Jrg: My original training was in Judo. Then I also trained in Jujitsu, Aikido, and TaeKwonDo. I had trained for over 10 years before I met Mr. Kim, and I've trained with him now almost 30 years. When you say Hapkido is the art I teach, that is true, but we also teach Judo, Aikido, Jujitsu and TaeKwonDo at Pacific Rim [Martial Arts Academy]. Hapkido, as a technical approach is a separate art; but Hapkido as a philosophy, as a way of life, does not differ much in any of those arts. To answer the question, Hapkido is about the principles of effective conflict resolution. Fighting is only one of the alternatives, and way down on the list of priorities.

DM: What is at the top of the list then?

JRG: Well, I am involved in some sport activities that are not martial oriented. I have been recently appointed as a mediating negotiator, which means that if someone in that sport has a problem with a judge or with the outcome of an event, then I am the one who gets called in to do the mediating. However, the history of that particular sport is that there have been people who punch judges, who threaten them, who have periodically gone ballistic. The underlying hope is that if this were to happen, then I would also act as a physical mediator, which would probably be to control the violent part of the event. So the priority list we spoke of works like this: One, the hope is that nothing like this happens, but two, anything volatile that does happen can hopefully be controlled through mediation, and three, if there is physical stuff, then it becomes my job to see that nobody gets hurt, and four, if somebody has to get hurt, then well, it's not going to be one of the judges. So the physical part becomes a last priority, a last resort. This is specifically what I teach when I teach communication skills to police officers-- how do you talk to someone in such a way that you don't have to get into a confrontation with them? But if someone they are talking to is capable of violence, they need to be able to perceive that possibility ahead of time. If someone pulls a gun, the time to be aware of that is before it happens.

DM: So really, perception precedes violence?

JRG: Perception precedes everything. During mediation, my thought is, we are here to mediate. But my consciousness is that though I am here to just facilitate mediation, mediation may not be all that I have to deal with here, and I also need to be prepared for some alternatives, as opposed to just thinking mediation procedures, and then being surprised if it doesn't work.

DM: I understand the dynamics of how to teach physical technique, but how do you teach perception? What are the dynamics of that?

JRG: You consistently demand that your students pay attention, all the time. You continually challenge their level of awareness. I was talking about an example of this a few nights ago in Aikido class. What I said was that in Aikido, Ueshiba would scold his uke if they didn't know, by something that he projected, which technique he wanted to work on. And as far back as 20 years ago, I began saying the same thing to my black belts. My expectation is that black belts should automatically know which person that I plan on demonstrating a technique with, without my having to point to them, or nod, or whatever. My job, and the uke's job, is to be paying close enough attention so as to always know what is going on. The black belts should know who is going to be chosen to be uke, what technique is going to be demonstrated, and automatically know how to attack for that demonstration. What we stress, almost from the time a person walks in the front door and learns the very first basics, is raising the levels of perception. How the body moves, how a person grabs, how to feel another person's energy, and how to blend with it and adapt to it, and change as it changes. You gear to physical learning first, and then you incorporate that kind of emotional contact learning next. This is an ongoing process; you train this way all the time.

DM: One of the black belts and I were talking earlier about the fact that a lot of the rules of protocol and respect in the martial arts- especially here at Pacific Rim [Martial Arts Academy] are not written down. There are rules of behavior, rules of bowing, of reactivity and being connected that aren't clearly marked out or even explained. While other clubs may have very specific rules all written out and posted by the entrance to the dojang, you choose not to do that. Is this your particular teaching style, or is this particular to the art of Hapkido itself?

JRG: This is related to the kind of emotional contact learning I spoke of earlier. My expectation is that students will learn over time how to act by paying attention. You can have twenty rules written down, and you can memorize every word and every comma in them, but when you get to the twenty-first situation, it doesn't help you. But if you know that the basic tenets of Hapkido are right behavior, courtesy, respect, and patience, then over time and by experiencing how advanced belts incorporate these tenets into all their actions, you pick it up situation by situation. Eventually, you arrive at a place where you not only know what to do in known situations, but even when the situation is something you have never seen before, you know how to act because you are practiced in dealing with subtle social interactions from some kind of central guiding principles, from the heart, by staying connected emotionally. This is the way Hapkido is taught. And it is the same with teaching technique. You don't have to learn 1,265 different techniques. What you learn are the principles behind how technique works. If you know the dynamics of the principles, then maybe you know ten thousand techniques- who knows? You don't know until you need them. And then, hopefully, the technique will happen automatically because you have learned how to pay attention to the present situation, and not a bunch of static situations, or rules formulated 20 years ago. The principles of movement, and of respect, emotional connection, and spiritual unity are all assimilated by experience, over time. If you have to write down rules of respect, then it's already bureaucratic instead of functional. People will obey only those rules, or they will test them by seeing if they can break the spirit of the rule without breaking the rule itself. They think, 'you can't get me because I know the rules.' Or they want to know the rules so they can be 'one up' on somebody who doesn't know the rules. But this relationship with rules shuts off learning. But if you train yourself to be moral and ethical and you live your life based on knowing that you are doing the best you can within that framework, then that is the self-examined, purposeful living, the warrior stance that we talked about before. If you don't set standards for yourself, then you are free to do whatever you want, even if it's illegal. That kind of person is always looking for loopholes, and making up excuses for his behavior if the spotlight suddenly shifts his way. The warrior's way is a conscious, integrated intent to live a certain way, and his actions should always support that way. The warrior examines his own behavior to that end. And that's why everything is realized by perception, and not memorized by rule.

DM: But when you talk about morals and ethics, you're using words that mean different things to different people.

JRG: Yes, this is true. I know what I mean by moral and ethical, although that's just my own definition. But the more we stay emotionally connected as a group, say a practice group, the more the terms moral and ethical evolve into a common meaning. Of course there have always been people who are warriors who prefer to be alone-- Musashi was a complete recluse, yet struggled to define his own code of behavior in The Book of Five Rings. And Mr. Kim is this way; he lives by the rules that he sets for himself, and he is comfortable with his own rules, and honors them, and so he can trust his own behavior. And he doesn't get himself into situations in which he has to defend or define his lifestyle. I'll give you an example. I have been working on a book about the development of Hapkido within the history of the Korean martial arts for a very long time, and I wanted Mr. Kim to tell me, to give me permission to write the specifics of exactly who did what, where, and when, especially in regard to the early years of Hapkido development. And he said he didn't want me to do that. I can do generalities, and idea concepts, but he said he wouldn't help me with specific chronological order. When I asked why, he said, because then somebody would say, oh, no, he's not telling the truth; this is the way it really was. He said, he wouldn't be put in a position to have to defend a bunch of documents. If people are interested, they will find the truth. And if they are not interested, they will make up their own version of the truth anyway. He doesn't want to be involved in any of that. I have tried to honor his decision, but in terms of being a teacher and a writer, it's an ongoing nightmare. But I understand that it is my job to present Hapkido as an ongoing, constantly evolving experience and not as a cold and stagnant history lesson.

DM: How do you teach an art that is constantly changing? Surely Hapkido must have some fundamentals, some basics that don't change, or else how can it be learned at all?

JRG: There are really two questions there; I'll try to answer the second one first. I never said that Hapkido had no fundamentals or basics. Of course it does. And it has it's own history as well. But while we teach basic defense techniques from the very first, by the time a person gets to brown belt, they know that there is more to the art than technique. By that time, they begin to be aware that they are trained not only in the techniques they have learned, but they are also trained behaviorally, verbally, attitudinally, and emotionally, through the structure of how the art is taught. That is, they have been exposed to information about ethical behavior, about proper breathing, about ki energy, and how all of these things affect a person's whole life. They have seen the influence these principles have by role modeling- both by myself and by my black belts. Everybody who stays in the art for any length of time, to this level, practices pretty much the same kind of ideals and belief system as best they can. Ueshiba talked about 10 years; after 10 years, you become your art, if you have really been serious about it. The basics you are referring to are really as much about living life as they are about self defense. As for the first part of the question, any art that has any credibility and validity cannot remain stagnant. Judo has changed, Aikido has changed, even though the basics remain the same, the fundamentals are taught the same. But because people are looking at things from a different perspective, or they have changed physically as they have aged, or their intention has expanded or evolved, the nature of the art expands and evolves as they do. As people's perspectives expand, and their philosophy gets deeper and they internalize the art more, there are more possibilities within the art. I've said this many times before- I can tell, particularly with Hapkido instructors, at what level they stopped training, or what level their teacher stopped training. What happens is they quit expanding, they quit growing with the art, and the art stops. Students who train under this kind of a teacher are always going to be stopping short of where their teacher stopped training, and thus stopping short of their own potential. A teacher has a moral and ethical obligation to provide a full spectrum of what martial art is, not just a very narrow, incomplete, unfinished picture. Which is, unfortunately, often what happens.

DM: What motivation does a teacher have to continue to evolve? You reach a point where you have enough knowledge to teach 99.9% of all the people who come to you for training, even though some of your black belts have been with you 20 years. What motivates you to continue training?