oddTKD

Not starting younger (not my fault, my parents wouldn't let me start until I turned 10). Staying with my original dojang for 2+ years after they went way into McDojo territory and was *not* giving me what I wanted. Going to college someplace where I can't get to a TKD dojang in town, so my only options are the aikido club (decent, actually), and the half-assed Shotokan club on campus. Our sensei can't even kick properly and refuses to acknowledge that my 8+ years of TKD training have any validity whatsoever.

There is a very large shotokan influence in TKD - which is part of the problem. I'm all for reviewing the basics, but if the highest non-ranking student in the class is a yellow belt who's only been training for 2 years, then I'm afraid basics are all we're going to do. I asked my instructor tonight; he said sparring is all ranks mixed, so I will be sparring black belts. But I am used to a much more structured, much more intesive class (ie, an advanced/black belt class...) than this. I've actually thought of trying to get a TKD club started, but I don't think there's anyone qualified enough to teach on campus (I attend a very small school). Next week a Brazilian Ju-Jitsu class starts; I'm going to see if that's more to my liking. Second semester there's going to be an aikido class, which I think would be fun, but it's not until next semester.

So, I just started as a freshmen in college very far from home 3 weeks ago. I knew I needed to stay involved in MAs, since after 8 years of TKD, it's like an obsession for me. I planned on finding a decent TKD dojang in town and training there, but I have too much work for classes, no money, and no time, so at least this semester, I'm just joining the shotokan karate club on campus. The problem, of course, is that it's shotokan karate, and not TKD. We already had the first class (the second is tonight), and it was *so boring!* There are a couple black belts - one guy from town, the instructor, his son, and another professor from the college. Everyone else is a white, yellow, or orange belt. They all went off and practiced patterns with one of the black belts while the rest of us learned...a front stance. Then, a front-snap kick. Then, how to punch. I was bored to tears. I've got so many concerns about it...if it's going to stay so unchallenging. I'm really uncertain about sparring - we're not starting for 2 weeks, and I haven't asked him yet, but I get the impression that the instructor is going to have me sparring the exact same as the other brand-new white belts. None of them have any prior MA experience; I've been a 1st dan in TKD for three years. I'm really unhappy with it right now: he seems really loose, the class isn't that disciplined, and almost everyone (it seems) is just doing it for the hell of it, not to be serious about martial arts. Any of you older and wiser folk had to go through this? Can I get some reassurance that it'll get better and that I should stick it o ut?

I'm five-five and wasn't even that tall when i started training in TKD...It has its disadvantages (like the person you're sparring is almost always going to have longer legs than you) but it also has its advantages. It's definitely doable for short ppl.

I've got very short legs so I have the same trouble a lot. I've found what works best is to start the match very very close to your opponent, and do everything you can to stay there. You can kick easily from there and i'ts harder for them. using it against them, so to speak.

I just switched from a WTF school to an ITF school just back in January. Been training for about seven years. It's been very hard to make the switch - there are subtle differences in the movements that are apparently much easier for my instructors to see than for me to notice. Also, since I've been practicing WTF patterns for so long, I've been finding myself starting one of the ITF patterns and then suddenly doing a string of techniques straight from one of my WTF patterns. I think it would probably be harder to train for a while in one style and then pick the other one up - it probably would be easiest to learn both at once. But it's definitely doable.

I once went through an entire class 'quack'-ing instead of doing a proper kiyap. "Ducks can't kick or punch! They have no hands!" "That's why my patterns are so poor tonight, sir! Ducks can't practice what they can't do!" I would have gotten in trouble if it' weren't the adult class, and there were only five of us there that night.