Taekgyeon, and an exciting announcement!

My friend and fellow blogger Eleanor writes books, and as such she also reads plenty of them. The other day, she sent me a link to a blog post about a YA series called Prophecy in which the Korean martial art taekgyeon (택견*) is featured. Here's the blog post; it's a great primer on this unique and relatively unknown sport!

My taekgyeon black belt!

For about a year and a half, I studied taekgyeon in Changwon. I went to the dojang (gym) almost every weeknight and learned about roundhouse kicks and trips, poomsae, and a smattering of hapkido skills. I became very close with my gwanjangnim (master), and I think I made him proud when I achieved my first-degree black belt before I left Korea.

(Gwanjangnim mailed it overseas to me, and I received it a few months ago. That, along with my former students' Christmas cards last winter, are among the best packages I have ever received. A photo of the black belt, certificate, and special dobok (uniform) are on the left.)

About a week ago, gwanjangnim emailed me to ask if I could help him translate a few articles he needed to present on for a class. He's working on a PhD, too, in exercise psychology. As bizarre as it may sound, a lot of the instruction in Korean graduate schools is done in English, and many programs expect a certain level of fluency in English from their students, whether or not English factors at all into their future careers. Anyway, I did this favor for gwanjangnim, and then I broke the news that I'm about to tell all of you dear readers:

I received a scholarship that will allow me to spend this summer in Korea. I'm going back!

The scholarship is from Berkeley, and the funding will allow me to participate in a language program of my choice. Of course, my choice is the Language Education Institute at Seoul National University, so that's where I'll be for the duration of June and July. While I'm there, I hope to connect with some linguists at that university and conduct some of my own research on the Korean language.

Also while I'm there, I will make frequent trips to Insadong, Seoul's famous "traditional" neighborhood, where weekly taekgyeon performances and demonstrations are held. I hope to be able to find a good dojang in Seoul and show gwanjangnim what I've learned when I visit Changwon. Obviously, I've lost a lot of my skill in the nine months since I returned to the United States.

But anyway, this is good news! I will of course revive this blog to update everyone on what I'm up to in Seoul this summer. Thanks for reading; you will hear back from me again soon! (In the meantime, you can check out my grad school blog here.)

*Because of differences in romanization styles, 택견 can be written as taekkyon, taekkyeon, taekgyeon, or even t'aekkyŏn. I write it the way I do because that's how it's spelled on my uniform.

P.S. Happy Earth Day! 지구의 날 축하해!

Taekgyeon Black Belt Test

Today, 저는 목표를 달성했습니다. I achieved a goal.

When I came to Korea two years ago, I wanted to learn a martial art. My first semester of teaching was busy, so I couldn't do many extracurricular activities, but by March 2013, I had made up my mind to pursue taekwondo. However, on the day I looked for martial arts gyms in my neighborhood, the only one I could find with adult classes was a taekgyeon gym. That's how I ended up training in taekgyeon every weekday night for over a year.

It's been mostly fun. Sometimes I was really pathetically confused, and at other times I became very frustrated, but I'm glad that I stuck through with it during the rough times. Even after a long day at school, when I arrive home at 8pm, exhausted, and have only an hour before I've got to trudge to the gym, once I arrive I shake off my fatigue and try to give it my all. I've grown to love taekgyeon: the graceful yet powerful movements, the useful techniques for self-defense, the way it has improved my physique. I'm fiercely proud of being a part of a relatively unknown Korean tradition and have eagerly talked about it with anyone. And after fifteen months of training, it all culminated in a short, ten-minute evaluation (심사) this morning for my first-degree black belt (한동).

For the test, I had to demonstrate the 본때뵈기 (bonddaebwegi) routine that we practice literally every single day. It's a choreographed solo routine that incorporates all the kicks, trips, and steps used in taekgyeon sparring, and even though I've done it nearly a thousand times now, I still mess up sometimes. In fact, I kind of messed up this morning because I was demonstrating it at the same time as some very young kids who were also testing for their black belts, and their rhythm was not the same as mine. Also, I was pretty nervous.

After the 본때뵈기, my sparring partner, a guy in his forties, and I demonstrated kicks (마주차기), trips (마주거리), wrestling (대거리), and sparring (맞서기). For each demonstration, I could tell that I wasn't doing as well as I had done during last week's training. Nerves really can get to me, I guess! But it wasn't so terrible that I made a fool of myself. In fact, I actually rather enjoyed it.

And that was that. I finished my test, and then I sat down to watch the kids do their evaluations. These are elementary school-aged children who are already testing for their second-degree black belts! They're years ahead of me in taekgyeon, but still so cute when they do it!

The older kids also did some demonstrations of higher-level routines and also jump rope routines, which my taekgyeon master incorporates into his training. (I suck at jump rope...) Anyway, I took some videos on my phone of the kids' portion of the test, and you can watch it below.

When the evaluation was over (all in all, it took just over one hour), the kids began running around acting like kids, and we snacked on watermelon and rice cakes before having take-out "Chinese" for lunch. I really enjoy spending time with the taekgyeon kids! They're always inexplicably excited to see me, and they're fun to play with. I'm a little concerned at how much they enjoy tackling and tripping each other, but I guess that's the only way a group of kids that trains in martial arts together know how to bond. That, and playing video games on their phones.

I then went home, took a nap, and went to church. The rest of the day felt as normal as any other quiet Sunday. But I feel... I don't know, 마음이 가볍다? A bit lighter? It's not like I've finished taekgyeon. I'm still going to go to training tomorrow (where we'll play soccer... ugh...) and probably continue right up until I leave. From now on, though, since I've reached my goal of obtaining a black belt, I guess my outlook has changed a bit. I've logged a few hundred hours developing a skill that I came to with absolutely zero experience, and now I'm proud to have passed a major milestone.

Another way in which this marks a sort of climactic point in my grant year is that my schedule for the rest of this semester is now free of anything major. I had my research report due last Sunday and just finished a week of endless speech tests for my students; now, my last big hurdle of the semester is out of the way. There's nothing big left between me and August 7th: D-Day. Departure Day. No more big projects. No more deadlines. Just wrapping up and getting ready to go. The emptiness of my calendar is a bit scary.

So I took my black belt test today. Because I want to continue training in martial arts, I hope that this was just the beginning, but when it comes to my time in Korea, I realize that it actually marks the beginning of the end.

tl;dr: I passed!

June's a Circus

Hello, world. Would you look at that, we're halfway through 2014. Whew. Just a few updates for today!

1. My 3rd-year students' writing portion of their final exam includes a post on our class blog. They will get a few extra credit points if their post gets a lot of views, likes, and comments! So please take some time to look at the nine most recent entries (all made in June) and comment on anything that interests you. Thanks in advance! Here's the blog.

2. I submitted my Castleberry project report on Jeju-eo yesterday. At nearly eight thousand words, I'm actually kind of impressed with my work, especially since this is the first paper I've written in two years (since I graduated from college, reeling from Honors exams). It's far from perfect, and in fact, my research isn't even finished yet, but I'm definitely glad to have finally crossed that hurdle. I'll post a more substantial update on my research soon.

3. This week, as I predicted about a month ago, is the week from hell. It began when I listened to thirty three-minute speeches in my classes today. Only 130 left to go in the next four days! But that's not all: my hardworking students took my offer to correct extra drafts of their speeches seriously, and as a result, the door to my office opened countless times today as students came in shyly, holding out papers and hopes for last-minute favors: "Teacher, can you please check this draft until [sic] tomorrow?" Even though I already corrected 160 drafts -- twice -- in the beginning of June, well... I relish a challenge. Bring it.

4. In one week, I will take my blackbelt test for taekgyeon. Another source of stress, I suppose.

Basically, the month of June has been very, very busy so far, and the end is just coming into view. After next week, it'll be downhill coasting all the way to the end. I'm a bit excited and a bit nervous. In addition, it seems as if grad school stuff is picking up, too. The other day, I received an email that included the names of Cal Linguistics' entering class of 2014: my six soon-to-be classmates! Although I resisted the urge to Facebook stalk them all, I did Google myself really quick, just to see what would come up. And, well, you don't have to scroll for very long to find this blog.

I of course welcome friends and strangers alike to read about my life on my little corner of the Internet, but it sure is strange to think that people I am going to work very closely with for the next five years could know a lot more about me than I know about them before we even meet.

And now, apropos nothing, here is a photo I took at my favorite local bakery the other day.

Profound and mysterious bread. The best part is that this isn't even a mistranslation. 오묘하다 means profound and mysterious. I should have bought this to find out what exactly makes it so!

P.S. Happy Father's Day (back in the States) to my one and only Babi! I think he reads this.

택견시합 - Taekgyeon Test

The original plan was for me to take my taekgyeon blackbelt (known as 한동, or handong) test in March in Ulsan. However, because missed so much training over winter break due to travel, my taekgyeon master decided that I wasn't quite ready this month. And since the blackbelt tests are only held every three months, I will now have to wait until June.

This isn't a big deal for me. Had I taken the test in March, I'd have had less than a year of training. I know I'm not ready; I still can't get the hang of the roundhouse kick. A part of me really wanted to impress 관장님 by passing the test despite my relative inexperience, but honestly, I'm okay with having one less thing to stress out over right now.

Instead of the blackbelt test, tonight at training we had what I think is called a 시합 (sihap), which translates to "match", like a boxing match. I've been training with another guy who's in his late forties, so we were conveniently paired up for the match. I figured it was some sort of diagnostic test, because 관장님 set up a table and took notes on our performance in order to critique us at the end.

We did the taekgyeon forms (본때배기) and then sparred a little bit. During wrestling (대거리), I wound up flat on my back twice, which was embarrassing, but 관장님 said that even though I technically lost, my form and technique were still good. They weren't so good for the forms, though. I've done the same routine almost every weekday for ten months, but I still don't have it down perfectly yet. Sigh. I also need to work on flexibility: they want me to be able to do a passable side split by June. Yup, like that's totally going to happen. "Every day, 매일매일," said 관장님.

The 시합 was a short affair. We ended the session about twenty minutes early and then celebrated by going to a bar for chicken and beer. I enjoy spending time with the taekgyeon guys, even though I usually don't follow the conversation well. I could figure out the topic, but they spoke too fast for me to understand everything they said, let alone butt in and add my own thoughts. But every once in a while, 관장님 would turn to me and ask me what would seem like a non sequitur: "Andrew, do you know air-con gas?" (Freon.) "Andrew, do you know trot (트로트, a Korean music genre kind of like retro pop)?" "Andrew, are you a Christian?"

To that last question I answered in the affirmative, to the surprise of my fellow taekgyeon trainee. He assumed that Christians weren't allowed to drink alcohol. I told them that in the Bible, Jesus once turned water into wine for a party, and also that Paul once advised Timothy to drink a little wine for his health. I even showed them the relevant Bible verses on my phone.

On a related note, I also took a 체성분 분석결과 ("Body Composition Analysis") at the dojang few weeks ago. I stood on a machine that calculated my height, weight, heart rate, and other unknown statistics, and then it spit out a page of numbers that declared my body age to be 22 and my body type to be standard, slightly muscular. Somehow, it also calculated my body fat percentage, basal metabolic rate, daily caloric requirement, and how much of my body is made up of water (38.1kg, to be exact).

I'm not quite sure how one machine that didn't even require me to strip down or get my heart rate up figured all of that out, but the important part is that 관장님 was pleased with the results. I'll take it as a sign of progress since I began taekgyeon training one year ago.