August 5th, 2003
Our school has joined the American Tang Soo Do Association (ATA) under the leadership of Grandmaster Richard Byrne, 8th Dan.
What this means to each of you is that:
- From a training and promotional standpoint, Cambridge Tang Soo Do becoming a member of the ATA for the most part will not have a big impact on our day to day activity. Because the ATA is a Tang Soo Do organization, there are no changes in the promotional requirements or testing environments. My main reason for joining the ATA are:
- the privilege of being affiliated with a world renowned Korean Martial Arts Association led by a well recognized leader;
- access for all of us to a breadth of knowledge through a handful of senior master instructors in the area;
- the opportunity to training continuously and the option to transfer to other ATA studio around the country should you move out of the area;
- participation in ATA sanctioned events such as seminars, camps, competitions, clinics, lectures, etc… I am also looking forward to broadening your repertoires with new forms and one-step techniques.
- From an administrative standpoint, you will notice the following changes:
- your certificates will be awarded by the ATA,
- the testing fee will increase slightly to support the ATA processing of your promotions, certificates, belts and record keeping
- we will all be receiving ATA patches for our uniforms
- we will all be receiving additional training material including new student manuals