Lisa Fearon interviews Master Whang. Masters Sung Chul and Jun Chul Whang are the founders and owners of West Side Taekwondo as well as the authors of "Taekwondo: The State of the Art"
September 3, 2003
- What motivated you to start a Taekwondo club at Dartmouth? What was your/other co-leaders’ background in Taekwondo at the time?
By the time my brother and I arrived at Dartmouth, we had trained in Taekwondo for a number of years in the Philippines, Argentina, and in Michigan. Since there was no TKD club when we arrived at Dartmouth, we figured the next best thing would be to take up the only martial arts class offered at the time.
There was a longstanding Shotokan Karate club at Dartmouth, headed by Master Kazumi Tabata from Boston. He would travel up once a week to teach a class, or one of his senior students would come up and do so. Master Tabata had established a collegiate competition league (whose acronym was NECKC, the NorthEastern Collegiate Karate Conference) in the preceding decade (I assume), in which various colleges from the Northeast competed in Kata (forms) and Kumite (sparring), both done in a team format, 5 man teams each. In fact, this format was the one that we used when we established the rules for what would eventually become the INCTL. There was a level of excitement and competitiveness to the team competition format that was different from individual competition, and for the first two years at Dartmouth, we participated in these competitions in the New England area. These were point sparring tournaments. No kicks allowed to the head, points for punches to the body or pulled punches to the head.
Our sophomore year, Javier Arizmendi, a former member of the Mexican National Team, enrolled as a freshman at Dartmouth. He and his brother were, even at that time, stars of the Mexican TKD community, both of them having competed and medalled at international competition for Mexico. Fortunately for the future of Taekwondo at Dartmouth, Javier was a world class TKD athlete as well as instructor. Javier and we became friends quite early on, and Javier began to take Karate classes as well, again because there was no TKD club. This was when we began to think of the idea of establishing a Taekwondo, rather than a Karate club at Dartmouth.
Javier started to teach classes on some of the days when Master Tabata was not there, and the flavor of the “Karate Club” slowly changed towards Taekwondo. My brother and I were perfectly comfortable with this shift, both since we were Korean, and because we had previous TKD training.
In terms of the intercollegiate competitions, we had early on sought out other martial arts clubs in the Ivy Leagues to compete against. For example, in early 1983, my brother and I made contact with what was then called the Karate club at Yale, and the Tangsoodo club at Princeton, and asked them if they would like to participate in an individual school competition, using a team competition format. We took a trip to Yale on Friday night, and then Princeton on Saturday, and competed, agreeing to rules as we went along. This was, in effect, the beginning of the INCTL, and Yale to this day (even though they may not remember!) considers that first trip that the Dartmouth Team took to Yale to have been the first of what is now billed as the “nth Annual” Yale Taekwondo Invitational.
I mention these early trips because one of the things that we introduced to the then fledgling league was WTF style competition, starting around 1984. Before then, our competitions would be point sparring competition. This was also part of the trend that we initiated as a club to move away from Karate to TKD. It was basically something that occurred on many difference fronts.
The final shift came at the end of our Junior year, when we hired Master Jong Soo Lee from nearby Concord, New Hampshire to come and take over Master Tabata’s position . I believe it was some time in 1984. In retrospect, we could have simply left the Karate club as it was, and just started a new club, but between a collective few of us, we were in essence the Karate club, and we all collectively wanted to change to a Taekwondo club.
- Did other martial arts groups exist at Dartmouth at the time? What was the club sport scene like then?
There were no other martial arts clubs at Dartmouth when we were there, from 1981 - 1986 (unless you would consider Tai Chi a martial arts class - I think it was taught more like a yoga class back then). I believe soon after we graduated some other club might have started, but when we were there, we were in effect the only martial arts club. We had others who had previous experience in martial arts join us from time to time and there was really never a problem with others coming in and training with us.
We were also a Phys. Ed. program, which helped to bring in participants who wanted to get their credits. As for other club sports, I don’t think we’re qualified to talk about, or perhaps remember, what things were like back then.
- What sort of philosophy was your club founded upon? Since you did participate tournaments, did the club have more of a competitive sports team nature, or were there people involved who did not compete?
Freshman year, I remember very vividly when my brother and I would work out --- we’d take classes with Master Tabata during those days when he taught, but then we would just work out by ourselves, meaning just my brother and myself, for an hour afterwards when we took class, or just by ourselves when there was no class. I think that was a very formative period in our training, as well, because we were pretty competitive against each other, being twins and all, and we pushed each other. But essentially, I remember just loving working out and training and learning, and trying to get better. I think that’s a philosophy that drove the club in its early days.
When Javier started teaching classes, I think the one thing he instilled in everyone around him was an intensity and passion for training, the idea of really putting 100% into every kick, almost to the point of being like crazed individuals, that kind of intensity.
- Who was your advisor/ instructor? Do you know when Master Lee from Manchester began instructing?
We consider the late Grand Master Pong Ki Kim, from whom we received our first degree black belts to be our Kwanjangnim. We trained at his dojang in Woodside, Queens, from the early 1980’s and sporadically until the late 1980’s, when we were away from Dartmouth on breaks, etc. Javier was no less of a teacher to us and to the other members of the Taekwondo Club/Team, but his instruction was on a less formal basis because we were all friends and of the same age. But Javier was the senior ranking member, and with his international competition experience brought a wealth of training and fighting techniques and spirit to all of us who were training together.
As a club sport, around 1984 David Dawley, Dartmouth Class of 1963, became our advisor. David then was Director of Alumni Affairs, and he not only advised us, but also trained with us. He was advisor/friend/mentor, and remains a good friend to this day.
- Do you feel as though your attitude/ philosophy regarding TKD has changed since your time at Dartmouth?
Yes and no. No, in the sense that I think that everything about our training and about our teaching was shaped from that very early time in our training, in terms of demanding the most of yourself in training, and demanding the most of people around you.
Yes, in the sense that we couldn’t help but grow in the course of 20 years of training since we were at Dartmouth. Taekwondo training itself has changed so much, as a business, in terms of training methods, in terms of techniques, even in terms of teaching philosophy. I also think that as we have grown more experienced, we have also become more open not only to different teaching methods and different ways of doing different things, but also in terms of different martial arts. I consider myself to have developed a true appreciation for other styles that I may not have had when I was younger. Perhaps it’s just a difference between a brash young person and a more weathered and seasoned veteran. For example, I consider my training when we were taking Karate from Master Tabata to have stayed with me to this day, in terms of even very basic things like punching when sparring, something that I think more Taekwondoists can learn from, and something that we have passed on to many of our own generations of students.
- What sort of facilities were available to you when you led the club at Dartmouth? What sort of equipment was at your disposal? Were you able to get funding from the college?
For the first two years when we trained, I am pretty sure that the only facility we had available was the space known as the “trophy room” in the old gym, where they used to sell tickets for football, basketball, etc. Linoleum floor, bad lighting. But we were happy. (The Sailing Team wasn’t though - we often held classes while they held meetings, and they would sometimes be very upset with our loud classes.) We did eventually get to use the fencing room in the old gym, by which time I think we were working out 3-4 times a week. But it was a nice change to actually have a workout area.
In terms of equipment, Dartmouth funded some of our purchases, others came from voluntary dues. Dartmouth did provide funding by the time Master Lee stared teaching, especially in terms of paying Master Lee for his teaching visits to Dartmouth.
- The club currently operates on a fairly democratic basis – we have member elected officers with various assigned duties. How did the club operate under your leadership?
During our time at Dartmouth, the club was at most a core group of 15-20 people. I think that it was pretty much the two of us, Javier Arizmendi, Alfredo Torruella, Rob Popper, and some others who ran everything. The two of us probably did most of the administrative work, and Javier did a lot of the teaching. It really was a group of good friends working out together, very little hierarchy, other than Javier being the most senior rank, and the one with the most competitive and teaching experience.
- How large was the club in terms of membership? Did you have a difficult time retaining new members? Was there anything you could do to maintain interest or excitement among students?
Club membership never was much bigger than 20 or so hardcore people. I believe the Phys. Ed. classes might have been a little bigger, but not much. There was not much that we did to recruit new members. We did perform several demos each year, at Collis, at some of the fraternities at their invitation, etc. I think that the competitions that we went to, for those who competed, made training interesting and exciting.
- Did you practice WTF style? What was sparring like? What sort of poomsae did you teach?
As I explained in response to the first question, we switched over to WTF style sparring in around 1984. Sparring back then was basically very similar to sparring now, except that back then double/triple kicks were only just getting widespread. What you see now as “fast-kicks” were not really much used. Ax kicks were very popular, but they were always straight legged. Fighting was, in a sense, much more basic. Coaching was pretty much non-existent, or what there was of it consisted of your teammates just yelling at you from the sidelines to “kick”.
At Dartmouth, we instituted a mix of the Taeguk and Palgue forms, since we were training in them with our Kwanjangnim in Queens.
- What was your most memorable experience during your time with Dartmouth Taekwondo – in competition, class, etc.?
Speaking for myself, I think the most memorable aspect of training at Dartmouth was just the tremendous friendships that we developed with a small circle of friends. Other than that, I guess it would have to be the competitions that we went to, most of which were very small by today’s standards, but the intensity and sense of team spirit was as strong back then as it is in today’s INCTL competitions. I have very fond memories of hard contested battles between Dartmouth and other teams.
- Did you have any sort of vision for the future of the TKD club at Dartmouth? What would you like to see happen with the club now?
My wish for the club at Dartmouth now would be that it would have a stable base, one that could ensure a long lasting tradition with continuity. That can only happen when there is someone more or less permanently attached to the club.
- What was the hardest part about starting the TKD club? What sort of difficulties, if any, did you encounter during your time as leader of the club?
I don’t remember there being anything particularly difficult about starting the club, or changing over to Taekwondo, but again, maybe that’s because we always felt like it was so much fun and we just loved working out and training, more than anything else. I guess when we were going through it, it probably was dealing with minor administration issues that was most “difficult”, but I can’t even say that it was “difficult”. And things just grew out as time progressed, we had no grand vision for the club, we just trained, and wished that other schools would get clubs, and get better clubs, so that we could compete against them.