tommarker

If you're naturally athletic, have goes aesthetic movement, and just happen to be very talented at mimicking physical movements, yeah, you might learn the fan from a video well. But people tend to be a rather poor judge of their own abilities. They either think they are good, when in actuality, they aren't, or they are TOO hard on themselves. I don't know a lot about Uechi, but I don't think of Fan when I think of Uechi. Unless you have a gymnastic or dance background you can call on, I just don't know how well you'll be able to do. However, taking the time to learn the BO correctly will teach you a lot about yourself, how you move, how to move with a weapon, etc. You have a good instructor who can guide you through these things. THEN, maybe you can start to learn the fan on your own. But with no base, I'm sorry... but it has a 99.9% chance of sucking And that goes for ANY weapon.

Does a Thai Clinch with repeated knees to the head count as a high kick? All strikers need to connect, and all grapplers need to close the distance. I would say your fastest, and strongest kick is going to be YOUR most effective. Although, something like a wheel kick might just work too. Doesn't Geoff Thompson tell a story about round kicking a thug in the eye or something?

To be honest, most of the "new techniques" run out in TSD by about 5th Gup. I mean, yeah, you'll get plenty of new forms, weapons, etc... But the forms pretty much use the core techniques. Aside from the occasional strange move like the U Punch from Bassai, of course. Instead, your basics should reflect the time spent working on them. Obviously, a 3rd Dan's side kick should be better than a green belt's. And even if the 3rd dan has a shot knee and can't kick anymore, they should be able to teach the kick, analyze technique, suggest improvement, etc. These things are what grows from 2nd to 3rd Dan, 3rd to 4th: increased, complex understanding of the technique. I think this bugs a lot of people. The external "carrots" for the next rank aren't as frequent. We go from learning a new form every 3 months to spending 3-4 years on 1 or 2 forms. My next form could be YEARS away, whereas I learned in 4 years as a gup something like 13 hyung.

There is a Kuk Sool Do school here in Columbus, I believe. I always presumed it was a splinter group of some sort.

owwww.... IN FMA systems, the drills are the same whether empty hand, knife, stick, machete. Why wouldn't karate be the same?

Then you have all spring and summer to work on the bo with A COMPETENT INSTRUCTOR!! Seriously, don't give up on the bo so quickly. You have to practice your weapons as much as your empty hand if you want to make progress with them.

I could totally kick his butt, and break his puny bo over my knee. But yeah, that's some pretty MA. Hope he can keep it up after puberty.

2 things I'd recommend: Isometric: Hold the starting pushup position (arms straight, body in a straight line, head up, abs tight) as long as you can. Start with 30 seconds and count down. Work up to a minute, and so on. Try as hard as you can to keep your body straight (don't stick your butt in the air or let you midsection sink) Breathe. Pyramids: If you can do them on your knees, this is a good starter (since you say you can only do 2 normal pushups) Start by doing 1 pushup on your knees. Rest about 20 seconds. Then do 2, rest 20 seconds, 3, rest, 4, etc Get as high as you can and then take about a minute break. Then, go down from your highest number down to 1. Good luck!

Y.E.S. Yes.

Do you have a video camera? I would be interested in seeing this. Heck, you could probably make a video, sell it and become - well not a millionaire -- but at least a thousandaire.

Why would you do that? You'd just be getting to a point where you can understand TKD enough to really be good at it. 1st Dan means squat. I can say that, because I'm a 2nd Dan which is just slightly more squat.

In other words, who cares if you're 5'4" when your spirit is 7'8"

are we talking about sparring or fighting? what are the rules, if any? If we're talking about self-defense, I'd go with chin jabs and repeated knees to the groin until they bend over, then elbows and hammerfists to the back of the head. a small person has a few advantages they can choose to take advantage of. someone much taller than you is going to try and exploit their reach, and is going to probably presume that you are going to be too timid to enter that range. some of the best fighters i've seen just come in and charge the bigger guy and force them backwards and constantly strike... front kick, reverse punch, punch, punch punch, kick... like a freight train. You don't need to gain weight fast, you need to build explosive muscles and speed. Strength will come. Squats by the hundreds, footwork drills to do circles around those big oafs, and an agressive forward drive are your tools. You want to move like Spiderman.

Just remember.... Respect is something that is earned, and not demanded. Don't get wrapped up in a power trip and make people start doing pushups, etc and exploiting your new powers. It doesn't sound like that will be a problem, but a lot of people will resort to that at first. Don't sweat a bad day teaching too much, as it's going to happen to everyone. You will learn that somethings work, some things don't, and some things work for some people and not for others, etc. Sometimes, the easiest way is to just mimic how your instructor does it. When I teach forms to a person for the first time, I'll have them follow me by my count, and we'll start off with the first 3-4 moves (depending on how complex the form is) and then start over, adding a move each time. I don't bother with correcting too many things until they have memorized the steps. Then I'll work on solidifying the stances (at least getting them in the right stance) then move on to other posture issues (hips rotated, back straight, eyes up, then move on to targeting and refining the actual techniques. That's for the end though, and it may be awhile before we even get to that.

salut kataman, ça va bien? je parle un peu de français, mais, il y avait plus que 10 ans depuis je l'ai étudié. Comme smr, je suis americain. En Ohio il n'y a pas beaucoup d'occasions quand on puisse practiquer la français. (subjonctif? je sais pas... )

[quote="KUNTA KINTE"] have you ever seen a cop walking around with a staff or some nunchauks??[/quote] At the risk of hijacking the thread... :) Yes, I've seen policemen with Nunchaku. I have a pair on nunchaku made by Orcutt designed specifically for carry by police, and Monadnock (they make expandable batons and PR-24s) once made a police nunchaku that was really heavy and brutal. There's also a non-striking version of the nunchaku made for police. Never seen it though. But to answer the original question: http://www.davidslife.com/funstuff/cards/technique.htm

Our University bought a few puzzle mats for the martial arts clubs to test out for future purchase. AWFUL. Really hard and slick. I'd have rather taken falls on the regular floor.

Just practice the one or two cuts you learned in class. Sword isn't usually something that is taught at a fast pace.

At the risk of sounding like an old man (like Shorinryu Sensei ) Could we please be a little more mature in our weapon discussions? People read stuff like this and think that anyone who studies weaponry must be somehow unhinged.

i'd definetely wear a cup.

Eu posso ler portuguêsa, mas eu não posso falar o português. Pesaroso. Pero, puedo hablar español. (i can read portuguese, but can't speak it. sorry.)

Just out of curiousity, where did/do you train TSD?

We have Cho Dan Bo in our system, and it is a Dark Blue Belt. For lack of a better term, a person who is a CDB is a "Black Belt Candidate." One usually spends 6-9 months in this position and is basically tested with the responsibility of a Yudanja and held to a more rigorous standard. The test is the same price as a regular gup/kyu examination. The rank gains you admission to Yudanja events, and starts you on the road towards becoming an Instructor. I HATED being a CDB, as my instructors were very strict and demanded perfection. It showed me 2 things: that I still had a LONG way to go, and that being a competent black belt required a greater skill set than just kick/punch. As to why not just do this at 1st Gup, I would ask, why even have 10 gup/kyu ranks? Why not 3, 5, 42, etc?

Daredevil was just a movie, friend. Seriously. If you were to throw a sai, it would either be just like a knife (overhead/underhand with spin) or with a flick of the wrist downward such as in Kusanku no sai. Throwing it like a dart would be... weird, and I imagine the weight would cause the butt end to sink.

http://www.donrearic.com/yawara.html http://www.donrearic.com/koppostick.html http://www.donrearic.com/koppostick2.html