Taekwondo Student's Affair with Master | Asian Air True Stories

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Taekwondo Student's Affair with Master

artial Arts has always been a way to release all of the pinned up energy inside of me. It has always taught me balance, discipline and structure. I have been in many many tournament nationwide, and travelled to Korea to represent our dojang. I have won very many grand championship trophies 1rst place .. but winning 1rst place was not the most important thing to me .. I have been taking it for some years now, and have felt the dojang was a part of my family .. my heartbeat. But something changed everything. My grandmaster is a very well known, and well respected man. He is my senior by age and by wisdom. I have always admired him, and looked at him as a father figure. He is married, has children much older than me, and has grandchildren. My biggest mistake was sleeping with him. I should have never gone that far with him. When he approached me for the very first time, telling me that he cared so much for me .. telling me how young, strong and beautiful I was in his eyes .. it did something to me on the inside. We continued to sleep together at almost every opportunity, at almost every occasion. I began to feel very guilty when his grandson or wife would call on the telephone, if we were in his office .. it felt like I was stealing him away from them, or like I was doing something so wrong. He would tell me that his wife was not giving him sex, and that she wasn't beautiful and young like me.

I began to notice my grandmaster began to treat me different in front of others, but behind closed doors .. he treated me as his lover. In front of everyone, he would be extra hard on me in sparring and in other things. He would always ask me,"Have you been good girl?" and then he would say,"I don't believe you." He told me never to tell anyone about this, as it would bring shame upon his name and the dojang. He told me that we could never truly be together, because he is a korean man and I am not(my father is Lebanese/my mother is Hispanic)and because of the huge age difference .. something like almost a 30 year gap. Whenever I was with him, he made me feel so protected and loved .. and as though what we had was so special. He said we can only do this in privacy, and that it was special what we had together. I had began to fall for him, and was getting hurt by it. He has tried giving me money, nice televisions, rent, credit cards, a car (along with the insurance and everything) cell phone, clothes etc.. Even plane tickets to Korea, Spain, Japan and Italy (I did not want to mention the trips to anyone. But it is embarrassing yet very true) It began to feel like he was doing it to keep me quiet. During all of this, I had a boyfriend who lived away. I think that I was doubting our relationship at some point. Due to our circumstance ..My boyfriend and I worked things through with each other. We have become much closer, and have a bigger understanding of what our relationship should be .. so things are solid between us. My boyfriend has been practicing Kung Fu for many many years, and wants me to stop taking taekwondo. I feel torn, because I love the taekwondo technique and I have grown attached to the dojang. I feel at the same time that I do not want to be in this position anymore with my grandmaster. Some have suggested that I leave the Dojang. I feel like this will probably be best for me. It is very painful for me, but it has to be done.
behind closed doors
Friday, August 23, 2002 at 08:21:39 (PDT)

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READER COMMENTS

Pokey,

Thankyou so much. Sometimes its really hard not to feel so depressed about it. I have decided to completely quit the dojang. Unfortunately, I am still dealing with the phone calls and him parking across the street from my apartment. I hope he eventually gets tired and decides to just give up.
behind closed doors Thursday, September 05, 2002 at 00:09:13 (PDT) [205.188.208.41]

I think you should stay in the relationship with the Grandmaster. It is you who has a problem dealing with the relationship. You are being manipulated by the comments of other folks and not being loyal to your true feelings. You have to admit and accept the fact that you enjoyed being with the Grandmaster and still want to be with him. You can have more than one emotional / sexual relationship. There is no rule against that. The only people who would disagree are those who can't deal with this fact of life.
Chung Hoi Tuesday, September 03, 2002 at 11:49:32 (PDT) [128.32.147.171]

Behind Closed Doors,

I'm sorry you have to put up with people like Forge and Asian Female who seem to gain more self-satisfaction in judging and looking down on you (without knowing you or your dojo master) than trying to offer you genuine advice you can use. I hope you don't pay too much attention to posts like there's.

I don't think you need people to tell you what is right or wrong or whatever. From your original post, you obviously know. Hell, most people know something is wrong and do it anyway. (Its that pesky thing called "humanity") And if all of us stopped doing stuff society perceived as wrong, life as we know it would not exist. Also, I think EVERYONE -- despite how much many people will deny it -- is just two or three steps away from having an extra-marital affair. For each of us, it depends on what those two or three steps are. However, for many people it's not that easy to achieve those steps.

Yeah, in my opinion you should leave the dojo and not see your master again. Your original relationship with him was based on someone you saw as a father-figure -- someone you greatly respected for his wisdom and inner strength. But that relationship does not exist anymore, and it never will again. What does he have to offer you now? Just sex and guilt (i.e. the way you feel when one of his family members calls the office). Actually, it reads like he does have something else to offer you: paranoia. For it reads like he is now stalking you. Having this man inundate you with dozens of unanswered phone calls in a single weekend, and watching your home for several hours at a time -- your relationship with him has gotten just about as far from a "father-figure" one as it can get. In my opinion, there is nothing else for you to do but permanently cut off contact with him and the dojo -- and as soon as possible. With the phone calls and his personal surveillance of your home, the situation has escalated. For your sake, don't let it escalate any further.

Don't hang your head about the whole thing, or let people make you feel dirty or immoral. For one thing, it seems like you've already been emotionally punished over this. And you will be punished even more when you permanently cut yourself off from your beloved dojo (judging from what you wrote about how much it means to you). Unfortunately, that is the price you will have to pay for this experience. Oh, imagine how punished you'd be had you lost your boyfriend (who, it seems, is very, very important to you). Be grateful you didn't.

But these things happen. It's what life is about. So look back on it as a life lesson, and learn from it so that if the same situation ever presents itself to you again -- perhaps when you yourself have the marriage and the family -- you will have the experience and the wisdom to make a different choice.

After all, it's stuff like this that makes us wise.

Good luck!

Pokey Monday, September 02, 2002 at 23:22:05 (PDT) [209.178.146.72]

The best thing is for you to leave the Dojang and never see your grandmaster again. What you did was wrong in many ways and I hope you do not continue on doing the wrong thing.

Please treat yourself and the others around you with respect and leave this relationship with, that dirty old coot, your grandmaster.
forge
Thursday, August 29, 2002 at 09:57:51 (PDT)

behind closed doors,

ughh...how could you do that to yourself?

I know a person that's been through your situation before, except, she didn't sleep with the guy.

Gross! Anyhow, she felt grossed out too! I don't know if I could live with myself if that ever happened to me.

I don't even know how I could live with myself and still talk to my boyfriend, even with a guilty conscience.

How could you do that to him? I feel sorry for the fact that you are the victim in this situation.

That old fart needs to die! Please don't let that happen again! You lose yourself by doing dumb sh*t like that. Your body is a temple, keep it pure!
Asian Female
Tuesday, August 27, 2002 at 17:33:59 (PDT)

feeling sorry for him,
My boyfriend is an asian man.

Viet guy in Houston,
You are right. I realize that I have to leave. I have already stopped going to the school. My sabunim has been calling on the telephone alot, and instead of pickin up the phone I have been leaving my anwsering machine on. This weeked I have recieved a total of 40 messages from him. I am beginning to get a little worried now. And Monday and yesterday I saw his car parked across the street from 6pm until 9pm, and then it drove off slowly. Its weird because at first I said I wanted to end it..and he refused. Then he said he wanted to end it (there were rumors that he was seeing an older woman in her 40s)and when I heard about it, I was actually very relieved that it was finally over between us. And now hes doing this constant calling on the phone, and parking outside of my apartment. Its starting to really scare me.
behind closed doors
Tuesday, August 27, 2002 at 08:38:29 (PDT)

Behind closed doors,

Your situation reminds me of the White House a couple of years ago.

Wait a minute. Are you Monica Lewinsky? Is your master Clinton? C'mon now. Stop smoking that cigar cuz you know it's wrong.
White House Aide
Monday, August 26, 2002 at 19:54:50 (PDT)

The moral of this story is Tae Kwon Do suck and you should switch to Kung Fu, FOOL! Later, grasshopper!
lordt78
Sunday, August 25, 2002 at 05:26:52 (PDT)

i think you fell for your sensei but you felt guilty when you will leave the dojo?
Leokaizer
Saturday, August 24, 2002 at 02:33:39 (PDT)

behind closed doors:
what that old fart did was wrong. he's a true disgrace to himself, his family, to martial arts. he took advantage of a young student who looked up to him. you should join another dojo and seek help dealing with this.
take care
bryant
Friday, August 23, 2002 at 21:12:38 (PDT)

behind closed doors,

What ethnicity is your bf? Is he also Lebanese? Damn, as an Asian if my girl were to f*** some non-Asian, I would drop her ass like a hot coal. Blink -- and she's out the fukken door. That sucks, esp for your man.
feeling sorry for him
Friday, August 23, 2002 at 18:00:02 (PDT)

A friend just emailed me a couple of minutes ago, and told me that I forgot to make it clear that I am a woman! (although personally I think it may have something do with her feelings that it is rare that I am a woman whose into martial arts!) So just in case anyone had misinterpreted, I AM a woman! LOL!
behind closed doors
Friday, August 23, 2002 at 14:31:40 (PDT)

To 'behind closed doors',
You definitely need to leave that situation! It's not very healthy for anyone involved. You are very lucky to have a boyfriend who is that understanding and loving to forgive you and help you. When I was studying TKD, I too had a grandmaster who was a very shady individual. I heard rumors that he would visit strip clubs frequently. Did his wife and family know about my grandmaster's outings? I don't know. But He and his family(they were all involved in the martial arts) were locally known for controversy. It's ironic, TKD is suppose to teach you self respect, dignity, and self control among other tenets. Your grand master did not practice what he preached. If you stay in that dojang and any where near your grandmaster, you will continue to break those tenets as well. I know it's a hard thing to do but you need to leave.
Viet guy in Houston
Friday, August 23, 2002 at 14:27:58 (PDT)

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