***8-21-09 - ASU has canceled the TaeSooDo Instructional program for the Fall 09 semester***

Hey everyone,
We have very bad news. Asu is not renewing our membership as an
instructional program. We will be organizing a protest Tomorrow
(Saturday) and the first day of school. I need everyone's help to make
this happen. More info on the end of this message.

The story is complicated but here is a sum up:
In May we were informed that the SRC will have a new Instructional
Program policy. One requirement is that all martial arts are required to
have insurance from this semester on.
In June we were given actual instructions on how to submit our paperwork
for an instructional program. Since MA insurance costs at a minimum of
$1000 per year, it was difficult to find one that was reasonable since
they mostly cover much larger programs. Eventually in early July, Master
Elliot of the north school figured out a way to put me on his insurance.
We were in contact with a Sue Butler who works at the SRC while doing
this. She never returned/answered calls and rarely emailed us back after
we had questions. We became mired in details at this point because the
document that Sue sent us did not describe how we were supposed to be
insured. In perticular they require 'ASU' 'Board of Regents' and
'Arizona' to be additional insured along with Eitan and I, but many MA
insurance companies insure by address only.
After a few slow weeks of getting very few details and rarely hearing
back, we had gotten our insurance exactly the way they wanted it. In
late july we faxed/emailed it all over to Sue. It was understood that
the process takes them a few weeks for some reason.
A week later on Aug 3rd, I called Michelle Jung to see what the status
was. She informed me that we were too late and that there was not enough
time in the summer break to finish the processing. She explained that
Sue Butler had gone on vacation one day prior to my call. I asked why
she hadn't taken care of the processing before Sue left. She had about a
week to do so. She basically explained that our club is hard to work
with and that she never liked us. She said that we had missed a deadline
of August 1st even though our insurance was done and sent in late July.
At this point it was clear that she had no interest in setting up our
club at all. I contacted her supervisor Tamera Garska, and she told me
that if I had proof of having had everything done and following through,
she'd consider setting up our club.
This is the conversation with Tamera:
http://songportal.org/misc /tamera_discussion.txt
Interesting Points to note are:
Tamera does not consider any of my emails as follow up.
Tamera ignores the fact that all information they provided was sketchy
at best and did not ever show any deadlines or anything time-sensitive.
Tamera accuses me of email tampering and modification after confusing
two emails.
Tamera and Michelle Jung handle all instructional programs. This is not
the first time they have done damage with their unprofessional and
lackadaisical behavior:
Last semester Michelle Jung removed all of our advertising everywhere we
put it. She said ads need to be authorized through her and the ASU press
staff. We sent her our ads in the format she wanted and she didn't
respond. We asked for an update and she said she doesn't deal with them
and we need to find the press staff and ask them. We do that, and the
staff says they aren't set up to verify ads for us since their program
is new, so we should just post them as is. Out of frustration we give up
on advertising, costing us many members.
Last semester membership and signups were broken at the src. People had
issues ranging from not being able to sign up for HRD, not being able to
enter the building when signed up, and not being charged the correct
amount. We brought these issues up with Michelle who did not solve them.
Instead, she threatened to remove us as a club because our roster was
not big enough (as a result of these problems). After acknowledging that
there were problems with signing up, she never fixed them. Sign up is
still broken in many ways this semester.
Last year a famous shorin ryu grandmaster came to asu to teach and was
driven out by Michelle's red tape and general mismanagement of
instructional programs.
http://www.statepress.com/ node/1447
This semester other clubs including Kokondo may not be able to exist
because of this same mismanagement and hoop jumping. As of now, only two
programs are left on the roster. Jui-jitsu and Aikido
http://src.asu.edu/Instruc tionalClasses

So, this Saturday 8/22/09 we are planning to protest the mismanagement
of instructional programs at asu in front of the src during Passport. We
will then plan a further protest on Monday when school starts. Our goal
is to convince the administration to get Michelle Jung, Tamara Garska,
and Sue Butler to do their jobs or to replace them with someone who will
so all the canceled instructional programs can continue to exist. I urge
anyone who has these days free to help with the protest. I will attempt
to reach out to other clubs who have been affected as well so we might
help eachother. Give me a call or write me and I will be calling people
with more info if I get the time. 602-561-7675

Thanks everyone for being part of a great club and lets see what we can
do to bring it back.

-Ari

8-25-08 - Spring Semester Starts

Hello everyone, Tuesday will be our first meeting for this semester. The HwaRangDo Instructional Program will meet with the same schedule as last year. 8-9:30PM on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

If you missed the demo we performed at Passport, you can see it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v7dC2pj0DI

If you are not part of the facebook group (or facebook in general), you can sign up to talk and get information about the program.

I managed to lower the cost of the program to $40 per semester making us the cheapest martial art program at asu at this time. However, in order to keep this, we have to make sure 20 people signup.

Registration Info:
http://src.asu.edu/InstructionalClasses/RegistrationInformation

My instructor, KJN Elliot is planning to come down from glendale tomorrow to instruct our first class. It is always a unique opportunity to train under Master Elliot, so no one should miss this!

See you all, -Ari

1-11-08 - Spring Semester Starts

Hello again everyone. Spring Semester is about to begin. The HwaRangDo club is now the HwaRangDo Instructional Program. We're official with ASU, and everything is looking great for the program's future at this point. We will resume the usual hours 8pm-9:30pm in the usual place (Small Gym A) on tuesday 1-15-08. If you are checking out this club for the first time, please feel free to call, email, or just show up if you have any questions or would like to try it out. Theres no commitment to come try out a class or two or three. Dive right in.

For all new and returning students, please make sure you are registered as soon as possible, as the Instructional program must meet its quota of students to exist. Also, starting in the Spring, we will begin to tighten up etiquette. Please make sure you arrive on time as we will start class at 8pm and no later. Discipline is the most important quality in martial arts training.

Hope to see you all there!
Jokyonim (Instructor) Ari

10-01-07 - Test Coming up!

Got some good news. I spoke to my instructer, Master Tim Elliot (Kwan Ja Nim), over at the north school about the coming test, and he has agreed to have the test at our club, rather than the northschool! This makes things a lot easier for us because no one will have to travel anywhere. Master Elliot will continue to do tests at ASU given there are at least 5 people testing.

Firstly, please email me back if you are thinking about testing for your next rank. The test shouldn't happen for another few weeks, so theres plenty of time to tweak everything up. We need to make sure 5 people are testing at least. Email me back or let me know in class, so we can figure that out.

For anyone who is not planning to test, this is still not a class to be missed! Kwan Ja Nim is a great instructor and always runs a superb class. Watching the test gives you a great idea of what to expect. Only half the class will be the test, so there will be a workout as well.

Secondly, since we've been doing the club for several weeks now and there aren't any stragglers, we'll start having class in a more traditional manner. Each class will end with the 5 rules and 9 virtues known as Hwa Rang Do Oh Kae. This is the HwaRangDo code of ethics. I will explain this in more detail in class. Basically a Hwarangdo/Taesoodo student must not only know the code, but follow it to be allowed to learn this art. Its alright for white belts to not really know this correctly, but higher ranks should know it by heart.

I suggest each of you take some time now and then to memorize it.
http://hwarangdo.uchicago.edu/other/mengsae.gif
Looks long, but it goes quite quickly. Good luck.

See you in class,
Jokyonim (Instructor) Ari

9-20-07 - Our club is off to a great start. One month in, we have 12 members showing up regularly. Next semester we will be signed up officially as an ASU instructional program (no longer a club). What this means is that basically our position and status with ASU will be stable and guarenteed as long as we meet the quota. To any students or club members, nothing really changes (except that we dont have to pay a $15 sorc fee, which is nice). When we go official next semester, you can expect the club to really start go grow, so now is a great time to start getting involved (while things are still relatively small). Thanks for all the support!

8-20-07 - Our first club meeting this year will be at 8:00PM in front of the SRC. Call 602-561-7675 for details.

8-24-06 - New Flyer and Advertisement.

8-23-06 - Back in business! The ASU Hwa Rang Do^® Club has been rebranded as the Asu Hwa Rang Do^® / Tae Soo Do Club^®. The club will now teach Tae Soo Do^®, which is the Undergraduate division of Hwa Rang Do^®. Come check us out!

11-23-05 - I managed to clear up more space on the server so I added the rest of the photo shoot pictures in the Gallery and Photo Shoot section. Let me know if you have any cool HRD club photos you'd like me to add.