The article from Taekwondo Times, by lead correspondent, Marc Zirogiannis, features the life and martial arts journey of Country Music legend, Willie Nelson, to becoming a 3rd degree black belt.

1. 48 | September 2014 taekwondotimes.com

2. MASTER OF COUNTRY GONGKWON YUSUL
by Marc Zirogiannis-Lead Correspondent
When most people hear the name Willie Nelson the image that immediately
comes to mind is a multi-platinum, iconic country music legend. Oth-ers
may think of the social activist who founded the Farm Aid benefit
concert more than 30 years ago to highlight the problems of American
small farmers. Still others might think of an environmentally friendly
businessman that familiarized the world with the potential and power of Biofuels as a clean,
sustainable replacement to fossil fuels. There are some who might think of Willie Nelson as
the author of seven books, including a biography and a novel. What most people wouldn’t
immediately think of when they hear the name Willie Nelson is Willie Nelson, 5th Dan mas-ter
of GongKwon YuSul, the deadly Korean martial art. However, Willie Nelson has as much
right to claim this unusual distinction as he does any of his other accomplishments.

3. It was on the eve of his 81st birthday when
Willie’s family, including his eight children,
and friends, such as Lance Armstrong, gath-ered
at the Dojang of Grandmaster Sam Um in
Austin, Texas, to observe a Black Belt test and
ceremony which culminated in the awarding
of a 5th Dan to Nelson. This achievement was
not an honorary award, nor was it a publicity
stunt. It was an honor bestowed upon a man
who, although not widely known for his skill
in the Dojang, has spent the better part of his
life training in the martial arts.
As a young boy, growing up in post-Depres-sion
IF MORE PEOPLE STUDIED THE ARTS,
THE WORLD WOULD BE A BETTER PLACE
era America, Willie Nelson always had
an interest in the combat styles of the Eastern
world. He found himself eagerly awaiting the
arrival of the local postal carrier with exotic,
printed material on various martial arts styles
he had mail ordered by cutting out some of the
small advertisements appearing in the back of
many of the DC Comics of the day. This fasci-nation
with the martial arts goes back, at least,
as far back as Nelson’s love of music.
Like much of the world, his fascination with
the fighting styles of the East was piqued by
the importing of low budget, eastern martial
arts action films starring the likes of such ris-ing
action stars as Bruce Lee. Nelson has been
very forthcoming in recalling his admiration
for the founder of Jeet Kune Do .
It was that interest in the arts that led him
to study, train, and teach Kung Fu in Nash-ville
throughout the 1960s, and beyond. In line
with Willie Nelson’s philosophy that martial
arts is a great way for kids to stay out of trouble
and stay in shape, he traveled the city teaching
and exhibiting his skills as a way to encourage
kids to become more involved in a martial arts
way of living. “To me, it doesn’t matter what
kind of training they explore, but every kid can
benefit from practicing some form of the mar-tial
arts,” he says.
Over the years, as Willie Nelson was rising
to meteoric stardom as the “Outlaw Cowboy”
sensation who released over 200 albums, sold
out concerts around the United States, year
after year, won a slew of awards with such
hits as “Always on My Mind”, “On the Road
Again”, “Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I
Die,” he continued to stay faithful to his study
of the arts.
For Willie, the Nashville scene seemed to
have left him feeling a sense of creative stag-nation,
both musically and in his martial arts
training. While he was already known as a
great songwriter, he had not yet come to be
recognized as an iconic singer. Simultane-ously,
he was in search of a fighting style that
offered him a greater ability to gauge his prog-ress
as a martial artist. The lack of structure
and belt gradations of Kung Fu had him seek-ing
supplemental training. “In Kung Fu, there
are no belts; there is a master and there are stu-dents
and no matter how long you study you
are always the student. This, sometimes, lim-its
your ability to gauge your progress. It did
for me” This desire for a more structured style
of training with a pronounced belt advance-ment
system led him to Texas and to Taekwon-do,
where he would achieve unprecedented
heights in the musical and martial arts arenas.
In the early 90s, Willie crossed paths with
Grandmaster Sam Um, of Austin, Texas. Mas-ter
Um was a 4th Dan Hapkido Master, under
the supervision of the World Hapkido Federa-tion,
as well as a 8th Dan Taekwondo Master
under the supervision of the World Taekwondo
Federation. For the next 20 years, Master Um
and Nelson would train, seriously, together in
the ancient Korean art of Taekwondo, where
Willie would eventually, earn his 3rd Dan as
well as the respect his Martial Arts guru.
With Willie being constantly on tour,
he and Master Um developed an unortho-
50 | September 2014 taekwondotimes.com

4. dox system that would allow Nelson to train
at the Dojang when he was in Texas, but con-tinue
to advance while on the road. Willie
turned his world famous traveling home and
tour bus “Honeysuckle Rose” into a veritable
traveling Dojang. “I can practice all my forms
going 80 mph down the highway.” Often,
however, he would stop the bus and practice
his beloved art on the side of the road, or in
the desert, while a volunteer would film his
technique. He would then send those videos
to Master Um for review and critique. This
constant training and feedback regimen
allowed Nelson to maintain the mastery of his
technique without the access to a conven-tional
Dojang, through this
extraordinary exhibition in
self discipline by the coun-try
music legend.
Throughout this period,
Grandmaster Um was seeking ways to mit-igate
against what he saw as a tidal wave of stu-dents
exiting traditional martial arts training
in favor of the free form, Mixed Martial Arts
style training of the hugely popular UFC. He
also began training in Jiu-Jitsu to round out
his own martial arts resume. It was in the
midst of this search and training that he dis-covered
GongKwon YuSul. This martial art,
founded in the mid-1990s, by Master Kang
Jun, was a modern hybrid style of Korean
based martial arts, incorporating ele-ments
of Taekwondo, Hapkido,
Tang Soo Do, Jiu-Jitsu, Kore-an
Boxing, and Yudo,
that maintained the
requisite focus on

5. respect and tradition; however, it emphasized
the practical applications of the art over the
competitive. The focus of GongKwon YuSul
was not poomsae, nor was it Olympic style
sparring. It was a very pragmatic system that
utilized efficient and practical techniques to
disable an opponent. GongKwon YuSul was
characterized by the countless practice of pre-arranged,
Hogu-less, step sparring drills used
to reinforce offensive and defensive techniques
for the participants, making the rhythms
almost intuitive.
In 2000, Grandmaster Um’s
Dojang became one of the few
Dojangs in the Western Hemi-sphere
to become certified to
teach this style, under the inter-national
authority of the Korean
headquarters of the Interna-tional
GongKwon YuSul Asso-ciation.
Since Master Um was
already teaching Taekwondo,
Hapkido and Jiu-Jitsu, he had
a head-start in rolling out this
modern, integrated style of mar-tial
arts. His school remains a
jewel in the international crown
of GongKwon YuSul.
He also identified Willie Nel-son
as an ideal candidate to begin
learning the style. Although Wil-lie
was already in his 60s by the
time the style was adopted by
Master Um, he was a lifelong
athlete, not only having trained
in the martial arts, but also hav-ing
been a wrestler, pole vaulter,
football player, baseball player,
avid golfer, cyclist, and track
star. In fact, in September 2013,
Newsweek Magazine described
the 80 year old, “Enduring Face
of American Music”, as indefati-gable;
a description that evokes
images of a man half his age. He
is a man of extreme humility and
compassion, making him Master
Um’s ideal candidate for this very
mature style of martial arts. In
fact, Master Um is the first to point
out that Nelson approaches his
training with a sense of genuine
purpose, without the reliance on his superstar-dom
to carry him along. “When Willie comes
to the Dojang he drives himself, in his pick up
truck, no entourage and no ego.”
“The respect other students show for Willie
is not because of his celebrity status but because
of his demeanor in the Dojang, as well as his
hard work,” he says. “The only time you remem-ber
Willie is a celebrity is when he invites the
whole Dojang to lunch and he insists on paying
for everyone.”
Over the course of the last 14 years, Grand-master
Um has continued to enhance the vis-ibility
of GongKwon YuSul; however, noth-ing
comes close to the explosive international
interest garnered by the events surrounding
Willie Nelson’s promotion to 5th Dan in the
style. While this surge in interest has been
great, there are those skeptics that secretly, and
not so secretly, wonder whether this promo-tion
was more akin to the awarding of an hon-orary
doctoral degree to a celebrity than an
actual belt promotion. To those critics, Master
Um answers, “Willie Nelson earned this pro-motion.
I challenge you to find another man,
81 years old or younger, who trains as hard, or
is as accomplished a martial artist.”
“Don’t be fooled, “ Master Um went on to
say, “Willie Nelson is a deadly force to be reck-oned
with, but that is not what makes him a
true martial arts master, what makes him a
true master is his calm temperament.”
As for that calm demeanor, Willie credits a
number of factors for his peaceful ways. Med-itation
has become a positive part of his life
through the martial arts, and he feels it does a
lot to hedge against stress. “Stress is the num-ber
one killer in this country. I try to do what
I can to be stress free. That doesn’t mean I
don’t have any stress. I just do what I can so
it doesn’t keep me up at night.” As for being
labeled a “deadly force,” he was flattered by
the confidence his Master showed in him, but
reflected, “The martial arts actually saved me
from a lot of fights in my wilder days. Having
the strength to walk away is something I am
very proud of.”
Willie Nelson’s commitment to the martial
arts has never been, directly, showcased on
stage in the same ways that a singer like Elvis
Presley, a Black Belt in Kenpo, was; however, it
is no less sincere. While Presley’s martial arts
training prominently manifested
itself through his Karate style
wardrobe and Kata-like dance
moves worked into the fabric of
his concerts, Nelson’s devotion is
more subtly evidenced through
his incredible stamina. Willie
Nelson does draw a strong cor-relation
between his musical fit-ness
and his years of martial arts
training. At 81-years-old, Willie
Nelson’s concerts still exceed two
and half hours of explosive ener-gy.
He considers these concerts to
be the greatest form of exercise in
the world, and attributes his abil-ity
to do it with such ease, at least
in part, to his martial arts regi-men.
Willie views the exercise in
the Dojang and the workout he
undergoes during his exhaustive
concert tours as being two sides
of the same coin. He has devel-oped
a keen understanding of his
physical condition that tempers
his performance and protects
him from sustained injury. “I
think it’s very important to learn
from your own body. It doesn’t lie
to you. If it feels good, do it. If it
don’t feel good, don’t do it”. This
sentiment may be the summation
of Willie Nelson’s life philosophy.
As Willie Nelson’s musi-cal
legacy forges ahead, into its
sixth decade of prominence,
a new chapter is unfolding as
the “Willie Nelson & Fam-ily”
tour makes its way across
the United States. Willie has
made his intentions clear, “I am
gonna keep making music for as long as I am
able.” As for the future of martial arts, this
unlikely emissary to an unusual discipline
sees a bright future for GongKwon YuSul, as
well as other martial arts. As he affirmed, “If
more people studied the arts the world would
be a better place.” As for his personal train-ing
goals, Willie Nelson offered the follow-ing,
“Well, I am eligible for next belt promo-tion
when I turn 90, so let’s just see how that
goes.” That promotion test would, actually,
elevate the man who has sold close to 100
million albums, in his lifetime, to the rank of
Grandmaster Willie Nelson.
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