Dojo Rat has in interesting post about Obama having practiced taekwondo.
Between martinis I had to take a crack at searching too (I did not search too hard). I found this blog post:
The Washington Post’s political blog “The Sleuth” offers a unique portrait of Sen. Obama, martial artist:
The Illinois senator…took taekwondo classes in the early 2000s at the schwanky East Bank Club, whose membership includes everyone who’s anyone in the Windy City.
We tracked down Obama’s former instructor, David Posner, a financial capital planner who taught taekwondo at East Bank for eight years and still practices and teaches classes at another “dojang.” He remembers his famous student as “very disciplined, very diligent.”
…Posner couldn’t remember exactly which color belt Obama attained, but said it was a mid-level ranking
My hunch is the campaign is leaving it out because it portrays him as taking lessons at some posh dojang. Probably wants to avoid the whole Kerry rich guy image thing…
Anyhow, an interesting side-note here but Russia’s president Vladimir Putin has a black belt in judo and also studies sambo.
Meanwhile, our president falls off segways and has problems with doors.
Sorry folks but I couldn’t resist…
~BCP
2 responses so far ↓
Chris Marshall | Martial Development // 02/12/2008 at 9:14 PM
Martial art is not an acceptable mainstream pasttime, except maybe for children. More than a few churches consider it Satanic.
BTW, did you know Jay-Z studied Karate? Neither did I, until Nas called him a “Tae-Bo ho” and suggested he should grow up. Lots of people think this way–they just don’t tell you about it.
Bottom line, I expect we’ll elect a lesbian dwarf for president before an avowed traditional martial artist.
bpatterson67 // 02/13/2008 at 5:19 AM
More likely another knucklehead. Sigh.