For those in the US and Canada, the 2006 Seminar schedule has been posted: http://www.kuksoolwon.com/Super_Seminar.htm. Provided my schedule works out, I do plan on attending. Seminar is always enjoyable and a good learning experience. The only complaint I have is we always run out of time.
I believe SBN Bill Page did go with KJN Sims, at least it seems to be the case if you look at his personal website. But you might have been looking at the wrong PDF. On the page I linked to it links to 3 PDF's. There's one at the top which is the 2006 schedule, then there are 2 at the bottom which are from 2005. I didn't see SBN Bill on the 2006 schedule but I did see him on the 2005.
Seminar 2006 is now upon us (at least for those in the USA and Canada). My school is tomorrow. Looking forward to whatever surprises Kuk Sa Nim has in store for us. Anyone else planning to attend this year's seminar tour? And for our brothers and sisters on the other side of the pond, how do y'all work seminars?
Yes, please? I think you'll have KJN Harmon there. Ours isn't until July. I've gone every year, though I wasn't always sure I would. Seems like a good track record to keep.
Ours is on Sunday, in north Austin. Hadn't been sure if I'd go to it originally, but after clarification that "colored belts" does include white belts I went ahead and signed up for it. A couple of the JKNs here mentioned that they went to their first seminar as white belts and enjoyed it, so what the heck.
in the seminars over here in the u.k. all belts did sword meditation and sword sparring with wooden swords. the sword sparring was very interesting, and basically combined sword meditation cuts no's 1/3&5 in a set pattern. i would recomend it, and i hope that they do it over there for you all as well.
I went as a white belt, and got staff spinning #'s 1-5. Considering I didn't own a staff for the next six months, I'm not sure just how good that was for me, but I definitely picked them up faster when I did get my weapons.
I think I've done three of those. I don't have the right wooden swords for sparring yet. The wood ones we use for starting the meditations are not designed for sparring, and could break if we put force into it.
Ok. I thought about giving a report but didn't know if some folks would want "spoilers" or not. I'll do what I can. I'm sure KJN Harmon will be there. He always was in the past, and it's always wonderful to see him and learn from him. He's really a great person. It'd also be nice if KJN Alex Suh was there; not only is he an impressive martial artist and a good teacher, but he's just a funny guy. Always makes me laugh. Riff Raff, it's good that you're going, even as a white belt. My first seminar as a yellow belt was a bit intimidating, but I enjoyed it. I always look forward to seminar, and I'm sure you will too after you've been through the one. More later....
My seminar experience As requested, here's how seminar went. I'm actually not going to say too much here because my dinner is ready and I want to get down to eat it. Plus you'll just have to go to seminar to really get all the details. But if you have any particular questions about what went on, just ask. Seminar started with Kuk Sa Nim talking for about 45 minutes. He spoke a bit about why he formed Kuk Sool Won and how it was for self-defense. But what is self-defense and why do we study Kuk Sool Won? So he leads into a talk about, basically, mind/body/spirit. How these things are part of self-defense (e.g. if your body is frail or way out of shape, how can you adequately defend yourself). How concepts like You Won Hwa can apply even in your "home sweet home" for your daily household life. Meditation is key to much of this. It was a nice lecture, with Kuk Sa Nim cracking jokes and seeming to be in a very good mood. It was enjoyable to listen to him. Then we got into the technique work. It was sword sparring. We were given a basic introduction to the sword, proper etiquette, etc.. Then we covered the 12 sword ki breathing positions, and meditations 1, 3, and 5. These meditations were specficially covered because they were what we used in the sword sparring. It wasn't heavy-duty sparring... just putting the motions of 1, 3, and 5 together in a very controlled manner. But it was still cool. And that was about it. Doesn't sound like much in the write up, but there was a lot of learning in there. But one good thing was there wasn't too much in there. I remember last year they were rather ambitious in what to cover and we just didn't have time and had to rush through things. This year's seemed to be a lot better paced... not too much stuff so things were rushed and crammed in, but certainly enough stuff for you to digest until next seminar. I personally got a good deal out of it. I already knew all the sword stuff that was covered (tho never did the actual sparring before), but there were a LOT of details that I got out of it. Being that KJN Barry Harmon was teaching it, you know you were getting some of the best sword instruction, so many many good details and insights were gained. And while that technique detail was good for me to get, I think some of the better stuff gained came out of Kuk Sa Nim's talk. For instance, working to apply You Won Hwa in daily life (i.e. beyond martial arts) will be an interesting bit of philosophy to ponder and practice for quite a while. Anyway, I enjoyed seminar. Glad I attended.
Coolness, thanks for the synopsis! Enough to give us the idea, without spoiling it I'm looking forward to ours.
Had a good time at the seminar in north Austin, today. KJN Barry Harmon was there, and I'm not sure who the other guest instructors were (other than Kuk Sa Nym obviously) since I don't think they were really introduced. After Kuk Sa Nym's talk on KSW history and such, KJN Harmon lead the colored belts through the first few sets of Jool Bong exercises. That was a lot of fun, and I only hit myself in the head with the rubber practice set a few times. ;-) Was doing alright through the 10-step rebound set, and then got horribly confused at the fourth set where I'm pretty sure KJN Harmon and one of our SBNs were trying to show me two entirely different things. I'm convinced though that the thigh rebounds are just a sadistic way to encourage lower stances, and the neck transfer was designed to give problems for people with hair... Finally, we did some of the sword stuff that coc716 mentioned above. A few sword meditations and minor sword sparring. Lots o' fun.
Hence the reason why three years in, I'm still trying to figure out who's who. You can check the WKSA headquarters page to see if you recognize anyone else, but it only shows Masters. And my memory for faces is not so hot.
Honestly the only reason I even knew it was KJN Barry Harmon leading most of it was because he was mentioned specifically as 8th degree when we were bowing in, and that narrows down who it can be considerably. I must admit that some of this seems pretty odd to me, since my only other experience in martial arts (very briefly... a few years back) was with Cha Yon Ryu (another Korean system, which coincidentally is also based out of Houston). In those classes we were actually required to introduce ourselves by name to every single other person there at every class. Whereas with KSW thus far I've met about a hundred "sirs" and fifty "ma'ams". I haven't a clue about the names of most of the instructors at my own school, much less visiting instructors.
LOL! You're right, currently if it's 8th degree, you know you're talking to a KJN Harmon. I would usually pick up on the other instructor's names at my dojang because the lead instructor would ask them, by name, to work with a group. If it's a one-on-one or outside of class, you can always ask for their name. In a bigger group, that can be intimidating. But for official things like testing, tournament, and seminars, this is something the WKSA could improve upon. About all I know about the person who tested me last May is that he's a PSBN. I thought he was from Pasadena, but I'm not sure about that either.
