aefibird

Very impressive video!

No, unfortunately, it isn't close at all! About 250 miles away. :-/ G-Man, I know of a HKD school in Sheffield. I know it's not exactly where you were looking for, but I can give you the details if you like?

I like to compete with forms. I always have. I have never been all that great at sparring, but when it came to forms, I always had a pretty good one. I am not the most flexible person, nor am I the fastest person. However, I like to break down the techniques, and putting a nice form together, with power. I love to do forms competition. Same here. I enjoy competition sparring, but my strength is definately forms. I love practising forms and would spend all day going though a particular pattern or kata if I could!! I had to have surgery on my hand a couple of months ago and the hardest thing for me about not being able to train has been not being able to practice my forms. I have been training in just the foot (leg) movements, but it's not the same as being able to do the whole thing!!

Good luck!!

If you was your belt when you get a new one it will stop the dye from running onto the back of your dobok. Luke-warm water is best, hot can make cotton belts shrink!

I like soup and tend to eat a lot of it, especially in winter. My favourites are good old-fashioned tomato soup and mushroom, but I will eat (drink?) just about any sort. My mum used to make her own soups and they were gorgeous! SO delicious, especially her butternut squash soup. Her arthritis is too bad in her hands to make home-made food now. I've tried to make soups (and do baking) using her recipes, but I just don't seem to have my mum's "magic touch", it just doesn't taste quite the same...

Sorry for my general ignorance on all things to do with American holidays, but do you guys celebrate Christmas as much as you seem to celebrate Thanksgiving? Here in the UK the huuuuuuge turkey dinner is the key feature of Christmas Day; I was just wondering if you do the same again for Christmas as you do for Thanksgiving, or if it is more of a low-key holiday? I'm thinking specifically in terms of food, but I'd like to know generally as well. Thanks!

I love animals and have owned lots of different pets. I can remember all their names and funny little characteristics, each animal is different, one of the cool things about having pets. Although it is very sad when a pet dies (I lost one of my budgies last week) I would never be without at least one animal, the rewards that you get from keeping pets are immense. At the moment I have 3 guinea pigs (Barney, Fraser and Alfie), 2 rabbits (Betty and Simmsy), a dwarf hamster (A-Rod), 2 gerbils (Danny and Dave), a budgie (Billie) and 2 cockatiels (Mike and Fred, who looks like a male bird but has turned out to be a girly), as well as Trigger the horse. Most of my pets are named after ice hockey or other sports players!!

Well done Syphax!

Good luck Kez, hope it all goes well for you and Ethan!

Myth, good luck to you for the tournament! Hope you do well.

lol, that's the moral to this story: never take advice from off internet forums!!

Well, if you want to use your skills then MA instructor is an obvious choice. Other than that, police officer, prison warder, bouncer, personal security or military personnell are good choices. Gym instructor, PE teacher, sports coach etc would be a good use of the physical training aspect of MA. As for the mental training side then any job that requires determination, dedication and a desire to be in it for the long haul. The qualities learned through MA can be used for basically any employment. MA training tends to be character building, an asset for any employer in any field.

Maybe you could create your own, based on other double sword forms. Good luck with it anyway.

Hi B! Welcome to KF.

Hello and welcome.

Hello and welcome.

Hi C2F, welcome!

Well done Doug!

Sorry to hear about your injury, hope you're better soon!

I love red tea, known as Red Bush (rooibos). I like all types of tea (green, white, black, red) but Redbush is one of my particular faves. It's caffine free, which is a plus, and has a truckload of antioxidants in it as well. A couple of bags of Redbush tea dropped in a hot bath is supposed to be really good for your skin too. The company I get my Redbush tea from also sells Redbush soap, which has really helped clear up my dads excema. Some of my other favourite teas are Lapsang Souchong, Earl Grey and Chai (spiced black tea). White tea is good too, it doesn't have that bitter taste that some green teas can have. This is my favourite type of white tea, it's scrummy!!

We wear all white at my Karate club, for all grades and all events. We are allowed to wear plain white t-shirts (or white tees with club logo on them) when it is summer time instead of a gi top. At TKD it is all white dobok for Kup grades and white with a black collar for Dan grades. Instructors are allowed to have a black stripe down the sides of their trousers (pants )but I only know one instructor in my organisation who does that. Students are allowed to wear club t-shirts when the weather is hot instead of dobok top. Demo/special event team members at my TKD club wear blue dokoks. They look really cool but I'm glad we don't wear them often because it was really expensive. Would hate to wear a blue dobok on a regular basis with how much it cost me!! When I used to train in Aikido we had to have white gi tops with 3/4 length sleeves (like a Japanese cut Karate gi), 3/4 length pants and a hakama. Dan grades were allowed to wear black gi tops but most chose to just stick with the white.

There are "Korean forms" of many kata, such as the Heian/Pinan series, Bassai, Rohai and Jiin. They are commonly practised in TSD clubs, but some TKD schools adopt these Korean variants of Karate Kata too, along with the specific patterns of TKD.

At a lot of the smaller tournaments I've been to sword forms seem to score the highest, even if competitors with other weapons have done better forms. Sword forms tend to score the most, then nunchaku, then kama. Obviously it depends on individual practitioner skill as well as the complexity of the form being performed, but generally that "pattern" is the norm. Seems judges at certain tournaments think swords are the be-all and end-all. :-/

Make sure you get plenty of sleep the night before. Also, eat a good breakfast on the day of the tourney (porridge with a handful of sultanas is good!) and make sure you keep sipping water to stop getting dehydrated. Don't worry about being nervous, everyone is nervous at their first event. Heck, even "seasoned competitors" get the butterflies from time to time! Try to get to the tournament early to check out how it is set up. If you can find out roughly when your category/categories will be on then even better. Even if they can only tell you "after 12 o'clock" or whatever then that will help you. As you are doing WTF TKD then make sure you work on your fitness in the week or two before. As WTF sparring isnt stop-start then make sure you put in extra effort before the tourney to up your fitness levels so you can last through 2 or 3 rounds (depending on what sort of tournament it is). Finally, just have fun! Doesn't matter if you win or lose, just try your best and remember that it is supposed to be enjoyable! Oh, and GOOD LUCK!