I have been a part of many different discourse communities throughout my lifetime, each with their own unique mannerisms and sub-cultural aspects.  I’ve been a part of several different sports teams, religious groups, and community groups that each have a unique culture about them; but none have been as such a huge part of my life as Jason Yi’s Tae Kwon Do College, the Dojang that I took classes at as a child and later taught at as a teenager.  In this discourse community ethnography I will describe what makes the culture of this place and places similar to it unique, and also how the training and beliefs of this place are used to mold the students into disciplined leaders.

There are several virtues and beliefs that the school’s instructors and students hold dear.  These include honor, respect, perseverance, integrity, good citizenship, and many others.  The instructors and students are held to a higher standard of behavior and responsibility than normal citizens.  If an instructor steps out of line and is disrespectful, shows lack of motivation, or gets in trouble with the law, then they can be dismissed from the school.  It does not necessarily have to be workplace violations, as each instructor signs a contract and takes an oath promising to uphold the standards.  The students also learn a Student Creed, which states that they too will uphold the standards of the school be being honorable, being respectful, and all around good citizens.  That is the mission of the school, to not only train people’s bodies, but to develop their characters.

In order to become a part of this culture one must first undergo a certain initiation process.  Beginners must first study for at least two months with no belt ranks before they can

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even earn the level of white belt, the lowest official belt rank in the school.  This is to ensure the student at least has some level of dedication and ability to learn basic knowledge.  Including white belt, there are eleven belt ranks they must go through to reach the level of black belt.  They spend at least two months at each rank learning the skill set required for each, all of which build off of the knowledge of the past ranks. As they progress through the belt ranks, the training obviously becomes more and more intense, which builds both their physical strength but their confidence and leadership skills.

In order to move on every two months they are given the chance to “test” for their new rank, by demonstrating for a group of masters their skill sets for their rank.  The purpose of performing in front of the masters and their peers is to build their confidence and help them practice performing under pressure.  Through each testing phase the students become increasingly more self-confident to the point where they can perform with ease.  The skills required for testing are forms, which are sets of different techniques put together to demonstrate different skills, board breaking techniques, and physical challenges.  If they are able to perform all of the different parts of the test well, then they can move on in their training.

In order to reach the level of black belt, it takes almost three years, as the training time required in between the final level before black belt and black belt is extended to over six months of intensified training.  This is to ensure their dedication to the art as well as their

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readiness for the responsibilities of the rank.  The black belts are the leaders of the school, no matter how young, and are expected to lead the younger students by their example.

In order to achieve it they must demonstrate all of the skill sets they have accumulated over the course of the last three or so years.  The testing for this rank can take hours, sometimes a whole day, and is very intense.  This is one of the few belt tests that it is possible to fail, because of the amount of knowledge that is required.  Non-physical aspects are also added to the test, such as a small verbal quiz on some piece of Tae Kwon Do history, and a thousand word essay describing their experience and motivations.  These added aspects just add to the pressure and help to clearly show if the student is confident enough in them self to take on the rank of black belt.  If they can perform all of these aspects, then they will achieve the rank of black belt.

Many students who reach the level of black belt and beyond that to the level of Second Degree and Third Degree (which is my rank) black belt, chose to start training to become instructors.  They do this through the leadership training program, which I myself taught for a while.  The program is designed to teach them the proper etiquette of leading and giving them necessary leadership confidence through real world situations.  We do this through making them lead mock classes and drill each other, afterwards giving each other verbal feedback on what to improve on.  When they complete the course they are given the opportunity to help assisting in the teaching of classes.

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 The instructors role is a much more challenging and demanding role than that of a student.  As an instructor, you must know all the skill required for any given rank, and be able to teach them effectively, while maintaining a calm and enthusiastic demeanor.  This becomes especially challenging when you are teaching very young kids, or kids who chose not to listen.  An instructor must be able to remain calm and change the way he is teaching the skill if there are students who are not listening or do not understand it.  The relationship between instructors and students should be one of friendly respect, and harsh discipline is always the last resort for misbehavior or disrespect.  It is an interesting mix of intensity and fun that makes this place unique.

The lexis, or the language used by the students and instructors, is very interesting as well.  There are not really any terms that are made up by the instructors, rather they use different Korean phrases in the classes and in other situations.  This is to keep with the traditions of Tae Kwon Do as a Korean Martial Art.  When instructors greet each other, they always bow, shake hands, and greet each other in Korean and in English as well.  This is to show respect to each other and to persons of higher rank than you.  I mentioned a term before, Dojang, which is a Korean word meaning the area of training or learning.  It is also referred to as simply the “mat”.  Before one enters the Dojang they must bow to show respect to the American and Korean flags that are on display, and to any instructors who are on the mat at that time.  Before each class or ceremony they always open with a short opening ceremony, in the Korean Language, which gives respect to the flags and to the lead instructor.  During

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training there are several commands that are given in Korean such as “Attention,” “Ready,”, “Begin,” etc.  Also the use of Korean numbers for counting purposes is used during training.

Now the question, is all of this training and discipline actually effective?  Well, if we look at the instructors and former students, we see that it is.  Almost every instructor who goes through the classes and instructing goes to college and gets degrees.  Several of my old instructors began working for the school again after graduation and now run all of the other schools locations other than our main location.  Several of my fellow instructors are currently attending schools such as George Mason University, Virginia Tech, and Virginia Commonwealth University.  I myself would have never had the confidence to attend VMI if it weren’t for the experiences I had there, and would not be the leader I am today.

Rock music is one of the most popular and diverse genres of music in existence.  From classic bands with softer sounds such as the Beatles, to the fast and aggressive sounds of Metallica, or the psychedelic and trippy sound of Pink Floyd, rock music covers the widest range of different sub-genres of any other style of music.  But how can so many sub-genres exist under the same all-encompassing genre of rock music?  In this paper I will go into what separates one of the most interesting sub-genres of rock, punk rock, from the many other sub-genres.

Punk rock began as a small, underground movement in 1974 primarily in the United States, Britain, and Australia.  Composed of mostly underground garage bands, it was dubbed “punk” rock by American critics to describe the nature of the performers and their devotees. This term also harkens back to the 1600s-1800s Britain where “punk” was slang for prostitute, giving it its social stigma. Due to its loud, fast, and aggressive style, politically anarchist lyrics, appearance of band members, and violence caused by the music, it was widely ignored by the mainstream public with the exception of a few bands.  The Sex Pistols, The Clash, and The Ramones, managed to gain word-wide recognition and fame in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and set the standard for what would define of genre of punk rock.

Regardless of its dive into the mainstream, punk still retained its social stigmas.  This is due to mainly the styles of clothing associated with the genre; deliberately offensive t-shirts, leather studded clothing and jackets, and wild hair.  This along with the bands lifestyles of sex

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and substance abuse, political anarchy, and rebellious youths formed and combination that did not go down well with most people.

Despite this early stigma however, punk rock again resurged into the mainstream in the late 1990s and early 2000s, with the emergence of bands like The Offspring, Blink 182, and Green Day.  These bands offered a much more tame and “radio friendly” sound to the genre.  With the help of bands like these the genre reached the peak of its popularity.  Although the themes generally stayed the same, they were delivered in a way that was relatable for common people.  Many of these newer bands focused more on the themes of being a rebellious and free youth instead of violence and anarchy. The lifestyle of band members also improved as well, allowing for many stigmas involving band members to dissolve.

Much more goes into the genre than many people realize, and is not just angry guys playing instruments loud and fast.  I will now discuss some of the essential features that go into the Punk Rock sub-genre.  Punk rock bands often attempt to emulate the musical styles of 1960s and 70s garage rock.  Typical instrumentation for a punk rock band is one or two electric guitars, a bass guitar, and a drum set.  Bands are generally made up of about three musicians and rarely exceed four, as compared to other rock genres such a progressive or indie especially.  Songs in punk rock are also shorter than songs in traditional rock, being played at a much faster pace and intensity.  Songs also often were void of choruses, but this style was broken by the newer wave of punk rock.  The vocals were often sung nasally, and included fast shifts in pitch,

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tone, and speed, which is perhaps another reason why punk rock did not gain big popularity early on.  This style as well, has faded away in the new wave.

The songs in and of themselves include the for-mentioned themes of political anger, anarchy, and youthful freedom.  These are the most essential themes of punk rock writing.  An excellent example of this is the Sex Pistols song “Anarchy in the UK.” In this song the line “I want to be anarchy” is repeated many times, along with several encrypted lines describing politics in the UK.  Also in the Ramones song “Judy is a Punk” they describe two girls who run away to join the ice Capades, showing the theme of youthful freedom and doing what you want.  They also include the line “perhaps they’ll die, oh yeah” showing that they don’t care about consequences of their actions, another important part of the punk mindset.

Along with these examples of very blatant clear lyrics, many songs have deeper meanings that are not so easy to decrypt. The Clash’s “London Calling” is a great example of this.  Its chorus is “The ice age is coming, the suns zooming in, engines stop running, the wheat is growing thin, a nuclear error, but I have no fear, cause London is drowning and I, live by the river.”  This song has an apocalyptic tone to it without ever saying anything about the end of the world specifically.  They simply describe different ways the world could end.  And also while doing this, they show their distain towards the English government by saying even if the world did end, they don’t care because London is going down anyway.  This song is a great example of deeper poetic meaning that can be found in many places throughout the genre.

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The final and perhaps most recognizable convention of punk rock is the attitudes and appearance of band members.  The sound of the music perfectly emulates the personalities of punk rock musicians, and is apparent in their appearance and stage presence.  Especially in the early days, the style was the black leather studded clothing, offensive shirts, tattoos, and piercings.  On stage, musicians often break off into long, complicated, self-indulgent solos, often ending with them breaking their instruments.  Musicians would also often get into fights or just plain harm concert goers due to performing intoxicated, on drugs, or just by being too aggressive.  But perhaps they believed that they needed to behave in this way to get the attention of people and show that they are passionate about what they believe.

In conclusion, punk rock was a revolutionary form of music for its time.  Its fast and aggressive style combined with its political anger and message of freedom forms an interesting combination that produces beautiful music with more to it than meets the eye.

“You all have a five page paper due Monday.”  I vividly remember hearing these words spoken by my sophomore English teacher, Mrs. Maciag, about once a week.  I remember everything about that class; my seat, second column, second to the back, next to my friend Tommy.  The room always smelled like the same flowery air freshener.  We would all be on our school uniforms; white oxford shirt, sweater, black pants and shoes, and a tie, which usually was choking me half to death.  At these words I would look around at my classmates and knew that we were all thinking the same thing.  We were all going to spend our Sunday night writing this paper, not really caring much what we put on it, just trying to get by and get the grade.

I also remember how she would always limit the way we would write somehow, such as making us use every sentence starter and dress-up style in every paragraph or page.  I definitely did not like writing my papers like that.  It seemed completely backwards to me to assign a creating writing assignment and then place limits on our creativity.  The only creativity that came out of it was the ridiculously creative ways I managed to shove all of those sentence starters and dress-ups into one page, which often caused my writing to make almost no sense.  Granted, I’ll admit, those did come in handy on my SATs helping me get a good grade on my essay.  Despite this I am rarely satisfied with my writing when I am forced to use them.  Through this I became a very proficient school writer, but not a real writer.  Keeping in mind writing isn’t something I have always dreamed of doing.  As a child I kept a journal, several actually, never really getting very far with them, writing in them maybe once a month or so.  I never really thought much in my life was exciting enough to write down.  But, it’s still

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something I enjoyed, before it was something that would mean the difference between an A or an F in a class.

As I said before, I wish I could have put a little more of myself into those papers, instead of writing to appease a teacher.  If I could just write what she wanted me to write, what was the point of putting in the effort anyway?  I could write papers with ease just following the instructions; if it was historical just get the facts, be affluent in the way you say it, and that’s that.  I think most students experience this; unless you are in some kind of creative writing class, so I am not trying to complain.  But this paper is the first thing I have written in years that I didn’t have specific guidelines on how to write it.  Just writing about my experiences, actually letting my thoughts out, something I did not experience too often.

The last time I was told to write something truly creative with no prior guidelines was in eighth grade.  The assignment was we had a month to write a novel.  Not an edited amazing novel keep in mind, they didn’t expect that out of a bunch of eighth graders, the only requirement was that it be at least twenty thousand words.  I wrote about thirty five thousand.  Now for the life of me I cannot remember exactly what it was about, but I remember just spending hours in class and at home just writing whatever came into my head.  I remember not caring about the aching in my hand and my head as I frantically wrote.  New plots, characters, twists and turns, relentlessly flowing from my head onto the paper.  No matter what the idea was I would write it down, even if it didn’t necessarily make sense; it didn’t matter, I was

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writing what I wanted to.  I wasn’t being graded for quality (thank God), or grammar or any of that, but for the fact that I just wrote what I wanted to write.

That’s what real writing is all about.  Like Stephen King said, writing is a form of telepathy; what is the point in doing it if it’s not even your own thoughts being written down?  What would the untrained observer be able to derive about you and your thoughts from the writing?  There’s a reason I never forgot doing that assignment.  Because like I said before, it allowed me freedom in my writing.  It’s a completely different feeling sitting there writing for yourself, than it is sitting at your desk at ten o’clock on a Sunday night, half awake, trying to figure out what in the world the teacher wants you to do.   I managed to get an A in the class, with nothing I had written being worth anything to me.  I now intend to put that kind of thoughtless, soulless writing behind me and put myself into everything I write.

Revision Plan

Out of the three papers I have written thus far this Conventions of a Genre composition definitely needs the most work.  The first thing that needs to be fixed is the introduction.  I display a clear purpose through the paper about how punk rock is more than meets the eye, but my purpose I write in my introduction does not match up.  The thesis is present in the body, but not in the introduction and conclusion.  Also the conclusion itself is only about two sentences, which should be beefed up and made more effective.  The first step in revision of this paper will be editing the introduction so that the purpose connects to the body of the text and the conclusion, and making the conclusion longer and more effective at closing out my ideas.

Along with that, there’s also the issue that I have brought up multiple times now about the amount of historical and background information I give in the topic.  I tend to do this a lot in my papers, and as you read through you can see that even though I cut out huge sections of information, there is still too much.  For much of the paper it sounds more like a historical analysis paper than a guide to writing in a genre.  I could have spent more time talking more about the actual conventions of the genre than all of the background.  The next main step in the revision of this composition will be to replace some more of the background information with convention analysis.