isshinryu5toforever

Mistassailant5, I think you're looking at the flashier, fancier demonstration kicks that you often see performed by Taekwondo practitioners, but the self defense side is a bit different. In almost every martial art I've practiced, self defense is extremely simple, easy to grasp, and easy to become good at. It always works on the KISS principle, Keep It Simple Stupid. To put it in a nicer way, the WOO factor was used in a Black Belt Magazine article. They discussed Window Of Opportunity in relation to self-defense. The Taekwondo schools I know that put more value on self-defense than on competition, practice the full curriculum, but put emphasis on kicks at the waist or below, and simple, effective, straight punches to the chest and abdominal area with open handed strikes to the face. You don't have to be able to do a jump spinning full-side straddle wheel kick to be able to defend yourself, and I doubt most Taekwondo schools would advocate defending yourself in such a manner anyways.

Isshinryu, at least the school I attended and teach at whenever I'm in Wisconsin, which is admittedly getting rarer these days, advocates the head turn. I think Japanese and Okinawan martial arts are a little more likely to advocate the head turn than Korean martial arts, specifically Taekwondo. This is for several reasons, I'm sure, but the main reason I can think of has to do with competition. In modern competition, the Japanese have almost always had a rule of recognition. For a technique to score, you have to have your eyes on the opponent. The rule is applied at all times, even when executing spinning techniques. That means, the head whip is a very necessary thing, as is watching your opponent. Conversely, the Taekwondo spinning techniques are performed with your head turned away from your opponent. Kicks like the spinning back kick and hook kick are defensive techniques, not offensive ones, so your opponent should already be in the middle of motion, and therefore unable to get out of the way of the technique. For this reason, keeping your eyes on your opponent throughout the technique is unnecessary. I've been told many times that this is one of the reasons Taekwondo (WTF in particular) does not have a rule of recognition.

A lot of people use world championships as a marketing ploy. It works on a lot of people, because they aren't educated on what to actually look for when they're seeking out a martial arts school. It is no fault of their own, there's a lot of marketing in the US that is difficult to see through. Knowing that your child's instructor was 5 time (insert random letters here) National Champion makes you feel like that person is definitely a somebody. The fact that martial artists don't usually get made into celebrities, and you've got a recipe for every organization touting their own champions as a way to market themselves to the public. It's smart business. Not the most honest way to go about things, but smart business none-the-less. I won't lie though, training with someone like Kenji Midori does have its appeal. If you have no idea who that is, he is the smallest man to win the All-Japan Open weight class tournament in Kyokushin Karate. Winning big tournaments doesn't mean the person is a good teacher, but it helps indicate that they have at least a small idea that they know what they're doing, and as such, should hopefully be able to teach it.

Meditating horizontally would that be the side, back, or face down technique? As far as mushin, that would be no-mindedness, which I think is basically impossible. As I said before, it's a great thing to shoot for, and an interesting mind exercise, but so is considering Schroedinger's box. I'd worry about my breathing more than about getting myself into a state of mushin. In fact, I think that's something meditation can be great for, working on and perfecting different breathing styles. There's an entire discipline in some yoga schools that's dedicated to it. Proper breathing is something we discuss all the time in the martial arts is it not?

I'm going to say no as well. The instructor is always the most important thing, and an unfortunate fact is that not all of the best instructors are great businessmen. Their schools don't always stay open, or they're never in a position to make teaching martial arts a full-time job. Others choose not to make it a full-time job. Don't let the appearance of a place scare you off. Let the instructor show you what kind of person he is first.

I'd say your observation is correct, that it was more of an in-dojo only thing. Sport competitions generally allow front leg sweeps, but you have to score on the person as they fall or within a second of them hitting the ground. They don't allow full throws though.

I graduated from NYU in '08, and I'm currently living in Seoul, but if you want to contact me for any reason, just send me a message. I know a lot about the ECTL. I was on the All-Star team my senior season. It's a lot of fun, and the matches are lively, but not crazy. Most clubs have a competition team, so if you don't want to compete, you don't have to, but you're encouraged to. If you join the club, I would encourage you to go to at least one tournament. They're fun, and you can meet people from quite a number of different schools.

A takedown of the type you're discussing would only be allowed in grappling competitions or in MMA. In a normal, controlled contact sparring tournament, you'd probably get a warning for contact. My point was, if you're in a striking tournament, why would you be thinking about shoving someone?

I'm not quite clear on what you're asking. Are you asking if strikes to the back are permitted in any sport martial arts competition? What kind of "shove" are we talking about here? As far as I'm concerned, if we're talking about kicks and punches, there shouldn't really be any shoving. Checks and jamming are something entirely different.

Hahaha, that would be a chipmunk. Very cute.

They're marketing under the title "Best Kid" in Korea. Not sure how popular it is though.

A real drive-in? That's awesome! The one about an hour from where I grew up closed a few years ago. I wish they had drive-ins in Korea haha. Although, that would mean me borrowing someone's car...

Here's the website for their university program. http://oneonta.collegiatelink.net/Community?action=getOrgHome&orgID=14499 Here is the link for the ECTL, which is the league they compete in. http://ectc-online.org/SUNYoneonta.html The ECTL used to be the INCTL. I competed for NYU in the INCTL, and the competition is pretty decent quality. The SUNY Oneonta TKD club is brand new. It came about just after I graduated, and probably just got into the ECTL last year. It sounds like they do have a master, and I'm betting, like most collegiate programs, they're associated with a local school. It works well for the school. They charge the students a lower rate, and after graduation they can usually count on a few students heading over to practice full-time.

I'll echo that, learning from a living, breathing person is the best way to learn any martial art.

I'm pretty sure a direct, frontal attack on the knee is illegal in most competitions. That's why you don't see side kicks and front kicks to the knee in competition. The possibility of severely damaging the knee ligaments and or breaking the leg would be the prime reason.

Take all the above advice, experiment with it, and see what works for you. Everyone is different, and their body tells them different things. Listen to your body, and you should be alright.

I think it's a saturation of the market. Korea only has 50 million people and they've already paid to see How to Train Your Dragon. They're likely to see Shrek 4 as well. The Shrek movies are popular here, and marketed very well via McD's. I think theater owners are scared to take too many animated features in such a short time span. There are also only 3 really major cinema's here run by big corporations. That's just my thought, who knows for real though.

@ DWx thank you @ Sensei8 Japanglish, Chinglich, and Konglish are already semi-real languages haha. My variety of friends use one or the other on a near daily basis to communicate with their grandparents who speak zero English. They're 2nd generation US citizens who don't speak as much of their grandparents' native language as they "should." I studied Korean in university after zero experience with it growing up, and I've lived in Korea for the last two years, so my Korean is actually better than a lot of theirs. If anything, the propagation of these mixes of language are brought on more by the later generations of their respective ethnic groups growing up in the US with little link to their country of origin than to the martial arts. A prime example of this is, "I have to visit my halmoni this weekend, because of hyo." It's an easy way for them to say, "I have to visit my grandmother this weekend, because of Confucian filial responsibility." Being 100% correct is always better, but we are here to teach the martial arts, not a language class. If I were to say: kihap teul keunsoriro pooreorah! Everyone would look at me, and let out a collective, "Huh?" That's why I let things like adding ~ing or ~s to words slide, because if I didn't it would drive me nuts.

In this case, I just don't think proper pronunciation is always practical. There are some sounds in various languages Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, that are just plain difficult for non-native speakers to say. Patrick, I'm going to quickly use a non-English character to make a point, the Korean consonant vowel combination 응 is romanized eung, but that's not nearly how you say it. There is also a significant difference in the way you say certain vowel and consonant sounds, but some are romanized in a similar way (long o vs short eo would be a good example of this). Unless you have studied the language, there will always be pronunciation problems. Also, no matter where you go, no matter what language the country you are in speaks, in martial arts like Judo (outside Korea), the same terminology is used everywhere, even if the accent is bad.

I'm trying to find a release date for South Korea. The blueray might come out in the US before it's released here, so who knows. It's definitely on my must see list though.

I think sparring is a very important thing. When you first start, it's a big game of what not to do. You learn quickly that keeping your hands down is a bad idea, even if you see the higher ranking students doing it. You learn that timing and distance is much more important than speed. I guess doing just forms, and never sparring to see the effectiveness of what you're doing would be like studying swimming in a book, watching people swim, practicing the stroke out of the water, and then never getting in to see if you could actually swim.

They definitely go hand in hand. Martial Arts without philosophy is just fighting, but martial arts without fighting is just philosophy. I'd say his quote accurately conveys the idea of Dao. The idea that everything has two sides, and that the two sides must work together to make a whole. They aren't necessarily opposites, but it's the only English word that conveys the idea. There are no real opposites in the theory, just two codependent halves.

Since a 540 starts out like a tornado kick, I'll refrain from using too much Korean haha, the back leg moves through first to build momentum, and the kicking leg follows. A 540 is achieved simply by folding under the back leg used for momentum, so that you land on the kicking foot facing the opposite direction of where you started. That sounds complicated. As basic as I can put it, instead of keeping the leg that comes off the ground first straight, bend it, and you should be able to land on the kicking leg, thus completing your 540.

Some time ago, I wrote a big thing about proper terminology in the MA's, but it was more geared toward referring to MA's from different places using the correct terminology, this is an entirely different animal. I would actually say that's it's ok to conjugate things the way you are currently. We do it in my school, they do it in most schools I've seen, and even a lot of the Korean coaches I know do it in the US. As far as conjugating is concerned, that's difficult haha. It would take a lot of explaining, and a little more time than I have at this very moment. Maybe tonight when I have a little time, I'll try to cover some Korean. I don't know Japanese, but I'm sure someone does. Let me know which terms you'd really like conjugated, because it can be different depending on the word.

I am very mildly into trick kicks, because for most of my martial arts career, I've been a fighter. Either bareknuckle or WTF TKD. Trick kicks are fun though, and a cool way to increase your athletic ability. In fact, there are a few people trying to start a trick kick club in Seoul. It's been fun.