RKC Seoul

Thank you Jesus.

I was blessed and honored to be able to travel to Seoul for the first-ever Asian RKC certification.  Pavel did not attend, leaving me with his orders to “Handle it, Tamer.”  Thankfully I had a great team of Jon Engum and Dr. Mark Cheng to help me handle it. John Du Cane also mad an appearance, which always great.  None of this would be happening without him.

Jon Engum, Sr. RKC, is a 7th dan in Taekwondo and 4th dan in both Hapkido and Kumdo, a Korean sword art.

Dr. Mark Cheng, Sr. RKC has a PhD in acupuncture and Chinese medicine, is a Black Belt Instructor in Combat Shuai-Chiao, Master Instructor in Yang style Tai Chi, Senior Instructor in Gee Yung Sil Lum Fut Ga, and has instructor credentials in Yod Khun Pon Krabi Krabong and Jeet Kune Do.

My own experience, in addition to being a Master RKC,  is in the practice of Southern Praying Mantis Gungfu and JKD/Filipino MA.

Three Ninjas in effect.

Jon, Doc & myself drew on our collective Asian MA experiences, which proved to be invaluable in communicating with the attendees. They understood the comparison of precision, practice, internal focus, etc.

In Kumdo, there is an expression “Ki Kum Che”. Ki stands for the spirit and the will, Kum stands for the pertinent usage of the sword, and Che stands for the parts of the body used to attack. (i.e. strength of the muscles, strength of your grip on the sword, force of the blow, and swiftness of the motion) An attack is considered valid only when these three factors come together at the precise moment of the blow.

Substitute “kettlebell” for “sword” and you have the essence of the internal focus of the RKC. It is the difference between swinging a kettelbell and doing Hardstyle swings.

This is from a lecture explaining each of the 3 ballistic movements of the RKC  in terms of Fa Jing explosive power. Summarized: The swing is forward, the snatch is upward and the clean is in and down. In a culture where martial practice is as popular as baseball or football is here, this resonated very well.

Of course, I just wouldn’t feel right if i didn’t break something. I used bending a horse shoe as an example of how to apply tension techniques in a non-kettlebell setting.

The attendees were great, all of them made us feel at home. We made them do swings.

Many thanks to Kenneth Lee for laying the foundation with Jon and his work as an assistant, Gun Jung and Haran Choi for organizing and hosting the event and to the other assistant instructors Taikei Matsushita, Matthew Brockelbank, Im Gyutae, Masataka Ueda, Woo-chae Yoon and Fredrik Hogstrom.

Many thanks to Team Tamer for the hard work and effort.

I am honored to have been a part of this historical event. Tamer Somchoon (Uncle Tamer).