markusan

coming from the other direction I started many years ago and recruited my son and daughter into TKD when they were about 6 My son has his junior blackbelt he's 13. . My daughter got to blue belt then left to concentrate on gymnastics. She finished gym last year and is back with her eyes set on making blackbelt. Our association has lots of families training. Nothing like a bit of sibling rivalry to sharpen those skills and keep the enthusiasm up. It usually starts the other way though. Mum or dad start bringing the kids to classes, then see all the stretching and quality warmups and think "I could do with a bit of that". They are often put off by the sparring at first, but soon learn how much fun it is, and that a bruise or two is not the end of the world.

I have been meditating for many years and would suggest that it is completely different from hypnosis. Meditation, though very calming, is all about acute awareness, and fixed concentration. Lapsing into sleep or some trancelike state is not meditating. Even in the deepest meditative state you can still choose to be aware of your surroundings if you wish. With Vipashna, or insight meditation, you actually choose a subject to study deeply while you are meditating fully aware of the subject and closely observing your own thought processes.. Also if you are meditating correctly you are far less likely to be influenced by anyone else than if you are in a normal state. There are various forms of meditation but my favorites are to have a fixed subject of concentration. That is either a mantra, a word or a sound to repeat to yourself, or my preference is to concentrate on my breath. Feel your breath going in and out your nostril and count them, up to ten, then start again. If you lose count, don't worry just start again at one. at some stage you'll lapse into a daydream or l;ose concentration but if you have firmly set your intention to meditate, your mind will automatically come back to the breath, and then just start counting again. Relax, don't get too fierce about it. My advice is go to a good buddhist group with a good teacher. It's not rocket science and the danger is if you over complicate the process then your mind gets fixed on distractions rather than finding one point to rest on. And be patient, like any good training it takes time. I suggest a buddhist group not because I am buddhist but because I find their techniques the simplest and most direct. After all they've been making a science out of it for a long time...oh yes, and they're cheap!

Analyse. Look at your instructors and think about which one's you admire and respect (disregard belt level) and which ones you learn the most from. Then really think hard, why it is so. I don't mean copy them because you can't be someone else. But if you can figure out what makes them good you will use their skills in your own way. My best instructors have been positive, encouraging and have made me love training, and I think it's because they've led by example.

I've been teaching quite a few years now and often ask promising students to help take a class if their technique is good . I have never come across anyone, including myself, who doesn't have trouble with some students. I try to never humiliate a student but I do raise my voice deliberately and forcefully to make a point. And if I have a student who is contributing more than their fair share I reiterate my rule that when I talk they listen. I don't think you should be too hard on kids but set them boundaries, and maybe get them to agree to your conditions. Teaching is not easy but is very rewarding and you'll develop strategies to fit your own temperament. And be thankful for this little so-and-so because he's making you look at yourself in a new way, and you're obviously thinking about it and searching for answers. Sounds to me like you have what it takes. Good luck.

I run on the beach occasionally in bare feet, the sand conforms to your feet giving you a bit of support, and it toughens the skin up. Start off slow though, it's a big calf muscle workout.

Don't want to dampen your enthusiasm, but I've been doing ma for a while now and a lot of old friends of mine who went the full contact road aren't in such good shape these days. One in particular is in a wheelchair, another is 55 and can't stand without a walking stick. Another, a boxer, who copped one too many shots in the head doesn't make much sense anymore. A good friend who started in the early days of kick boxing has no feeling in his legs, and he no longer sees that as an advantage. He walks into stuff and gets bruises and cuts and infections and doesn't realise it. He's had to get lots of skin grafts. I'm happy I went the non-contact way, though I felt like a cop out when I was younger. I don't street fight and I'm still fit enough to teach my kids(and beat them over 100 metres). remember you can't fight when your knees are mashed or when you keep forgetting what your name is.

I meditate alone before training and lead a group meditation after class. The idea is to quiet the mind. I use the breath as the meditation object or if I'm feeling very centred a technique I use a technique called shikantaza where there is no subject. Meditation on the breath trains your mind to dwell on one thing. If you can carry that attitude into training you will find you can concentrate on your training and let distracting thoughts pass without disturbing you. If you can take that attitude into your sparring you will be more relaxed and responsive to your opponent's strategy. If you really study what you're thinking in a contest you will notice that it is distracting thoughts that slow your reactions. If you can make your mind a calm pool things go better.

Shorinryu sensei, I too have 30 years under my belt this year. Started at 17 and turn 48 in December and still learning. Despite a growing collection of aches and pains and crooked fingers and toes...still lovin' it.

Breathing is everything and your mind, your technique and your breath should become one. I breathe through my nose but, especially when executing a technique, with lips slightly open. This prevents pressure building in the mouth cavity and creating back pressure. I put all the effort into the outbreath and try to breathe in by merely relaxing the diaphgragm muscle. As well as breathing for oxygen I breathe to tension the lower abdomen, thus connecting the bottom limbs to the torso with a flexed band of muscle. EG to punch, push off with feet, torque the hips breathe out but create tension by restricting the throat, this connects the hips to the torso then the shoulders and arms. Don't use all the air on the one technique, unless it's the knockout punch or kick.. In a rapid punching sequence one can breathe out many times then relax after the sequence and take a short sharp breath in ready to go again. A good practice technique is a Zen one called bamboo breathing (ref Zen Training, Katsuki Sekida, pp53) Breath out in ten short stages then relax to inhale once. Note to do this one must breath out by pushing up with diaphragm muscles. Also breath out when receiving or blocking a strike. And for a more effective strike, time your technique for when your opponent is breathing in. Then his inflating body is expanding out to meet your strike, increasing the impact. By the way, these techniques are equally as effective breathing through ones mouth.

I've found an effective counter to a flurry of punches is series of rolling blocks, rolling one forearm over the other pushing the punches down then changing the rolling blocks to rolling strikes. It helps to raise yourself up to full height(I have to because I'm short) and drive down and forward with the blocks with a sticky feeling to your opponents forearms. But if they are moving toward you at speed you should side step and deflect the punches away and across their centre line then attack from the flank and then from the rear as they charge past. Maybe take a leg out for good measure and change their forward momentum to a downward one. If you can do it all in one long outbreath and match your opponent's chaos with your control.

There sure is a brotherhood, built from an understanding of each others mindset. No matter what style, we all like fighting, we don't mind a bit of pain because of the rewards. A lot of people outside the martial arts ask me how can we describe fighting as art. My answer is that art is our non verbal way of expressing ourselves. some people tell their story through their music others paint...we fight. Its an expression of ourselves and one only other martial artists understand.

here's an idea to toss around re trad versus modern. Maybe we think a martial art is a thousand years old, or maybe two, Perhaps that is not the real age of Martial arts, only the age of it being recorded. Homo sapiens have been round far longer than all that and by our survival rate we have been fighting pretty competently all that time. So much so that ma is now part of our evolution, it could even be a repressed genetic trait in all of us. repressed, that is, by civilisation and the need to co-habit peacefully. So maybe martial arts training aswell as learning new techniques, is unleashing that genetic programming in a controlled way. Left hand over right fist.

I love practicing Kata. I find after going through a progression of maybe 10 or 12, paying strict attention to form and power, and visualising my opponents, I am very focussed, hugely pumped and often in an active meditative state of mind. I know it's impotant to have a goal, maybe for you it is to be effective on the street, but i think what's more important is training. Training is the way, the do, the tao, whether it be kata, kumite, stretching, strength speed.

All the instructors in my organisation are addressed by our first names and I encourage my students to challenge my teaching. I feel informality in communication creates a better flow, and keeps me on my toes. Also I feel I learn a lot from my students so maybe I should call them sensei?