glingglo

i agree hydration could be an issue here, but what about eating? i've noticed if i eat too much before class, cruches definitely make me want to throw up! try avoiding large meals before you work out - just have a light snack for energy. I prefer a piece of fruit or a granola bar or something like that, but anything you like that doesn't make you sick will probably do the trick. also, are you doing them too fast? try slowing down and really working your abs with each crunch. you might not jostle your innards around so much.

i love doing progressive kicking combos... they require the most strength at the end when you're the most tired. it helps you find those inner reserves you might not realize you have. i usually go up to 10, so i'll throw one kick, put my foot down and that's one; then 2 kicks just flicking my leg twice without putting it down, and that's two; then 3 kicks without putting my leg down... and so on. by the time you're doing 10 kicks in a row without dropping your knee, you're pretty tired!

just a newbie in TKD - I should be testing for my yellow belt in about a month...

we have 5 areas that we train in: forms, hand techniques, foot techniques, sparring and self defense. classes are scheduled so that we rotate through these areas 2 at a time. so on mondays, you might have half of the class spent on hands and half spent on self defense, and then on tuesdays you could have sparring and forms. we always start with a warm-up, but for the most part, students are expected to be stretched out and ready to go before class starts. i like it because i don't feel rushed in class, and because i can choose what nights to come based on what techniques i need the most work on. of course, i suspect there are people who try to avoid nights where we're doing something they don't like, but they end up paying for it in the long run.

at my dojang, we do what i would consider full-contact sparring. i wouldn't call it "no-holds-barred" since eye gouging isn't really something that we'd want to do to one another, but i think it's pretty effective. we also sometimes double- and triple-team each other to get a feel for fighting multiple opponents, and have free-for-alls where the whole class splits into teams and fights. we're always encouraged to throw our fancier kicks if we have the opportunity, but generally the way to win is to keep them low and follow through with good punching combos. i'm not sure why TKD gets picked on so much either... if you have a good school and good instructors, you can learn to adapt any of the techniques to street fighting.