isshinryu5toforever

I always get criticized for scoring my students or those associated with my school on a harder system than the other competitors. That's why I generally try to back out of judging competitors from my school.

Size doesn't mean anything, if you have very dense muscles you might not be as big, but you'll be able to lift a lot. That's my thing, I look like I weigh about 165, but I weigh about 185-190 depending on the scale lol.

my runs are usually longer 5 miles in 35 minutes or 10 miles in about 75 minutes. Which is probably why I like to lift first or separate the two.

Taekwondo in Korea has been going through some major changes in the last decade or so. I just had this discussion with a man who's been doing Taekwondo for 20 something years, and has been a major international player. In the last decade Korea has seen a small decay in the ability of their competitors. Around the time of the Seoul Olympics, they decided if they wanted it to be a widely loved international sport AND a sport in the olympics they would have to quit dominating every single weight class in every single competition. So, the TKD became a little easier, they seem to have "lost a step" over the past decade. This isn't to say they aren't still top international players, but they have lost a little bit of the fire that they once had. I was told this has a lot to do with the turnover to a moneymaking venture from a true martial art. Eventually, they will start losing more world championships, and maybe that will light a fire under someone.

Thank you for your responses. I think you're right, I don't think they necessarily understood what I was getting at. The guy I was talking to does happen to be a black belt in the WTF, but nobody really trusts him to be a leader, he hasn't been around all second semester. As far as competing, definitely people should stay within their ability level. I would never dream of throwing a 6th kyu captain in with a black belt just because he's the captain.

This isn't a matter of calories, it's a matter of aerobic threshold. If your tank is fueled, you'll be able to go. So, that's not the issue. The issue is being too out of breath to lift adequately. If you do a really good cardio workout, you should be pretty out of breath. This is more the issue than your muscles being too drained to work. Besides if you're lifting, you should spread out your workouts so you're not hitting too many major body parts on the same day. I try to split it up day 1: chest and core day 2: back and legs day 3: arms day4: shoulders. I do cardio after every one of those days, whether it be on the bike, running, playing basketball, or running stairs. I guess it's more about finding what works for you. About the burning more calories, it was some study I read about in Men's Health. I tend to trust them, and as funny as it sounds your comment was the first thing that came to my mind too, I'm kind of a science geek at heart.

Have you seen how many carbs are in those bars? Oh trust me, I'm Asian I get plenty of carbs during the day (rice). lol.

I just got into a discussion (yes discussion not argument) about the qualifications of a team captain. I am on a college TKD team. I am a black belt although not in WTF TKD, not in TKD at all. However, the college team focuses mainly on the sparring part of the sport. Because I have a lot of prior ring experience, learning and adjusting to the rules didn't take me very long. This is not where the discussion came in, it came when I said the team captain does not necessarily have to be a black belt, and even worse to the person I was talking to does not have to be a black belt in WTF TKD. *gasp* I believe that the measure of a captain is not in his belt, it is in his ability to be a leader, to "rile up the troops" so to speak. Can the captain keep people coming to practice? Can he inspire people during practice? Does he have a good level of energy? These are all more important than is he a Kukkiwon black belt? I do beleve that the captain should have a decent amount of martial arts experience. It does not take a Kukkiwon black belt however to teach someone how to throw a round kick, back kick, axe kick, punch, and move around the ring. It takes someone with fight experience. I feel that if the person can do these things, and is good at teaching and leading others, they can be a good captain. The person I was talking to believed that one must be a Kukkiwon or WTF black belt to be qualified to lead a team. I say this is not true because not all great leaders have a black belt, and not all black belts are great leaders. Also, I have heard of people reaching black belt in less than a year, so then what does the rank matter? What are everyone else's opinions?

You should have something in your stomach when you workout for your body to draw off of. Eat a piece or fruit or something. Also, it'll get your metabolism going for the rest of the day, so you'll burn more fat. That's why they suggest eating many small meals throughout the day to keep that fire constantly burning.

I usually eat half a Clif bar or Marathon energy bar if I run, or if I'm home bike, in the morning. Which has actually become almost every morning at 6. Then after I lift I eat half a bar high in protein and low in carbs to help recovery if I don't have chicken or something in my refridgerator. I'm not big on shakes and stuff, because those seem to have a lot of extra stuff in them that's just unnecessary. Most of the guys I know at the gym take some sort of supplement package, which I hate and they have trouble keeping up with me some days. So, you can do it naturally, it just takes hard work.

Actually, you always want to lift before you do your cardio. For one, you burn more calories that way, and two, if you do a real cardio workout you'll be too tired to lift to your full potential. That's if you stack them together, which most people do. If you separate them, here's what I do. 6 AM wakeup, 6:05 eat half a Cliff Bar or Snickers Marathon Bar (make sure to drink at least one class of water or sports drink with the bar) and then run 5-10 miles (35 minutes-just over an hour). Eat breakfast including eggs for protein. Then I have class all day. At about 5, before dinner, I lift for no more than an hour. I split up my lift days to concentrate on one or two body parts a day. After running in the morning, you may feel like your legs are tired, but you still need to pick a day to work your legs. Then I have dinner which is usually a chicken breast or two for protein, or I eat a bar with a lot of protein and not so many carbs if I am going to have something like pasta. There is nothing wrong with doing cardio and weights on the same day, but just make sure your body can recover. You can set up a schedule, but be flexible. If you have an off day scheduled, but feel pumped to go to the gym, and if you have a gym day scheduled, but are still recovering from going really hard, take the day off and take a light jog (light enough that you can carry on a conversation) for an hour or so, nothing too strenuous just to help push out the lactic acid.

the idea is that if you can have that much control in practice, you'll be able to take that same kick and move it over a few inches to absolutely destroy somebody. Also, once that blood really gets flowing, you lose a little bit of that control. You're no longer worried about hurting someone that's trying to hurt you. Practice is a different arena. You're in a controlled situation where everything is set up to be perfect.

I would be warry of anyone who would call themselves the "bad boys" of any style. We also spar with no gear. Our rules are more Kyokushin-like. For class, hard contact, but not hard enough to knock out or kill somebody. Most dojos I have been to do spar with gear however. That isn't just Isshinryu though, that's most dojos in general. I don't know if they were 19, but they were extremely young. It's difficult to give that kind of responsibility to anyone that young.

Not only will it only help you lose waterweight, because you're losing more water, you'll get dehydrated faster and your performance will drop off.

You posted it in another topic someplace.

olympic TKD rules and Karate rules are two really different things. You should definitely look into olympic style competition, before you think about entering olympic trials. You don't want to get yourself into a lot more trouble than you can handle. Also international competition is governed by the Kukkiwon. You have to get a Kukkiwon certified black belt. That means you'll need to learn at least two of the TKD poomse (forms). You'll also have to find an TKD instructor that would let you do that, and not make you learn the entire curriculum.

You're young still, I would wait on the protein drinks and supplements. It's true that it can help recovery, but you should have no problem with that if you're as active as it appears. I remember being your age and being involved in all that stuff. I never used a protein supplement, actually I have never used supplements or energy drinks. You can definitely do it without the assitance of supplements.

There are a few styles of Korean Kumdo which are deviations of Kendo, but those are few and far between. If your closest Kendo place is two hours away, I would tend to doubt that you're going to find Kumdo near you.

I am not widely involved in the TKD world, at least not as much as many of the people here. I only participate on a college team. I have seen Koreans in competition a few times however, and from what I have seen there has been a decline in recent years. The last competitor I saw was a 3rd dan exchange student from Korea. She seemed uninterested in the competition, got a little annoyed at the end of her match, and was just plain unenthusiastic. She only fought one match as an exhibition. She won by showing flashes of her potential when she fell behind. She landed a well-timed back kick near the end that put her up by 1. I tend to wonder if the reason for this is she felt the competition was beneath her. The shows and demonstrations they put on aren't real competitions for them. So, they look half-hearted in their attempts. They really get into it when the worlds come along and they're going through trials, making the team, and participating on a world scale. I'm not saying this is good, in fact it's pretty sad. You're right though, eventually the Koreans will start losing more matches, and they will go back to hardcore discipline.

I would never say IsshinRyu is without it's problems. I know it's full of them. That's what happens when the four people who brought it to America are 19-year-old kids. I haven't had much experience with the IsshinRyu guys in the west. I'll admit that. Most of the people I know are from the Midwest or the East Coast. I have met people from a lot of different styles. I know a couple that teach Tae Kwon Do that are extremely greedy, but I wouldn't assume that all TaeKwonDo sonsaengnim are greedy. I have met Shotokan guys that are arrogant and believe they'll win any fight, even to the extent of challenging other local instructors to less than friendly sparring matches. I know that there is no way all Shotokan sensei are that way. I have also met IsshinRyu instructors that I would never want to learn from, but I know that not all of them are that way. It's just hard for me to swallow that someone would think that all karateka of a style are bad because of one or two men. Or that a style is marginal simply because it isn't hundreds of years old and the punch is different.

I obviously don't know you or your rank, but I still find it disrespectful to insult the style of many people on this board. I would rather we not turn this into an argument about why or why not a style is any good, or if the founding instructor was the best martial artist out of his brothers. It's a discussion about the validity of one man, who doesn't necessarily represent an entire style. It would be nice to read posts on here without constantly having to read insulting commentary from individuals about other styles of martial art.

Any martial art requires hard work and dedication. You should go to each place and discuss your goals with the instructors. If you are interested solely in getting in shape and not necessarily learning a ton of self-defense a TKD school that focuses on the sport/competition aspect of the martial art could be good. They do a lot of kicking drills, running, conditioning, and such. The other martial arts you mentioned will do this as well, Muay Thai especially. It'll just be done in different ways. Check the places out and see which one you like the most.

I like the vertical fist, but that's what I've been using for 15 years. I'm a little biased. I have seen places where I apply the horizontal punch as well. I actually use a slight tilt to my punch probably close to 45 degrees as one poster mentioned above. I have found great power generation from that, and like the feel. It's more natural. Then again do something a few hundred thousand times and it feels natural.

It's definitely not my intention to convert. I don't know about teaching it either. Although, it is definitely easier to market than Isshin-Ryu Karate. The big concern I have, would be the politics involved in TKD. They exist in Isshin-Ryu, but not to the same extent they do in TKD. You have the ATA, WTF, and ITF associations. You can't compete internationally without being Kukkiwon certified. It just seems like a lot of unnecessary red tape. Since I've been participating on the team, I can take the classes through NYU free. I don't think they charge for testing up to red belt, so I would only pay for the black belt test. But here again, I feel like I'd just be collecting a belt from an association just for the heck of it.

I don't know if his performance was intentional. In one set of tapes he does forget part of Hama Higa and then just simply bow to end it. I have the 1966 tapes on my computer, I don't see a lackluster performance, I see him slowing everything down and changing stances to make sure the camera can see the angle. I see him exagerating certain chambers and techniques to make them more obvious to those watching. Who knows what was going on in his mind though, only he did.