Azmyth

Could u clarify what things u see on the site that stick out as warning signs? I've known the instructor for years.. half of my teaching thus far in TKD was taught by him. he was 2nd dan ITF TKD and I always enjoyed his teaching methods. We used to have some ATA fighters train with us, who were moving to the area.. and I thought we were always stellar compared. He broke free of the organization he was with to branch out to other avenues of martial arts. When his school moved to tifton we were just getting started with modern arnis. I wouldn't mention them if I didn't think they are reputable. If there are any reputable schools in albany, I have yet to see one. Most close just as fast as they open. Only one I know of thats still open, is an ATA school and thanks but no thanks. I called lionheart today, and got some more information. They do not have contracts of any type, and the rates are very reasonable.. just as he had always been from when I studied under him before. He's been doing martial arts for years.. I was 14 when i started taking from him, I am 26 now. I think he's ok but if you saw anything out of the way, PM me or reply because I'd like to know.

i'm not so much talking about the format.. more so how the fighters are all the same.. they all fight pretty much the same. call me old school.. but I'd rather see a straight up.. TKD guy vs. a Jiu Jitsu guy.. over 2 guys who do a little of it all.. I can't form opinions on them because to me.. they all seem relatively the same. they seem more like brawlers than martial artists.. but thats just one guys opinion.. i guess i'm more of a traditionalist..

Anyone else dissappointed in what UFC has become? I used to watch it alot.. back when martial arts were distinguishable and there would be different styles vs. styles.. and they would actually wear the traditional uniforms for said style. now everyone is all this MMA stuff.. which is good but.. I miss the good ol days when everyone had a different style.

I will try not to drag this out too long. I live in a tiny town.. population 456.. the nearest martial arts studio is 5 minutes north of me.... I've been out of it for almost a year, and after having "kung fu" theater this weekend with my bandmates (one is a 2nd degree in TKD), I got the urge to get back into it. a while back.. I had a few options. One school was 30 minutes away.. and taught TKD and a tiny bit of jiu jitsu. The classes were free because it being a church that was in charge of it.. I cannot seem to find a website for them anymore, or any way to contact to see if its still going on. One was 30 minutes away, near where i work. I went to their site a few minutes ago.. and they shut down last month.. so scratch that. There is another one closeby that I would love to go to.. but, its not traditional martial arts.. more of a mixture of different styles.. https://www.lionhearttifton.com is the website for it. I used to be a student of the instructor when i was younger when he had a pure TKD school near me. The problem with this school.. is I am so close to getting my black belt in TKD.. i don't want to move to something else without getting my 1st degree first. the last option.. the original school i went to a year ago.. He teaches TKD traditional.. However.. I wasn't going to go back to him because of a few things. this is a run down of an average class.. -enter- light log around dojang while techno music plays stretching go through the blocking/punching combos go through the kicking/blocking/punching/stances as a group. work on kicks with bag forms end of class on thursdays its the same.. except for we spar. We don't do any one step sparring or anything.. he has no tournaments, seminars, nothing.. the classes are almost 100% kids. so i will wind up having noone to spar hardly ever. and he went up on his prices. the last thing.. that gets me the most.. is the fact that if anyone comes in the store to buy something, he will put the class on hold for as long as it takes to serve the person coming in to buy something. I just think that during classes.. the store should be closed to walk ins wanting to buy stuff. The worst thing is the stuff they are buying that he actually sells them.. People come in who are getting ready to take drug tests for a new job.. will come in a buy some sort of drug that will flush your system so that you cannot tell you have done any drugs over a very short period of time. He actually sells this stuff for that purpose, even though it has other uses. What should I think of this? should I go ahead and go and finish up the BB or keep looking.

I am really interested in doing some of these. I have only ever competed in ITF vs. ITF tournaments, usually vs. people from the same school as me or affiliate schools. I want to get into some diversity and see what i can do vs. other styles. Anyone have any experiences in open tournaments they care to share?

I am looking for information online about tournaments in GA.. eventually I would like to compete on a national level. I have found some organizations, but I am a little fuzzy on what styles of TKD are allowed.. whether it be ITF, WTF, or ATA.. I'm guessing an ITF fighter couldn't compete in an ATA tourney (although that would be fun).

I would say, I myself would have probably went for an art that would complement my current art.. like jiu jitsu.. or something that didn't require me to do kicks 2 different ways. Neither is wrong.. just different styles.

I didn't have asthma.. but I burned all the skin off my hands, and had a tournament that weekend. My instructor was nice enough to let me compete still. I had my hands taped up beyond all recognition and he let everyone know to watch my hands if they could. I took gold in all divisions I was in and couldn't punch. you'll be fine.

My instructor is really not the "competition" type. So he's not going to have much information for me. He's more of a "this is for fitness" type instructor. I wish I could go somewhere else.. and I could but I would have to start all over from scratch I imagine. He doesn't really teach alot of the stuff I would like to learn.

There are too many situations that would determine the "Ultimate Style". The schools near you, cost, and alot of other things would factor in as well as to what would be best for you.

That bites. I remember when I almost gave up TKD when my instructor nailed me dead in the face on accident and my nose was all swelled up and bled like crazy. He was cool about it though, and let me kind rough him up a bit to make up for it. (sparred him without any padding on his part). He really made sure I wasn't scared by it, and after putting a popcicle on my nose I actually stayed for the next 2 sparring classes after it as well.

I was just seeing how many people seek out local/regional touraments on a regular basis. I'd like to, but I dunno where to start.

How many people do alot of competitions? and how do you go about it.

I have discussed it with her. We have agreed that she is not interested in TKD, but she does want to get in shape. I am enrolling back into TKD and she is going to start a gym membership with her sister. The money is there, she just has to find a new job before her time runs out. She is still working at the moment. My goal is to open a school where I live.. mainly because our current school won't last forever. He's getting up in age, and I want to continue to provide some sort of martial arts here even when he cannot any longer.

I talked to her yesterday and she's agreed to let me do it if nothing else, once she has a job secured. (She has one, but they just got bought out by a company and she won't have one come January). She said she might do it with me. I know the instryctor very well, and I can always make sure she is not put against the bullies or the heavy hitters. She had a bad experience when she took it before where the males would kind of be very rough with the female students. They don't want to do that while I am present, or things could get very ugly.

well I'd love for her to do it with me.. and I even have tried. One of her reasons is having to start over with me already being halfway through the belts, she wanted us to be on the same level. I tried to explain that this doesn't matter. The other reason is because she is really shy and does not really like the idea of yelling in front of people, or having to spar strange males.

See.. I have done tons of stuff... because I am just really active and go after the things I want. I've done martial arts, been in bands, was a professional wrestler, and now pursuing acting. she takes piano lessons, but I had to kind of push her into doing that. She doesn't really have any dreams or aspirations other than having a family.

Hey, its been a while since I posted here. Its also been a while since I have thought about martial arts at all in months. Life can throw all sorts of interesting things your way that usually hinder you from doing things you'd like to do. I was taking Tae Kwon Do from my local center, starting at like age 15. I did it for about a year, made it to green belt and like most kids.. got interested in other things (girls, video games). Later on, I was about 22.. married and working. I gave it another shot. Went for about 6 months and then tragedy struck.. I lost my job and everything just went south. Now, we have things back in order.. but we just bought a new car and a brand new bedroom suite. Things are well, but I just don't think my wife is going to let me add another bill to our roster for TKD. I am 25 now, and I want to get my black belt before I am an old man. I'm about 3 belts away at this point, and I want to take it further than that.. but thats my initial goal. How can I convince her? I know we have the money.. its just making her see. She thinks I get everything and she never gets to do anything exciting.. so that has alot to do with it.

I think lots of people get a false impression that acrobats and martial arts go hand in hand. When, its more of hollywoods way of making martial arts more entertaining. I will admit a martial artist who can do flips and stuff looks really awesome and appealing, but its not practical.. so schools don't teach it. So, if u want to learn martial arts.. your in the right place, if you want to learn how to do flips.. either check out gymnastics or cheerleading.

I don't think your in the right place honestly, although some martial arts have a tiny bit of this type stuff incorporated for "show", you sound more like you want to get into gymnastics than martial arts.

Hey, quick question. If your school didn't really have any form of tournaments or what not. How would you go about competing in some anyway?

Hey everyone! Most of you don't know me, because I wasn't really around long enough to get to know that many people. I got to know white tiger pretty well since we are both from Ga though. Anyway, martials arts has always been a passion of mine for many, years. Since I could walk I wanted to do karate or some similar form of martial arts. If you checked the library cards on every single martial arts book in the library, you would see my name on almost every line constantly. As I would check them out constantly, wanting to learn more. I couldn't go to a school, because my parents couldn't afford it. Eventually though, a school opened right down the street from my house so it was in walking distance. They had an open house on grand opening and we went and checked it out. Finally my parents gave in, and let me join. I loved it. It was what I ate, slept, and drank for months. 2 classes a week were all the average student went to, and only 1 a week was required. I was taking Tae Kwon Do. Sometimes I would go Monday-Friday to 2 classes every night. I wound up passing my classmates, just due to sheer factor that I was there ALL the time. My teacher started giving me extra attention, and I even started going there when there were no classes and he would let me use the stretch machine, or whatever. I competed and won gold in all the tournaments I entered at the time. Then something happened... I lost interest. I wound up quitting after a year and a half. I had gotten to as far as green belt with a black stripe. Our system was: white, yellow, green, blue, red, rec. black, black. A month later, his school closed down. I had heard it was closing anyway, which is one of the reasons I quit. A year or so later.. I get the itch again. The Only school in the area is 20 minutes away, which is fine. The instructor is a 5th dan black belt, and he was the instructor of my previous instructor who was only 2nd dan at the time I was going. By the end, I think he tested for his 3rd dan. So, I start going here.. and he even lets me hold onto my rank. I was rusty, but before the first day of class I worked on all the forms up there where I had left off. He gave me about one day to let me show him I still knew the forms, and to get a grasp of how they did things, and I was right back doing my forms for green belt, with was Do san(sp) at the time. I wound up going up to blue belt with a black stripe and was getting close to time to test for red belt, when i just started getting irritated. My dojang was becoming a day care. I am 24 years old, and I was surrounded by nothing but 5-10 year olds. In every class. Every now and then, an adult or some teens would be in the class.. but a 24 year old can't really associate too much with a 13 year old on the level I want to. Some of the adults that did go, were annoying. I remember this one lady who was more annoying than the kids. Our instructor would also let them run wild, and not care too much. I also remember a time when if you forgot your uniform or part of it, you didn't participate. Now, u can just do it in your street clothes if u forget it. Whats that teaching the kids? Every class, at least 2 kids had no uniform, or it was stained up with all kinds of stuff. Sometimes the classes would get delayed due to kids being disruptive, and even when customers would come in to buy things from the store. The instructor would stop and tend to that for 15 minutes while we sat there. He didn't extend the class time out for another 15 minutes either. We just lost that time. At times it seemed like I was learning watered down stuff, and the 10-13 year olds who were 2nd and 3rd degree black belts but didn't even know how to be quiet in the dojang irritated me. It was funny, how I did more "assisting instruction" than any of the black belts who are supposed to be prepared for that did. The last straw was when I found out my instructor was selling stuff that allows you to pass a drug test, if u take this substance 24 hrs before. I was told this is used for other health purposes as well, but I witnessed a person asking him for it, for this specific purpose over and over and he seemed to know all about it. I just thought that was against the whole point we are trying to make as martial artists. So its ok to do drugs, as long as you can take these meds to cover them up. So now, months later. After getting alot of my life things under control and managing all my millions of hobbies. I want to get back into it. I don't have many options for schools, because his is still the only one within 20 minute drive. He puts everyone out of business that opens one, due to his being there for 25 years. I've been checking out a school thats about 30 minutes away, thats ran by a church. They teach pretty much the same style of TKD that I was learning, plus some Jiu jitsu I believe it is on the side for ground fighting. The main attraction, is that there is no cost other than uniform. I have 3 or 4 of those already and a full set of sparring gear. So all I am going to be paying is gas which will be far less than the monthly fee i paid a month at the other school. I have heard good things about the instructor, but the "free" thing worries me. Because the old saying goes, u get what you pay for. I am looking for a school with alot of adults, or at least an all adult class. I don't really have alot of options, as all the other schools are the in the same area as this one, and well I have heard good things about all of them. But I guess we will see!

We had a great time testing this morning. There were 4 black belts testing. I'd never seen black belts test.. and it was good to see what I have to prepare for in the future. They had to perform there forms from white belt.. to present, and do 3 different breaks of their own choosing, and spar multiple times against multiple attackers. I think i did well... I had a great time sparring. Biggest challenge to date, I had to spar one of the guys testing for black belt. I think I held my own. Good match, alot of support from the audience of parents, family, and friends of the students testing. The coolest part was that our instructor invited a guest judge for the testing to do the grading. Master JungHo Lee from N.C., very nice guy.. didn't get to see him in action even though I was hoping we would. H'es very accomplished at such a young age. He motivated the class with a speech after the test which was excellent. I felt great to be apart of it.

I am testing tomorrow.. for high blue. I know I will do well.. but I just wanted to tell everyone. I know my material well.. so I have no worries. I'm ready to do a different form.. Won Hyo is getting old..lol j/k

How would I clean my uniform, with patches? I had thought about bleach, but how do I do that with the patches. I want it back to that bright white color.