Sorry for the long, off topic post. But some folks may like the story.
A quick preface- Sin Il Choi is a wonderfull person and a highly skilled martial artist, but sometimes you just have one of those days!
Helped a Korean Tae Kwon Do instructor (Sin Il Choi) set up a big demo in Corpus Christi, Texas. I was kind of stage managing and helping set up shots and move cameras, etc, for the guy doing video. Things went bad from the beginning, a young black belt performing a spear demo lost his weapon, which sailed into the crowd. it hit a teenager in the chest, and his natural reaction of grabbing it and hanging on, made it appear for several seconds (seemed like hours), that he had been impaled, but in reality he only suffered a small cut (unsharpened spear!), then Choi himself broke both hands doing a ridgehand break on a truck leaf spring. He broke his right hand on the first attempt, did not want to look bad, broke the leaf spring on the second with his left hand. Unfortunately, he had never done such a feat with the left hand and it was now broken as well. Off goes the host too the hospital. A guest teacher from Korea is the big finale. he lays down and has a suburban driven over him, he has done this a hundred times, but never on a slick tile floor. The front wheel hits him, pinches him to the floor and slides him halfway across the Colliseum before the driver realizes he does not see the victorious martial artist standing behind the truck. We had to jack the front of the truck up off of him. In a great display of courage (or foolishness) he insisted on performing the demo again, and after adding one of the rubberized mats from the building entrance, he succeeded, survived, and let another teacher tape his ribs up, though he refused to go to the hosptal. The great thing was the dinner that night, the old masters were cracking us up with "When demos go bad" stories from around the world.
A quick preface- Sin Il Choi is a wonderfull person and a highly skilled martial artist, but sometimes you just have one of those days!
Helped a Korean Tae Kwon Do instructor (Sin Il Choi) set up a big demo in Corpus Christi, Texas. I was kind of stage managing and helping set up shots and move cameras, etc, for the guy doing video. Things went bad from the beginning, a young black belt performing a spear demo lost his weapon, which sailed into the crowd. it hit a teenager in the chest, and his natural reaction of grabbing it and hanging on, made it appear for several seconds (seemed like hours), that he had been impaled, but in reality he only suffered a small cut (unsharpened spear!), then Choi himself broke both hands doing a ridgehand break on a truck leaf spring. He broke his right hand on the first attempt, did not want to look bad, broke the leaf spring on the second with his left hand. Unfortunately, he had never done such a feat with the left hand and it was now broken as well. Off goes the host too the hospital. A guest teacher from Korea is the big finale. he lays down and has a suburban driven over him, he has done this a hundred times, but never on a slick tile floor. The front wheel hits him, pinches him to the floor and slides him halfway across the Colliseum before the driver realizes he does not see the victorious martial artist standing behind the truck. We had to jack the front of the truck up off of him. In a great display of courage (or foolishness) he insisted on performing the demo again, and after adding one of the rubberized mats from the building entrance, he succeeded, survived, and let another teacher tape his ribs up, though he refused to go to the hosptal. The great thing was the dinner that night, the old masters were cracking us up with "When demos go bad" stories from around the world.
