Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Odysseus]

I'm interested in learning Dahnhak (Korean Yoga) somewhere close to Incheon. Would like to hear from anyone who is taking Dahnhak. Is there a phone number with an English speaker that can give me location and price info?

[gypsyfish]

I studied dahnhak a few years ago. I kind of enjoyed it, but quit because it was getting kind of like a cult. If I skipped a session, I'd get a call, "Where were you? We love you. You need to come everyday. We miss you."

I'd been studying a couple of months when my instructor came to me and asked if I would consider being a trainer in the USA. I pointed out that I was still having difficulty with the second step of the program and she didn't really address my concerns except to say that I was doing a good job. My impression was that they just wanted a 'Mercan face to open a center with. A woman I had been studying with told me one day that she was going to quit and the next day she was excited because the instructors wanted her to open a center in Canada. One instructor gave a lecture about how the world was going to be thrown into tumult in about ten years, that meditation was going to save the world, and that dahnhak wanted to be the meditation. (An aside, the instructor said this idea came from America and a young French woman said with perfect Gaulic disdain."Why does everything 'ave to come from America?" Even though I don't believe it, I looked at her, held up a finger and said, "Cause, we're number one. We're number one." It was pretty funny and the lecture broke up early that night. But I digress.)

What finally soured me on dahnhak was when I went to the 'secret training.' It seemed like an EST seminar, with people yelling, screaming, running around, blaming their parents for their problems and crying. Oh, and a lot of hugging and cheering. I was very uncomfortable and stuck around a couple of weeks before I pulled the plug. I friend of mine - a Korean - came back from the training shell shocked - not at all blissfull - and quit, too.

Did I feel Ki? Yes, I think. Did I feel good when I did it? Usually. The people were nice, both instructors and students, but it just got too weird for me.

I know I haven't answered the questions you asked, but I hope I've given you some insight to dahnhak. There are probably many people who have had very different experiences.

Best of luck.

[dogbert]

[Dr. Buck]

Sounds just like Jeung San Do. Same sort of weird shit. I was invited up to their headquarters in Daejeon by a former student. The pretext was that it was similiar to tai chi and I thought I'd give it a try.

Nearly similiar to the cultish description above, but the cult-religious stuff gets throw at you right off the bat:
stuff about cosmic winters, the savior of the world is this Korean guy whose biography resembles the Kim Seung Il up north, and lots of other hokey nonsense such as ki healing powers, and lots of rewritten history.

Check out their website for a good laugh.
A handful of other foriegners were there and we all gave each other the upraised eyebrow. I ditched out with their free bible and went to a nearby bar and persused the whacky prose over a few beers.

It seems to me Koreans are getting good at making up ancient, lost pseudo-mystic martial arts and then, turning it into a cult/business venture. These are always based on some hero-worshipped grandmaster.

So you have dahn-hak--check out the abovementioned website for the phoniness.

And then you have the hardcore cult of Jeung San Do.

And then you have the Hwarangdo: if you know your Korean history, you'll know these guys were simply aristocrat/scholar/knights--trained in the classic, horsemanship, military arts and such.

But then, this Korean guy comes along to the USA and makes this up to be some lost secret art that he is the sole master of----Hwarangdo is actually trademarked--imagine trademarking taekwondo, or akido.
If you do a 'net search, you find some stories that almost resemble hogwon nightmare episodes.

And next, though not a martial art, are the Moonies--Rev. Moon and his ultra-cult of twisted psycho crap.

[Odysseus]

Thanks for the warning! Maybe I just need to find some simple Qi gong. Any suggestions on where it is offered in the Incheon area?