Gloi

Thanks for replying. It's the one step that I'm most interested in because I want to know which techniques I should be smartening up to do on the day and I'm not sure what to pick. Does the difficulty of the techniques used in one step go towards the score or is it better to pick something simple that I can be sure of doing in good stance/form? Is stance etc scored in the breaking or is it just a matter of making sure the stuff breaks? I've done forms in competition before ( I won my class last year) so I'm not too worried about what they will be looking for there.

I think I will end up doing Bassai Dai somehow. I do like doing Jion, I like hangetsu a lot but I'm sure I'd be far too wobbly with nerves to do it well on the day, as for kanku dai and empi I'm just not athletic enough to do them well.(I must put 'at the moment I'm not athletic enough' or I'll be told off for being negative.) We are being drilled through bassai dai twice a week every week though and we only occasionally do the others in class.

My friend was at the grading earlier in the month in Scotland retaking the kata for her nidan, which she passed this time . Although she said there were no other nidan passes, she said that there was a quite a high pass rate for shodan there too with nearly a third passing. Sensei Sherry must be in a good mood at the moment . There are some others at out club taking shodan soon and two of the lads are just SO good that I really don't want to grade with them and have them pass on the day and me not. I feel I'd like to wait a bit longer, or perhaps I'm just being soft.

I know he probably will, but I don't like to hassle him too much because he was surrounded with little kids last night all asking him stuff. He's really hard to pin down to talk to for more than a minute. I asked him what one step techniques to do and he said , just pick some and we'll have a look at them next week, so I'd like some suggestions from people who've done this stuff in competition.

Congratulations! What proportion of the candidates passed this time? I'm hopefully taking my KUGB shodan later this year. My sensei wants me to go to Kendal in June but I want to put it off till later in the year, perhaps at the summer school.

Next month my TKD club wil being going to a competition. I went to it last year and competed in the forms event. Looking at the schedule for the competition there is also one step and a breaking class I could enter. I would like to go in for these but have not much idea what the judges would be looking for to decide a winner in these classes. What will the techniques be scored on? Has anybody any recommendations which techniquies I should practice for the competition. We have to do 5 techniques in the class, but that's all I know. Should I try and do simple counters well or go for something more complicated? What would I, an adult 4th kup female, be expected to do in the breaking class? I don't have any concerns about my ability to break stuff, but I would like to know what I would have to do in advance. How are the techniques scored?

If any school I trained at tried to bring prayers/religion into the martial arts class, apart from the zen type stuff that is actually connected to the traditions of the art I would be out of there like a flash.

At the end of the class the lead student usually says 'Tomo sensei' (I hope that's how you spell it). There was a different kid than usual at the head of the class and she said loudly. 'Go home sensei'. She was convinced that was what had been said every class. . Quite appropriate really.

I've just ordered myself a pair from playwell.co.uk. Thanks everyone. And as for 'shrinkage' well I can't help it if they design gis for teenage boys with matchstick thin legs . I've ordered a larger pair too, I hate going hitch, kick all the time.

Thanks, that's great. I'd like to find a UK supplier though by preference if possible, so the postage isn't so much.

Does anyone know anywhere in the UK that sells gi pants without the jackets, preferably to buy on line. Because they have ripped/shrunk etc I have ended up with 3 jackets where I have no pants to go with them. I want traditional style white karate pants in medium to heavy canvas. Okay you can tell me I'm tight-fisted but I hate keep having to buy whole new gis when I have perfectly good gi tops.

I did a bad block last month and damaged the outside of my wrist and got the same feeling of pins and needles and numbness in the same fingers as you. That feeling lasted about 2 weeks but it's okay now, though my wrist is still not totally right.

It's okay these days but in one class I used to get partnered with someone who would insist on correcting me all the time. Unfortunately they weren't very good themselves and none of their suggestions were very helpful or even correct. It drove me mad, I just felt like 'shut up will you, if we are doing something wrong sensei will tell us'

It will fall off when it's ready. It seems to be best to cut it short so you don't catch it and rip it off too soon. I always say leave it alone, however when I get a black nail I always play with it and cut it back and poke about under it to get the black bits out. A bit like a spot really you know you shouldn't pick it but it's just too tempting.

I tried it a few years ago when I had sciatica. It didn't work for me. I wouldn't either recommend it or say don't try it. If you have a problem and want to try it at least it won't do you any harm.

As sensei said to me at one point - "There are no reverse kiais in that kata"

Maybe you could stress to your dad the health benefits of doing regular exercise and how more and more young people are becoming unfit and overweight.... Well you never know it might convince him to let you train.....or you might just get sent outside to sweep the path.

I'll work on hitting it with the 3/4 twist. I've been hitting the bag with gloves for a while and still do use gloves most of the time. I want to work on other techniques on the bag too now which I can't do with the gloves on , like haito and shuto strikes etc. trying to get feedback from the bag about when the strikes are effective.

I've used the heavy bag down at the gym for a while, puching it while wearing bag gloves. Recently I decided to start practicing various punches and strikes against the bag with bare hands. I'm having a problem when I try to punch jodan. If I hit with a vertical fist I'm not too bad but if I hit with my fist horizontal I end up hitting with the knuckles further down my fingers instead of my main knuckles because of the angle. I can't seem to find a way to punch without either letting my elbow come right up so I end up hitting like the top arm of the U punch in bassai dai or ending up with a bent wrist. I tried making a fist with the forefinger straight in the palm and that sorted it for the forefinger but still left me with the problem on the second finger hitting with the wrong knuckle (and it feels awkward)

aefibird wrote: There always seems to be a lot of AMA competitions going on. There's one coming up in Lancaster in Jan . That's not far from me - do you know anything else about it , the date or where it's at, I'd like to go up and watch 'cos I feel I'd like to do some competitions this year.

We were doing some light sparring the other day and I was with a second dan who is very good and fast and I can never normally touch. Somehow I managed to accidentally step on his foot and he snatched it away quickly (he's loads bigger than me) . When he pulled his foot back it catapulted me forward and I headbutted him in the chin. We just both stood there for a bit going "What happened there???" until we managed to work it out.

mmm... my favourite sandwich fillings have included cornflakes, banana and chocolate sauce; cheese, chocolate and tinned mandarines; and the old Wigan standard - meat and potato pie and peas on a barm.

We keep our own hens for eggs. We know what they are eating and know they are being well cared for so I've no problems with eating their eggs. If you want to eat eggs find some hens you can get to know personally, I try not to eat any others now.

I was in Spaina couple of weeks ago and was in a tapas bar. I pointed to one of the dishes and asked what it was and the barman said 'lamb'. I got it and it was like a crispy ball of wool , all this stuff wound araound a couple skewer of skewers. I realised when I looked at it more closely that it was crispy sheeps intestines done in garlic butter. It tasted absolutely delicious though. I don't think I'd have ordered though, it if I had known in advance what it was. The most disgusting thing I've ever nearly eaten though was a school dinner which had a manky plaster in it off somebody's finger.

Congratulations aefibird. Who did the grading?