Austin George ‘23
Interviewed by Jonathan Peterson ‘23
Who are you, where are you from, and how did you end up at law school?
I’m Austin George, I’m a 1L originally from Alabama, but I moved to Georgia, so both are home for me. Funnily enough, I’ve wanted to do tax law since I was in high school.
How did you get started with Taekwondo?
I started when I was five because it was mandatory in my family. My grandfather came to the U.S. from Korea in 1965, and he began the tradition. Back when he started learning in 1946, Taekwondo was reserved for adults. So, he had to beg to just to get beaten up by adults. When he was born, relations between Korea and Japan were strained. His father went to Japan to work, where he ended up dying. My grandfather grew up in Japan and, when he came back to Korea after World War II, he only spoke Japanese. Everyone at school bullied him. He didn’t even know enough Korean to explain his situation. Essentially, he got so angry about being called a “Japanese bastard” that he wanted to beat up the kids doing it, so he learned Taekwondo. By the time he came to the U.S. he was a Master, and was one of the first Grandmasters in the U.S. He had his children study Taekwondo, starting at the age of five. His children did the same, so, it’s been a tradition in my family now for three generations.
What’s Taekwondo’s history like?
Taekwondo’s history is interesting; it isn’t very old in terms of its actual formation. Of course, the principles and foundations are ancient, it’s rooted in karate and tang soo do, which I believe was actually Chuck Norris’s foundation. One of the original founders, Choi, had to flee due to a gambling debt he owed a wrestler. He trained in karate while in Japan and, upon returning to Korea, Choi had a reputation in martial arts and the wrestler left him alone.
That led to an idea: If martial arts can empower a small man, maybe it can empower a small nation. Korea then founded World Taekwondo as its most prominent martial art. My grandfather did not have high opinions of Choi, who ended up unhappy with the direction Taekwondo was headed. Choi felt he was not getting the recognition he deserved, so he formed ITF (International Taekwon-do Federation) in North Korea. A relative of Choi’s formed the other branch of ITF which basically didn’t agree with World Taekwondo but didn’t want to be involved with North Korea.
Chuck Norris?
Well, Chuck Norris and my grandfather were actually good friends. My grandfather moved to California and, at that time, Norris was a motorcycle cop there. Norris actually sought out my grandfather to work on his wheel kick.
What’s the difference between World Taekwondo and ITF?
In the mid-60s, World Taekwondo would put on demonstration teams, and they still do to this day. Now, they do these incredible routines with high kicks, flips, even some dancing. When my grandfather was doing demonstrations, he was smashing rocks with his head. It was impressive, but in a totally different way—it was much more about displaying strength and pain tolerance. As World Taekwondo advanced, they wanted to make sparring both pleasing to an audience and safer for the combatants. ITF is really focused on combat, not so much flash and spin.
What does a World Taekwondo practitioner do?
Most people focus on one or two competitions. I specialized in sparring and forms. As a kid, I was better at forms, but as I’ve gotten older I’ve become more interested in sparring. I think starting at such a young age hurt me, I was always sparring kids older in class which hurt my confidence. But my parents were really hard about good technique, so I tended to do well in forms.
Good tournament stories?
I was still a blue belt and I’d never practiced forms so hard for a competition. For some reason, my mom told me not to forget that I needed to practice. I swear to this day she cursed me. At the tournament, I forgot everything. I got dead last. I was so mad that I decided I had to win sparring. I’d never gone into sparring with that attitude before, and that tournament was the first time I ever knocked somebody out, and I won sparring too. I didn’t win sparring often, so to get last in forms and first in sparring, that always stuck out to me.
Did you ever want to quit?
Yeah, actually, I hated Taekwondo as a kid. That changed in high school. I started training with my uncle and I guess there’s a difference between training your nephew and training your son. He was just a more fun teacher. I’d always had an unspoken agreement with my mom that, when I graduated high school, I could do what I wanted with Taekwondo. But, by the time I went off to college, I loved Taekwondo. It’ll be a part of me forever.
And, as credit to my mother because I did just say she wasn’t a fun teacher, she was much more balanced with my training than her father was with her. She competed in the 1988 Olympic trials. She was the 1989 collegiate athlete of the year in forms and sparring. At one point she was ranked #1 in the world in forms despite splitting her time. She trained for hours every day as a kid, I only trained twice a week. She loves Taekwondo, but not in the same way as I do. She still does it now but that’s in part because it’s what she knows. I feel lucky to say that I still do Taekwondo because I truly love it and want to keep pursuing it. My mom didn’t even want me competing past black belt—all she wanted was for me to experience competition at each belt-level. But now, I know I’ll compete again, and that’s my choice. I feel like I’m able to make that choice because my mom was balanced in my training.
---
ajg4pk@virginia.edu