Grandmaster Joe Sheya
BackgroundJoe Sheya was born in San Franciso in 1949. His family lived in several different parts of the country as he grew up. He did some boxing as a kid, and he was involved in a few street fights later on, but he had no contact with the martial arts until college. In the early 70's Joe attended the University of Maryland at College Park, where he received a degree in education. Joe teaches in the Anne Arundel County public school system.
In college Joe started taking Tae Kwon Do, the average person's perception of what martial arts was. It was fun for a couple of months, but once the newness wore off he realized it wasn't much different than his fighting as a teenager. Tae Kwon Do amounted to using force to damage your attacker. He wanted something else.
HapkidoJoe was talking about his disappointment with Tae Kwon Do in a restaurant when a total stranger introduced himself and started talking about a different kind of martial art, Hapkido. He had seen a demonstration given by a local man, Mr. Rim, who was a Hapkido Master. After a couple of weeks Joe went to the address the man had given him, Mr. Rim's home, and asked about Hapkido. Communication was a problem because Mr. Rim hadn't been in the country long and didn't speak English. For the next 45 minutes Mr. Rim demonstrated Hapkido.
Joe left realizing that his attacks had been handled but he was not hurt. To Mr. Rim's surprise he returned the next day, and the day after that. After about a week, Mr. Rim told Joe he was coming too often and handed him a calender. They worked out a schedule and began regular lessons. Initially the lessons were fairly rough. If Joe had been less robust he wouldn't have been able to continue. Eventually Mr. Rim started teaching Joe differently, showing him the details behind the basic motions. After about four years, Mr. Rim gave Joe a black belt.
Rim's Hapkido
After a session with Mr. Rim, Joe would come home and show his neighbor, Chris Heistand, what he learned that day. Eventually Chris started coming to Mr. Rim's house with Joe. Soon others joined the group, and Joe continued learning and teaching. Mr. Rim encouraged Joe to begin scheduling his own classes. Following Mr. Rim's example, there was no fee for the classes. Sometimes there were many students at these free classes, but many times there were none. A discouraging situation.
One of Joe's senior students hit on the idea that Americans don't value something that they don't pay for. They got a space of their own, made up some signs, charged by the month, and Rim's Hapkido was born. After renting space in several locations, Joe ended up sharing space with Barlow's Gymnastics, a relationship that continues to this day.
There are many motions in Hapkido, and initially there were only a few ranks; white, green, red, brown, and black. Testing for a new rank was as much a test of memory and endurance as it was a test of Hapkido skill. First, Joe wrote all the motions down so he had English language documentation of the techniques. Then Joe worked with Mr. Rim to break the motions down into groups of approximately fifty techniques per rank, producing our current belt ranking system. This restructuring is the only difference between our current system and the art taught by Mr. Choi.
Mr. Choi's visit
Mr. Rim, Joe and Ken took a train to New York to attend meeting with Mr. Choi. They met at a Korean resturant, Yong Bin Kwon. It was important to Joe to meet Mr. Choi, but the meeting was important in another way. Joe learned that all Hapkidoists were not as open and selfless as Mr. Rim. Most of the people in attendence were only interested in self-promotion. At times they were even disrespectful of Mr. Choi.
Finally, Mr. Rim spoke. Joe doesn't speak Korean, so at that time he didn't know what was being said. He did know that you could hear a pin drop in the room. He now knows that Mr. Rim spoke of the importance of the traditional relationship between master and student. That this relationship was more important than money or belt rank, which apparently were the main interests of the others attending. Mr. Rim declared Joe his brother and his inheritor. Later, Mr. Choi declared Joe "Kwang Jang" (master instructor) for the United States.
Mr. Choi seated Joe next to him as the others left. Mr. Choi held Joe's left hand with his right. On their way out, everyone bowed to Mr. Choi, and bowed to Joe last. Joe was confused, but he knew this was a good thing. Or at least he thought so until it was time for him to leave. When he walked out on to the street, everyone who left the meeting was standing there waiting for him. Joe thought this was it, but one by one everyone gave him their business card. Over the next couple of years Joe spent his free time visiting these other Hapkido schools. He hoped to find another school that was teaching the Hapkido he was taught. He never did.
Hapkido Today
On September 18,1998, Rim, Jong Bae announced to his students that he was forming an organization in order to preserve the purity of the art that was personally taught to him by Choi, Yong Sul. This organization will be called "Rim's Hapkido Association." Grandmaster Rim and the members of Rim's Hapkido Association will dedicate themselves to perpetuating Choi, Yong Sul's Hapkido motion and his spirit. On 23 March, 2002 Grandmaster Rim promoted Joe Sheya to ninth degree black belt.
jsheya@sheyashapkido.com