Team Description
The Army Martial Arts Team
Team Status: Club Squad
Season: Fall (full authos), Spring (partial authos)
Style: Taekwondo and Karate
Authos: 20 (Taekwondo: 14, Karate: 6)
Cadet Chain of Command
Team Captains: Nicholas Salinas '07 F2, and Jennifer Lewis 07 A4
ACIC: Salvatore Corma 08 H4, and Judy Yoo 08 G4
S1: Judy Yoo 08 G4
S3: Luke Summerfelt 08 H2
S4: Bo Kim 09 F4
Basics Class Coordinator: Eugene Park 07 D2
Coaches
Grand Master Ji Ho Choi (www.jihochoi-taekwondo.com)
Master Robinson (www.robinsonstaekwondo.com)
OICs
MAJ Matthew McCollum (Physics Department)
CPT (P) Alex Hayman (Keller Army Community Hospital)
1SG Theodore Rivera (Keller Army Community Hospital)
About the Team:
The Army Martial Arts Team focuses on sport martial arts competition. While touching on the traditional aspects of forms, punching, kicking, stances, and technique, our main focus in on the sparring aspect. We receive authos (explained in the next paragraph) in order to compete and win at competitions. The team primarily competes in two leagues: for Taekwondo, the Ivy/Northeast Collegiate Taekwondo League (www.inctl.org), and for Karate, the New England Collegiate Karate Conference (www.nakf.org).
We practice in Arvin Annex, near Gillis Field House, between 1630-1830, Monday Friday. While we have Intramural (IM) and Unit Training Time (UTT) authos the whole year, we have only parade authos during the fall -- despite the higher number of tournaments during the spring. Two reasons for this, we want to build a solid base of training and skill from the beginning of the year, and there are more parades in the fall than in the spring season.
The Team is divided into two styles, Taekwondo and Karate. Taekwondo is a Korean Martial Art, estimated to be as old as 5000. The meaning, according to the World Taekwondo Federation website is as follows: "Tae" means "foot," "leg," or "to step on"; "Kwon" means "fist," or "fight"; and "Do" means the "way" or "discipline." If we put these three parts together, we can see two important concepts behind "Tae Kwon Do" (www.wtf.org). The Karate side, on the other hand, is an agglomeration of several styles, but most of the team practices shotokan, an ancient Japanese art meaning empty hand (kara empty, te hand).
Finally, the team actively believes in teaching the Corps at large, and offers evening classes Monday-Wednesday, between 1830-1930. We teach cadets at no charge, basic Taekwondo skills. Our ultimate goal is to bring these new students into tournaments to compete against other schools.
For additional information, please look at our FAQ.
Former Team Captains (TKD, and Karate):
2002-2003: Morgan Watt, and Dave Stewart
2003-2004: Camero Song, and Greg Bew
2004-2005: Jon McCary, and AJ Alves
2005-2006: Jason Song, and Tim McDonald