Reflections from Russia 1st to 5th May 2015 III European Championships and seminars, Smolensk, Russia

Reflections from Russia 1st to 5th May 2015 III European Championships and seminars, Smolensk, Russia by Stuart Campbell – President, Haedong Kumdo Australian Jinyoung Ssangkum Ryu

This was my first experience with other nations in the United World Haedong Kumdo family, and although I had been to Russia the previous year and felt welcomed by my good friend Sergey I was a little apprehensive about meeting my peers from across Europe. My experiences in years gone by of international competitions were of petty jealousies and heavy rivalry, so I was unsure what to expect. At our first night referees seminar and Masters meeting I gave my opinions, and spoke my thoughts about the completion rules etc. and again was unsure as to how I would be received.

I would like to thank Johannes from Finland for making me feel truly a part of the family from that first night. I gave my opinions on the competition format, humbly and as a new member of the federation. Johannes spoke kindly to me and told me that although I have only come recently into the family, I am not a new comer and my 12 years of experience is relevant and appreciated, and in short, that I should consider myself as being with friends. I knew then that the event would be all that I had hoped for in terms of friendship and camaraderie! I was with family! It came to show over the coming days as I got to know briefly, Chris off from Greece and his team, the rest of the Finnish team, my friend Cem from Turkey and also mi amigo Jair from Colombia, Master Choi from Korea and all the international players and masters!

I had a small amount of time together with Grand Master Kim during my stay in Russia as it was hectic and there were many students all together from all over the world. I was asked to come and practice together some senior Dan level Kumbups (patterns) with Johannes from Finland and Christofouros from Greece. It had been around 3 years since I had done any work at all with these particular sword forms

 

(in fact I had not practiced them since my 5th Dan Grading in 2012), and there are some fundamental differences between what I learnt years ago and the forms practiced by Haedong Kumdo Jinyoung Ssangkum Ryu. With these differences aside, it was such a great experience to again have people to train with at a senior level, where all differences and indeed the concept of “rank” was put aside in the interest of learning and training together!

Whilst I truly enjoyed this experience, it was actually only a short one, as after getting us straightened out in the correct movement of the forms; GM Kim then began to speak about a number of things relevant to these movements and then expanded into more theoretical knowledge. He spoke about the necessity of the “centre”, of moving the body naturally and even softly to create power and correct line of movement.

 

I guess when you look at a golf swing or a tennis swing and the use of the shoulders, elbows etc, and how they line up before, during and after a shot you can gain some small appreciation of what he spoke about.

It is not an accident that the “follow through” in sports of this kind is one of the most crucial things in correct form for best performance. My own experience tells me that when cutting the shoulder should end directed at (or in the case of continued movement at least pass through) the target. In the same way, GM Kim spoke about the concept of the ball of the foot and its connection with energy, and again the parallels for anyone who plays golf will be apparent.

Grand Master Kim spoke a little on this subject and then about the flow of energy and movement, about keeping the energy “controlled”. Controlled is not quite the right word to use, but does allow the concept to be understood. He spoke about keeping the movements and energy ”close” to the body, moving the sword, as an extension of the body, fluidly and close to the body. First you should move the mind or spirit, then the body…..and the sword will follow naturally.

And so, with or without sword, the movement is the same if the intention or spirit is the same.

 

The topic then moved to the central logo on the “MUDO” insignia that I use for my club logo, and the calligraphy of the word “DO” (doe). “what does this word mean?” he asked. And so, we each offered our own interpretation. “It means way, or path”, “correct way”, “spirit of the way”, actually I cannot recall the actual words we used but that is not important. Grand Master Kim explained the way, or the path, DO or To in the following way.

As human beings we are all on a path. It is the path of our lives. The “correct” path is directed by the universe, God, the one power, Love.

And so Grand Master Kim explained it as follows. Can you imagine three lines, running parallel to each other, but actually not parallel just at the same time? To make it simple, the middle line is Do, the correct path, natural path, (destiny?). On the outside are other possibilities. These are our conscious thoughts and decisions. We may follow naturally for some time, but human nature is to make decisions from the heart or from the mind that may be contrary to the natural one. We make mistakes BECAUSE we are human! And so we step off the path, then in some way, the universe will bounce us back again onto the correct one.

Sometimes pain or disease will be the symptom to push us back again or some experience we have will do it, and so we again take to the “correct way”. Throughout our life this happens. But, how long do we have? Can we reach the correct way before the decisions, choices; emotions etc cause us to be finished before we get to the end (is there an end?) of the correct path? With too much anger, with greed, incorrect use of the universal energy, doing bad things then we “die quickly”.

Grand Master asked us “when we say ’Do your best’ what does it mean?” Of course once again we all gave our very serious and very knowledgeable opinions….. “to try with all you have”, “Give it everything”, “to do the best of your ability in any circumstance”, “focus” And, as is his way, he did not correct us but instead told us that we were all correct BUT,

all just around the outside of the true answer, that there was more at the core or center.

 

“At the centre of this (your answers) is DO”, he told us. “When you give children a game to play, and just leave them to it, what do they do? They play. Without thinking about “do your best” or “focus” or any other external prompting or encouraging. They do it naturally, this is the way, this is DO” “Then, when they are finished, they move on to the next game or next activity.”

 

“Actually, this is simple, not quite it….., but it is the core. “ The overall lesson is love. Not as we think about love, but ALL love. Our bodies are just borrowed. The energy we use to eat, breath, walk, to train and to love and play are all borrowed and must be used in this way, naturally. This lesson, for me, was reinforced and even extended in some way a couple of days later…..

 

 

As we stood together enjoying music and a cold beer and with people mixing and talking all around us, Grand Master Kim spoke to me about “letting go”. He spoke of examples of people he meets that show what I would call “too much passion” some would call zeolism. We spoke about the need to let go. For example, I say that i LOVE my Haedong Kumdo, but can that be possible? I love the training, mental and physical. I love to teach it and pass on my experiences; I love the positive benefits that I see in students.

I love the family that I have found through training and I love My Master and the experience of learning from and with him. BUT, these things are all just experiences. I have them and they leave me with a good feeling. When we obsess about something, when we can’t let it go or it becomes a constant focus, then the damages will far outweigh the benefits. And so the lesson I took is this…….

When I finish my training I am grateful for the experience, but I let it go. I take that experience and the benefits as a blessing and then move on to another part of my life. In short, when you go to the toilet you do it naturally, clean yourself and flush the experience away. You feel much better, it was a natural thing and good for you! But you do not spend the rest of your day thinking about better ways to do it or thinking about whether you are better at it than someone else. You do not lay awake at night thinking about technique, nor do you let the thought of it stop you from appreciating other things in your life because you are only focused on going to the toilet…… or at least I hope you do not!

So, in conclusion, I could say that my experience has shown me again that we should enjoy our training, appreciate the benefits of our training, even understand the how and why, we should correct, reflect, appreciate…. “do your best”. Then, simply say thank you, and knowing that we have benefitted from the experience, naturally, move on to the next experience in our day and enjoy it, whatever it may be!

I have thought so much about my experiences in Russia and have so much to say and to share…. Perhaps now that is enough!

Finally, I would like to say thank you to Grand Master Kim, to Sergey Vassilevesky and the Russian Haedong Kumdo Family for their excellent event and efforts to look after all international Guests. Thank you also to my Peers, from Greece and Finland, Turkey, Russia and Korea and all other countries, Thank you for welcoming me to your Family!

And also thank you to two Students from Australia who made excellent travelling companions, who showed respect and friendship and made an excellent effort to represent me, and Australia at this fantastic event!

HAE DONG!