Songahm Star Current Issue Published/Edited by Jerry Driscoll
News Articles
Accounts up to date: Please remember that all of your accounts, Taekwondo Tuition, Past Testing, ProShop, Special Events, and Tournament Fees must all be up to date in order to gain permission to test. If you have not, please be sure to settle your accounts at your earliest convenience prior to testing. Unsettled accounts will not allow you to test. Early and Late Testing: Please remember that testing is more about facing fears, beating challenges, and mastering one's self than it is memorizing a series of moves. This alone makes attending our scheduled testing very important, but also your testing should be thought of as a graduation from the current level of Physical and Life Skills. You wouldn't ask your High School to allow you to early or late graduate. Lastly, tests are arranged to provide students with a controlled yet stressful environment in order to test your mettle as it were. At testing we assemble a board of Instructors and Trainees to fairly evaluate your performance rather than leave it to just one person to do so. We occasionally bring in a special guest judge to enhance the experience, and so that you can meet and talk to some of the regional high ranks. With all of this in mind the staff of ATA Karate Family Center encourages you to test on time at the scheduled testing. Grand Master's Thoughts: I have had the pleasure of having several long talks with Grand Master Soon Ho Lee about our students and the future of Songahm Taekwondo, and received much guidance from him during these talks. It is his greatest desire at the moment to bring back or reiterate the need for some of the old traditions. Over the years martial arts has gotten lax in the areas of Respect and Discipline shown by its students. Grand Master is very proud of the fact that the ATA has always been a leader in these and many other areas of the martial arts. However, it is often more difficult to maintain a status than to achieve it. We must all dedicate ourselves, students, Instructors, and parents alike, to insuring that the ATA remains at the peak in the important areas of Respect and Discipline in the Martial Arts world. This means that students need to realize that they are to be disciplined and respectful not just in class, but in their everyday life, all of the time.