Makapala, North Kohala, Hawaiʻi Island · October 19–21, 2017

Master Cho on the Nutritive Cycle

Three days in a Makapala hall with Master Cho Han-kyu: when to feed a crop, what to feed it, and why. All seven recorded sessions are here as they happened. His Korean is translated again and checked, so you can read what he said, not only what the room heard.

Read what it all adds up to →

The seminar on the lawn after the certificates, Saturday, October 21, 2017. Master Cho is in the center of the third row.
The seminar on the lawn after the certificates, Saturday, October 21, 2017. Master Cho is in the center of the third row.
Topics microbes nutritive cycle livestock history timing soil food philosophy structure medicine rice cleanser fruit trees protectors reproduction corn

The program

Thursday morning: Soil First, Seawater 1:30

Master Cho Han-kyu, interpreted by Kim Chang ·26 min Spoken in Korean

Fix the Soil First: Soil → Crop → Animal → Human

Cho opens the advanced seminar with questions, not recipes: what is nature, who are you, what is the biggest farming. He argues that health comes from healthy food, so the farmer is the foundation of the world, and that farming by your own judgment or a professor's theory makes 'smart fools'. He ends on the chain soil welfare, crop welfare, animal welfare, human welfare, written on the flip chart.

Found This seminar keeps the old flavour but gives a new taste; returning students should treat it as review.

philosophy soil health nutritive cycle history

Master Cho Han-kyu, interpreted by Kim Chang ·16 min Spoken in Korean

Crops Get Morning Sickness Too

From the Korean saying 'a good field bears healthy children', Cho moves to pregnancy and morning sickness as his picture of a body asking for what it needs. Then he turns it on the farm: pigs, cows, chickens, papaya, mango and tomato have their own morning sickness and cycles, and corn bears its ears for its own young, not for us.

Found Korean saying: the field has to be good to bear healthy children.

nutritive cycle reproduction livestock corn philosophy

Master Cho Han-kyu, interpreted by Kim Chang ·16 min Spoken in Korean

Seawater 1:30, Two Hours Before Sunset = Fast Uptake

Cho says the soil's hometown is the sea, from Genesis, and tells Elisha salting the spring in 2 Kings as the Bible's seawater story. Then the ranch: cows dying on acidic grass, an owner afraid of salt, and the fix, seawater diluted 1 to 30 because seawater is 3% salt and a plant's green blood 0.1%. For drought pasture he gives the timing: spray 1 part seawater to 30 parts fresh water two hours before sunset, cut and feed the next day, and the same timing for every crop.

Found The soil's hometown is the sea, so Natural Farming uses a lot of seawater.

minerals seawater livestock pasture timing drought

Master Cho Han-kyu, interpreted by Kim Chang ·18 min Spoken in Korean

Microbes Digest, You Absorb: Keep Microbes and Feed Local

Seated now, Cho says a crop is a living being made of the same sun, air, water and soil as us, so farming starts with humility: 'natural farming is love'. He writes three chi and three heats on a fresh flip-chart page and says body heat is fermentation heat, because microbes digest our food and we absorb what they make. From there: collect microbes near you, and feed livestock what is made here, not shipped in.

Found A crop is a living being like you, made of the same sun, air, water and soil.

microbes protectors livestock feed fermentation philosophy

Master Cho Han-kyu, interpreted by Kim Chang ·33 min Spoken in Korean

Plump, Slim, Plump Again: Feed Every Stage

Cho walks through how a child goes plump, slim and plump again with age, and says young paprika, tomato, papaya, pigs and chicks should be raised plump too. Miss the balance at the changeover and the crop gets sick, so he has had his stage-by-stage chart translated for this level-3 seminar. Then fermentation heat (an IMO 4 pile runs 60-70 °C), a seminar notice, and an open Q&A: seawater 1:30 for all crops, salt blocks, no seawater nearby, and 'the crop is the professor'.

Found A newborn, plump or skin and bones, fills out on mother's milk by one or two years old.

nutritive cycle minerals microbes livestock tomato paprika

Thursday afternoon: Guest Talks, Vinegar, Lava to Soil

Joe McGinn ·28 min

Brown Sugar + Rice = the Whole Toolbox

Joe McGinn opens the afternoon by asking everyone where their grandparents are from, then walks through Cho's principles of natural farming in slides, read through a Hawaiian lens. He ends on a simple point: every solution rests on brown sugar or on rice vinegar, so anyone can start, beginning with Food (FPJ).

Found Supermarkets and tractors came in around the 1930s, so grandparents born before then farmed without machines or chemical fertilizer

history nutritive cycle microbes food cleanser hawaii

Joe McGinn ·33 min

Spray Once a Week, Price It High: Growing Farmers on Oʻahu

Joe McGinn's second deck: how he came to natural farming through Dr. Hoon Park and the 2011 Makapala course, what the Oʻahu network has learned (a food-safety test of the solutions, family classes, shared Medicine, chefs and home pig processing), and its challenges: doing it every week, getting to market, and making it pay. Questions on pigs, chickens and rabbits close it; his advice is to start with chickens.

Found Korea gets one chance a year: if the crop fails, winter comes and there's no food

livestock pigs protectors medicine reproduction taro

Drake Weinert ·37 min

Well-Fed Diversity = Healthy Soil: KNF in Scientists' Words

Drake Weinert brings back what soil scientists said at the Hawaii Farmers Union state convention and maps it onto Cho's solutions: Microbes (IMO) as biodiversity, Food (FPJ) as concentrated root exudates, fungi that build soil aggregates. Then questions: why FPJ is like an exudate, fixing deficiencies, the fungus-to-bacteria ratio, sprayers, and spraying a mixed garden where crops sit at different stages.

Found Work on the rhizosphere, the soil right around the root, not the whole field

soil microbes food fungi nutritive cycle science

Drake Weinert ·27 min

Teach It as You Got It: Lineage and Certification Levels 0–5

Asked whether apple wine can stand in for makgeolli in Medicine (OHN), Drake gives the general rule and argues for teaching the recipe as received and keeping local changes labelled. Then he writes the certification ladder on the flip chart, levels 0 to 5, and explains who may certify whom; the room asks for shared teaching materials.

Found Teach the method as you received it, and keep your local changes labelled

certification teaching medicine microbes lineage cgnf

Master Cho Han-kyu, interpreted by Kim Chang ·22 min Spoken in Korean

Liquor + Air = Vinegar: Make It From What Grows Here

The question held since Joe's talk comes back: must the vinegar be brown rice vinegar? Kim Chang, the interpreter, answers first in her own voice (4-5% acidity, and why competency matters), then Cho takes the flip chart. Don't insist on brown rice: carbohydrate plus nuruk makes liquor, the air's acetic acid bacteria turn it to vinegar in 3 to 5 days, and the material sets the quality. He adds coconut vinegar, a little cooked brown rice in banana liquor, why koji isn't IMO, and why brown rice beats white.

Found Use local material for vinegar; it needs at least 4 to 5% acidity

cleanser vinegar microbes local materials banana coconut

Master Cho Han-kyu, interpreted by Kim Chang ·31 min Spoken in Korean

Living Liquid, Not Enzyme: Collect at Dawn, Face South

Cho says what we make isn't an enzyme but a living fermented liquid, and tells the loaves and fishes as a picture of how one lump of Microbes covers 6,000 pyeong. He weeps, then says farming is done with love, not technique. The practical core: collect material when the plant holds the most of nature's power, in the morning, and collect IMO where the first sun falls; sunlight's far-infrared growth ray is why sprouts face south. He ends on three sets of parents: the crops that raise you, so pesticide is parricide.

Found What we make isn't an enzyme (효소) but a fermented liquid (발효액), and a fermented liquid is a living thing

microbes food timing collection sunlight philosophy

Master Cho Han-kyu, interpreted by Kim Chang ·29 min Spoken in Korean

Elementary School to 3:6 Rice: How Cho Found Natural Farming

With twenty minutes to dinner, Cho tells how he came to natural farming: elementary school only, 4-H, top of a 90-to-1 exam for the Gyeonggi livestock school, a vet license he gave up to prevent disease rather than cure it, Japan, and high school at 26. He names his three Japanese teachers, says Ōinoue first created the nutritive cycle, and calls Jesus his greatest teacher: 1 Corinthians 3:6 became the growing method and the name of his rice. Then the kimchi maker and a roofless church in Tanzania.

Found Cho went only as far as elementary school, then worked in 4-H as a young man

history biography nutritive cycle teachers rice philosophy

Master Cho Han-kyu, interpreted by Kim Chang ·27 min Spoken in Korean

Charcoal + Microbes, No Deep Hole: Lava to Soil in 6 Months

Cho draws the deep planting hole JICA used in Tanzania, 60 to 70 cm with fertilizer at the bottom, the way Hawaiʻi is told to plant fruit trees, and shows four ways it kills the tree. His way: no water, five lumps of charcoal on top and IMO4 over them. Then raising seedlings in poor soil before rich, and the Kona lava field he turned to 3 cm of soil in six months with charcoal, IMO4, corn and the Type 2 feed. The session ends with a cheer and dinner.

Found JICA in Tanzania planted trees in holes 60 to 70 cm deep, fertilizer at the bottom, watered on top

microbes soil trees planting charcoal seedlings

Friday morning: This Year's Fruit Was Made Last June

Master Cho Han-kyu, interpreted by Kim Chang ·40 min Spoken in Korean

Structure on June 24 Sets Next Year's Fruit

Cho cuts open a dry tangerine from breakfast and explains why it failed: fruit that bears once a year is conceived the summer before, between June 30 and July 5, so water-soluble calcium phosphate (Structure) goes on June 24 with Medicine (OHN). He writes the dates on the flip chart, then turns to the breakfast papaya, nitrogen and taste, and a long parable of mother's milk against cow's milk.

Found This spring's flowers formed as buds last year, end of June to early July

structure medicine timing nutritive cycle fruit trees citrus

Master Cho Han-kyu, interpreted by Kim Chang ·17 min Spoken in Korean

Nature = 3 Chi + 3 Heats + 4 Bodies + 3 Kingdoms

Cho puts up his 'Natural Farming' title slide and asks what nature is: three chi, three heats, the bodies and three kingdoms; farming is heaven, earth and people working with them, and food is the gift. Then he recites the Lord's Prayer, tells how pastors scolded him and threw him out, and says 1 Corinthians 3:16–17 is why he farms. A voice from the room sums it up in English.

Found Nature is three chi, three heats, four bodies and three kingdoms

philosophy nature three chi fermentation faith food

Master Cho Han-kyu, interpreted by Kim Chang ·17 min Spoken in Korean

Raise Microbes, Moles Drain the Soil: Macadamias +20% a Year

From a drawing of a plant, Cho traces the food chain under it: the leaf feeds the root, root waste feeds microbes, microbes feed earthworms, earthworms draw moles, and mole tunnels air the soil. He tells how Chris Trump's waterlogged macadamia orchard in Kohala came back that way, and how a paste of soil and Microbes (IMO4) healed trunk wounds. Then soil is the crop's mother, and Tanya leads a qigong break.

Found 150,000 to 200,000 microbes live on one square centimeter of leaf

microbes soil earthworms drainage macadamia orchards

Master Cho Han-kyu, interpreted by Kim Chang ·33 min Spoken in Korean

Microbes 1 → 4: Bamboo Grove to 150 kg per 300 Pyeong

Cho walks through his Microbes (IMO) slides: the starter caught under bamboo, IMO2 with equal sugar, IMO3 on rice bran, and IMO4 made with half field soil so the local microbes meet their relatives. He says natural farming restores soil in two months where organic takes one to two years, then shows IMO4 spread at 150 kg per 300 pyeong in a Korean greenhouse: white film, earthworms, risen soil, and a 180 cm stick that goes all the way in.

Found A small starter, propagated, can bring five acres back to normal

microbes imo soil bamboo organic farming greenhouse

Master Cho Han-kyu, interpreted by Kim Chang ·35 min Spoken in Korean

Till Shallow, Roots Go Deep: Corn Mulch, Cabbage, Rice

Cho shows how to grow grass to control grass: in Hawaiʻi, corn cut at a meter and laid down over IMO4, with cabbage and melons planted through it. Paired rice photos follow: 2–3 seeds a hill against 8–12, a murky paddy with loaches and no herbicide. He argues deep tilling makes shallow roots, sends out the four nutritive-cycle handouts after a qigong break, runs a pull test with the room, and ends on professors who teach the past.

Found Grow grass to control grass: lay a cut cover crop down as mulch

mulch no-till tillage rice cabbage microbes

Master Cho Han-kyu, interpreted by Kim Chang ·23 min Spoken in Korean

Same Rice Seed, 180–240 Grains vs 80–140: Crop Results

Cho's results slides: conventional rice at harvest looks like orphanage children, natural-farming rice like children raised by both parents; the same seed gives 180–240 grains a panicle against 80–140, about 30% more yield at a 50% better price. Then the stories behind the photos (cooked rice, Amore cosmetics, a melon farmer caught using agrochemicals, Ehime lemon leaves at $1 each) and crops fed at each 'morning sickness': pepper, beans, broccoli, cauliflower, corn and strawberries. Lunch follows.

Found At harvest, conventional rice has dead, dry leaves, like orphanage children; natural-farming rice is raised by both parents

rice yield structure timing broccoli corn

Friday afternoon: Egg Yolk Oil, Eggshells and Burned Bone

Master Cho Han-kyu, interpreted by Kim Chang ·29 min Spoken in Korean

Eggshell, Bone + Vinegar = Hens Laying, Sows in Heat

Drake interviews two Kohala farmers, then the camera catches the outdoor egg yolk oil demo. Back in the hall, Cho talks about egg yolk oil, then turns to Reproduction (WCA) from eggshells and Structure (WCP) from burned cow bone: why each dissolves in vinegar, and how he uses them for flower buds, hens that stop laying and sows that won't come into heat.

Found Start egg yolk oil with one dozen eggs; a batch takes about an hour

reproduction structure medicine cleanser livestock poultry

Friday evening: The IMO5 Ring, Then Chickens and Pigs

Master Cho Han-kyu, interpreted by Kim Chang ·37 min Spoken in Korean

Fat Tree, Empty Fruit: The IMO5 Ring at the Drip Line

Cho opens with plans: next time he wants to walk farms and diagnose crops, and he wants Hawaiʻi visitors to eat on natural farms. Then he cuts open the mangosteen a participant gave him. It's nearly empty, because the tree was overfed when young and lacked calcium phosphate the July before. His fix is IMO4 mixed 1:1 with vinegar-moistened bone char, spread in a ring at the drip line ahead of flowering; the room's questions settle what the 1:1 means.

Found The mangosteen came out nearly empty: 'miscarried'

microbes structure cleanser nutritive cycle fruit trees mangosteen

Master Cho Han-kyu, interpreted by Kim Chang ·22 min Spoken in Korean

See Half, Farm Half: The Eightfold Path on the Board

Cho writes the Eightfold Path on the flip chart: see rightly, think rightly, speak rightly, live rightly, first alone and then with others. The eye sees only half, and farming by the outward shape is what made the mangosteen rotten inside. Then religion, a plan to record his farm visits, his fee (a tenth of the extra profit) and one last IMO5 question.

Found See rightly, then think rightly, speak rightly and live rightly

philosophy nutritive cycle microbes fruit trees mangosteen observation

Master Cho Han-kyu, interpreted by Kim Chang ·38 min Spoken in Korean

What a Crop Can Do: 8,000 Tomatoes, 14-Brix Papaya

Cho points at the bubbling jars (alive, so never seal them in plastic), then takes an aside on crocks and a water machine from Korea. Then his slides of what crops can do: a 15-year grape vine, his 8,000-tomato plant, a Hilo papaya fruiting down the trunk on IMO4 alone, papaya brix, a Thai longan grove saved with a beer-and-vodka stopgap, chili, banana and taro on IMO4. He ends with a Korean field trial where Natural Farming got the worst field and the biggest harvest.

Found What ferments in the jar is alive; never cover it with plastic

microbes minerals medicine fruit trees papaya brix

Master Cho Han-kyu, interpreted by Kim Chang ·35 min Spoken in Korean

Chicks on Brown Rice, Hens on Green Corn, Sun on the Floor

The livestock section starts. Cho shows his self-ventilating pen and skylit chicken house, then raises chicks: brown rice first, the 3-day yolk, egg yolk with bamboo leaves, then greens like a cow. Green corn chopped and fermented with IMO4, LAB and grape yeast becomes feed; his feed-plot arithmetic gets checked by the room. He ends on the layer house: openings at 36 cm, sun across the floor once a day, and a rice-straw floor with no flies and no smell.

Found Sun on a sheet-iron roof pulls fresh air through the pen

livestock poultry microbes protectors feed corn

Gus, with Master Cho Han-kyu (interpreted by Kim Chang) ·18 min

Build the Coop Before the Chicks: Gus's Hard Lesson

Gus tells the room about two weeks of poultry training in Korea and his first batch at home: 100 chicks shared with Stephen, and most of his died. Not from sickness: fear of mongoose kept them crowded in too small a space. Kim Chang, the interpreter, adds her own lessons on mongoose and rats, Cho says with proper housing not one of 100 chicks dies, and Steve tells how fish killed his.

Found Two weeks of hands-on poultry training in Korea, April 2017

livestock poultry housing predators testimony chicks

Master Cho Han-kyu, interpreted by Kim Chang ·28 min Spoken in Korean

A Yolk You Can Lift: Hen Houses and Egg Tests

It's past 9 pm and Cho keeps going through his poultry slides: soil floors and dust baths, Korea's pesticide eggs, the hen that roosts highest, broody cages, dark laying boxes and rice hulls. He shows home-made feed, pig feed from broiler litter, and how to test an egg: lift the yolk, look for three layers, pull it with a toothpick. Then blood spots, red paper against pecking, dissected birds and darker yolks from purple sweet potato.

Found On a soil floor the droppings break down and the hens dust-bathe

livestock poultry eggs microbes protectors feed

Master Cho Han-kyu, interpreted by Kim Chang ·20 min Spoken in Korean

Sawdust + IMO4 = A Pig Pen Nobody Cleans for 3 Years

Fifteen more minutes of slides, now pigs. Cho shows the wing-curved roof, houses 2 m apart with perilla between, and the floor bed of logs, sawdust and IMO4 that lets one housewife keep 300 pigs with no cleaning for 3 years. Then free sow pens, a Chinese pen at minus 40, a fermented feed box, food scraps and pig dung turned into feed, piglets on the first nipple, and a stress-hormone slide. The session ends: 'that is love', and the rest tomorrow.

Found The pig-house roof curves like a chicken's wing

livestock pigs microbes housing feed floor bed

Saturday morning: Feed the Stage Before It Comes

Master Cho Han-kyu, interpreted by Kim Chang ·22 min Spoken in Korean

Seawater + Calcium Weekly = Skin Bees Can't Break

Cho opens with the rice chart on the screen and says upland rice would grow here on mountain moisture. Then he holds up a damaged citrus fruit: it didn't crack, a bee stung it, because too much nitrogen made the skin thin. The fix is a weekly fine-mist spray of Structure (WCP), Reproduction (WCA) and seawater, given before the plant's mid-week dip, which he writes on the flip chart for a quarter acre.

Found Mountain humidity here is about 70%, enough to grow upland rice; IMO No. 4 holds 80% moisture

structure reproduction seawater citrus fruit skin foliar spray

Master Cho Han-kyu, interpreted by Kim Chang ·21 min Spoken in Korean

Baby Food by Age: Mugwort FPJ First, Fruit FFJ Later

Cho uses a person's ages as the picture for a crop: from 1 to 15 the body is being built, so the young crop gets Food (FPJ) of mugwort and water dropwort for iron and manganese; from about 15 to 25 it gets Food (FFJ) of ripe fruit and opened flowers, once a week each. Dr. Park sorts out which plant carries which mineral. Then Cho tells farmers to run comparison plots, remembers the 78-year-old grandmother who taught him, and says the old farmers farmed with wisdom.

Found Like a child of 1 to 15, a young crop gets Food (FPJ) of mugwort and water dropwort

food mugwort dropwort nutritive cycle timing comparison plots

Master Cho Han-kyu, interpreted by Kim Chang ·16 min Spoken in Korean

Ōinoue's Theory, Cho's Chart: Where the Cycle Came From

With the rice chart back on the screen, Cho says every crop has a life, and rice's starts with sprouting on February 12. After a stretch break he credits the nutritive cycle to Ōinoue Yasushi, who bred the Kyoho grape, tells his own story of Ōinoue's persecution and death, of learning from the widow and son, and of refusing to be the successor. The chart itself is Cho's, and he asks Hawaiʻi to fit its own crops into it, with Joe McGinn leading.

Found Every crop has a life of its own: papaya, mango, banana and coffee as much as rice

nutritive cycle history ōinoue rice hawaii kyoho grape

Master Cho Han-kyu, interpreted by Kim Chang ·26 min Spoken in Korean

Seed Milk, Not Cow's Milk: The Seed Soak and Weaning Feed

Cho walks the first stages of the rice chart: sprouting February 12, weaning March 12. A seed grows on its own seed milk, so base fertilizer is like raising a baby on cow's milk; raise seedlings in poor soil. When the milk runs out, start feeding, beginning with Fuel (FAA). Then he puts up the prescription handout and the seed soak and Type 2 columns are read out, with two errors in the English copy caught; Dr. Park ends on the Mineral products and clay jars.

Found In Hawaiʻi you can grow rice twice a year; this chart follows Korean weather

seeds seed treatment fuel food cleanser medicine

Master Cho Han-kyu, interpreted by Kim Chang ·30 min Spoken in Korean

Send a Dowry at Transplant, Then Read the 180-Day Chart

Rice goes to the field on May 5. Cho's dowry story: like a father sending a daughter off with money, give extra at the end of Type 2 so the transplant roots in and fruits. He says Natural Farming is a work in progress that Hawaiʻi must build for its own weather, then walks the rice chart by date and leaf count, calls rice a 180-day crop, warns against overfeeding, and reads the nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and calcium needs of each stage.

Found Rice is transplanted at the strong-seedling stage, May 5, and gets Type 2 again in the main field

nutritive cycle rice transplanting timing nitrogen calcium

Master Cho Han-kyu, interpreted by Kim Chang ·34 min Spoken in Korean

Feed 5–7 Days Early: Ripening, Flower Buds, Leaf Shape

With the prescription handout projected, Cho goes through the stage columns and the ripening spray: seawater 1:30, then 1:25, then 1:20 a week apart, sugar up 2–3%, plus purslane Food at 1:1000 for shine. Then the rule: give each stage's prescription 5 days, or a week, before the stage. Questions follow: flowers are made the summer before, the moon calendar, rice by leaf count, reading the stage from leaf shape, and alternate bearing. It ends at lunch.

Found The prescriptions go by stage: seed and seedling, Type 2 for the trunk, changeover, Type 3 for the fruit, then ripening

timing ripening brix seawater structure food

Saturday afternoon: The Season Recap and Certificates

Master Cho Han-kyu, interpreted by Kim Chang ·30 min Spoken in Korean

Corn + IMO4 = No Till, No Weeds; Then a Four-Season Farm

Back at the projected prescription table, Cho goes over the first two columns again: a corn cover crop with Microbes (IMO4) under it, laid down as no-till mulch, and the seedling soak. Then he leaves the table for his picture of a Natural Farming farm in Hawaiʻi that visitors come to: something blooming or fruiting in every season, a guesthouse, good food, and a place to learn.

Found Soil prep starts with a cover crop, and in Hawaiʻi the best one is corn

soil microbes seeds cover crop mulch fruit trees

Master Cho Han-kyu, interpreted by Kim Chang ·24 min Spoken in Korean

The Season on One Table: Soil, Soak, Flowers, Sugar

Told he has two minutes, Cho asks what matters most in farming (the soil), then runs through the whole season on the projected table: cover crops, the seedling soak with the leaves kept dry, Type 2, the changeover and next year's fruit, Mineral D as water drawn from rock, Type 3 and ripening. He closes with his hopes for Hawaiʻi: classes on the islands, a CGNF Hawaiʻi quality mark, and starting small.

Found The most important thing in farming is the soil: love it

nutritive cycle soil seeds structure reproduction minerals

Drake Weinert ·29 min

Certificates, the First Level 2, and the Group Photo

Drake shows the CGNF Hawaiʻi website (a members' Q&A seeded from Facebook, and the certification list with this seminar on it), assigns cleanup chiefs, reads the certificate and hands them out with Cho and Kim Chang, the interpreter. Jason gets the first Level 2. The tape ends as everyone heads to the flag post for the group photo.

Found CGNF Hawaiʻi's members' area now has a Q&A system, seeded with questions and answers from Facebook

ceremony certification cgnf hawaii community history

Scenes from the week

The hall on Thursday afternoon, full, with the world map Cho taught in front of.
The hall on Thursday afternoon, full, with the world map Cho taught in front of.
Cho's flip chart from the first morning: 農者天下之大本, farming is the great foundation of the world.
Cho's flip chart from the first morning: 農者天下之大本, farming is the great foundation of the world.
Charred bone laid out on cardboard on Friday afternoon, the start of Structure (WCP).
Charred bone laid out on cardboard on Friday afternoon, the start of Structure (WCP).
Master Cho at the front on Saturday afternoon, with the jars and the flip chart beside the screen.
Master Cho at the front on Saturday afternoon, with the jars and the flip chart beside the screen.
The lanai and lawn outside the hall, Friday.
The lanai and lawn outside the hall, Friday.

About this record

Drake Weinert organized and filmed this seminar on one iPad. Here are all seven recorded sessions, about sixteen hours. Thursday evening was not recorded.

Master Cho taught in Korean, and Kim Chang put him into English. We transcribed every session twice: once for English and once in short pieces, so that each piece could be heard in its own language. Checkers went through it line by line against an earlier independent transcript and the speaker voiceprints. They translated Cho's Korean again, and read the board, the slides and the printed handout off the video. Where the room's English left out or changed what Cho said, the page says so under What the room didn't hear.

Some Korean is too faint or garbled to recover; each page lists those lines. Words in [brackets] are our best reconstruction. Cho's remarks about human health are kept in the transcript as said, but we don't repeat them as advice. A guest slideshow on Saturday afternoon is not included.

Everyone can read what was taught. Members watch every session, with the checked transcript running beside the video.