tamaro

It's essentially a rebrand of japanese Kendo. Gumbo is said to be an ancient Korean sword arts, but that's not historically true. This happens a lot with Korean arts. The creators say it's ancient Korean art, but the only link there seems to exist with previous martial arts are to Japanese arts that had been introduced to Korea during the Japanese occupation. During the occupation, most of Korean culture was lost. After WWII, many Koreans didn't want to acknowledge they were practicing Japanese martial arts, so a lot of new Korean martial arts were created that were initially nothing more than Japanese martial arts, renamed and passed along as "native Korean martial art". Tang Soo Do (later Taekwondo), Gumbo and Hapkido are such examples. One notable exception of a true native Korean art however, is Taekkyon which disappeared during Japanese occupation only to be recovered afterwards.

Had a kid student that was training with me since he was 6, talked a lot but matched the amount of conversation with effort in training. At age of 7 he told me that when he became older, he wanted to be a taekwondo instructor *. Felt good to hear that from such a young student, not only because I felt my work was appreciated, but also because it seemed to have inspired others.

My opinion Personally I would welcome him to the dojo and he would grade when he made the time as if he just graded to his current grade. No special treatment. You don't know him, so saying he did 7 years or 10 or 20 is all the same for what you care. That sort of situation happened some 3 times on my dojang (taekwondo). Usually what happens is that a student will cook up a discussion with his/her teacher for whatever stupid motive and rage quits. Then he/she tries to pull some followers with him/her to start his/her own thing and everything goes wrong and eventually ends up all alone. At this stage he/she thinks he/she can just go it all alone ("only fools have themselves for teachers" - missing author of quote!) and eventually he shows up at someone else's door saying he wants to grade... My perspective on this is: 1) It's un-polite and plain arrogant behaviour to request grading. The teacher should address the student, never the opposite. Note that requesting is different from asking when you'll grade, as the first is claiming your ready, when it's not your place to judge that, while the second is just getting a heads up so you have the opportunity to plan ahead and perhaps do an extra preparatory effort. 2) If you don't know the teacher, I consider it rude and typical "gold digging" behaviour. 3) "Gold diggers" are not the sort of student one should pay much attention to. First because they won't ever be true students, too arrogant to accept knowledge from someone. Second they'll just use a dojo to get what they want and leave to create their own thing, sometimes trying to convince students to switch sides. 4) Some discomfort may arise amongst your real students as they feel someone from outside had special treatment. To sum it up, when someone enters a dojo requesting grading on the spot, one just simply says "no". You'll see they won't come back as their intention was never to actually train there in the first place. Not your problem he/she got into a likely childish argument with his/her old teacher. ----------------- Regarding the outcome.. I never understood why "belt hunters" don't just go to the local sports wear store and purchase a new belt they want for $5. It as the exact same end result has paying $200 . regards

I think Karate is pretty much like any field of study. We shouldn't just attend classes, we need some "me time" to fully understand it. After having a good understanding of the founding principles, discovering karate on your own is also important. Somethings you'll never experience in just one dojo. Personally I attend karate lessons at a local dojo, but aside from that and teaching taekwondo, I do about 4 training sessions, either alone or with a partner/student. The purpose of those training sessions is to either improve some skill or experiment with something new. I usually choose places that have three caracteristics: 1) Not many people around to start staring at you in that "look at that kung fu fool" that can be quite distracting.. 2) Air is not too poluted 3) Must have enough space (at least 6x6 meters) 4) Ground should have a good plain surface that's not slippery. Optionally, I look at places in nature (I live near a mountain). Also, try to practice early in the morning, so that 1) has better chances! Regards

It's been 10 months since the surgery. Wanted to leave my experiences. Overall, I'm very happy with the recovery. It was hard and painful but I can practice martial arts again without many of the previous concerns. I continued to practice Karate and Taekwondo and did some semi-free sparring sessions. In Jiu Jitsu I stopped for a while. I'm waiting to make 1 full year before testing my knee in drills that may require additional pressure or full contact impact. I did try jiujitsu at month 6 and 7, but stopped due to feeling a pain on the area where the screw was placed. At this point I still have some though psychological barriers in executing spinning kicks. I can do basic turning kicks and stuff, but 180º + rotations give me the shivers. I feel like my body is expecting an injury at any point! I still have some pain, but it's not related to the ACL. Due to the fact that I was injured for 2 years before surgery, there was additional wear on the patella, so that causes me pain. I'm now taking medication, and feeling better. Still, stuff like sprinting, jumping is out of the question. Flexibility was back to normal after month 7. Had a routine meeting with the doctor last month and he basically told me I'd be wise to give up on martial arts. I'll continue and risk it of course. I had a friend who did an almost full recovery and went into competition of Taekwondo again. I guess the problems I'm facing are mainly due to the fact I had to wait for such a long period for medical assistance. Still, happy to be able to enjoy martial arts again at... perhaps 65-70% of what it used to be.

Much appreciated help! Looked at some of the references and still struggling a bit more to find detailed information on terminology. The Ushiro Geri example: Would like to ask for some insight in someone who can confirm my findings. Most dojos referer Ushiro Geri as a spinning back kick. When translated Ushiro means rear, so the translation would be rear/back kick. Usually the Ushiro geri is only practiced in most dojos with a spin. Comparing with Taekwondo, the back kick (no spinning) is called Dwit chagi, and the spinning back kick is called "Mondolyo dwit chagi". So my question is if in Shotokan Karate terminology there's a different terminology for the back kick application with and without a spin ? Also, the spinning hook kick is called Ushiro Ura Mawashi Geri in most references. So translation would be "rear reverse turn kick". Regarding this is if there are dojos where the name of this technique is different? Overall, as far as spinning kicks go, in shotokan karate, used dojo terminology doesn't seem to differ a kick in its normal application from its spinning variations. Do you agree? Please note that in my work I intent to list differences between different main associations. All feedback on different ways it may be called is much appreciated. Regarding: Unfortunately I don't know anything about Goju Ryu, so wouldn't be capable of doing any good work on it. But in the future, instead of writing all the stuff, I may simply contact authors of other martial arts and publish their work through the existing technology. Let me know if you know someone who understands and studies Goju Ryu to the tiniest detail. Thank you. Thanks for the assistance.

Hello all, I'm currently writing content for a couple of mobile apps about martial arts and was wondering if I could get some help from this forum in pointing me towards some good references. I'm basically working on two apps, one about Taekwondo and another about Shotokan Karate. Each app is meant to be an evolution of apps I already published. I'm planning on referencing all techniques, forms and sparring drills usually taught from white belt up to 1st dan. Doing that with Taekwondo has so far been easy. There are a lot of good well detailed books on techniques. But on shotokan karate it has been really hard. The main problem is the number of variations per each type of technique and the lack of information on terminology. For example, in Taekwondo I know that a back kick is called Dwit Chagi and a spinning back kick is called Mondolyo Dwit Chagi. I can find that information in any Taekwondo book. In Karate, in the references I found, there was no distinction in name between back kick and spinning back kick, both variations being simply called Ushiro Geri. I would like my Shotokan Karate app to go to the same level of detail as the Taekwondo one. My sensei mentioned it's not common for instructors to go to that level of name distinction in the dojo and that he's not aware of references that do that. I do have one reference that's great in detail: Best Karate by Nakayama. But it doesn't mention techniques and variations that aren't present in the Kata. Anyone can recommend good references of books that follow that type of detail in technique naming? Thanks.

I'd say they are ready to start as long as they behave. Mental age is more important than biological age. Also, the instructor is an extension to the education given at home by the parents. If the parent's fail to educate their child, there's not much an instructor can do in a couple of hours per week. Parent's failure to educate is the top reason why some children, some even as old as 12, can't start martial arts lessons. Anyway, read somewhere that there's a japanese tradition that says a child should be introduced to martial arts at age of 5 years, 5 five months and 5 days.

Crazy that still today this sort of thing happens. Last year got another school's student at the Dojang. By coincidence, we had planned a group photo at the end of the training session. Instead of telling me he didn't want to join in the photo, the student carefully hid himself behind another student. Still today, I laugh when I look at the photo. xD Problem is, many instructors may consider you are searching elsewhere because you are not happy with something. And to tell the truth, when we seek additional instruction, it means something is not exactly as we wish it was. But that's normal. Go train there if you got invited. If your teacher takes that as an insult, I guess is not worthy of being your instructor. An exception is when the other instructor regularly says bad things about other instructors. In that case I wouldn't go there. Being with someone that is disrespectful with your or other teachers is never a good idea.

Is there somewhere where I can find some version with english subtitles? Documentary looks really well made. Would be great to listen to it

Hello, I've underwent ACL reconstruction 6.5 months ago and currently I'm practicing Shotokan Karate. I still feel the leg kind of weak, but aside from needing to ice the knee after each session, it looks like it's recovering well. From 1 to 5, being 4 the minimum level I would consider doing competition, I'm at 2 right now. So my current schedule is: 1) 5 months, end of reabilitation sessions. Running, cycling and careful training of karate/taekwondo techniques. Alone. [DONE] 2) 6 months - Karate training in a class. Kihon,Kata and Kumite (no jiyu kumite) [DOING] 3) 1 year (first attempt at striking with contact) 4) 1 year and 1 month. Starting free sparring. But I also practice BJJ. I haven't restarted training because I think falls and pressure on knee while kneeling might be as traumatic as kicking a heavy bag. Wondering if any judoka or similar out there have gone through this injury, if and when restarted training and how it felt to restart falling and doing ground fighting again? Regards

To sum it up, from what I've understood, the main reasons for not using ball of foot more often are: 1) Martial art/system doesn't use ball of the foot in roundhouse 2) Greater risk of injury to toes or ankle 3) Limitations on angle of attack 4) Short range strikes are easier to perform with shin 5) Sparring training benefits instep to reduce risk of injury to partner Thanks for the feedback

Hello, Across different martial arts, we can usually find 3 ways of connecting with a roundhouse kick: 1) Shin 2) Instep 3) Ball of the foot In muay thai,kick boxing and some styles of karate, the shin is used as impact area. The instep is seen frequently today in most styles of karate and taekwondo, although the correct way to executing the technique is by hitting with the ball of the foot. Instep use seems to have been born from point-base competition, and works great for that. But I've only seen people kicking with the instep or shin in MMA fights. I have little doubt that many kicks that didn't result in KO could of had much more devastating consequences if the impact area was the ball of the foot instead of the instep or in some situations, the shin. It's tough and focus the impact force on a smaller area. I can understand why people hit with the shin in MMA fights, it's their background martial art correct way of doing it. But don't see the point in people with Karate/Taekwondo background striking with the instep or even shin. Wondering how forum members usually hit the roundhouse and what's their opinion in inset VS shin VS ball of foot. I should be missing something here. regards

Sorry, didn't notice this was a really old thread. Admin: Feel free to delete my post. ----------- There are two main things you need to consider: 1) Insurance - This is the easy part. I think you can easily negotiate with an insurance company, something for your students. 2) Your relation to the organisations that governs the art. Who will teach you? How will your students have access to competitions and gatherings? I think no one should consider being a one man island. Others have a lot to teach us, always. If we stop communicating, your school may eventually get frozen in time. Belonging to an association is always good. Notice that 20% extra on their fees may actually be less that the deal you'll get for a new insurance. Insurance companies tend to make discounts for larger number of individuals. So, even if 2) doesn't concern you, careful because 1) can backfire on you. If that happens, you'll not only lose your students anyway, but also your relationship with the organisation. Also, you can consider simply switching organisation. But be careful in this whole process because relations can sour quite quickly. Think in the long run, perhaps the benefits of saving those 20% are nothing compared to the problems and difficulties that might arise from the lack of support of a well established organisation. To me 20% doesn't seem an unreasonable rise, specially if fees have been constant for some years.

My opinion is that someone that wants to teach without training is in it just for the money or status. I've even seen young people wanting to start teaching and, at the same time, wanting to stop training. In my point of view, that way of thinking goes against the very thing one should attempt to teach, and those who think like that shouldn't teach at all. How can a math teacher be a good teacher if he doesn't like math? It's impossible. For someone to teach, that person must have a passion for the subject. Having a passion for martial arts implies one actually feeling depressed when not training. To sum it up...no passion for the art, no business in teaching.