KickChick

Well that depends. Will you be using your palm strike for breaking purposes?? If so, you can condition your hand by striking on the heavy bag to develop power in your strike. Although arm strength is a plus, power is derived in the momentum of your body and the pivot of your hips as you execute the strike. Your set up (where you set your hands), how you step in and pivot your hips and follow through with your strike ... should all be taken into consideration when executing a palm (heel) strike.....(granted this is coming from a TKD-stylist)

Way to Go KarateForums! WOO HOO!!!!

Okay newer "short" members who are involved in striking arts .... any comments to add to this thread????

So are we saying size and sex matters??? .... Did we ever come to an agreement here?

You also may want to refer to this newer thread on why it is important to stretch in order to avoid injury also to joints. http://www.karateforums.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4866

For many of us.... the flu season is again upon us .... wow a whole year went by since I posted this. Thank goodness the threat of anthrax is over ....

News Breaking !!! Police take two men into custody in Virginia http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/

You will learn to block, kick, punch, self defense techniques and numerous striking techniques, which will not only sharpen your physical and mental thinking, but it helps to improve your hand eye coordination, balance and reflexes... unfoortunately this doesn't happen right away so give it some time .... with the first couple of classes even the so-called coordinated folks feel highly uncoordinated!

I disagree! The most commonly agreed upon way to prevent injuries is to stretch before working out. Almost everyone agrees on this point of fact but unfortunately most people have never really been taught how to stretch --correct stretches for what activity and performed in their proper order. We normally stretch out joints in the directions which we are used to moving them in.But what we fail to realize is that every joint in the body is built to withstand and compensate for some rolling motion as the joint goes through its full range of motion. The major muscles which we are used to stretching are those which are responsible for the major movement of the joint, but the minor muscles are responsible in a large part for keeping tthat joint aligned and positioned properly. When we don't stretch these minor muscles, we run the risk of pulling and/or tearing them if we move the joint forcfully in an abnormal direction where it was not designed to go. This is also what we do to our opponents when we put force their joints directions they were not intended to go! --> PAIN! So we do need to loosen up these small muscles surrounding each joint. It is very important to do the proper stretches in the proper order. Start below with the feet and work upward to the head or vise versa. Stretch each and every joint in its proper directions of travel, but also roll each joint in as much of a circular motion as you can. This will loosen up the minor muscles. Make sure that any tension you place on muscles and ligaments during your stretching is done with slow and gently with increasing pressure. Bouncy movements (ballistic) should be avoided, because even small jerks can tear the small muscle fibers. Certain stretches were designed to achieve certain results! Muscles are usually long enough to allow for a full range of motion in the joints, but it is the nervous control of their tension that has to be worked upon for muscles to show their full length. (as described in "Stretching Scientifically" by T. Kurz) This is why stretching every day (say every morning) makes your full range of motion possible latter in the day with no warm up! (Kurz's secret to kicking with no warm up while not incurring any injury!) This is why repeated movements like biking/spinning certain weightlifting and calisthenics can set the nervous control of length and tension in the muscles (muscle memory). Stronger stimuli are remembered better. Strenuous workouts do damage muscle fibers of conective tissue but do heal in a day or two (DOMS) but a loss of flexibility will also occur as muscle shortens up during this healing. When we stretch correctly, most of our muscles are loose and flexible. As we train, we exert force on these joints and these muscles tense up (contract) to protect the improper rotation of joints, and soon non-moving joint muscles can be even tighter than before we began our initial stretch. This tightening of small motion joints is particularly important in our back. Whenever we kick the heavy bag in ma training our body's joints adjust to compensate for the force load. Vertebrae shift to take up the shock of our feet/legs striking the bag or lifting weights. The main reason we stretch should not only be to prevent injury but to enable us to gain flexibility and to restore the looseness of the muscles we have caused to tighten. The post exercise or a cool down stretch ensures this. The proper cool down is to gradually to decrease the amount of physical activity but to continue to do enough to generate heat in the main muscles you had been using. You then allow those muscles that are already loose to contract slowly while you loosen up the contracted muscles.When we do not stretch out these muscles and ligaments, they naturally tend to shorten with time and age.... a decrease in flexibility! Stretching facilitates recovery by regulating muscle tension, relieving muscle spasms and improving blood flow into your muscles. There is alot of misinformation out there. With many people following physiological guidelines when it come to proper stretching in order to avoid injury or trauma .... is it any wonder why doctors have contradicting opinions?

Yin and Yang Man< --->Woman According to traditional Chinese philosophy, yin and yang are the two primal cosmic principles of the universe. Yin (Mandarin for moon) is the passive, female principle. Yang (Mandarin for sun) is the active, masculine principle. Yin and Yang hows the perfect balance between opposites (man & woman), or the great forces of the universe. This portrays that there is no "real" masculine or feminine nature, but that each contains a part of the other. The two are contained in one circle showing that both powers are in one cycle. Instead of these two being held in antagonism, they are held together to show the that they are mutually interdependent partners. One cannot exist without the other. I tend to believe that they each lend their own special characteristics to create the power of balance within the martial arts! http://www.karateforums.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=899&start=0

Would you believe I heard on the radio just this morning that a wife bit her husband to death? Now I know what your're thinking but she bit him all over his body even while he was on the phone dialing 911!! So I guess biting is pretty effective .... but

Thanks for stopping by here on my advice Fionn and for the interesting introduction! Good luck to you and hope we can all help you out with advice for knockouts in the future!

Welcome to KarateForums .. (and glad you remember to stop by and introduce yourself!) Good Luck in your search for a ma school. Hope we can offer some assistance to you in our Instructor Central Forum!

http://www.jetli.com/jetli/projects/projects_other_cradle.php?bw=high Posted here by me: http://www.karateforums.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3639&start=15

http://www.jc-world.co.uk/jackiejet.asp Yes I know that NinjaJoe and I posted that news here http://www.karateforums.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3639&start=15 You will find some other new MA flicks due out here on this thread also!!

You all must have taken a whiff of the fresh batch of my special chocolate chip cookies I had baked and placed strategically next to my computer !! I'm sure glad I was part of that 26!

Fionn .... I am not quite sure what you are asking. What exactly is your goal as far as your "kicks"... to increase height, balance, power or speed in your kicks?? If it is flexibility to want to acquire for lau gar than check out some of the threads in Health & Fitness forum regarding flexibility and kicking height Here is just one http://www.karateforums.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1122&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=flexibility%20determination Oh and stop by Introductions and tell us more about yourself so we can officially welcome you to the site

Many of us in the States (specially in the DC area) are well aware of the recent sniper shootings. Today, Army planes with high-tech surveillance equipment are preparing to take to the skies around the nation's capital to help track a sniper who has eluded law enforcement officials for two weeks. An unknown sniper or snipers has launched a series of 11 random rifle attacks in 13 days that has killed nine people and seriously wounded two others. All but one of the attacks have been in neighboring suburbs in Maryland and Virginia. One was just inside Washington at the Maryland border. Here are the details: Details on shootings in suburban Washington, D.C. --5:20 p.m. Oct. 2: Windows shot at craft store in the unincorporated Aspen Hill area of Montgomery County, Md. No one hurt. --6:04 p.m. Oct. 2: James D. Martin, 55, of Silver Spring, Md., killed in grocery store parking lot in Wheaton, Md. (Montgomery County) --7:41 a.m. Oct. 3: James L. ``Sonny'' Buchanan, 39, of Arlington, Va., killed while cutting grass at an auto dealership in unincorporated White Flint area. (Montgomery County) --8:12 a.m. Oct. 3: Taxi driver Prem Kumar Walekar, 54, of Olney, Md., killed at gas station in Rockville, Md. (Montgomery County) --8:37 a.m. Oct. 3: Sarah Ramos, 34, of Silver Spring killed outside post office in Silver Spring. (Montgomery County) --9:58 a.m. Oct. 3: Lori Ann Lewis-Rivera, 25, of Silver Spring slain as she vacuumed her van at a gas station in Kensington, Md. (Montgomery County) --9:15 p.m. Oct. 3: Pascal Charlot, 72, of Washington, D.C., killed while standing on a Washington street. --2:30 p.m. Oct. 4: 43-year-old woman wounded in craft store parking lot in Fredericksburg, Va. (Spotsylvania County) --8:09 a.m. Monday: 13-year-old boy wounded as he is dropped off at school in Bowie, Md. (Prince George's County) --8:15 p.m. Wednesday: Dean Harold Meyers, 53, of Gaithersburg, Md., killed at gas station in Manassas, Va. (Prince William County) --9:30 a.m. Friday: Kenneth H. Bridges, 53, of Philadelphia, killed at a gas station in Fredericksburg. --9:15 p.m. Monday: Woman shot and killed at Home Depot store in Falls Church, Va. A tarot card was found near the Bowie shooting of a 13-year-old boy . It was a tarot "death" card on which was written: "Mister Policeman, I am God." So that makes 9 fatalitities / and 11 sniper shootings. 9/11 any correlation?? Do you believe there will be more? 20th Century Fox is delaying the release of its thriller "Phone Booth" because of the deadly sniper terrorizing the Washington area. The movie, starring Kiefer Sutherland, was to open November 15th. It's about people being pinned down in a phone booth by a gunman they can't see.

Bon, I was merely commenting that if you want to learn TKD together with hand techniques (punching) .... BizMarkie may want to look into a style of TKD that will incorporates punching into TKD instruction (as most traditional schools do.) I am not saying that you can't cross train in boxing (something that I personally would love to do if there were a boxing gym in my area) but the closest thing that I personally do is train on my own with kickboxing

WHAT?? Tell that to an ITF or a Chung Do Kwan based school .... and they are out there thugtkd just not as "highly-advertised" as the "modern-style/sport-type" that you seem to think is so ecclectic. Many traditional TKD schools have adapted some of their techniques while still maintaining a link to the past. Some WTF TKD is practiced as pure sport, while other styles ITF and WTF, have another purpose. The underlying purpose of the TKD is combat. It may be practiced as a pure sport, as a pure fighting art, or as a combination of both.

You may want to find yourself (as koreantiger81 suggested sort of) an ITF (traditionally based) Tae Kwon Do school that does incorporate punching defense. Traditionally Tae Kwon do translates to "the art of kicking and punching". Because of it's numerous unique kicks, each with many variations, TKD is called the "kicking martial art". But you must remember that is not to say that ALL TKD does not use hand techniques ... it uses the same basic hand techniques used in other martial arts, which makes it a well rounded empty-handed martial art. Because major TKD organizations developed Tae kwon do into a modern international amateur and Olympic sportthey tried to maintain its proud tradition and martial art spirit but somehow that has been lost in some TKD instruction. The points system of free fighting was devised specifically with limitations on punching to measure the skill and ability of the students kicking ability only to strike targets and minimizing potential injury. At our school we cover these hand techniques:(check out our school logo which is my avatar .... that is a punching HAND not a kicking FOOT) Punches: Hand attacks using a closed fist. Strikes: Hand attacks using some variation of an open hand. Thrusts: Hand attacks when some part of the hand is thrust into the opponent. Elbows: Although not a part of the hand, elbow attacks are categorized as hand techniques.

I knew you would be #1 Patrick (topic starter).... but I hadn't realized I was in the running.

You did post that you "will be going" .... Let us know how it goes .... and what actually made you choose TSD.... just thought I'd ask!

Laur... go to that link I gave and there is a drop down menu which does list DirecTv .... they will fax a letter on your behalf to your provider to request that you get it!!!

I truly love Jackie ... but I'd wait to rent this one on DVD or video. I wouldn't put this in the same genre as martial art movies but rather an action/comedy. The plot was stupid and the jokes weren't funny but it was somewhat entertaining. Oh BTW, Jackie got his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, promising in return to "make better films." http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20021006/ap_on_en_mo/jackie_chan_2