posco

This thread has brought up a very good topic. When you hear this sort of thing from people, insults and whatnot, you should try to understand what kind of thoughts might have provoked such a comment, and indeed what the true meaning of the comment may have been. It could have been a joke or said with sarcasm, in which case it may have in fact been a compliment to the instructor (“I heard that instructor was no good!” “Oh, yeah, of course! I just beat him in a tournament last week”). Or it may have been made because the senior student wanted to build some legitimacy for himself in front of the class, or perhaps just wanted to rile things up. In any case, humans say a lot of silly things with little meaning or truth, and indeed have a lot of thoughts that have little meaning or truth. That is the nature of what we are. These kind of words are not really so different from the gentle babbling of a brook, the singing of birds, the rush of wind over the leaves in a forest. They are a natural and unavoidable occurrence; if you understand this, they won’t provoke any kind of reaction from you other than curiosity, or a reasonable consideration of whether they will have any practical impact on your affairs, i.e., is it a serious rumor that might impact your instructor’s income and the livelihood of your school? In that case, you would have to reasonably consider with your instructor what, if anything would need to be done. But, you should not be personally affected by it. Some other posters have mentioned self-discipline – this is certainly part of it. But, it is a small part. The most valuable thing martial arts have to offer us is an opportunity for self-improvement that we might not have in our daily lives; this can come from many different aspects of study: through the struggle to master difficult techniques and self-understanding that you develop through as you battle your own weariness, laziness, or occasional lack of interest; through your interaction with others from many different walks of life who become involved in the arts; through the things you learn about yourself through your tournaments and competition; and many many other things. But in the end we cannot really perfect ourselves in any way – self-perfection is impossible, as we are only humans. The highest goal is self-understanding, and this is an ever-changing process. This is beyond self-discipline; if you must discipline yourself to behave according to some ideal, then you are in continual conflict with yourself, your ideals are in continual conflict with your desires or thoughts. Once you have a better understanding of yourself, a deeper understanding of the world will follow, and remarks about your instructor will have very little effect, for even if within you there arises some negative thought in reaction to such a remark, you will immediately understand its silliness, its lack of truth or insight, and will cast it out without any effort. Once you are beyond your initial desires that brought you into the martial arts – competition, self-defense, etc., if you ever surpass or achieve them – you may find that this is the true goal. Most instructors will say that self-improvement is their main goal, and they are not making it up! If you find yourself reacting defensively or negatively toward things like the comments that were made, let it be an indication to you that you still have much to learn; you will likely find that your instructor does not react the same way.

One more thing: be sure your back foot is pointing away from you, e.g. if you start from a regular standing position, and do a side kick with your right, your left foot needs to rotate to the left at least a good 50-60 degrees. Doing this and keeping your pelvis tilted forward somewhat should allow you to kick with the full range of motion your flexibility will allow, without any pain in your hip. (I had the same problem you do). Play with it, and I think you'll be surprised at what a difference rotating your back foot will make. Here, a picture is worth a thousand words: http://www.campusrec.uci.edu/classes/ma_jkarate.html

Read this: http://www.stadion.com/column_stretch6.html You might just need to tilt your pelvis forward. If you don't have the correct posture, your range of motion will be limited simply due to the design of the hip, and not due to any inflexibility. This would explain your hip pain.