First Generation

This past Saturday we held our very first Gumdo (Korean sword) Black belt test at HMD Academy.  Five students successfully tested for Black belt in Gumdo, demonstrating 12 different cuts, special sword handling sequences, 8 forms (like poomsae or kata), and offensive and defensive partner work. 

These students signed up when we started our Gumdo program in March 2024.  All five benefited from their Taekwondo experience where they were already Black belts or Black belt candidates.  Three of the five were my students who train in Monticello, including David, previously mentioned here as a Taekwondo student and currently 2nd degree Black belt in Taekwondo.

These students will continue to advance their training.  We instructors are very proud of their accomplishments.  Haidong!

He Who Allows Me

He who allows me to rule is in fact my master.

-- Pierre Corneille (1606 - 1684), French tragedian, one of the three great 17th-century French dramatists, along with Molière and Jean Racine, Le Menteur (The Liar) (1643) Prusias, act II, scene i

Greatest Of All

It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do little.

-- Sydney Smith (1771 - 1845), English clergyman, critic, philosopher, and wit, Elementary Sketches of Moral Philosophy (1849) Lecture XIX : On the Conduct of the Understanding, Part II

The Simplest Thing

Everything in war is simple, but the simplest thing is difficult.

-- Carl von Clausewitz (1780 - 1831), Prussian general and influential military theorist, On War (1832) Book 1

Continual Exchange

I receive and I give -- such is human life.  Each directs and is directed in his turn.  Therefore there is no fixed and constant authority, but a continual exchange of mutual, temporary, and, above all, voluntary authority and subordination.

-- Mikhail Bakunin (1814 - 1876), Russian political philosopher, anarchist, and noted atheist, God and the State (1871)

Our Purpose

This is our purpose: to make as meaningful as possible this life that has been bestowed upon us; to live in such a way that we may be proud of ourselves; to act in such a way that some part of us lives on.

-- Oswald Arnold Gottfried Spengler (1880 - 1936), German historian, philosopher, and political writer, as quoted in Good Advice (1982) edited by Leonard Safir and ‎William Safire, p. 282

Unwillingness

I see self-destruction now on a grand scale.  That is, the unwillingness to pay for the things society needs.  That's the most basic kind of self-destruction. That we're not prepared to pay for schools, we're not prepared to pay for highways.  That is self-destruction.  What are we doing to ourselves?  It is nuts.

-- Charles Alan Reich (1928 - 2019), American legal and social scholar, and Professor at Yale Law School, "The Greening of America turns 40 : Q&A: Charles Reich", by Daniel Schwartz, CBC News (23 September 2010)