Date: Sat, 25 Feb 2006 20:06:22 -0800 From: the_dojang-request@martialartsresource.net Subject: The_Dojang digest, Vol 13 #99 - 12 msgs X-Mailer: Mailman v2.0.13.cisto1 MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Errors-To: the_dojang-admin@martialartsresource.net X-BeenThere: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.13.cisto1 Precedence: bulk Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net X-Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net X-Subscribed-Address: kma@martialartsresource.com List-Id: The Internet's premier discussion forum on Korean Martial Arts. 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Copyright 1994-2006: Ray Terry and Martial Arts Resource The Internet's premier discussion forum devoted to Korean Martial Arts. 2,100 members. See the Korean Martial Arts (KMA) FAQ and the online search engine for back issues of The_Dojang at http://MartialArtsResource.com Pil Seung! Today's Topics: 1. The WTF/ITF Merger (Dave Steffen) 2. ITF/NK web site (Dave Steffen) 3. RE: I.T.F., W.T.F. merger (C. Bonner) 4. From Jackson... (SSHapkido@aol.com) 5. bsa youth protection (freddie bishop) 6. Attorney dismisses accounts as fiction (Ray Terry) 7. Re: ITF/NK web site (Ray) 8. Re: The WTF/ITF Merger (Ray) 9. relative sizes of the three ITFs? (Ray) 10. RE: relative sizes of the three ITFs? (michael tomlinson) 11. 20th Anniversary commemoration of Choi Yong-sul (Ray Terry) 12. S.Korean grandmothers get a kick out of taekwondo (Ray Terry) --__--__-- Message: 1 From: Dave Steffen Date: Fri, 24 Feb 2006 22:56:52 -0700 To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Subject: [The_Dojang] The WTF/ITF Merger Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Ray Terry writes: > > ... So the rumors are just that roumors. The ITF and WTF are not murging. > > Which ITF does this person speak for? And Jason Thomas also writes: > Unless of course this info is a rumor? Which ITF organization does > this person represent? What is his title? I'll let Mr. Manuel Maldonado speak for himself. But I'll also bet that it's the "North Korean" ITF. Mr. Chang Ung was working with WTF people to work out some agreement concerning the Olympics (and funnel money to North Korea, but that's another topic). I rather strongly suspect that neither the "Vienna" nor the "Canada" ITF groups have any interest in getting anywhere near Mr. Chang Ung, unless it's to land a side kick. (*) I also rather strongly suspect that the "Canadian" group (of which I am a member) and GM Choi are more interested in reuniting various ITF people than they are with doing anything with the WTF. Besides which... come on, guys. Does anyone really take these rumors seriously? The logistics of leveling the ranking system (**) alone are probably impossible. A merger isn't impossible, I suppose, but it's improbable to the point that Douglas Adams would have to step in to make it even remotely likely. (***) :-) (*) Yes, that's a joke. (**) Consider that the ITF, counting splinters and groups who have left, have a total of 5 9th Dans on the planet. The WTF had, not all that long ago, 4 9th Dans in Colorado... that I was aware of. (***) "The chances against it are two to the power of my overdraft!" -Zaphod Beeblebrox. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Dave Steffen, Ph.D. Wave after wave will flow with the tide Member, ITF Scientific And bury the world as it does Committee Tide after tide will flow and recede tkd-physics@comcast.net Leaving life to go on as it was... - Peart / RUSH "The reason that our people suffer in this way.... is that our ancestors failed to rule wisely". -General Choi, Hong Hi --__--__-- Message: 2 From: Dave Steffen Date: Fri, 24 Feb 2006 23:12:37 -0700 To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Subject: [The_Dojang] ITF/NK web site Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net > Subject: [The_Dojang] The WTF/ITF Merger [...] In the process of typing up the WTF/ITF (IMHO non-)merger comments I just posted, I checked out the various ITF web sites for the first time in a while. I am vastly amused to find on the Vienna ITF web site comments to the effect that a German court ruled in their favor, while at the top of the North Korean ITF web site there's a news story link to "Court result against Tran Quan on Jan.16th 2006 in Vienna". :-) Ahh.... politics.... Unfortunately I can't get that link to do anything -- I suspect an IE-specific thing, which occasionally makes things with Linux annoying. Can anyone tell me what it links to? Thanks very much. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Dave Steffen, Ph.D. Wave after wave will flow with the tide member, ITF Scientific And bury the world as it does Committee Tide after tide will flow and recede tkd-physics@comcast.net Leaving life to go on as it was... - Peart / RUSH "The reason that our people suffer in this way.... is that our ancestors failed to rule wisely". -General Choi, Hong Hi --__--__-- Message: 3 From: "C. Bonner" To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Date: Sat, 25 Feb 2006 01:45:46 -0600 Subject: [The_Dojang] RE: I.T.F., W.T.F. merger Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Here is a quote from the March issue of Tae Kwon-Do times, by Jun Lee. " Reconciliation with the I.T.F. is not on the priority list of the W.T.F. There have been executive committee meetings between the I.T.F.and the W.T.F., but those meetings were unproductive as the W.T.F. was unprepared for any conciliatory efforts." He is talking about the North Korean I.T.F. led by Chang Ung. Clint --__--__-- Message: 4 From: SSHapkido@aol.com Date: Sat, 25 Feb 2006 09:15:53 EST To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Subject: [The_Dojang] From Jackson... Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net We are indeed hurting each other very much and wish you were here to enjoy it with us. Borrowing the chief's motto....'Tis better to give than to receive.' --__--__-- Message: 5 Date: Sat, 25 Feb 2006 06:25:33 -0800 (PST) From: freddie bishop To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Subject: [The_Dojang] bsa youth protection Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net I think the Boy Scouts of America's Youth Protection Program is a good course for everyone. I rarely see it adhered to among the adult leaders though. Fred __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com --__--__-- Message: 6 Date: Sat, 25 Feb 2006 06:47:03 -0800 From: "Ray Terry" To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Subject: [The_Dojang] Attorney dismisses accounts as fiction Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Attorney dismisses accounts as fiction Martial arts enthusiast tears into book's dramatic claims By Charlie Brennan, Rocky Mountain News February 25, 2006 Two of David Bannon's closest associates during his professed career as an Interpol assassin were killed in the line of duty. If, that is, they ever existed at all. Norwich, Conn., attorney and martial arts enthusiast Samuel Browning has gone to great lengths to take apart Bannon's claim to have arrested or killed hundreds of pornographers and kidnappers, administering cruel justice at knifeblade for nearly two decades. This week, Browning, 38, posted on the Web site Bullshido.net an exhaustive dissection of Bannon's published claims, which he has investigated over the past two years. He dismisses Bannon's story as tortured fiction. "Normally, you don't go around in real-day life saying, 'You have to prove everything you say you are,' " said Browning. "But it's a different deal when someone is making money by making extraordinary claims." In his investigation of Bannon, Browning has looked particularly hard at the author's accounts of the deaths of Sidelle Rimbaud and Jacques Defferre. Rimbaud is introduced in Race Against Evil as a glamorous agent for the French Directorate of Territorial Security who often worked in conjunction with Interpol - and became Bannon's doomed fiancee. Rimbaud, possessed of a "smoldering beauty," dies on page 132 in a shootout with child pornographers in Marseille. She expires in Bannon's arms murmuring, "Je t'aime, je t'aime, je t'aime." ("I love you, I love you, I love you.") Bannon's book provides the date this allegedly occurred. The book also includes a picture purported to be Rimbaud and a tombstone Bannon identifies as hers in a cemetery near Marseille. Defferre, the man credited with recruiting Bannon to Interpol and serving as his mentor and confessor, is described as boasting "thick dark hair, a Bogey haircut, a white blazer reminiscent of Casablanca and a demeanor that was both suave and manly." Bannon's dashing superior survives the book's final pages. But in an online article authored in February 2004 by a journalist named Jason Putman for KungFuMagazine.com after Bannon's book came out, readers learned of Defferre's sudden and violent death May 10, 2003, in Marseille, four months after Race Against Evil hit store shelves. Suspecting that Rimbaud and Defferre were fictitious, Browning contacted Yale University. Through its French department, Browning contracted the services of a 20-year-old student in France, Pierre-Olivier Mathé. Browning's first assignment for Mathé: Visit Rimbaud's grave. The tomb wasn't where Bannon's book said it would be - or anywhere else Mathé searched. Mathé also requested death certificates from Marseille governmental officials for both Rimbaud and Defferre. He received letters back saying no records for those individuals could be found. Additionally, at Browning's request, Mathé scoured the archives of La Provencal, the French newspaper most likely to have reported the violent deaths of Rimbaud and Defferre. A two-page notarized affidavit Mathé completed for Browning said that for an eight-year period, "I was unable to find any reference to a DST agent named Sidelle Rimbaud or any other law enforcement officer being killed on these dates in Marseille." Similarly, the French newspaper archives that Mathé examined contained nothing about Defferre's alleged shooting death in a hotel room. Because Putman has made published claims to have interviewed both Bannon and Defferre, Putman has taken on significance to Browning and others who have probed Bannon's story. "All I have for him is an e-mail, and the e-mail address went dead," said Gene Ching, Kung Fu Tai Chi Magazine's associate publisher, when first asked about Putman. "I've always had suspicions" about Putman's existence, he added. But then Ching recovered from his files a phone number for Putman in Charlotte, N.C. - where Bannon also resides. Multiple calls for Putman were not returned and e-mails went unanswered. "There may well be someone out there who is named Jason Putman, but I would have very, very strong suspicions that there is a professional writer out there with the attributes that he claims," said Browning. "The writing (of Putman) does resemble Bannon's. Can I prove that? No, I can't, but I'm highly suspicious . . . Putman is the only one I know who claims he has met that guy (Defferre)." The credit line for Putman, in his few writings about Bannon, describes him as a freelance writer "operating out of the southeastern United States" and said his book, Secret Armies: The World's Elite Intelligence Forces, was to be released by Random House in 2005. But Random House vice president and associate publisher Tom Perry stated in an e-mail this month that he could find no record of Random House ever publishing or acquiring such a title by Putman - or any other author. Also, a broad Nexis search failed to turn up any bylined stories by Jason Putman. One reason Browning poured his energies into fact-checking Bannon's story was to defend the image of the martial arts and its practitioners. Bannon says he holds a third-degree black belt in Hapkido and a black belt in Kendo. "He is using the martial arts and a fake claim that he is an Interpol officer to create an air of mystery," said Browning. "I can tell you there is nothing more irritating. It's incredibly frustrating, giving our money and our attention to someone who is, frankly, not telling the truth." --__--__-- Message: 7 From: Ray Subject: Re: [The_Dojang] ITF/NK web site To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Date: Sat, 25 Feb 2006 07:02:51 -0800 (PST) Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net > a German court ruled in their favor, while at the top of the North > Korean ITF web site > there's a news > story link to "Court result against Tran Quan on Jan.16th 2006 in > Vienna". :-) Ahh.... politics.... > > Unfortunately I can't get that link to do anything -- I suspect an > IE-specific thing, which occasionally makes things with Linux > annoying. Can anyone tell me what it links to? A pdf file produced from a scan of a letter to Chang Ung. I'll email you the pdf. Ray Terry rterry@idiom.com --__--__-- Message: 8 From: Ray Subject: Re: [The_Dojang] The WTF/ITF Merger To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Date: Sat, 25 Feb 2006 07:18:16 -0800 (PST) Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net > (**) Consider that the ITF, counting splinters and groups who have > left, have a total of 5 9th Dans on the planet. The WTF had, not all > that long ago, 4 9th Dans in Colorado... that I was aware of. Per the Kukkiwon, as of a couple years ago there were 263 Kukki-Taekwondo 9th Dans in the world, with 212 of those in Korea and 51 in the rest of the world. Ray Terry rterry@idiom.com --__--__-- Message: 9 From: Ray To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net (The_Dojang) Date: Sat, 25 Feb 2006 07:25:20 -0800 (PST) Subject: [The_Dojang] relative sizes of the three ITFs? Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Just curious... Does anyone know the approximate sizes of the three ITFs? i.e. did the original group split about evenly or ??? Ray Terry rterry@idiom.com --__--__-- Message: 10 From: "michael tomlinson" To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Subject: RE: [The_Dojang] relative sizes of the three ITFs? Date: Sat, 25 Feb 2006 16:33:46 +0000 Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net I don't know...maybe..small, medium, and large?? Sorry I couldn't let that one go by... Michael Tomlinson >From: Ray >Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net >To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net (The_Dojang) >Subject: [The_Dojang] relative sizes of the three ITFs? >Date: Sat, 25 Feb 2006 07:25:20 -0800 (PST) > >Just curious... Does anyone know the approximate sizes of the three ITFs? >i.e. did the original group split about evenly or ??? > >Ray Terry >rterry@idiom.com >_______________________________________________ >The_Dojang mailing list, 2,100 members >The_Dojang@martialartsresource.net >Copyright 1994-2006: Ray Terry and Martial Arts Resource >Standard disclaimers apply >http://martialartsresource.net/mailman/listinfo/the_dojang --__--__-- Message: 11 Date: Sat, 25 Feb 2006 16:42:13 -0800 From: "Ray Terry" To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Subject: [The_Dojang] 20th Anniversary commemoration of Choi Yong-sul Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net 20th Anniversary commemoration festival of Hapkiyusul's GM Choi Yong-sul. Held by the Hapkiyusul headquarters in Geumsan, South Korea, October 14-21, 2006. Held at Seo Dae Mountain Resort. Hosted by Kim Yun-sang's Yong Sul Kwan Hapkiyusul. Costs: registration fee $170, bus from Inchon airport $30, 2 person room $65 per night, food $15 to $30 per day, no training fee. For more info: Korean Hapkido Hapkiyusul Headquarters http://www.hapkiyusul.com yongsulkwan@yahoo.com. Phones: (82) 18 240 1976 [mobile-English] (82) 41 751 4572 [home-English] (82) 17 405 1353 [festival info-Korean]. --__--__-- Message: 12 Date: Sat, 25 Feb 2006 19:59:48 -0800 From: "Ray Terry" To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net Subject: [The_Dojang] S.Korean grandmothers get a kick out of taekwondo Reply-To: the_dojang@martialartsresource.net S.Korean grandmothers get a kick out of taekwondo 26 Feb 2006 01:35:55 GMT Source: Reuters By Frances Yoon SEOUL, Feb 26 (Reuters) - At 74, there are several things that warm the heart of Ji Bok-hyun, such as seeing her grandchildren smile and pounding her fist through wooden tiles. Ji is one of a group of 23 South Korean grandmothers, all of whom are 70 or older, practising the high-kicking and hard-punching martial art of taekwondo at a gymnasium in Inchon, about an hour west of Seoul. The traditional Korean martial art is widely taught in South Korean schools and most young men in the country learn taekwondo as part of compulsory military service. But for these grandmothers, taekwondo is a way to keep themselves happy and healthy. "Smashing! I really like smashing the slabs. It releases my stress that I get from home," said Ji, who has been practising the martial art for nine years. Ji, who has five grandchildren, is a black-belt holder and leads the class. Almost half of the grandmothers have reached the highest-level ranking of holding black belts. While most taekwondo athletes aspire to smash wooden or ceramic tiles with their feet, hands or head, the grandmothers mostly break plastic tiles with prefabricated fissures. There is no granny-on-granny fighting during practices but several of the septuagenarians said they were ready to fend off an attacker. HOWL LIKE BRUCE LEE While practising her high kicks, 74-year-old Cho Jong-jae howls like kung-fu legend Bruce Lee, and the other grandmothers break into laughter. "I haven't been sick once since I started coming here three years ago. I'm here because it's fun. If it wasn't, I wouldn't want to do it," says Cho, who has a red belt. Yet 77-year-old Kim Hee-bok, who is the oldest of the group, focuses more on slower movements and stretches. Before she began learning the sport, she had trouble simply moving. She had been suffering from diabetes and arthritis for years. "I couldn't even walk up five flights of stairs before. Now, I can go up more than 50-60 stairs," she says. She heard about the lessons from her fellow classmates and asked her son and daughter to walk her to class every day until she was finally able to walk on her own. "Coming here is much better than going to the hospital. Even my doctor says to attend the class every day." Master Yoon Yeo-ho has been teaching senior citizens for 15 years and constantly experiments with ways to make taekwondo more granny-friendly. "I have been teaching taekwondo to senior citizens and they said it has helped with arthritis, diabetes and being overweight," he said. Some doctors said the martial art can help older people stay healthy, as long as they avoid being on the receiving end of a kick to the head. "Taekwondo is a combination of cardiovascular exercises, muscle training and it also helps flexibility. It is good for heart-related diseases, releasing stress and preventing one from feeling old," says Dr. Yoo Tai-woo of Seoul National University's department of family medicine. "But adjustments are required when breaking blocks and kicks," Yoo cautioned for seniors with brittle bones. SWEAT, KICKS AND CONTESTS Although teacher Yoon is happy to see the senior citizens enjoying themselves, he says it is not always easy teaching them the moves. "They would forget what I taught them after one hour later or a day later," Yoon said. Yoon heads the Korea Grandma T.K.D Federation, which focuses on teaching grandmas the sport and hosts taekwondo contests for them. Several of the grandmothers in Yoon's class received awards, which stand on bookshelves in the back of the studio. The sport's official association in South Korea is thrilled about the grandmas' enthusiasm for taekwondo, which became an official sport at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, and hope to get them involved in national competitions. "We support them because they are breaking the stereotype that taekwondo is a difficult sport," said Kim Moon-cheon, a training manager of the Korea Taekwondo Association Competition. Yoon goes through one last routine of the two-hour session. "We're doing well!" a grandmother shouts after they complete a final punch. The class comes toward an end with stretches coordinated to a local tune that was first popular when they were young. "Feel my back. It is wet with sweat," one grandmother said, grabbing her fellow classmate's hand. --__--__-- _______________________________________________ The_Dojang mailing list The_Dojang@martialartsresource.net http://martialartsresource.net/mailman/listinfo/the_dojang http://the-dojang.net Old digest issues @ ftp://ftp.martialartsresource.com/pub/the_dojang Copyright 1994-2006: Ray Terry and http://MartialArtsResource.com Standard disclaimers apply. Remember September 11. End of The_Dojang Digest