I have a good friend who is looking for a martial arts school in Ithaca, New York, preferably Hapkido or related art but will consider anything good. Any suggestions?
http://www.cwtkdhq.cmasdirect.com/site/view/28301_Home.pml;jsessionid=lmciolern9fb I have never been to this school, but I have talked with the Master over the phone and he was extremely nice and very intelligent. He does traditional TKD, Olympic Sparring, Self-defense, and incorporates wrestling into his programs. He is a Korean 6th DAN (WTF). He is also the Cornell University coach (your friend may be able to train with the university team, I was going to). I looked all over that section of NY when I was thinking of moving there and this was the best school I could find.
I saw his students at a demo some years ago and they looked quite well versed.I don't know him myself,but oldtimer TKD instructors I know certainly gave him a big thumbs up. The Cornell University Judo Club was the first Judo club at an American university,and I know some years ago they turned out very good students,and more than one high school and college wrestler trained with them. There are two or three Aikido clubs,at least one of which is at Cornell. Cornell has a boxing club and a Muay Thai club,both coached by the N.E. representative of Chai Sirisute's MT. Ithaca has a boxing club downtown that has turned out more than a couple of Golden Gloves champs. Washin-ryu Karate is( still,I think) taught in the evenings at the high school. A former Washin-ryu practitioner teaches Harmony With Nature Karate (which is what Washin is translated to ) There are at least three more TKD clubs.including Ithaca's (not Cornell's) oldest martial art club,The Quiet Society. Cornell has a ****o-ryu Karate club. Cornell has a JKA Shotokan club,and while I haven't seen them in some years,they were VERY good. A Seido Karate (Nakamura's descent from Mas Oyama's Kyushinkai) school ,and I believe they also have the Ithaca College Karate team. Hwar Do,seems to be basically TKD with what appears to be Okinawan weaponry,is advertised as a combination system w/gung fu,karate,boxing,etc in it. Alliance Martial Arts (check out their website) teaches some Chinese systems,Modern Arnis, and medieval,antique American,and modern combat ,including lots of grappling and knife work.Is not taught in town,instructor had a training hall built where he lives,not sure how far away,but he works at Cornell so the drive must not be too long.But I guess that's in the eye of the beholder. There may be a Jun Fan class at C.U.,taught by the MT instructor.I'm not sure if he still teaches Kali or not. Tang Soo Do school downtown. There has been Hapkido in town.but I don't know if there is now. I saw a small ad for a small group of Bujinkan practitioners about a month ago. There is an instructor in Cayuga Heights (sort of the suburb of the Gilded Age) who teaches some Gung Fu. There are T'ai Chi instructors,but the only one who teaches it as a martial science isn't teaching these days. Shorinji-Kempo used to meet at CU,but I am unsure if they or the Uechi-ryu still meet. From time to time there are various kickboxing instructors in the fitness centers. I'm out of the loop for the most part these days,but this is everything I could think of,hope it helps.
Wow!!! Thank you so much, I'll pass along the info and see what he thinks looks good! Thank you again
This may be a somewhat late, but there is a very good Capoeira group near Cornell and several koryu groups in the area.
Hung,eh? I'll have to get in touch with him and pay respects. dc-where you at? FLSMR- same question.(And does the FL stand for Finger Lakes?) Feel free to pm me w/answers if you'd rather not say in public.
El Medico - I can't seem to get my private messaging function to work. Send an e-mail to fingerlakeskoryu@gmail.com and I'll send you a reply.
I know this is an ancient thread, but since you posted to it pretty recently, I guess it's fair game. Is Doc Phinney no longer active, or no longer in Ithaca? I ran into him a few times when I was at Cornell, though I'm pretty sure he taught only privately at the time. He's one of the relatively few people I've seen who could readily apply Taiji with an opponent. I seem to remember there being one or two other Taiji teachers who taught the martial aspect of the art, along with one who was open about focusing only on the qigong aspect, and one (who I won't name ) that taught the martial aspect, but clearly didn't have a clue about it. That was in the late '90's, though (I was there from '96 to '00)
Actually one of my students is going to Cornell next semester, so I'd love any more suggestions you have. Thanks!
If Pete Kautz is still around there, he's probably teaching some medieval European martial arts. His background is in traditional Chinese arts, but his interests have moved around over the years. Last I heard, he taught some pretty small groups semi-privately. His skills are quite solid, and he's been around enough to know what's worthwhile (i.e. he may be eclectic, but he hasn't wandered aimlessly from art to art). He's an employee of Cornell, or was when I was there, so your student should be able to look him up in the school's email directory. Alternately, you can contact me privately for his email address (I was going to say you could PM me, but it appears that the PM feature is disabled here?? You can email me through either of my two web pages in my sig). I'd say you could say you got his name from me, but I only met him a few times, and interacted with him in email a handful more times, so I don't know that he'd actually remember me some 7 years later.
There's several WKSA schools in New York. Two about an hour and a half from Ithaca, IIRC - it's been a while since I Mapquested them.
Hey, Erik! Nice site you have. I occasionally take a peek at what you and Eddie have been up to over the years. Now get your Spanish/English dictionary out and translate " El Medico ". I haven't been in touch with him for a while, but last I knew Pete was still teaching classes and seminars.(Remember when he and I came to the Silat seminar you guys hosted at Cornell?)I heartily recommend Pete if it's applicabilty, including w/weaponry, one is interested in, rather than just sport or exercise. FLSMR-ok, we've met various times over the years.Also, were you teaching Aikido at Rex's school right before Silat class a couple years ago? I can't seem to find Dewey in the Cornell listings. I'll have to keep trying.A younger friend of mine used to train w/one of Kong's students, and might be interested in training w/Dewey.
Actually, I am not who you are thinking about - just a student of his, though we did train in Aikido at Rex's place up until about a year ago(?).
Thank you. Eddie's been traveling the world since leaving Cornell, it seems. He's finally back in the United States, and only a few hours from me, and I haven't managed to get together with him yet. Now that's funny. If it's the seminar I recall, the Malaysian Students Association brought him in, and somehow we got connected with them and he offered to come to our class for a mini-seminar, and in return, a few of us were asked to be "demo dummies" at the cultural show that MSA flew him in to perform in. The seminar was pretty cool, but the demo was another story. He didn't use much control; he injured my neck in a takedown (nothing serious, it was just stiff for a few weeks), and he broke another guy's tooth in half by hitting him in the face. That was incredibly disappointing. There were only three (or four?) of us that he demonstrated on, and he managed to injure two of us. Did Rex take over Maurice's school? I wasn't aware of any Silat in Ithaca when I was there (in terms of teachers or regular classes. There were a buch with varying amounts of exposure to it, or various amounts of it mixed into what they taught). What system is/was being taught there, and by who?
Wow, two injuries at a demo?! Truthfully, Pete and I felt his Silat was very Karate-ish flavored, and I felt he wasn't especially adept at the stuff he wasdoing to me, which was really pretty simple basic stuff.Guess I was right about his adeptness.Pete and I still had fun,tho'. Rex took over Maurice's school,but it's now closed.The Silat was Serak, taught by Andy Astle, who was also a Kali, Jun Fan, and Wing Chun instructor under Kevin Seaman-(you did MT with KS,right?) FLSMR-thanks, I assumed you were your instructor due to the e-address.
I really didn't have much to go on for comparison. I've always had the impression that some Silat systems looked pretty Karate-ish (that comes across even in some of the still photos in Draeger's "Weapons and Fighting Arts of the Indonesian Archipelago." This guy was the only exposure I've had to a Malaysian Silat system (he taught Silat Gayong). It didn't look much like the West Javanese stuff that's more common here in the West (Tjimande, Tjikalong, Serak, etc), but without any exposure to Malaysian Silat, I wasn't going to dismiss it based on that. I never trained with Kevin Seaman. He was our club's faculty adviser, but my main interaction with him was to get him to sign off on our funding requests, and to have him express his disappointment that we never involved him in the club's activities (fair enough, though we didn't have many activities), and that our club never had much representation at the seminars his school hosted (less fair - his seminars are quite expensive, and often required that we bring specific equipment or purchase it at the seminar. Most of us didn't have the financial means to attend, and many of us also didn't have transportation beyond our feet, our bicycles, and the Cornell and Ithaca buses). Some of our club members trained with him in Muay Thai or Wing Chun, but I didn't. I played with other stuff, but I haven't really earnestly practiced any system outside of Liu Seong Gung Fu since before 1990.
