Oleg Onopchenko
There are not too many people today who, persistently and with unwavering intent, keep investigating themselves and space. Oleg’s experience is so profound that it is not at all easy to assess it. For me, he is a Man of the Way. It is the Way that bestows integrity and perseverance. We should hold such people in high esteem knowing that the future belongs to them. Agents of development and, moreover, agents of quality, are not so common in the contemporary world. Hence, the more people like them inhabit the geometry of our space, the better it is for everyone.
Oleg Cherne
Oleg Onopchenko is founder and Grandmaster of the International Kolo organization, President of the Baltic Hapkido union, founder of the European Oriental Culture Institute, dharma teacher of the Kwan Um school of Zen, international master of Tong Ren therapy, Qi Kung therapy, Daojiquan, Tui na massage, and Shiatsu. He is a master teacher of Daoist alchemy and a master of martial arts. He is descended from a family of healers (the Slavic tradition) and is a shaman-healer (researcher and practitioner). He is Chair of the department for energy information technologies of the Latvian Association for holistic medicine and nature therapy.
Oleg Onopchenko’s name occupies a unique place in the cultural space of development and self-development. To begin with, in his family, the genes of the intention and the need to develop have been transmitted from generation to generation.
All of Oleg’s ancestors were one way or another connected to a certain cultural tradition which they represented and preserved. For example, his grandfather Aleksey Onopchenko, who is deemed to be the patriarch of the Kolo tradition (a Cossack system of marital and healing arts), was a famous fist-fighter who, for his outstanding martial mastery, was presented with a pair of boots personally by the Russian Emperor Nikolay II. Oleg’s father Peter Onopchenko was a military officer (in a special missions unit) and an adept, too, of the traditions of Slavic martial arts (the so called ‘plastuns” or, in Ukrainian, ‘Harakterniks’). His mother Nina Grigorievna is a recognized expert in folk medicine, a famous healer and spiritual guide of Kolo practitioners.
In 1964, when he was 10, Oleg began learning the Cossack martial art with his grandfather and father. After his military service in the special units of the Soviet army he studied Jiu Jitsu with Japanese masters in Moscow and Tallinn. Ever since Oleg’s way has been a steady broadening of consciousness and an increasing mastery of various systems, allowing him to gain knowledge of ever new methods of developing and perfecting the human body and mind.
In 1980 after taking part in the Moscow All-Union karate seminar Oleg became an officially certified karate coach (he was an instructor in this martial art at the VEF plant, at the Daugava sport society, at the Biriuzov and Alksnis military schools, at the Riga film studio, at the Art Academy, the Latvia Music Academy and the Latvia University). During the same decade of the 1980s he brought together in Riga representatives of the martial arts, Zen, Dao, yoga, Taijiquan and Qi Kung form all over the Soviet Union for exchanging experience and joining the united Kolo organization.
Since 1985 Oleg has been actively involved in the study of the potential of other styles: Wushu Kung-fu, Taijiquan, Qi Kung, Aikido, Kendo and Kumdo, yoga, Zen Buddhism, Daoism, Chinese medicine and the art of Feng shui. He has been travelling a lot all his life seeking knowledge with various masters both in Russia and abroad.
In 1989 Oleg left for Vietnam where he studied thoroughly Vietnamese Zen Buddhism, medicinal and martial Qi Kung, the basis of traditional Vietnamese medicine (including Daoist yoga, traditional kinds of massage and herbal medicine) as well as Vietnamese martial arts (Viet Vo Dao, Vovinam, Niat-Nam, Nudaison, Vietnamese Win Kung); he also studied schools of knife and sword fighting.
In the 1990s Oleg became a member of the Latvian Association of holistic medicine and nature therapy, President and grand master of the International Union of the Slavic Martial Arts, President of the Baltic Hapkido union, President of the European Oriental Culture Institute and Vice-President of the Latvian Association Jing Wu (“Pure Art”). In 1995 the first international seminar was held in the USA (New York and Boston) after which Onopchenko became Program director of the Yang Oriental Arts Association (YOAA) of master Yang Jwing-Ming and its representative in the Baltic countries and CIS.
Today, Onopchenko has an experience of over 40 years of practicing different systems of self-perfecting. First among them is the Kolo system, which in 1995 achieved an international status (the International Kolo Organization) and in 2010 was recognized by UNESCO. It is now known in 36 countries. Oleg Onopchenko’s Kolo is a harmonious authorial system, based on the knowledge acquired by the master and offering the quintessence of his rich experience.
The symbol of the Kolo school is the Sun; it is a sign of strength and beauty, health and longevity, of the harmony of knowledge and energy. The goal of the school is the harmonious development of the human person, allowing the achievement of beauty, health, and longevity. Its program includes divisions like Kolo Hapkido, Kolo Taiji, Kolo Dar, Korudo, Kapuero (Hopaks).
A great part of the work of Kolo is based on ethnographic material from the Russian and Baltic folk culture. The Organization is concerned with the problem of the full rebirth of history, of preserving historical monuments and the so called “places of strength.”
One of the important goals of Kolo is the creation of museums in Russia and the Baltic region where all the valuable historical remnants of the ancient civilization, of our ancient history, could be preserved. Kolo, furthermore, is involved in the popularization of different folk traditions, ways of life and cultures and in the bringing together of people of knowledge and strength, masters of different national and traditional arts. The Kolo Organization co-operates with the Latvian Olympic Committee, with schools, federations and associations of yoga, Qi Kung, Taijiquan, Zen, Dao, shamanism, Slavic Vedic unions and healers, bringing them all together in one union, the union of people of knowledge.
In 2003 Oleg became one of the founders of the World Martial Arts Union, whose center is in South Korea. In 2005, in China, Oleg Onopchenko, together with Master Tom Tam (President of the Oriental Culture Institute, USA), conducted a seminar for Chinese physicians and healers. At the same time he practiced with Daoist masters to raise his qualification level in rejuvenation Qi Kung, empire Taiji, the art of the bedchamber, Daoist massage, and I Ching. In 2006 he practiced with Philippines healers and in 2008 he was granted the honorary title Buddha’s hand.
Oleg Onopchenko is also involved in vigorous pedagogic and educational activities. Each year he organizes numerous international master classes and seminars. Then, there are the DVD-films treating various systems of the traditional Oriental and Slavic medicine. There are the seminars for physicians and the acting classes for theater and movie actors. There is the staging of fights for the Riga film studio and, also, for the Hollywood actor and director Tommy Lee (USA film series Best of the Best). There is the training for artists, singers, and musicians, and the organizing of knights’ tournaments. “At present I actively support all promising masters in the different arts (painters, sculptors, poets, singers, musicians, theater and cinema actors, and photographers) in Europe, USA, CIS, South-Eastern Asia, Africa, and Australia, by helping them be more positively minded and healthy, more determined and creative, more socially and spiritually active.” (О. Onopchenko).
A lot of work is also being done in the sphere of big business: consulting and bio-energetic training for managers, employees and executives of large firms, companies and corporations, as well as anti-terror groups and bodyguards. It deserves notice that Oleg is a member of an international union of writers and journalists and is the author of three books on Oriental martial arts and healing systems, and of numerous methodological guidebooks. At the request of various information media he is regularly contributing articles devoted to problems of different spiritual and healing practices (Kolo, yoga, Qi Kung, Taijiquan, and calligraphy). His works, furthermore, are being published in many languages (English, German, Italian, Philippine, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, etc.).
For many years Oleg Onopchenko has also been conducting practices free of charge in the open, bringing together in the Riga parks many people who want to improve their health. In the last 15 years he has also focused his attention on methods for maintaining the beauty of the body and the face and for nurturing positive attitudes of the mind, which boosts psychological harmony. Onopchenko is regularly participating in various World competitions and fairs with his master classes and web-conferences on massage and energy information technologies. He is particularly concerned with the popularization of the remote methods of the Tong Ren therapy (the author of this method is master Tom Tam) and the energy psycho-correction Kolodar (the author of this method is Oleg Onopchenko) since these methods have demonstrated to be the most effective during their 20 years long application both in the USA and in Europe.
As Oleg puts it: “Without the spiritual dimension complex arts are impossible. You cannot even make good money if you break certain internal spiritual principles. You cannot unscrupulously “walk on corpses!” The moment you do something against your conscience you receive a counterblow, and you begin to fall apart at the spiritual and energy level. I see the way people lose the most valuable thing in life, health, and, most importantly, their psychological and spiritual health…”
Websites where you can find detailed information on Onopchenko’s biography and work:
http://www.kolo-dar.times.lv/potomstvennij.htm
http://www.reaktors.lv/content/view/81/lang,ru/
http://kolo.do.am
http://www.kolodar-massage.ucoz.ru
Contact information:
(+371) 2959 0149
oleg.onopchenko@gmail.com
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