The Virginian-Pilot
                             THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Sunday, November 26, 1995              TAG: 9511230219
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON    PAGE: 28   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: BY GARY EDWARDS, CORRESPONDENT 
                                             LENGTH: Medium:   64 lines

TAE KWON DO COMPETITION GIVES STUDENTS CHANCE TO TEST SKILLS

MASTER MAN CHAE can make instant applesauce with his foot.

The 5-foot-6 eighth-degree black belt placed an apple on the head of a 6-foot-3 man, took a few steps back, ran and leaped. Leading with his right leg, he laid out parallel to the mat and kicked the apple. It burst into pieces and scattered across the mat. The move drew oohs and ahhs from the spectators.

Chae can't teach everyone to destroy apples like that - after all he has been practicing tae kwon do for 30 years. What he can do is teach the basics of this ancient Korean martial art. Chae owns and operates a tae kwon do academy on Holland Road. Students can go as far as their skill and their self-discipline will take them, said Chae.

``Tae stands for foot; kwon for fist; do, mind,'' said Chae. ``Tae kwon do combines all three. No weapons used.''

Practitioners, parents and spectators recently gathered for the Second Annual High Seas Tae Kwon Do Open Championships at the Cape Henry Collegiate School gym. The morning was given to showing form by performing pomsea, a series of moves to display mastery of technique. Contestants earn higher belts by participating in pomsea and sparring. From 6 to 60, they came from the Beach, other parts of Virginia, and from as far away as Pennsylvania. They wore a white robe-like garment, sashed with the color of their belt.

Sasha Olsen, 6, came to the tournament from Fredericksburg, Va. She wore a blue belt, headgear and mouthpiece. She got her kicks by defeating another 6-year-old blue belt, Lex Clayman.

Olsen has been practicing tae kwon do for about a year, as Clayman has. They are both students of Grandmaster Joon Seong, who showed food skills, too. Blindfolded, he chopped two cucumbers in half with a sword. The cucumbers were on the stomach of a very trusting student who lay flat on her back.

Bill Sorrentino wears a black belt. The third-degree was judging the forms and refereeing the sparring.

``Control counts very much,'' Sorrentino said. ``Tae kwon do is a controlled sport. For instance, no blows to the head are allowed. We'll be judging the way they spar, who lands the most blows and how.''

Sorrentino said that tae kwon do, like most everything else, takes time to master. Though early belts can be earned fairly quickly; not so the higher level.

``After you earn your first-degree black belt, you have to wait a certain time period to even test for the next-highest degree,'' he said.

And the younger one starts, the better.

``I go to tae kwon do on Monday, Wednesday and Friday after school,'' said Sasha Olsen. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by GARY EDWARDS

With some concerned spectators looking on, a blindfolded Grandmaster

Joon Seong uses a sword to chop cucumbers. The brave - not

blindfolded - and trusting student was Mary Triola of

Fredericksburg.

Sasha Olsen, 6, a blue belt from Fredericksburg, delivers a kick in

defeating another 6-year-old blue belt, Lex Clayman, in the tae kwon

do exhibition.

by CNB