I attended the memorial for Grand Master Beghtol this past weekend.  As much as memorial services can be nice, this one was.  I barely knew him, but there were a lot of people there that knew him pretty well, and were shaped by training with him.  The whole thing made me reflect on a couple of memorial services for people from NATA that I missed.  While I don’t view my relationship with Grand Master Marshall Johnson the same way that  Grand Master Beghtol’s students of 40 years view their relationship with him, there is no doubt that I am the person, and martial artist, that I am now because of his influence on me.

I talk to my brother almost every day.  Often, the conversations compare training injuries, aches, and pains.  His style is different than mine.  Heck, my style now is different than the style when I started Taekwondo.   Other than giving us something to talk about, what do these differences mean?  Not much.  During the memorial service, people commented that they started Taekwondo because they wanted to be able to defend themselves.  One person said that he figured he would train for two weeks, and be all set.  In fact, these people stuck with it for 20 or 30 years, and are master instructors themselves.

This is what is important about Taekwondo.  Nobody trains for 30 years because they’re afraid of getting hit.  That may be why people start, but it’s not why people stick.  Why do they stick?  Because Taekwondo makes better people.  The training is just a way to get there.

I started my training over 20 years ago.  I took a long layoff, and am now back at it with a vengeance.  Hopefully I’ll have a positive impact along the way to some up and coming students.

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