Last week I participated at the 2024 UNESCO ICM's annual International Martial Arts Seminar. This year the topic focused on mental health and wellbeing through sports and martial arts.
I am thankful to have been invited and enjoyed learning from all the speakers and other participants. It was great to see some familiar faces, such as Prof Steven Capener and Prof Brian Moore, and also make some new connections.
I've actually been meaning to visit UNESCO-ICM to donate some books to their fledgling library, which is the only library specifically dedicated to martial arts that I am aware of.
First, on behalf of Prof Ron Dziwenka, the president of IACT (International Academic Conference for Taekwondo), I donated two books published by IACT, authored by Prof Allan Back and the late grandmaster Daeshik Kim, and edited by Dr John A. Johnson. The books "Foundations of Taekwondo: History, Theory, Academics" and "Martial Meditations: Philosophy and the Essence of Martial Arts" can be ordered through Amazon.
I also personally donated some books. First, General Choi Honghi's autobiography ("Taekwon-Do and I") in Korean, and the Korean version of the ITF Taekwon-Do Condensed Encyclopedia. The latter is quite difficult to get hold of and quite pricy. But as I had more than one copy, I felt it an important book for the UNESCO-ICM library to have in its collection. Choi Honghi's books were previously banned in South Korea.
I also donated a copy of my PhD dissertation "Promoting Peace, Practising War: Mohism's Resolution of the Paradoxical Ethics of War and Self-Defence in East Asian Martial Arts". I also donated other books of which I had extra copies, including: "Combative Elbow Strikes: A Guide to Strikes, Blocks, Locks and Take Downs" by Jeff Rosser, a self-defence booklet "NTN Selvforsvar", of the National Taekwon-Do Norway, by Roy Rolstad, and "Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu: Theory and Technique" by Renzo Gracie and Royler Gracie.
The book donations were received by UNESCO-ICM's Secretary-General Gyujig Kim, who graciously indulged me for photos, and Library Custodian Seonghye Hong who will place the books in their new home at the UNESCO-ICM library.
Thank you to the staff of UNESCO-ICM for your hard work and for always treating your guests wonderfully. I especially want to mention Hyewon Lee who organized this year's seminar and who invited me to be a participant during the 'expert round table'.
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