I am a 19 year old sophomore in college, and have been training in Tang Soo Do for 10 years.

Before I found the art of Tang Soo Do, I thought I was living a good life. My daily bouts of arguing and competing with my parents like they were my equal ingrained in me a strong sense of competitiveness, which I used to develop an academic base far above my peers. Coupled with a love of sports that I had from a young age, my competitiveness was even higher when it came to sports. All this winning and achievement went straight to my head, which became very big. Arrogance was a big part of my character as a kid; I thought that all my winning made me superior to others. I didn’t know how to humbly accept success as fruit of my efforts, which had nothing to do with others. My younger brother was my closest companion, so he ended up being exposed to a lot of my arrogant behavior, which took the form of teasing, demeaning, and chastising behavior. Birthday parties every week and social gatherings were a normal part of my life; this only fed into my typical “impulsive” behavior of kids. I was a good person, just like every human being, but surrounded by my impulsive and arrogant choices, I was oblivious to my messy and emotional life.

When I was 9 years old in fourth grade, I was introduced to the art of Tang Soo Do through Master David Bell. Tang Soo Do gave me priceless tools for self-development and self-reflection, one of the first being balance of the three aspects of the human being: Mind(reasoning), Body(vehicle to carry reasoning), and Spirit(way I see myself/emotions). At that time, my life was top-heavy; I was using my Mind a lot without being conscious of even the existence of my Spirit, or my Mind-Body connection. This imbalance showed itself sometimes as hyperactivity, or, on the other hand, laziness. To counter this, Tang Soo Do gave me a way of doing things--moving and breathing; each and every bodily movement was controlled and calculated with the mind, and a breathing pattern was present in the movement, from start to finish. This engagement of the three parts of a human being made me a balanced and peaceful person. Tang Soo So challenged my impulses with structure and etiquette. Hours and hours of dropping sweat on the floor while doing drills and hyungs (solo battles) challenged my physical, mental, and spiritual toughness, as it would’ve been easy to develop bad feelings about the rigorous and technically precise training I was going through. Developing the way to give authority to logic in these situations enhanced my life by showing me the clear separation between my Logic (reasoning) and Emotion (feeling). The Tang Soo Do philosophy made me aware of my surroundings, and my place in my surroundings, and even taught me how to be quiet enough to sense, and later, channel, my own Chi (life energy source).

All this learning enhanced my life. I started to respect my parents by giving power to their voice and humbling down to trust their increased experience of living in the world; though this trust was hard to develop at first. Situations where my parents prioritized personal development over personal achievement were not popular and did not make any sense at all to me. School was a place where this was most obvious, as my parents made the choice to keep me out of all the extra things school had to offer to keep me focused on developing my Self. I felt left out at first, as I saw all of my friends doing sports and clubs after-school while I just went to my Tang Soo Do class three days a week. In recent years though, I am able to see my peers in a different, and somewhat mature light, and can see the holes in them that they filled with all the extracurriculars I so desperately wanted to be a part of. This realization has allowed me to feel good about trusting my parents’ logical choice that was once very unpopular. Logical choices made my life flow because it allowed me to follow a structure to simply get things done, without the interference of feelings. I was starting to look forward to getting up in the morning to do things and living life because I was living it to my potential. If only I could share this happiness with my peers…but no. My changed lifestyle seemed out of place at school. If I had stood out from my peers before because of my academic and physical talent, it was trivial as to what I was feeling now; because I was investing time and energy to better myself as a person, I had a different and simpler way of living. My balanced and controlled way of doing things contrasted sharply from my peers’ typical impulsive and blissfully ignorant lifestyle. It was the contrast between consciously living life, and simply existing.

Writing this profile during the COVID-19 pandemic, there were a lot of examples of the philosophy of Tang Soo Do in action, the biggest one being,”Not letting the choices of my life be affected by social trends”.This meant having a sure understanding and grounding to a reliable way of living, and making choices that would keep life simple. If I had never fully accepted the beautiful path I was walking, I would still be going to school “to get a good job”, learning school material “ to get good grades”, and exercising to “burn some calories”. With the pandemic, society was forced to close down. You woke up, and life was not about the societal traditions of school, shopping, and entertainment. Life was now about yourself and your family; it became unavoidable to ignore weak habits or empty relationships because those were the only things to do. During the pandemic, the norm of society was disrupted; like eating out and going to school to get grades. What Tang Soo Do did was give me a way of living that was grounded to reality: for me, school was a place to learn about the world, develop my reasoning and brain development, and to practice my social skills. Grades only showed me how much I understood a subject. So when school, and the grading system, shut down, nothing changed for me (except for the physical communication with my peers). After training in the morning to bring myself to a better place, instead of going to school, I went to my online/ virtual classroom to learn; there were no grades to “get”, and no tests to “pass”, but my way of learning had no change. My way of eating was for the nourishment of my body. Even though restaurants closed down, I didn’t get affected because eating whole, healthy food cooked at home was my only way. Gyms and classes closed down? No problem, because Tang Soo Do training was a part of my daily lifestyle.

As a current third degree black belt, I continue my growth in this art by training everyday and teaching the art to junior students. In addition to the patience and commitment that teaching the art gives me, it also allows for deeper understanding of the art for myself. Moving on, I am looking forward to continuing my growth as a human being, a brother, a son, and as a student, by remaining humble to life and to the arts by always looking for ways to be better.

Akhil Palanivelu
9/22/23