Dan Strickland
Sep 4, 2018 · 1 min read

I don’t know, I think I disagree about plateaus — martial arts is just what I do, it’s my exercise (besides weight lifting, which I have to do because of a collagen disorder), and worrying about whether I’m better than I was x amount of time ago seems irrelevant. I started when I was a Peace Corps vol in Korea, studying 무덕관 ( Mudukwan) in a little country dojang. It was 1972, and martial arts were not much known in the US — but it looked like, and was, good exercise. And for a time, progression through the levels was kind of fun, although Korean martial artists back then didn’t hold back much when sparring (one of the instructors was 10cm taller and 10kg heavier than I, and so happy to find a sparring partner near his size), and I collected a lot of bruises. There were only four colors, too — white, blue/green (due to a peculiarity of Korean language that doesn’t distinguish those colors clearly), red, then black. After a suitable period of time, I hit black — and was informed at the exam that 초단 (chodan, 超短 I think) — meant beginner level. I was starting all over again. A bit of a shock, that — but I took it to heart, and have been a beginner ever since.

    Dan Strickland

    Written by

    Epidemiologist & teacher, mostly retired. Old Korea hand