tiger_stripes

Just found your site and signed in to join the discussions. I joined taekwondo in 1986 and was guided by the wisdom of Gen.Choi in the no-contact form of training used in the International Taekwondo Federation. Master Blake was in charge there.
Master Blake took great pleasure in violently manipulating his right and left hand men in front of the class for demonstration puposes. Master Blake had been a doorman for a night club in a tough part of town that left him with the habit of patting his student's shoulders and waists checking for holster straps or concealed weapons.

I trained under Master Kim in the NDG area of Montreal and Master Oh Jang in the west end of downtown Montreal. Oh Jang is a dedicated training machine and often escorted us to the limits of physical exhaustion. A Korean immigrant that is rumoured to have started his school by going to the big factories and offering to fight the biggest amonst them and they would pay for classes in his school if he beat them up.

I moved on to one of Master Chong Lee's schools on the south shore of the Island of Montreal and the main instructor was Mr. Rejean Aumont.

Because of my wife's military posting we ended up in the Ottawa area and this combined with a growing family we stayed in spiritual contact with martial arts in our thoughts but very little in terms of training.

We came to live in the woods about five years ago in a big house on 30 acres of land that we heat annually with 30 cords of wood that we handle personally. Although the physical work alone has increased my body mass from middle-weight to heavy-weight I can't say much to excuse the absence of aerobic exercise.

At least typing this post with one finger is good start