I have trained in Tang Soo Do for more than 12 years. My problem is that my instructor was not certified by any organization. The area I live now in has no Tang Soo Do schools that I can join and I have since lost contact with my original instructor. I was awarded the rank of second Dan by my instructor who was said to hold the rank of fifth Dan. I have no Dan number and no certificate of ranking and I am not recognized by any organization. I have been training on my own now for almost eight years since receiving my second Dan. I have continued my training through video's, books, and the internet. I have also been awarded my third Degree black belt in American Karate and am an instructor at my Dojo. However, I want to teach Tang Soo Do. I do not want to be part of an organization who charges insane amounts of money to promote their students. I want to teach and be part of a Traditional Martial art. I want to open my own school based on the principles of respect, perseverance, structure, and discipline. I want to be able to offer tutelage to anyone who want's to learn and not charge them an arm and a leg for doing so but only what is necessary to keep the Dojang open. I don't want to make money. I just want to be recognized by a legitimate organization and have any future students recognized as well. If anyone has any suggestions I am all ears. I do not mean any disrespect by this request and hope I am not offending anyone. Thank you for your time Tang Soo! Mod edit ~ Personal contact removed, please see TOS 1.4. Cheers - Sam
I'm assuming that even though you say your instructor, etc., was not recognized by any organizations, that you still know the material necessary to be 2nd dan? If so, isn't it simply a matter of finding a properly certified instructor somewhere and testing under him? I'm not sure exactly where you are in South Carolina, so I don't know how close this is to you, but Jason Miller (one of the teachers at www.kyuusai.org) is a Traditional Tang Soo Do International certified insctructor in Roanoke, VA. P.S. You might want to take your email address out of your post, it's against MAP's TOS to post personal contact info on the forums. I did that once and a mod (nicely) removed it.
Thank You. Unfortunately I am about six hours away from Virginia. Once again thank you for your suggestion.
Right, I figured it probably be about that distance. But what I'm saying is, you would only need to make the drive once, for testing, right? You wouldn't need to continually make the drive for training, unless you wanted to.
Who awarded your instructors ranks? Presumably he was awarded by some organization? As Spinmaster said, the best bet is to just test under an instructor to get the certification, although I'm not sure you would be able to just turn up and test. I could be wrong, although they might want to see you train for a bit (even if for one class) in order to determine what level they consider you to be before they grade you.
As I said I am a certified instructor in American Karate. I can not be certified in Tang Soo Do through this organization. I'm a Really Trying to Locate someone within an hour or so of Greenville SC.
A google search turned up these links which mention several instructors in SC. http://www.worldtangsoodo.com/events/china/index.asp http://www.tangsoodoworld.com/schools_by_state/south_carolina_schools.htm No idea how good they are, but might be worth a look.
check out www.itsda.com Our current president is Master Jason Ladd, and he is located in North Carolina...I am sure it would be worth the trip to train/test with him (through ITSDA), go check out his website, and get in contact with him: http://laddkarate.com/
American Karate is pretty vague, do you have a website to your organization/school? Lol, good luck finding one. A good number of the Tang Soo Do MDK organizations have a framework similar to the US Soo Bahk Do (TSD) MDK Association (since most of the founders of these other organizations were originally under the Hwang Family). Thus, most of them would require you to be at least a 4th dan to be a dojang owner. You'd have to test for your rank AND advance in rank. However, seeing as how the typical TSD test is just paying your fee and memorizing soo gi/jok gi, hyung, one steps, self defense, choreography - advancing thru rank should be a cake walk for someone with 12 yrs experience in martial arts.
I am looking for a school to train with on a regular basis. So a school nearby is key. The level of disrespect of your message was uncalled for. I would have thought that as a student of the martial arts of any discipline you would have more respect for any other student. Let alone an instructor and Sho Dan.
It sounds to me like your main concern is getting that second dan, in which case it would just be one trip to the TSD school to test. You could call them up first to get the OK for the test. In your original post, you made it seem as though you were mainly interested in teaching. You could teach at a gym, a rec center, or wherever. you don't have to belong to the TSD school. Just get certified, and then go start your classes at a closer location. You have to do these things yourself, no one is going to do them for you. People have given suggestions. It's not like if you complain enough, the TSD school will come to you. You need to go to them. If your main interest is in training rather than teaching, then it sounds like your only option would be to start in a new martial art. BTW, expecting to get a higher level of respect than anyone else here for being an instructor and sho dan is rather pompous of you, especially considering that I don't do Tang Soo Do. It almost seems as though your hesitance to just go to the school and get certified may stem from a fear that you won't pass the test - not that that's the case, but that's what it comes across as.
RConklin: It did appear from your original post that your main objective was to grade to 2nd dan, in which case it would be asking a lot to insist on finding a club within an hour of you, when several clubs within reasonable driving distance have been provided. However, if you are looking at training there regularly, it makes much more sense that you would insist on finding something closer. It just didn't really come across from your original post that you wanted somewhere to train every week or whatever.
There is also the Ameriacn Tang Soo Do Association. You can find it at Grandmasterbyrne.com, or do a Google search. Master Byrne is great to deal with. Pete
