The Alchemist

I get many questions:
- Have you ever had to use Hapkido?
- How often do you practice?
- What skills must you learn for the next black belt level?

Actually the more the student trains, the more he realizes that many of these types of questions are irrelevant.

The Story of the Alchemist:
In the olden days the Master Alchemist lived high up in the hills. At that time there was one young man who desperately wanted to be rich. Hearing the stories of the Master he decided to go and see for himself - he would climb the mountain and intimidate this frail old man into giving him much gold. He set out on the journey, strapping the largest stone possible to his back and climbed high up in the mountains to reach the Master.
Master “I want you to turn my rock into Gold”
That’s silly!!! – but the Master said “I will give you much gold to take with you, if you stay with me for 1 year”

What he spoke about during the year was finding inner harmony – harmony from negative emotions.

The master taught the young man to take out his garbage and cultivate the positive. This we call inner alchemy.

When we change our
- anger into kindness or
- our hatred into love,
- our fear into courage,
- our frustration into patience – that’s modern gold

Then, when we go home they make even more gold.

So when someone says to me – have you ever had to use Hapkido, I say “everyday”. Many people think I live in a bad neighborhood!