martial artists will share a select group of techniques that allows us to show each other and share the art with each other and learn. I can do one of my forms, and through that, another martial artist who understands can see these different techniques, the way I move [00:16:00] my feet, the way I punch and strike a kick, the way I breathe. And they can learn something and apply and take what they need. And then, apply it on their training.
And forms are very important. They’re very hard to learn at first. But once you understand the way forms are done, it becomes like a language that we can transfer knowledge to each other and techniques and skills. And I love forms. And at each belt, there is a form.
Now getting into belts. So the Taekwondo belt system was adopted from karate. The traditional belt system is white, yellow, orange, green, blue, purple, red, brown, recommended, which is red and black, and then black belt. Each one of those colors has a significance. I think some schools traditionally may not have had orange, may not have had another color.
I’ve seen schools where they switch some of those colors around, and there’s a [00:17:00] bunch of schools that add a black stripe or a white stripe at each level. I follow the traditional belt system because it makes sense to me. And it feels right and it feels like we’re not putting extra belts for people to just test. I think that’s really important.
And each belt represents something, and in your journey that you’re going through. For example, white represents innocence, represents nothing. You are a newbie. It doesn’t matter if you’re 40, 60 years old, or you’re a 10 year old, or a five year old or a four year old who has just started training martial arts. You’re innocent. You don’t know about this. And it’s represented in your belt color.
Yellow belt represents the sunlight. Hitting the ground, nurturing the plants. Sunlight gives you energy. It allows you to grow.
Orange is like a deeper, hotter, more nurturing light. It’s now become so hot that you’re about to burst out [00:18:00] of the seams of your seed and you’re sprouting.
Green is the flowering. You are now growing like these trees and reaching upwards, taking that sunlight and you’re actually growing. You’re manifesting the techniques and you’re understanding what these things are. And usually at greenbelt, people really get addicted to it because they have learned enough that it becomes a little bit more fun rather than just like repetitive basics that happened at the earlier belts.
Blue belt represents reaching out for the sky. Reaching beyond the sky is purple belt, where you never thought you could reach that high, and now, you are capable. You know that as long as that you aim there, you can get there. But you have to aim there. You have to know that you can go there. Once you have reached that green belt, you are like, Oh, I can go there. There’s more. Let’s go. Why not?
Red belt represents danger. Because you have known enough to be very [00:19:00] dangerous. The red belt techniques are dangerous. They cause a lot of devastational damage, specifically jump spinning hook kick and flying sidekick. Those are extremely dangerous techniques. Jump spinning hook kick, I’ll throw a spinning hook kick. But I won’t throw a jump spinning hook kick because I’ve trained mine to be very fast and I feel, if I hit people with it, it lacks the control of slowing down. So I’ll throw a spinning hook kick and do it slow. I can stop it. But a jump spinning hook kick, just the way it comes out is raw power and it’s dangerous.
Brown belt represents maturing and rooting the earth. You’re sending out those roots. And you’re maturing into a deeper, richer tree of wisdom.
And then, recommended is preparing for black belt. You have matured enough and rooted enough that you are now getting ready to be considered a black belt. And a black belt represents maturity. You are now a trained student who is ready to refine and break the limits you never [00:20:00] knew possible. A lot of people think, Oh, I got a black belt, I’m doing training. No, there’s much more. There’s so much more.
It usually takes about 4-5 years to get a black belt. Some schools will do it in two. I disagree in doing it in two. I highly disagree. You lose a lot. You don’t refine as much. You certainly don’t learn all the five tenets. I usually take four, minimum five, six years, depending on the student.
Black belt, each Dan minimum two to three years, and that’s because the refinement. It is important and it takes a while to establish the reflex, the muscle memory, the awareness of your body to the fine tuning. It’s like going in there and just moving little tiny things that make the world of a difference in your speed and your accuracy, and your control, and your balance, and your flexibility, and your power. And all those things culminate into a deadly weapon. And each Dan represents that [00:21:00] phase.
Once you get to the 4th Dan, fourth degree, you are considered a master. Once you get to 6th Dan, you are considered a senior master. Once you get to 7th, you’re considered a grand master. It goes up to 9th. And there is a 10th Dan that is awarded to Honorary peaceful advocates as an Honorary Black Belt and two past grandmasters who have left this plane of existence, and they are awarded the 10th Dan.
So once you get to 9th, and you have made a grandiose change in the world, you get your 10th Dan after you have passed. It is an honor. I myself, I’m a fourth degree black belt, given to me by my grandmaster. And it’s considered to be the last skill level of belts, because after 4th, once you get to 5th and 6th, you are still learning stuff. There’s more forms. There’s further refinement. There’s never ends.
You’re then [00:22:00] giving back to the community. You’re teaching others. You’re establishing peace. You’re helping others grow. You’re showing kindness. You’re radiating that, which you have embodied. And that is what those Dans mean, because the goal of our martial arts is to establish peace. And this ties us right back into kind of that whole start of where our art came from, which is Sanatan Dharma. If you look at the green flag, there’s Yin Yang with symbols around it. There’s four that have been removed. And each one of our forms represents one of those parts of the journey. They’re essentially disseminating the Yin Yang into three parts. And all three parts create the eight different symbols around.
You’ll also see the Tom Taegeuk, which is our logo for Fera Academy, if you go to our website, you can see exactly what I’m talking about. That is the very center of the Dharma wheel for Sanatan Dharma. And our martial arts was originally spread the history of Kung Fu, I think we talked about in the [00:23:00] previous episode. Bodhidharma went to left India and brought the Buddhist traditions of meditation, breathwork, training the body, going in the inward journey, but also disciplining the body for martial arts, to become a deadly weapon. And that does just the culture in India of a specific class. There’s below Brahman, where the spiritual, and then there was warrior class. So if you were like a Prince of a King, you are trained in knowledge, book smarts, you’re trained in your body, you’re training weapons, you were trained in martial arts, you’re also trained in spiritual matters.
And Bodhidharma was a prince. He was the oldest one, and there was a lot of feuding in the house because his brothers wanted to essentially usurp him and take over. And he was like, I’m not about that life. So he left. He was like, I renunciate my claim to the throne, I’m now going to go to [00:24:00] China. And he had a whole long journey before he even got to China. When he got to China, the emperor was like, please teach me your ways. And he was like, no, you’re not good enough. He went to a cave and there was a war general who definitely heard of him.
It was like a very big thing of this very spiritual martial arts Prince from India who came as a monk. And it was like, please teach me your ways, teach me to fight, teach me what you do. And he was like, no. It wasn’t until the general showed his commitment by repeatedly coming and asking. Eventually, he chopped his own arm off.
And Bodhidharma was like, I have to teach you now. I can see you are determined. This is what you really want. And that was the start of Shaolin Kung Fu. And that origin spread to karate, to Taekwondo. You can see Sanatan Dharma in Muay Thai. Even some of the moves involve Hanuman. It is all over that Eastern area of Asia. And it [00:25:00] is the root of our martial arts, which is why we train the way we do here at Fera Academy. Why we put the importance on meditation so we can control our minds, so we can establish that sense of calmness, and peace, and bliss, and joy that is life. And through honing our bodies, we can unlock our potential. That’s pretty much Taekwondo, the way I see it.
And just like Bruce Lee says, “My style is no style, because I don’t want to be limited.” And learning Taekwondo, you refine the body, you refine yourself, until you master it. And then you can let go of style. You can let go of thoughts. You can let go of emotion. And you can be water, you can crash, you can break, you can flow, you can fill a container, you can wrap things, and you can be what needs to be in every situation that is necessary. You can learn to fight without fighting. And that is why the way of Sanatan Dharma is extremely important.
Why not just learning [00:26:00] Taekwondo for its punches, it’s kicks, it’s self-defense aspect. You’re not gonna get it all, you’re gonna be limited. You’re gonna be limited by yourself. That’s the only thing you’re ever limited by, is this. And once this becomes unlocked, and those of you listening and pointing to my head here, once your brain, once your ego gets out of the way, once you learn to surrender to your higher self, your spirit, your divinity, our seat of consciousness, we unlock our potential.
I hope y’all learned something. If you have any questions, leave a comment, subscribe, like, share our podcasts with other people who you feel may enjoy this content. We have a lot of beautiful things happening here. We have a lot of beautiful things to talk about, and I’m very excited to share them with you. So make sure, you subscribe.
And the shirt I’m wearing is the kind of origin of my training. So this is my grandmaster school, Kong’s MMA. And then, this was my school here that [00:27:00] used to run Clinton, Maryland, US Tiger Martial Arts. And this was our wonderful friend, Miss Adrian, US Martial Arts. This school is no longer there. This school is no longer there. This school is still in Silver Spring, Maryland.
And of course, you all know my school here now, Ferrer Academy. And again, if you’re ever want to train, find a good school around you. There’s many of them. Find one that teaches you all the things that you need to learn. And if you can’t find one, find one that at least teaches you the self-defense and the values of Taekwondo. It’s really important.
Good luck on your journey. May you be with love. Thank you for watching or listening.
