DLopez

If you really have varied tastes in music, then you will probably like listening to anything by Ry Cooder. From country-rock slide guitar, to salsa-flavored latin beats, he sounds good doing it all. Big Head Todd And The Monsters is another of my faves - somtimes jazzy, sometimes driving rock n roll, always easy to listen to. "ICU in everything" is a song you can listen to over and over and over... Lessee... I never seem to get tired of listening to Coldplay. Fleetwood Mac's "Bare Trees" cd, IMO, sounds better than anything they put out after Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham joined, and that's saying a lot! Aefibird, for some really good '70s rock, take a listen to these bands if you can find them: Captain Beyond (1st album) Armageddon Wishbone Ash ("Live Dates" cd/album is really good!) Just a few suggestions.

I'm just an assistant instructor, but I find myself (rightly or wrongly) gravitating towards the students that show enthusiasm about their training. I will try to get those that don't appear very enthusiastic about being there to get more enthusiastic, but if they don't, I find I usually let them be and spend more time with the ones that want to learn.

Just punch before the other person has the chance to tense up his arm, so it will hurt more without you having to really punch "harder". Just be ready when it's your turn to take a hit!

I'm not currently reading a non-fiction "book", but I read lots of periodicals such as: (work related) Embedded Systems Programming Control Design (hobby related) Chevy Hi-Performance Super Chevy Car Craft Shutterbug Digital Photographer

Just finished reading a collection of Arthur C. Clarke's short stories titled "The Sentinel". (The Sentinel is just one of the short stories, but that's also what the collection is titled) Pretty good reads, all of them! I also have been reading a collection of short stories by Ernest Hemingway. "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" is one of my faves of his. I just bought another collection of short stories from Joseph Conrad - Heart of Darkness is one of them. I guess you can tell I prefer short stories!

Hehe... if it hurts when you do that, don't do that. Sounds like you bruised it pretty good. Did it swell when you first injured it? That's usually the first sign that you damaged it pretty good (sprain or break). If it didn't swell up, probably all you need to do is give it a few days to heal and stop hurting.

I remember being told as a child that cracking my knuckles would give me arthritis, or make my knuckles all big and bony... Neither has happened, and GAWD!! I can think of only a few things that feel better than a good knuckle cracking! I don't crack my back very often, but sometimes when I get a 'kink' in my back, and I get a friend to crack it, it often relieves the kink and it feels so good to have the muscles and stuff stretched like that. I think there is much merit to homeopathic rememdies... techniques like accu-pressure and accu-puncture had been around curing ailments for centuries before 'modern' medicine came on the scene.

I study Kuk Sool Won. KWS isn't a "style", it is a system of styles - those of the ancient Korean tribal, bhuddist, and royal court martial arts. It does take time to learn the various techniques as you progress up in rank, but I don't see the problem with that. Yes, there may be situations where I haven't yet learned the appropriate technique to handle, but really, show me any martial art that can legitimately claim to teach you how to handle every conceivable scenario in just a few months time. I have a hard time accepting the "time to learn" criteria as being legitimate. If someone told me they could make me a practically invincible fighter in just a couple years, I'd be highly skeptical to say the least.

I wonder if there isn't there any sort of physical therapy you can do with your ankle? People with knee problems have all sorts of execises they can do to strengthen the knee, especially after having surgery. One would think that surely there's something like that for the ankle? I'm sure high heels are very hard on the ankles, but wooohooo they sure look good.

I don't do TKD, but I can do a jump spin kick (dee uh doh rah cha ki)... at least I think that's what you're referring to when you say "spinning jump kick". I started practicing for executing that kick by standing in a horse riding stance, and jumping and pulling my feet as high up as I could. Then I added a 1/4 turn to that. Later, I added a 1/2 turn, then 3/4 turn. Eventually, I could do a 360 degree turn from horse riding stance. That is the preparation for the spinning part. The kicking part was mostly pulling my legs as high up as I could and then extending my kicking leg as I spot the target over my shoulder. Remember to keep your foot parallel to the floor, and hit the target with your heel. If your foot isn't parallel to the floor, you will hit with a softer part of your foot, and it may hurt. Sidekick is simple. If you're in your stance (what we call "Kong Kyuk Ja Seh" - offensive stance/left guarding stance, or "Bahng Uh ja seh" - defensive stance/right guarding stance), start by turning your front foot outward ~90 degrees. With your back leg, pull your knee up in front and while you do that pivot your body so that it is facing the opposite direction from where you started. Your knee should be cocked all the way in front of you so you could touch your knee with the opposite side hand. Then just extend your leg like a piston, and pull your toes back. Your foot should be parallel to the floor and you should hit the target with the knife edge of your foot. Hope that helps.

Kuk Sool Won doesn't have many belt ranks. They are in order: white yellow blue red brown black-brown black higher degrees of black belt It takes about two years to reach black-brown, and about another two years to reach black after that, but it's not a fixed time schedule. It all depends on how well you learn and perfect the material as to whether your instructor feels you have earned black belt.

I tried to think of what the Hawaiian MA is, but I just can't seem to get past 'Hula'.

Cool! A physics problem!! I say it is entirely possible to view Force as a result of acceleration acting upon a mass. I can readily think of an example where acceleration acts on masses so that a force is the result. In fact, it's the very reason you are sitting in your chair looking at your computer screen. The Earth's gravity is an acceleration, that when it acts on a mass, creates a Force called 'weight'. Without the earth's gravitational acceleration, there is no force, no 'weight'. Ah, the wonders of natural science! As far as the mass invovled in a punch or kick, my thoughts are that there are some punches and kicks where only the mass of your fist or foot that is in play, like a roundhouse kick or spin kick, or a back fist punch. Likewise, there are some punches and kicks where you can put more mass behind them like a straight punch, or front and side kicks. If you're like me, it's hard to generate the same speed with a side kick as I can with a spin kick or roundhouse. The extra mass involved is one reason why (along with the fact that I need to work on my side kicks ).

I'd say tommarker's description also fits how we are taught to do horse-riding stance in Kuk Sool Won.

Well, I must chime in here and say that if you're trying to be technically correct, then 'weight' is the wrong term to use. Mass is what you're reallly thinking of, because weight is the resultant Force prescribed by a body's mass times the gravitational acceleration of the earth. Your weight on the moon is 1/6 that of on earth, but your mass remains the same. Pretty useful info if you ever plan on sparring on the moon. For discussions like this one, I think it is quite helpful to start off looking at the problem from an 'energy' frame of reference. We can all agree that it is the the transfer of the kinetic energy from your fist or foot to some body or object which brings about the desired effect, right? The goal is to maximize this energy. The equations for kinetic energy are quite straightforward (instantaneous KE = 1/2*m*v^2), and depend primarily upon velocity (BTW - speed and velocity are synonymous in a 1-dimensional model - which is what you're doin when you break down the components of your coordinate system ) and mass. Just by examining this single formula, you can arrive at a pretty interesting conclusion when trying to decide whether speed or strength is more important. By 'strength', I will presume it is meant force. The most obvious one is that, due to squaring of the term, small changes in velocity impart a much bigger change in KE than equivalent changes in mass do. You may be asking, "that's fine for velocity vs. mass, but how does force affect KE?" Well, if you think about the physiology of it, strength typically means more massive muscles. Inertia is primarily determined by mass. More mass = more inertia. It isn't hard to conclude that due to inertia, it is harder to accelerate a more massive body than a lighter one, and that a greater rate of acceleration of a lighter body results in greater velocity, the squared component of instantaneous KE. That said, athletes can (and do) increase muscle strength enough to overcome the effects of inertia to achieve quite substantial gains in acceleration and force (strength), and ultimately KE, but economically speaking, maximizing power through speed is generally the easiest way to go. I would say based on that, however you accomplish it, increasing the speed of your punches and kicks will give more immediate result of more power delivered to your target much easier than relying on strength alone. Just my $.02

I can't say for others, but even assisting in teaching class has helped me improve in all areas of my martial art. I think it is summed up simply as: Setting the example. I don't want those I'm helping with their techniques to think I don't practice what I preach, so it motivates me to become better each day.

Okay, dumb question here. Does this mean that England isn't going to qualify for the World Cup play? (Be gentle in your poking fun! )

There's more than one?? This is so overwhelming! I guess you can tell what I use... IE 6.something.

I don't know the complete history of TKD, but I'm pretty sure that at least some (and probably most) elements of TKD are drawn from the vast pool of ancient Korean martial arts that existed before the Japanese occupation of Korea, and some sources I've read even say existed pre-Karate in Japan. TKD may or may not be completely "pure" Korean (why it has to be "pure", I dunno), but there are uniquely Korean martial arts out there. The one I practice, Kuk Sool Won, in it's present form has only been around sinces the early 1970s, but the techniques are drawn from the ancient tribal, buddhist, and royal court martial arts that existed in Korea long before the Japanese occupation. From what I'm learning about Japanese styles and these early Korean styles, is that they differ vastly. Probably one of the most fundamental differences is described as 'circular (Korean) vs. linear (Japanese)'. Also, hard style (Japanese) vs. "hard-soft" style (Korean). Pardon me if this seems like an oversimplification. I can't comment on the "purity" of other Korean martial arts, since I don't know them, but I'm confident there are many that are. Any Hapkido experts here to fill in the blanks?

After spending more time reading through the website, I get more and more the feeling that this, "no rules, no weight classes, full contact" thing is really more of a sales pitch used to emphasize that they are a no-nonsense school looking for dedicated students looking for serious training, than it is a description of what they do most of the time in their training. Their instructor even mentions that sparring is not their main focus. Interesting approach to attracting students, to say the least. Not sure I'd use that angle though. I think most folks would be interested in a no-nonsense school that took it's training seriously like that, but my first impression of this school was complete turnoff because the guy sounded more into himself than the martial art. And you know what they say about first impressions - you only get one chance to make it a good one.

Neither you or this Mahler guy has explained how weight training, using isolation excercises, has helped professional athletes gain strength, while retaining endurance and agility. On the one hand, the Mahler guy is saying isolation exercises are only useful for bodybuilders, but on the other hand, all these profesional athletes, whose livelihoods depends on the results from their weight training, prove otherwise. The proof is in the pudding. Just goes to show what I've been saying all along. This is just another way to train that happens to yield good results for this guy. Does that mean it's the only way to train? Of course not. There's too much proof showing it isn't. I like chocolate pudding myself.

Hehe! My friends say I'm gross for eating one of the best Mexican dishes ever invented... Menudo. Obviously I love it though. I can't remember everything that goes in it, but the part that grosses everyone out is the beef tripe. Another one that grosses my friends out when I eat it is Barbacoa - a Mexican style barbecued beef. What's gross about that you ask? It's the meat from the cow's head. MMMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm! Oh dang! I just drooled on my keyboard!

I did catch that too. I don't know much about Kata in Karate, or what they look like, but if they are anything like the Hyung (Korean equivalent of Japanese Kata) in Kuk Sool Won, then I think I would like that. I don't know if Kata are normally an integral part of Karate, or merely viewed as a bothersome necessity to some Karate practioners, but I am glad they are given as much importance in Kuk Sool as they are.

I'm assuming by "horse stance", what you're talking about is similar or identical to what we call horse-riding stance in Kuk Sool Won? What helped me in my low stances (a Kuk Sool Won trademark) is trying to work on them whether I'm doing basic punching and kicking drills, joint lock techniques, or my forms. Basically, as much as I can. I do use a leg extension press we have at work to strengthen the quads, but that's just a bonus and really, just constantly practicing low stances will get you there. We regularly do stance-specific training and will often hold our horse-riding stance for 3 minutes straight. At first, I couldn't do it without coming up for a brief rest, but eventually, I was able to hold it the entire time. It took me more than 4 months before I was able to hold horse-riding stance that long. It takes much work, so be patient.

Yes sir. (respectful bow) No, you read the thread wrong somewhere down the line... again. All I've ever espoused is that there is nothing wrong with weight training for strength as a counter your position that weight training is only useful for body builders. Heck, for as long as I've trained with weights, I wish I looked like a body builder!! I don't care if I'm lifting sandbags, or metal weights, or dead bodies, it takes a certain amount of strength to lift a certain amount of weight. That's a simple fact. If I can squat 400 lbs., I should have no problem throwing a damsel in distress, or a (huge) sack of potatos over my shoulder and carrying them. Strength is good. It's not the most important thing, but it is one of them.