Foreign.

Many years ago, in the war torn streets of South Korea, a simple concept was forged through the relentless vision of one man.

Enduring the hardships of extreme poverty, this man worked tirelessly, day and night to actualize the idea that a person can improve their life and fortune through the discipline of martial arts.

As he mastered techniques passed on to him, he and others inspired to join his vision began to develop new techniques into a groundbreaking style known as Songam Taekwondo.

The man was Ang Un Lee.

Encouraged by Richard Reed, a young American with whom he had become close friends, Hu Lee set out across the ocean.

Upon arriving in the United States, he encountered more difficulties such as language and cultural differences.

But the philosophy of Songam Taekwondo is is that any obstacle can be overcome as long as you continue to try.

Songam Taekwondo transcended all barriers in language, ethnicity, gender, age and physical ability.

And as the technique continued to evolve, Hu Lee knew that with these basic principles, nothing could keep him from sharing that vision with the world.

The American Taekwondo association was born.

Over the years, the organization would thrive, changing the lives of over 1 million people across six continents.

Hu Lee brings the World championship of.

Taekwondo to Little Rock again this year.

State's largest annual convention, 25,000 martial arts students in attendance.

The opening event is becoming so big, they had to move it from the.

Smaller State House Convention center to the largest indoor.

The biggest convention of the year is in town.

They're certainly getting their kicks this weekend.

At the 25th annual American Taekwondo World Championship.

TA has held its world tournament in Little Rock for the past 28 years.

And each time it gets bigger and better.

I thank you for joining us and saying Good morning America.

Someday I'll have as many medals as.

The Grand Master has here.

Master H, you leave.

How do you do?

Thank you.

Each person was touched by Hu Lee's vision that empowerment through discipline and confidence will make you more successful in life.

After his passing in 2000, Hu Lee was honored with the title of Eternal Grand Master.

And in the summer of 2007, a monument and garden were erected for his strength of leadership in both the ATA and in the community.

The torch of leadership has been passed on to Sun Ho Lee, who continues to uphold the valued traditions while guiding the ATA into the new millennium and future generations.

Born of an ancient tradition in the east and refined to perfection in America, I proudly present to you the people who continue to teach, guide, instruct and inspire us.

Ladies and gentlemen, Songam Taekwondo.

Welcome to episode 170 of the @ata Nation.

We have another awesome athlete of the week.

With us.

Hey, can you introduce yourself?

Hi guys.

My name is Derek Washington.

I'm a second degree black belt.

Second degree black belt.

Where are you from?

Where are you training?

I am from Aurora, Colorado and I'm still training here at Saddle Rock ata.

Saddle Rock ata.

Who's the instructor at Saddle Rock?

Jill Cross.

Okay.

Yes.

Excellent.

Very cool.

Yeah.

How.

How's the weather in Colorado right now?

You know, it's surprisingly pretty hot right now.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

Well, it's still being pretty hot.

Are you.

This is totally not on topic at all, but just because I had some friends.

Do you ski at all or snowboard?

No, but we haven't yet.

Well, don't break anything.

If you ever go, go try.

So, hey, what got you into martial arts?

I first started karate, but I felt like it wasn't right for me, so I went to Saddle Rock Ata just to try it and I felt, I don't know, just being able to protect myself.

It's amazing.

Yeah.

Excellent.

Very cool.

So, you know, tournaments are a thing.

A lot of people do them.

I see a bunch of medals hanging behind you, so it seems like you might be a tournament person also.

What.

What's your favorite event to do at a tournament?

My favorite has to be team sparring because I just love the energy that's going on around you.

Very.

Yeah, I'm with you.

The.

The energy of.

There's nothing quite like the energy of team sparring.

Yeah.

A hundred percent.

So traditional or combat or you don't care?

Either one.

I like combat more, but I'm still pretty good at both, so I enjoy.

Have you ever been to the athlete development camp in Little Rock?

I haven't.

I've always wanted to, but I haven't gone yet.

Oh, yeah.

You're gonna have to make plans.

It is.

It is an event.

It is.

I mean.

Yeah.

Talk about energy.

There's a lot of energy at that.

So now if there were an event at a tournament, I mean, we all love martial arts.

We think everything is great.

But if there was an event at the tournament that you were like, maybe not my favorite, what would it be?

I would have to say traditional forms.

Okay.

Because I'm definitely more of a sparring and combat type of person.

Very cool.

So, yeah.

You like to hit things?

Oh, yeah.

100 like, it's more fun to hit things.

What about weapons?

Do you do weapons at all?

I haven't, but at our upcoming tournament, November 8th, I'm gonna do my extreme bow staff.

So I'm pretty cool.

Okay.

Have you have you ever.

Is this your first foray into the extreme and creative?

Yes, sir.

Oh, how exciting.

And you, you're doing BO Staff, huh?

Yes, sir.

Okay, you're gonna.

And extreme.

You're gonna throw it.

You're getting lots of cool tricks to do.

Say that again.

You got a lot of.

A lot of cool tricks that you're going to do with it.

You're going to throw it up.

You're going to catch it.

Exciting.

Okay.

Very cool.

What made you think I'm going to branch out and try some.

Something new?

I don't know.

I just felt like doing something new at a tournament because I've always been doing the same stuff for a lot of time, so I just want to try something new.

Oh, I love that.

I think it's a. I think it's a really smart thing.

You know, try something new every once in a while.

It's just good for you, you know, stretches your creativity a little bit.

Gets you out of your comfort zone.

Very cool.

What kind of goals do you have for.

First of all, for, like, tournaments, do you have any specific goals for the tournament season or competition this year?

Nothing, really.

I just want to get into worlds again and get that district title so I can go.

Nice.

Yeah.

So you've got some titles, have you.

You titled in the past?

Yes, sir.

What.

What events have you titled in?

Well, for districts, I've gotten forms.

Traditional sparring, traditional combat, and also team sparring in both.

And.

Yeah, very cool.

Very cool.

That's awesome.

State titles also.

Yeah, excellent.

That's.

That's super cool.

What about, like, for just your.

Your martial arts career or your training as a whole, what kind of goals do you have for that?

I eventually want to open my own school, so I think if I just, like, keep practicing and showing off, I bet I can achieve that.

Yeah.

Are you in the legacy program?

Yes, sir.

Excellent.

So are you helping in classes, teaching classes, doing some of that kind of stuff?

What's your.

What's your favorite group?

To.

To help with or to te.

Oh.

So at our school, we have it divided into ranks, so my favorite is definitely the highest.

Blue, brown, red.

Okay.

I just feel like their energy is amazing and the way they respond to things, they just do super good.

That's awesome.

I love that.

It's just neat to, you know, see what other people think about different events and different things.

What for you, as, you know, somebody was picked as an athlete of the week.

What's it mean to you to be an athlete?

That goes beyond the belt.

It means to Me being a better person on and off the mat.

So even if you're at the grocery store, you're being respectful to everyone that's around you.

How have you, you know, and how many years have you been doing martial arts?

I forgot to ask.

7.

Now you got to do the math now.

That's the hard part.

Math?

Yeah.

We didn't get into kicking a bunch of people to do math.

Seven years.

Okay.

So what kind of things have you seen for yourself?

That respect outside of the school, maybe going beyond the belt that martial arts has helped you with?

Yeah, like being out in public, even just like opening doors for people, that's still super respectful.

So it's also helping your community.

Yes.

And.

And you just don't, you know, I mean, less and less people do that these days.

You know, they ignore everybody walking by or whatever and just, you know, saying, hi, open the door for somebody.

Super nice.

Going beyond the belt.

I love that.

So what.

Let's say we've.

You've got a kid in your, you know, in.

In your blue, brown, red belt class getting a little down about, know, their training.

Maybe they had some setbacks, maybe no change or, or, you know, didn't do well at a.

At a tournament, and they see that you're the athlete of the week, and they're like, oh, man, that's so cool.

What kind of advice would you give a kid?

I would just say, like, keep practicing to achieve your goals, and that'll definitely get you to a place like I am now.

That's awesome.

I love it.

Well, congratulations on being one of the athletes of the week.

It's so cool to get to see these athletes from all over the country.

You.

You're way out in Colorado, so.

Yeah.

Are you.

Are you heading out to Fall Nationals?

I'm not.

Yeah.

Wanted to.

We were supposed to go last year, but we didn't have the time to.

But what about Spring nationals in.

In St. Louis this year?

I can't wait for that.

Last year at Spring Nationals, I got first place in combat sparring, so I can't.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Cool.

Okay.

Awesome.

Well, thank you again for your time.

I look forward to meeting you hopefully at Spring Nationals and y.

And good luck with the tournament and the extreme competition.

Thank you.

This is year 2020.

It's already 20 years past of losing our beloved founder and leader and my brother, eternal grandmaster H. Lee.

So I like to share.

One of the stories always stuck with me is that one of the toughest time that I had in my life was.

Is that when I was going to Korea, trying to expand Songam Taekwondo to worldwide.

He wanted Songam Taekwondo to be practiced all over the world.

And his motto was, as always, today not possible, but tomorrow possible.

And situation in Korea was very tough.

Korea was having some major economic breakdown, which was 1997.

The whole country was almost verge of a bankrupt.

But we decided anyway to expand Korea.

And I was having a very tough time.

I was traveling two weeks every month for three years trying to develop career divisions.

Every month, two weeks.

And you know, imagine that staying away from home two weeks and come back and go back after that two weeks later.

And yet business is not picking up as much as we wanted to.

So sometime I come home and I talk to him that how tough it is and kind of complain a little bit and how tiring it is and how tough it is to develop a new market.

And he always says that, you know, if things that you do is easy, that everybody would already done it.

That's why we have to challenge ourselves and believe in ourselves that we could do it when tough time comes like that.

And, you know, so let's try it again.

And he encourages me like that always.

And that always proved to me that he lived up to his motto, today not possible, tomorrow possible.

Because I just remember that when he come to America, that he wants to have a Taekwondo career in the United States was almost impossible at the time.

You know, having schools in, you know, all of the, you know, the state was the difficult, you know, very impossible dream.

And having at school everywhere in the United States was difficult dream.

And having at Songam Taekwondo, all of the world, difficult dreams.

But he always, regardless how tough time it is, that he always believed in himself.

He believed in there is an opportunity exist at the same time when there is a crisis.

And he lived it.

So I truly like to celebrate his belief, his model, the man who lived it up to his model.

And hopefully that we can share all of you with the whole world that throughout this pandemic, that if we can share the same type of message to whole world and everybody out there with our not only Songam Taekwondo family, but whole word, that it could be some motivation and give some energy to everyone.

So I'd like to just share that his story then hopefully that more of our ATA seniors and instructors participate on this and we can have some type of impact to this pandemic going on.

And again, thank you everyone and again, please participate on this and let's make a difference on something that to the this world there's so much negativity going on, but we can make something positive.

Thank you very much.

Hey, I wanted to let you know we've got one more clip for you and you've got to wait.

Make sure you watch till the very end because there's some amazing out takes from the old way videos of eternal Grandmaster H. Lee and it just shows this humor which I think is just so much fun.

So if you are listening on the podcast, you definitely need to make sure you check out the YouTube version.

Head over to the ATA Martial Arts YouTube page and check it out.

Have a wonderful founders.

My vision of the ATA is to spread traditional Taekwondo throughout the world.

If we spread this traditional, the world will learn the value of honesty, integrity, courtesy, respect and discipline.

And this most valuable words today is not possible.

Tomorrow possible.

Oh sorry Sir.

Grandmaster.

Whenever you're ready.

On somebody that's not there.

Yeah.

Hi, I'm ready.

So I got to compete.

This could be supposed to scream.

Oh, I'm supposed to scream gotcha.