I remember a starting salary at a big company back then was around 600,000 won.
I was in my early twenties when I first encountered a 286 XT computer. My first encounter with a genuine 16-bit computer. I remember being absolutely fascinated.
I was already going to a dojang back then, and I remember thinking that if we stored membership application forms on a computer, we wouldn’t need to keep piling up unnecessary paper. And yet, here we are, still keeping paper records to this day.
Caught up in my fascination with computers at the time, I spent a small fortune — 880,000 won — to buy an Aladdin 286 computer.
Honestly, back then, even turning a computer on and off was a skill in itself. There was no hard drive like today — you had to insert a floppy disk called a boot disk and wait quite a while just to get it started. To run a program, you had to insert the right disk and type in a command. Looking back now, computers were a genuinely difficult piece of equipment. I remember spending a long time studying just to run the Korean word processor and create membership forms on the computer.
By the time I finished my military service, the age of the 286 had given way to the Pentium, and I threw myself back into studying computers. I worked at an IT company and never stopped studying, and eventually became the head of the IT department at what was then the largest general hospital in Jeju.
To become known as genuinely skilled at anything, you need at least ten years of study and research. Training is no different. You need to repeat the same movement for at least ten years before you can truly understand what that movement means.
Aikido is famously demanding when it comes to rank promotion. Earning a first-degree black belt takes an average of three to five years. Second and third degree, needless to say, take even longer.
Come to think of it, our dojang has many members who’ve been with us a long time. It’s no surprise that most hold at least a first-degree black belt, and quite a few hold second or third degree and above — enough that you could call quite a few of them “mania” (fanatics) in the best sense. These are our old-timers, and one of our longest-standing members has now been training with us for 15 years. That alone makes them remarkable. Anyone who can stick with a martial art — demanding and, at times, tedious — for over a decade is clearly capable of staying committed to just about anything.
Dahee, who started at 16 and is now a lovely 22-year-old pursuing a career as a chef, and who still trains consistently.
Heesook, who joined at 24 and is now a mother and a wife, working hard as a nurse while never forgetting to make time for training.
Jiyeon, who started at 25 through Heesook’s introduction and is now a mature 30-year-old walking her own path as a nurse and health teacher while staying dedicated to her dojang training, and Bora as well.
Siyeon, who started a little later at 32 and is now approaching 40, living life as a mother, a wife, and a passionate career woman.
These are all female members who hold second-degree black belt or higher in Aikido — famous for taking a long time to earn. And of course, there are members with even longer histories still. Along with them are many other men and women whose names I can’t possibly list one by one.
A “mania” (fanatic) refers to someone deeply devoted to one thing. Without such people, the world would have a hard time moving forward. To raise your mastery of any knowledge or skill, you have to become a fanatic in that field yourself.
There are plenty of people who present themselves as if they know it all, based on shallow knowledge or a superficial taste of experience. Such people will inevitably be found out, and that ends up hurting the people who trusted and followed them.
I’ve come to understand what an old teacher of mine once meant by “wealth and skill are proportional.” I too keep pursuing Aikido and classical swordsmanship with the passion of a fanatic — for my own sake, and so I never let down the members who put their trust in Oseung Dojang. Because so many of our members share that same fanatic passion, I believe Oseung Dojang’s future is bright.
Written on December 27, 2017
