The Warrior's Heart - Family Martial Art Center
Kuk Sool Won of Muncie

School Owner

Kenneth G. Ring Jr.

Website

http://www.WarriorsHeartMA.com

Address:

2190 W. White River Blvd

Muncie, IN

White River Plaza - South Entrance

Contact Information:

Phone: 765.717.0065

E-Mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Style - Hard or Soft

Designated as a hard/soft style

Kuk Sool Won is not so much a style of martial art, but a martial art system.  Because it is inclusive of Buddhist Martial Arts (remember the old TV show Kung Fu?), various family styles (just like Mr. Miyagi taught to Daniel in the Karate Kid movies), as well as the Korean Royal Court martial arts, Kuk Sool has a very broad spectrum of techniques.

Where is your style from  and what is it like?  Kuk Sool Won is a systematic study of the traditional warrior arts of Korea.  It is based on circular, flowing moves that redirect an opponents energy away from the defender in a non-violent, but very powerful manner.

Classes:

How often? Regular classes are taught every weekday as well as Weapons Classes on Saturday.

Do you have Adult only classes? Yes

Do you have Children only classes? Yes

Tournaments:

Yes or No?  Why? Yes and No

It is important to realize that traditional martial arts training is not a sport and, while some competition can be pursued on a limited basis, we do not limit our training to what will help you to score points in a tournament setting.  We are not members of PKC and do not, as a rule, attend open tournaments.  We do however attend certain closed (that is Kuk Sool only) tournaments throughout the year.  There are tournaments in Detroit, St. Louis, and Houston that we attend.  Occasionally the grandmaster, Kuk Sa Nim holds the World Championships in Seoul, Korea.

Ratio of Children to Adults

About 50:50

Introductory Course

Do you offer an introductory course? Yes.  A week of lessons (two private lessons plus a beginner group class) for $20.

Testing Fees

How much? How often?  I prefer not to charge testing fees.

We test everyone in the school once a month (approximately 2 hours long.)  If students are not ready to test for a new rank, they test for a stripe (a stripe of the next belt color is added to their present belt.)  Black Belt candidates have a full test every three months (approximately 4 to 5 hours long.)

Tuition

How much?  The monthly amount depends on several factors.  The easy answer is less than $100 per month (about $10 per class).

Family Discount

Yes - %50 for additional family members up to 4.

Do students sign contracts?

Yes/No? How long? No, but most sign up for a year-long course.

Other Costs

Uniforms, etc.  As stated above, I do not like to charge testing fees.  It always made me uncomfortable when I was coming up through the ranks to pay someone for ranking me.  I would much rather remove that uncomfortable dynamic from the instructor/student relationship and charge enough tuition that I do not have to charge testing fees.  In this spirit, I charge for all association fees, uniforms, belts and certificates up front for $250.  This gives you a lifetime membership to the school, the World Kuk Sool Association, pays for your testing from white belt to black belt candidate, and entitles you to a new uniform every year.  Spread out over the course of a normal curriculum this could easily run from $500 to $700.  I think this way is better.

Instructor Certifications, Rank, etc.

Owner and Chief Instructor Ken Ring

• B.Sc. in Education from Ball State
• Black Belt in the Traditional Korean Martial Art of Kuk Sool and Member of the World Kuk Sool Association.
• Personal Trainer certified through the National Endurance Sports Training Association (NESTA)
• And, for what it's worth, Licensed Commercial Pilot and Flight Instructor

Assistant Instructor Chris Low

• Currently a student at Ball State majoring and minoring in various Asian cultures and languages with business classes in there somewhere.
• Black Belt in the Traditional Korean Martial Art of Kuk Sool and Member of the World Kuk Sool Association.
• Black Belt in American Tae Kwon Do through All Star Karate (currently not operational)
• Brown Belt in Kendo (recently received in Japan)

Junior Instructors Kassie and Chip Ring

• Currently schooled at home by their mother and father.
• Black Belts in the Traditional Korean Martial Art of Kuk Sool and Members of the World Kuk Sool Association.

Biographies

I, Ken Ring have been in love with the martial arts since childhood.  Living out in the country with only one car when I was growing up meant that taking karate lessons was not likely.  I read and learned of the history of the arts, how they likely started with yoga lessons taught to unhealthy monks who needed to defend themselves.  I learned about Eastern philosophies and religions, meditation practices, and various martial art styles.  I knew that once I was in a position to learn martial arts, I wanted to learn something Chinese, like Kung Fu (Shao Lin Animal Styles.)

As it happened, I was able to start this in my early 20's.  I was living in the country again near Eaton, OH, and there was, believe it or not, a small Kung Fu school there.  Usually you have to live in a large metropolitan area to find a Kung Fu school.  At any rate, I trained there for several months before a major life change required me to relocate.  I moved to the other side of Indiana and began learning how to fly airplanes.  I kept practicing what I learned, which was difficult because it was not taught systematically or logically.  I remembered some of it though.

It was nearly 10 years before I would begin training in the martial arts again.  It started with a young man named Micah Maxwell.  He was an assistant instructor at All Star Karate, an American Tae Kwon Do school in Muncie.  I worked with Micah at Pizza King (where I was a manager while attending Ball State.)  Micah soon learned that I was interested in the martial arts and we talked about it a lot.  I decided to take my kids there for an introductory class even though it wasn't kung fu.  They ended up taking lessons there for six months or so until after I graduated and we moved again.

This time we moved to Richmond.  I tried to get in touch with my old Kung Fu instructor (Richmond is only 25 miles or so from Eaton, OH,) but he had moved away so we began looking for schools.  There were several with widely varying reputations, and we decided to visit some.  We chose the Kuk Sool school based on the cleanliness of the school and the fact that the instructor was very polite.  Also, despite the fact that he was probably 75 pounds overweight, he got out there and did things with the students that were surprising to see a man of his size doing!

As I watched my two oldest kids learning this martial art, I began to see things that were familiar to me from my training in Kung Fu.  I noticed that the forms (kata in Japanese arts) were very fluid and based on circular movement rather than straight lines.  I saw that there were high kicks and hand strikes, but there were also low kicks and throws and joint locks (lots of joint locks,) and pressure point strikes.  And there was the philosophy and internal training (meditation and chi, or ki training) that I was looking for.  In short, everything that I wanted from Kung Fu was in this art, and then some!  I began training soon after my kids and several years later we were black belts.

I knew early on that I wanted to open my own school.  I could not fly airplanes any more due to an eye injury that took just enough of my sight to not affect day to day life, but to make landing planes a bit tricky.  I also knew that I did not want to teach in the public school system.  I applaud those teachers who do, and who manage to keep their enthusiasm and work to make a difference.  I just knew that I couldn't do that.

I want to help kids and adults find spiritual answers to day to day problems, and to do it in a way that increases their physical health to the best that it can be.  By the way, I'm not talking about religion.  I think of religion as language and spirituality like thought.  Nearly any thought can be expressed in nearly any language.  Likewise, all spiritual principles exist in nearly all religions, they're just expressed differently.

Please feel free to call or e-mail if you want to chat about any of this or to learn more about the school.