WTSDA & WTSDF Summer, 2020 2436 Hanford Road Burlington, NC 27215 No. 88 Message from the Grandmaster WTSDA in 2020 s you all are aware, we are facing an unprecedented global situation with the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. ABecause so much remains unknown on how to contain its rapid spread of infection, many governments have enacted restrictions related to gathering in groups and to enforcing “social distancing” in order to slow its infection rate. It appears that our members worldwide are adhering to the guidelines prescribed by the medical professionals and government entities and as of today we have no members who have reported being infected by the virus. The health and safety of all WTDSA members and their family is of vital importance. Continue your vigilance to stay healthy. We will begin meeting again when this pandemic is resolved or perhaps disappears. In the meantime, the Executive and Governance Committees along with the Board of Directors have been monitoring the situation and have announced the cancelation of WTSDA sanctioned events. These include Regional Dan testing, studio Gup testing, championships, Black Belt camps, periodic clinics, and the 2020 World Championship. These decisions are a disappointment to all of us, especially to those who have trained so hard to prepare to test for Gup, Dan and Master’s rank, to receive rank promotions, to teach and to share knowledge. However, the health and safety of our WTSDA family must come first. You will have another opportunity, there will be another testing and there will be more championships. These are difficult times, and no one is certain how long they will last. You may feel isolated, but regarding Tang Soo Do you are not alone. We will stay in contact with updates. Your instructors will help with your training and conditioning. You know that the World Tang Soo Do Association is more than an association, it is a family. Like all families, we have worked together, depended on each other, and have been there for each other. When things get difficult, as they are now for many of us, that is when we come together as a Tang Soo Do family in mutual support. We can count on each other. The seven tenets describe who we are and continue to be. The Association Headquarters continues to operate but at a different scale and manner. The Association HQ staff members, Ji, Glamil, Caleb and Gideon are working from home to maintain our business activities. Gideon, our Chief of Staff/Chief Operating Officer. plans to visit HQ often to monitor the computers and servers, to receive the mail and to check with Mrs. Shin who remains sheltered in her apartment. Continue your correspondence with them in a normal manner. Although governments have closed most businesses, many WTSDA studios have moved to online, remote learning, virtual learning to stay connected with their students. The Masters and instructors have quickly and professionally developed innovative ideas and methods to deliver training through technology. They are sharing their ideas across the entire WTSDA world community and their students are the beneficiaries. The instruction that I am seeing is almost like being with the instructor face-to-face in the studio even though it is delivered electronically. Some posts even show the students in front of the TV or computer going through rigorous training as the instructors shout commands in real time. The instructors have adapted their Tang Soo Do teaching to remote delivery and students are accepting this different way of training. Working out at home or outdoors during the COVID-19 pandemic shows your love of Tang Soo Do and the benefits that accrue from training. Therefore, stay in touch with your instructor, your studio, and maintain your membership if possible. It shows your respect to your instructor and support of both your studio and the WTSDA. The survival of the studios and of our wonderful Association depends on all of us. As a traditional martial arts association, the relationships that we have forged with each other span time and space. They join us together across oceans and between cultures and countries, regardless of languages and ethnicities. The sharing of difficulties and the giving of support, sometimes by just talking, being on Facebook and liking something that someone wrote or shared a photo, is ongoing. Also on social media, we view a teaching situation, a sharing of how someone is coping, how another is communicating with their students, thereby helping them cope with the situation by keeping them involved with Tang Soo Do training as it promotes body, mind, and spirit. Most especially is the lifting of the spirit, not only of those with whom they directly train, but also to the rest of us who gain joy and brotherhood/sisterhood through those connections, and the help they are offering, even though we participate vicariously. Grandmaster Shin would have marveled at how his vision of brotherhood/sisterhood has evolved and how it is exemplified by how we are all coping with the serious health jeopardy we are seeing, and how we are personally modifying our practices during this pandemic. Understandably, there is anxiety that we might experience with the sudden cessation of going to the studio to train, postponement of the next Gup test, or missing the canceled Masters’ Clinic, Black Belt camp, and World Championship. These are events that we train for physically and mentally and then suddenly the world in which we live is turned upside down. Lives may be changed in some ways forever. But, as our founder, Grandmaster Shin intended, Tang Soo Do, in one way or another, will always be there for you. 2020 Summer WTSDA & WTSDF Newsletter - Page 2 Message from the Grandmaster We are a huge supportive family, we have developed ways to stay in contact, to talk, laugh, remote training, and even safe testing with instructors watching on the computer through Zoom and other media. We shed tears together over Grandmaster Shin’s death and were shocked and saddened by Grandmaster Beaudoin’s sudden passing. There was international shared grief. Many Tang Soo Do brothers and sisters attended those funerals and others were present in spirit through social media. Here too, technology provided the means to connect, but it was our indomitable Tang Soo Do spirit that helped us grieve together and celebrate their lives and contributions to our well-being, and continues to do so in this crisis. We remain undaunted by these events and we will persevere - if only electronically for the foreseeable future. We may be in isolation at home but we are still connected through technology. We can adjust to training with our instructors in virtual classes at home, just not at the physical studio. I encourage you to maintain your former schedule as much as possible and attend your virtual classes. Do your homework if you are still in school or college. I continue to get up early in the mornings in order to maintain my workout schedule. Certain days are devoted to Tang Soo Do and other days to Ki Gong, strength training, and cardio. I intend to maintain a semblance of life before the virus and to increase my skills and physical fitness, alone with only myself in one sense, and with all of you as virtual partners who, in my mind’s eye, I see in front of me. You have time for yourself now, do some thinking, writing, reading that book you formerly could not find time to read, talk with family, with friends by phone, text, email, WhatsApp, FaceTime, etc. Write your next essay, work or on your Master’s thesis. Perhaps you could consider Grandmaster Shin’s Ultimate Goal of Tang Soo Do of “Becoming One With Nature,” what it means to you and what goals to set as you strive towards that achievement. This shelter-in-home will pass, but we have this time that we can use to concentrate on personal growth. Even though you will miss, among other events, a test, a clinic, Black Belt camp, or a championship, keep training. The Association will make adjustments to testing procedures so that you don’t lose time in grade for these significant events in your Tang Soo Do life. The main thing is to progress personally. The process and the path to achieve your goals are as important as the moment each one is realized. Stay the path! Even though there is universal sadness about canceling the 2020 World Championship, not only for the competition but equally important for the friendships we would have renewed and the new ones anticipated, it is important that we persevere with the knowledge that eventually we will be reunited again in Tang Soo Do brotherhood/sisterhood. The relationships we have achieved are most important. We are a family and we will miss that face to face camaraderie this summer. As to the current crisis, we will learn from this what there is to be learned, and be stronger for it. When it is resolved, and it will be resolved, we will come together again sometime in the future to compete, to train, to give real hugs, and to learn from each other. ONE MORE TIME! Tang Soo! Grandmaster Bill Strong President, World Tang Soo Do Association 2020 Summer WTSDA & WTSDF Newsletter - Page 3 Welcome New Clubs & Studios New Clubs, Region & their Chief Instructor* New Studios, Region and their Chief Instructor* 1 Dragon Heart Tang Soo Do II . Meredyth R . Phillips 1 Great Falls Tang Soo Do . Melissa S . Bento 1 Reno United Tang Soo Do . Dena Rechhia-Kirgin 1 Summit Mist Martial Arts .