Northern_Lights_2014

The Ancient Spirit By Maryah Wilson An ancient art of martial arts passed down from teacher to student. The loud single roar of a dozen stu- dents yelling in sync with each other in time to the Master’s count, the heat of their bodies rises as they punch as one, the energy that filled the room was overwhelming. The group worked as one almost like a military camp, but this is just a single group of a larger organization. Strongheart Martial Arts Academy is a small school of Taekwondo, Kumdo, and Hapkido that is led by Master Nathan Schutz, a fifth degree black belt. According to Aaron Kern, a brown belt that is testing to red in a week, Schutz is the student of seventh degree black belt Grandmaster Eric Greenquist. But he also said that what they are learning is not pure Taekwondo that is taught as a sport in South Korea, but a mix of other mar- tial arts into one. It was just easier to call it Taekwondo. He commented that “it is a style that Great Grandmas- ter Moo Yong Yun created that is based on Taekwondo but is an evolved version. We are part of his teaching so we follow his style.” I soon asked who Great Grandmaster Moo Yong Yun was and Aaron told me, “Great Grandmaster Yun is a tenth degree black belt from South Korea, and he was taught by Great Grandmaster Kim. His headquarters is in North Dakota. He has schools all across the Midwest. But while he was in South Korea, he was the South Korean President’s personal bodyguard.” Observing Aaron afterwards showed that he knows quite a bit of knowledge of his school and of the martial art that he was learning. He showed great pride in learning from this great teacher. Waiting for them to break into groups, each student stood at attention, but their attention level varied by belt rank. The higher ranking red and brown belts in the front stood like they were in the military, feet apart at shoulder width and hands either in front or behind them. The next level wasn’t until orange belt who stood the same way, but their heads turned, and their feet shifted on the floor. The no belts, who didn’t wear a belt or uniform, seemed to have a much more lax stance as they shifted quite a bit, arms moved from position to posi- tion, and their heads turned quite often. As the teaching began, there were no papers handed out as to what they were learning that day, there were no chalk boards or white boards, and no charts to look at for the students to figure out what the instructor was saying. Each move they learned was demonstrated by one of the black belts and the instructor, piece by piece, at a slow pace, and then once at normal pace before letting them go. The lower ranking belts’ techniques seemed to be very simple and easy to learn, but the higher ranking the belt, the more complicated the technique seemed to be, as well as more dangerous. The black belts didn’t seemed to be concerned that they were sweep- ing each other to the floor; the sound of their bodies impacting would make any normal person cringe from the sound or the thought of his or her body doing that. Just as you could see the small groups getting tired, sweat dripping from their hair, white uniforms dark, and chests heaving for air, the instructor yelled at a simple command of “Ku man,” a Korean command to stop but that sounds similar to “come on.” This simple command that most people would have a hard time 33