Small World : )
I'm currently training with Master Seok Kwang Ha at
Champion Academy TKD. He's a 7th Dan Korean, pretty old school and traditional I gather. His broken Enlgish can be a bit hard to understand but pay attention to his body and hand motions and you can pick up what he's trying to convey and he knows his stuff and really cares about his students doing well. I'm learning quite a lot and his stryle of training ends up being a pretty good workout due to the pace of the drills and such.
He teaches the class himself, with some assistance occasionally from his 4th Dan wife and occsaionally his son (who holds a BB but I'm not sure his dan rank) and sometimes gets some help with translation from other Korean students. But, he's on the mat teaching you himself and he looks like a little old Korean guy but when he moves, he's smooth and very quick; he's in good shape and very limber (I hope I'm that lose and fast at his age)
He teaches Taeguek forms and Olympic style-sparring; we do breaking on the last week of the month. Some step sparring. Lot of combination drills mixing up kicking and punching; he's big on hand strikes in combination with foot strikes. It's fairly straight TKD.
His place is up on the north side, north of DC in Silver Spring MD (actually Wheaton I think but I get confused on where one ends and the other begins) in place with a big sign that says "Karate" (from before him but it's too expensive to replace) and TKD in Korean in smaller letters above it.
And if you want some cross-training,
Greg Bartman teaches BJJ and a bit of MMA in the same location after some of the TKD classes and offers a discount to the TKD students (which I plan to start trying out soon)
Note: I did not check out a lot of places in the area. I found his place and tried him out and have enjoyed it but also think I'm being challeneged and am improving so I've stuck with him. His class is $95/month and he allows month to month so it's worth trying out for a month at least. He will recognize rank from other schools.
Drop me a line, either here or by PM or by email (joconnor@cybermesa.com) if you have any qestions
