shimatta_billa

When I spar against women (or younger kids for that matter) I find myself holding back, and being more cautious, even if we are mutually agreed that we will spar as normal. Despite what has been said here, I cannot hit a women and would feel ashamed if I did. (Making contact during sparring is a different matter, but I couldn't intentionally "hit")

In TKD, I learnt Palgwe Iljang in my first month. In Shotokan, I have not yet been training a month and I have learnt four of the 5 heians. I don't think anyone could ever claim to 'master' or 'perfect' their kata however.

I'm religious. In my religion it is unnacceptable to bow your face to anyone except to God in prayer. However, I have no problem bowing out of respect - I simply don't show my face towards the floor (so effectively I keep my eyes forwards). No one has a problem with that, and that way I respect both the dojo and people as well as my own religion. Bowing isn't necessarily religious, unless call someone "Sir" is religious also

No, not really. Well, I smashed up a pallet (big wooden tray thingy) with my axe kicks and kicked down a shed, but I don't think that's anything particularly bad

Chinese martial arts (your "kung fu" arts) tend to be more graceful and complex, whereas Japanese martial arts (your "karate" arts) tend to be more direct and based on the principle of beauty through simplicity. Of course, this is quite general, since certainly not all Japanese martial arts are "karate" and not all Chinese arts are "kung fu" but these fundamental differences appear to hold quite true.

Watch lots of Japanese anime - that'll sort the pronunciation for ya

I do TKD and have no idea what this "bounce" thing is about

I crosstrain. It works well with sparring and such, and certainly the extra training helps with your stamina/fitness. Problem is, my TKD instructor now tells me that my basics look more like Shotokan (cos of the deeper/stronger stances) and that my forms look too much like Kung Fu (again cos my stances are now deeper - but I don't do Kung Fu anyway!). Also, having learnt of some new principles in Shotokan, I'm starting to doubt my TKD and wonder if I should apply these ideas or not (for instance, in Shotokan forms one turns their head to always look in the direction of the technique, but in TKD forms we've always trained where you keep the head still - which makes less sense to me). I'm not sure whether this change in style is a good thing, but I think it's probably good not to try and confuse styles in class.

Hi all! I'm new here (as you could have guessed). I'm 17, from England and I've been practicing various arts for nearly 8 years now. Anyhow, it's good to have found such a large discussion community