Grand Master Charles Sereff, 1933-2022
I attended many seminars, workshops, at testings at Grand Master Charles Sereff’s dojang, and not a day goes by that I don’t use some aspect of the skills and attitudes my training there helped me to develop and refine. One might expect that the president of the United States Taekwon-Do Federation — a national organization with schools all over the country — would have a large, impressive place to train. Sereff Taekwon-Do, however, is a humble building, tucked into a corner and easy to miss. From the outside, it does not give the appearance of a place that trained the world-class martial artists whose photos grace the walls.
The skills, knowledge, and expertise that made those competitors and instructors is not in the building, of course — it is in the people that teach and train there, the men and women that push themselves every day, striving always to be better. That attitude flowed from Grand Master Charles Sereff. He was a person that made you want to set standards for yourself impossibly high, and try every day to exceed them. Thanks to his dedicated efforts, countless students all over the country learned the art of Taekwon-Do. We push ourselves harder, trying to improve ourselves with study and practice. We try to act with courtesy, humility, and respect for all. We attempt to build a more peaceful world.
Left to right: Mr. Walt Lang, General Choi Hong-Hi, Mr. Charles Sereff, Mr. Rob Tobin
I can trace my own instruction from a series of dedicated teachers, beginning with General Choi Hong-Hi, to Mr. Charles Sereff, and then to Mr. Walt Lang, Mr. Rob Tobin, and finally to my own instructor, Mr. Jonas Pologe. Without GM Sereff’s decades of teaching, I would not be where I am now. Not only would my martial arts studies have not progressed, but all of the mental and physical benefits I have received from those decades training would have been lost. GM Sereff passed down a priceless gift to me, a debt I can only repay by passing it on to others.
General Choi wrote that instructors of Taekwon-Do should, “Be the eternal teacher who teaches with the body when young, with words when old, and by moral precept even after death.” Grand Master Sereff embodies that ideal.
