Master Paul Carmody

I started practicing in the martial arts just after I graduated high school. Our local junior college offered Tae Kwon Do and I trained with them for a number of years. TKD is a fun and energetic martial art and I rose to Green Belt by the time that I transfered to California State University, Hayward. CSUH offered a TKD club but I was much too busy working full-time to take time out for a club. They did offer a class in Juijitsu, so I took that as an elective. The two styles are distinctly different and nearly opposite in their approach. TKD is fast and dynamic emphasizing kicks and punches while Juijitsu is softer. Indeed, Juijitsu translates to “the Gentle Way”. So, one day I was chatting with a couple of friends of mine and I complained about this difference.

“I find it frustrating that if I want to learn to kick and punch I have to train over here with this teacher in TKD then if I want to learn joint-locks and grappling I have to go to this other teacher in juijitsu.” I protested.

“Why don’t you study one style for a while,” started one of my friends, “and get a black belt and study another style for a while and get a black belt in that. Then, you can build your own style.”

“That doesn’t sound right to me.”, I started to reply, after all the martial arts is built on respect and discipline. These teachers weren’t supposed to be teaching something that you could find in the library, there was supposed to be something special about training with the right master. “Why isn’t there a martial art that teaches it all? Why hasn’t someone else, someone far better than me, done it already?”

“Oh, you want Kuk Sool Won.” replied my other friend, Kevin, who had been distinctly quiet.

“Kuk Sole, what?” I didn’t quite get the pronounciation.

“Kuk Sool Won,” Kevin corrected, “it is from Korea and is a comprehensive martial art.”

“A what?” I was caught off guard because he had sat through the entire conversation without saying a word and he sounded like he knew what he was talking about.

“Do you really want to learn martial arts?” he asked.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Okay, meet me at this address,” and he handed me a slip of paper, “at 6 o’clock on Monday night.”

“What’s this all about?” I said accepting the paper and looking at him strangely.

“Trust me.” he said.

Monday night came around and at 6 PM I was standing outside this little store front with the words “Kuk Sool Won” painted on the front in red. Kevin arrived just a minute later and he was dressed in a black uniform wearing a brown belt with several stripes.

“You’re a black brown belt?” I asked with surprise. I knew enough about the martial arts by now to realize that he was probably a black belt candidate.

“Yep,” he said as if it didn’t matter, “come on in.”

“I didn’t know that you did the martial arts.” I told him.

“You never asked.” he said just as easily. “I would like you to meet my teacher, Master Barry Harmon.”

He introduced me to a rather smallish man perhaps 10 years older than me who had very little to say. He didn’t look or act like the teachers that I had met before. Those were good teachers to be sure, but there was something about this man that was different. I guess one of things was that he actually did everything that the students did, he wasn’t the sort of person to watch others working out without participating. Another was that he almost never said anything bad. He didn’t criticize or put anyone down. He didn’t say much but when he did it was very important to listen. His students, some of which were second degree black belts, where distinctly insulted whenever someone tried to interrupt him and if you managed to forget to be polite, they were particularly annoyed. Master Harmon, on the other hand, didn’t even seem to notice. This respect for their teacher was clearly genuine and well deserved.

There was something else that I noticed. The black belts were different from what I was used to. All of the black belts that I had met before were very proud and some even arrogant. All of these black belts seemed more interested in learning and training and almost never made any reference to themselves or what they could do.

That first day we started with a complete warm up from the tips of our toes to the tops of our heads, including our midsection in the front and the spine in the back. We went into kicking and must have practiced hundreds of kicks. I was then introduced to Kuk Sool forms, which was something else entirely. Tae Kwon Do has its poonse which I knew very well, but these forms were intricate, complicated and difficult to remember, and they were the beginner forms!! We then went into falling practice, something we only did in juijitsu and then joint lock techniques. When class was over I was told that we hadn’t done half of what Kuk Sool had to offer.

“So, is this something that you want to do?” said Joe Foster, one of the black belts assigned to orient me after my first lesson.

“Absolutely,” I said and signed up for three years immediately.

Kuk Sool Won has never failed to fit the name of “comprehensive” martial art. There is always something more to learn and the more that I train in it the more that I have to learn.

How I started my own school.

I am a martial artist now but I didn’t always see myself that way. Indeed, my majors in college included mathematics, physics and computer science. After obtaining my degrees in these fields I went into the aerospace industry for a short while. Not liking the “small cog in the big machine” feel of a large company I returned to what got me through college in the first place. I went back to data processing and information services. It wasn’t long before I moved into more technical areas were I became a systems analyst and finally an expert in my field. I have always had a talent for programming computers and although it was rewarding to make the computer “dance to my own tune” so to speak, the glory was short lived. I seldom stayed with a company for more than a couple of years, finding myself restless to learn more or to do something else.

In the meantime, I continued my training in Kuk Sool. After a few years I became an Assistant Instructor and earned my black belt, later I became a full Instructor. For eight years, twice a week I left work early to help teach the children’s classes. I loved to teach and I had a nack for teaching children. Finally, I was promoted to Kyo Sa Nim, second dahn, my life changed in the strangest way.

I had become a senior programmer in a very lucrative high tech firm and suddenly hit a mental block. Like a writer’s block for someone who cannot write I was a programmer who could not write a program. I would go to work, organize my day and get ready for the assignment place before me. I would sit at my desk, look at the screen and not understand a thing of what I was to do. This wasn’t the first time that this happened and this sort of thing only lasted a few days. This time, however, it lasted a week and was starting to get into the second week. Rather than loose my job, I thought that I should seek a little professional help to see if I could keep from loosing my job.

I only had one session with a psychologist when it became clear to me that the martial arts was more important to me than programming computers. All I talked about was how interesting it was, how the students progressed and how we, as teachers, tried to bring out the best in our students.

My mental block cleared and my job was safe, but this episode had opened up a can of worms. I knew that this mental block would recur if I didn’t deal with what was bothering me about the martial arts. So, I stayed with the sessions.

At about the third or fourth session, the doctor asked me “Have you ever thought of opening your own school?”

I had tried, once, to offer a class through the Recreation Center some distance from the dojang that I trained at and they turned me down. So, I said “Yeah, once but it fell through.”

“So, you give up easily.” the doctor said.

“Yeah, I suppose I do.” I replied.

“Hardly!!” he said abruptly, “you never give up.”

“Well, I gave up pretty easily this time.” I replied to him wondering what he was getting excited about.

“You’ve got several college degrees,” he started, “you’ve got a first degree black belt and said it was one of the hardest things to do in your life. You are a second degree black belt and you can’t wait to start earning your third dahn. You never give up. The question is, why did you give up this time?”

He had a point and it doesn’t take a genius to figure it out. It does, however, sometimes require an objective observer to point it out. Within a week I was calling every recreation center within a half hour drive of my home to see if they needed a martial arts program. Some of them already had three different styles offered and others simply didn’t have enough room in their facilities. Finally, out on the coast of California I called Half Moon Bay and they had an opening. I would start my own classes with them in three months. I was excited and thrilled.

Before I go further, I want to say that Kuk Sool Won in particular and the martial arts in general have little to do with religion or spirituality. I say this because what happened next is nothing short of incredible if not miraculous. I lost my job. I didn’t get fired, that is, it wasn’t a matter of my performance, I got laid off. The “lucrative” software company that I had been working for made a number of mistakes and had to make 25% cutbacks in all departments. My boss, in his ultimate wisdom, believed that I had enough talent to find another job quickly. I looked at this as an opportunity, actually, and immediately started looking for a new career as a computer consultant. In this way, I could keep my dream to become a martial arts teacher and still make enough money to live comfortably.

Well, one would think that a software engineer with impeccable credentials living in and around Silicon Valley in 1997, at the height of the technology craze could find a job immediately. However, after using up the severance pay and the vacation pay that had accrued I still hadn’t found a job. Then, there came two opportunities and neither of them as a consultant. Both jobs wanted full-time work and they were as extreme as tehy could be. One was with a consulting firm in San Francisco where I would have been required to travel about 3 months out of the year. The big thing was that I would be associated with the highest high tech talents in their field and I would be regarded as the best of the best. The other was with a small start up telecommunications company that worked out of an antiquated radio shack built in 1920-something that promised to deliver email to ships at sea. The radio shack was located in, of all places, Half Moon Bay.

This was an incredibly strange set of coincidences. I finally make a commitment to teach martial arts and I loose my job. I can’t find a job except between two extremes. Either I become the quinticential professional and wear shirt and tie and travel the world programming computers or I roll up my sleeves in a start up company with only 30 employees, most of which know nothing about computers, and the start up is right where I have started my new school. I went for the long shot and picked the start up company.

On February 1, 1997 I started my new job and on February 17 I started my first classes in Kuk Sool, I had 5 students right off the bat. Most of them are now black belts and some are even ready for their second dahn.

Coincidence or no, it was only the beginning of a series of events that became increasingly challenging as I followed my Path as a martial artist. What I didn’t realize was that I had been walking the wrong path for most of my life. I had an incredible talent for computers and mathematics and I still enjoy those subjects immensely. I pursued those as a career because it was obvious and lucrative. It wasn’t very satisfying, though. When I found my True Path my entire life became one challenge after another. It was later that I discovered that this is the nature of a person walking his own unique Path. That is, life sort of gets in the way and asks “is this really what you want to do?” and “Is this really your Path?” The classes were easy enough to teach and wonderfully rewarding. But, my family, my friends and my professional career started to interfere.

“So, you got a black belt.” my father asked, “when are you going to give this thing up.” Later, it was “So, you have a second degree black belt when are you …”. He still saw me as a computer geek and clearly didn’t understand.

“Come on kids, join daddy in a picture with his black belt.” I once said to my two wonderful children who joined me proud to be a part of it. “Come on, Honey,” I pleaded with my wife, “join us.” But she wouldn’t have anything to do with it. She had married an engineer and she didn’t know this person who taught people to kick, punch, fall down and throw.

“I need you to fly to Europe immediately.” my boss said later.

“I can’t. I have my lessons to teach.” I told him, “you know that I have been doing this. I can’t leave without finding a substitute.”

It is hard to change and harder still to wait for the world to catch up to you when you do change. To make a long story short, my father eventually came around to see me for who I am, my ex-wife and I are still talking and working together to raise our children and I retired from being a programmer. None of these were easy steps to take but when you are on your own Path they are steps that can be taken and ones that lead to a better future.

I have learned a lot through my life and continue to read about all sorts of topics. One of my favorite authors is Joseph Campbell who was an anthropoligist who studied the world religious and mythologies. He said “Follow your Bliss and doors will open for you that weren’t there before.” I keep following my Bliss and those doors keep opening right when I need them.