Ottman

Hmmm favorite kick? That would depend on what my opponent's doing.

Shrimping refers to the motion used to execute a hip escape. It basically consists of bridging (while lying on your back) then rolling onto one shoulder and shoving your butt out as far as possible. (You look like you're curled up like a shrimp when you're finished) The purpose is to lift an opponent off the ground if he is on top of you and create space underneath. You then roll into that created space and get out from under your opponent (or try to) by pushing your butt (and therefore your hips) away from the opponent. You'd then try to get back to your knees and eventually all the way up.

Because you'll get to focused on getting the person in a grappel you'll lose focus on the fight, but if you can hanndle it go ahead. What if grappling is your strong suit and it works for you better than striking? I guess I should ask if a lot of grappling is taught in TSD, as I thought that TSD is exclusively a striking art, and if so, I can understand taking the emphasis off of grappling. But if grappling is taught in TSD and you can grapple well, I say go for the grapple. Can you clarify as to what extent grappling is taught in TSD?

Just out of curiosity, why wouldn't you recommend grappling in a Tang Soo Do sparring match?

You have to be careful with chokes, because even if you let go as soon as a person passes out, there is still a risk of causing brain damage, or even anuerisms. The risk is usually low, but there is no way to determine or control when this type of thing will happen with a choke. Could be the most athletic, in shape person in the world, but the worst could happen at anytime. It's a tough situation, because we are taught that chokes are a relatively safe and 'humane' way to take care of a violent situation, but since irreparable damage or death can occur so randomly if a person is choked all the way out, we have to be very careful not to let this happen. In my BJJ class, if a student doesn't tap out during a choke and allows them self to be choked out, they are out of the class. It's just too much liability for the school. It's unfortunate that insurance companies and lawyers can have this much of an impact on MA training, but again, chokes are very dangerous, and it's too unpredictable to control what can happen after someone is choked all the way to unconsciousness. Therefore, I'd suggest that a choke should be taken off before the person passes out in every instance, unless it is an extreme matter of self defense (like if the guys was blatantly trying to kill you.)

I actually go through the movements on my own, without a partner to practice things like proper hip positioning, transitioning from one technique to another, and to get a sense of what my own weight and leverage are doing (or should be doing.) It isn't the same as practicing with a partner, but it does help to engrain the muscle memory into my head so I don't have to think as much about what I'm doing when I am in class and rolling with a partner. I'm also a big fan of writing things down as ps1 mentioned. usually after writing and drawing it once, I have it pretty well memorized, whereas if I just go through the movements in my head, it takes longer to get them into my memory.

You can qualify for the Olympic Trials through a number of different events, but if you choose to go and actually expect to go to the Olympics, you have to pay the dues as Bushidoman said. The USTU is gone now and there are a few different rumors as to why: -Politics (There were claims that they would only allow USTU members to get to the Olympic Trials and only via USTU events, which the IOC didn't like, as it really only encompassed WTF TKD and there were ways that the USTU was being run that didn't meet IOC standards.) -Money (There were claims that members of the board (or whatever the USTU higher ups call themselves) were laundering money through the organization and making outrageous expense report claims) More Politics (There was a rumor that since the USTU was controlled by the Kukkiwon, it ended up being Koreans who were ultimately deciding which American athletes would qualify for the Olympics, which broke IOC regulations so the IOC stepped in and put a stop to it.) I don't think that any of these rumors were ever substantiated, but these three were the ones I heard the most, and there were others that were even more rediculous. I personally think they just couldn't make ends meet and therefore had to go bankrupt, but who knows what really happened.

I never thought about this, but I know that WTF style sparring has been referred to as Olympic Style since I've been involved in TKD, even before TKD became an Olympic sport. I guess the Kukkiwon just had a better lobby? Currently, ITF style sparring is only light contact (at least in every tournament I've ever been to) which I'd like to see changed, but I honestly don't know how WTF style rules made the Olympic games while ITF didn't. Again: politics.

Yes. (I can't decide if this is a good or a bad thing, but the answer is yes.) Tae Kwon Do is a perfect example of this exact type of evolution and renaming. What you refer to as 'true TKD' is actually a melding and subsequent evolution of a bunch of other older arts that was organized and then named TKD by General Choi. He and his original practitioners decided that this style would be called TKD, but it really uses principals and techniques from different arts, and every student and instructor has their own interpretation of these techniques. So how can we be sure that what we refer to as true TKD, isn't really just Hwarang-do and Karate mixed together and evolved accordingly? Good question. We should ask the Shotokan, Goju Ryu, Isshin Ryu, Shorin Ryu, Wei Chi Ryu, Kempo, Kenpo, Wushu, Wing Chun, Long Fist, Shaolin, BJJ, JJJ, Judo, Aikido, Hapkido, Silat, Muay Tai, etc. guys about this. Personally I'm not sure how significantly varied you can get with two arms and two legs, but there are certainly differences in strategy, and philosophy between these different styles, and certainly different nuances in how to perform things like kicks and other strikes and take downs and other techniques between different arts. These types of differences are not apparent to me when we are talking about WTF and ITF, which, to me, are more administrative bodies trying to tie together things like certifications and set cirriculum etc. Again, I see no real need for these types of orgs to exist, and especially no need for the fees they charge. This is true, but I don't see how it applies to WTF/ITF. Again, most of the students at my school, and many from other schools that I have talked to are not even aware of this division in TKD. Thus, you can certainly recognize TKD as a seperate style from other martial arts without needing the WTF and ITF to tell you so. I can understand what you mean here, but I think you are forgetting that most martial artists, regardless of style, will be able to relate to one another, and consider themselves part of a whole simply because they are martial artists. This forum itself is a prime example of that. This is what I see as the beauty of MA. It doesn't matter what style you are rooted in, martial artists tend to respect each other just because they are martial artists. And I cannot imagine that competitiveness would be lost if we stop dividing MA's into different styles. Look at the popularity and competitiveness in MMA. Also, I've always been of the opinion that MA is about mastering yourself, and maybe it's just me, but I've never really compared myself to what others are doing. I just do it the best I can. I consider martial arts as a method of learning about your own self; your limitations, strengths, weaknesses, etc. and expressing them physically in the way that best represents who you are. Each martial art has it's own philosophies and ideals, but I think we can agree that martial arts in general share very similar ideals and philosophies, so no, I don't think you lose those ideals from mixing styles, but on the contrary you reinforce them by mixing styles. Well, even though I only speak English fluently, I can speak a decent amount of Spanish and also know some German, some Japanese, and of course, a little Korean. Just because I can't speak these languages fluently, doesn't mean that I can't use them to communicate better with people who do. I went to Mexico and was able to communicate very well using a mix of Spanish and English (far better than if I just knew english and didn't know any Spanish.) I'm sure I would have created confusion had I thrown some German or Japanese into there as well, but that's part of Martial Arts as well: knowing when to use which technique. If I didn't have any Spanish speaking ability, I wouldn't have been able to pull it out and use it when needed. So if you indiscriminately use random techniques not neccessarily applicable to the situation, of course you will create confusion. But not having those other skills also creates the potential for you to come up short when you need them, so as with most things, there are two sides to this issue, and it really depends on the situation to determine which course of action is best. I couldn't imagine not having BJJ skills at this point, when just 5 years ago I never would have seen the point of training in BJJ. I do mix and match techniques from different styles, but I also have to keep in mind which is relevant at which time to avoid the confusion you've alluded to. Yeah, I think we hijacked Bushidoman's original topic though. We've gone a little off topic (expanded if you will) but I think that bushidoman is listening intently and will chime in when he's ready.

That would be great but unfortunately we live in a capitalist world where everything is governed by political bodies and orgs whose hidden agenda is nearly always money. Exactly the problem. I can understand individual schools and instructors needing to make ends meet, but I see no need whatsoever for these orgs, especially when it costs over $300 for things like dan certifications that really don't mean anything to anyone except the coffers of the ITF, or WTF, or etc.. Wrong, the instructors and practitioners of TKD really define what TKD is. These orgs can try to hold people to certain standards, but in your experience, has this been the case at all? (It hasn't in mine) Again, (and like every other martial art IMHO) I think the major difference here is between individual practitioners and instructors, you can say that nomenclature, and forms are clearly different between WTF and ITF, but these differ between schools of the same org as well. For instance, although my school is officially WTF, but we teach forms from both styles, and use terminology and teach techniques from many different styles of martial arts. Nearly all of our students have no idea which org we belong to (or even that these different orgs exist at all) and also don't know that our self defense cirricculum is really primarily Hapkido and Ju Jitsu techniques, and the style of sparring we teach is more like something you'd find at an Isshin Ryu or Shotokan school. They really are just training martial arts, and couldn't care less that are orginizations trying to . . . 'organize' everything. So when you look to the individual student, why try to make things complicated with different parameters for different 'styles' of the same art? Sounds senseless to me. Wish I knew of a time and place (and an instructor) where this happened. Hasn't this already happened throughout the history of martial arts? Not that I think it's a bad thing, these additions and variations don't dilute the arts, but are the exact reason there are so many different styles. I believe this is exactly the thing that makes different styles, and different martial arts practitioners unique to begin with. I wouldn't say 'no-style' but rather 'your-style' isn't this the whole point behind martial arts training to begin with? I wouldn't say that the best martial artists don't care for rules either, they just tend to make up their own. When a body of people are respecting a certain set of rules, (at a tournament for instance) the best martial artists are the ones who can adapt to whatever those rules are, and still be successful. Therefore, while they respect all rules at the proper times, they are not bound indefinitely by them. The reason I study so many different styles is due to my attempt at refining my own style. I take from each of them what I need/want and leave the rest. I can understand the need to know the basic gist behind what is taught in each art (if you're looking for grappling training, it's good to know that BJJ is a grappling art, while TKD is not) but such strict definitions of what is included (and more importantly what is not included) in different styles of the same art, as the WTF and ITF and other like orgs have, is rediculous (again, IMHO). Never thought it was. I also hate when MA are taken over by politics. Good convo though!

Who cares? Let's do away with all these orgs and just have Tae Kwon Do. How does that sound? As said in a previous post: it's just politics. No need for politics in MA ( Although I wouldn't mind seeing a little MA in politics. Can you imagine if senators had to spar to defend their positions? I would be glued to C-Span 24/7.)

Lead with your head. Make sure you see your target before kicking, and your head will be the first part of the body to complete the spin. This will prevent you from losing track of your target and getting dizzy, because if you aren't focusing on a target, your vision will instead move with the rest of your body through the spin, and the room will appear to spin from your point of view. Looking over your shoulder just before the rest of the body spins stops this and makes it a lot easier to control the orientation of the rest of the body, resulting in much better balance. If you can train yourself to pivot on your grounded foot well enough, you won't even have to put your foot down. Just remember: Chamber kick re-chamber kick re-chamber . . . It works for spinning kicks too!

Yes Gae-baek is the same. We learn this between 1st and 2nd dan.

This is interesting. You do both the WTF and ITF forms at black belt level? If you say so (I'm not sure which are WTF and which are ITF, but our school is 'officially' WTF, so I suppose that the required ones are the WTF ones right?)

We have a bo-dan (recommended black belt) belt, and then four to six months of training until you can test for 1st dan. All taeguk forms, and Koryo is needed for 1st dan. guem gong for 2nd, tae-bak for 3rd, juche for 4th and that's all I know. We also learn gae-bak after becoming 1st dan, and um-yum after 2nd dan, but they are not required at testing. The way I understand it is that each orginization (WTF, ITF, UTF, ATA, etc.) have their own forms and own requirements. According to USSSA competition rules, only certain forms can be done at certain levels, for instance: tae-bak is considered a 3rd dan form, so only 3rd dans and higher are allowed to perform it at USSSA competitions. (I think this is the only competition org that does it this way.) All in all, I don't think that there are many schools left that follow General Choi's particular requirements, nor do I think that forms corresponding with belt ranks really matter too much once you are a 1st dan or above. For colored belts, you have to keep things organized dependent upon what techniques are being taught at certain levels, but once you are a black belt, you should be able to do all the forms regardless of dan rank. (Just my humble opinion.)

Great advice here so far!! My two cents: Break the combinations down into stages and take one kick at a time: Execute the first kick and then return your body to chamber position of the next kick, but don't throw it until you have taken a second to regain your balance. In other words, you are starting over after the first kick, just without putting your leg down. Practice like this until you have your balance down for the second kick, and then speed the motion up, but always remember to hit each stage: -Chamber for kick 1 -kick 1 -re-chamber and balance for kick two -kick 2 -re-chamber and balance for kick 3 (if you choose to throw a kick 3 and so on) Eventually, this will look like one fluid motion, and remember everyone else's advice about keeping upright and practicing to build up better balance. Maintaining as straight a line as possible from your shoulder to your grounded foot is important, but can be tricky to pick up. Also, you should only hop if you need to move forward (or back) to reach your target. If you just have to perform the kick, without hitting anything, take some of the power (power, not speed) off of your first kick to prevent it from pulling you off balance, and then finish strong with the second kick. This will help you to maintain balance throughout the combination. Good Luck!

This is the back sweep, and works very well if your opponent is standing with good posture (straight up.) You should be getting ready to learn techniques like this one in a few more months, as it is one of the more basic sweeps, but of course, it all depends on your instructor. If your opponent has bad posture and is leaning over, it will be a lot more difficult to use back sweep, but you will learn about front sweep, which will be effective here, and a whole lot more ways to deal with someone picking you up off the ground from guard. Soon you will understand that lifting a person off the ground who is guarding is not really a good strategy (and so will your opponents.) Just keep training!

It may seem that way now, but those big guys will get easier to handle when you start getting more comfortable with your own style of grappling and start learning more techniques to deal with them. Keep training!!

granmasterchen just said it all. In fact there may be a Nami Ryu school near you where you can study Kenjitsu, Iajitsu, and Aiki-jujitsu. The movements for Kenjitsu will be nearly (if not totally) identical to the Aiki-jujitsu movements, except that you're holding a sword in your hand in kenjitsu, and unarmed for Aiki-jujitsu. I will check to see if someone is teaching near you, and you can talk to them to see if it's a good fit. What area are you near?

My dojang also has sparring 'rumbles' that we have about four times a year, including an Isshin-ryu Karate dojo, and two other TKD Dojangs. The diversity in seeing different styles of sparring is clearly invaluable, and as a result we have kind of created an open forum for training in my area. I have an open invitation to come and train (and teach) at any of these schools, and the differences, (even between the three TKD schools) are numerous, but luckily we all have instructors that greatly encourage cross training, and students that maintain a friendly, respectful atmoshphere.

You can also find a lot of very basic instructional videos online (I love you tube!) and while I'm not saying that books or videos are a substitute for instruction, they can certainly help you understand the concepts and visualize the motions.

remember that the person who gets their center of gravity lowest usually wins out, and with practice you will get better at feeling out who has the better leverage as well. As soon as you feel that your opponent has gotten their center lower down, and/or has gained the advantage in terms of leveage, try to push your own center down to the ground (and preferably on top of them) as quickly as possible. remember that shooting your legs out behind you will not only propel yourself downward with more force, but also take away the potential for your opponent to hook and control them. This should be your first action: maintaining your center of balance on top of your opponent and controling the leverage (or rather smooshing down your opponent's leverage.) Don't worry about grabbing at this point. You have to condition yourself to realize that control of the leverage and center of gravity are much more effective than following the natural instinct to grab and control with our arms and hands. Grabbing will make it harder to sprawl against a shooting opponent as well. It is much easier to move your own body and gravity, than it is to try to stop and control your opponents gravity by holding on to them and fighting not only gravity, but all of your opponents muscles as well. Move yourself until you can get the better position, and let gravity work for you instead of fighting against it.

Right Bushido Man. I've actually seen K1 have Sanshou rules matches before, so it certainly doesn't matter what style you practice if you are interested in Sanshou. Just think of it like a kickboxing match, but work on takedowns and takedown defense and you can spar in Sanshou no problem.

Well there isn't really a style of MA called Sanshou, rather it's a different set of rules for tournament matches that allow take downs. I have seen schools that offer Sanshou training though, and there certainly is a particular strategy and philosophy that goes along with Sanshou style fighting. From what I hear, it came from the Chinese Sanda style, and was almost incorporated into a formalized style of its own in China, but I guess the Sanda guys got upset and put a stop to this. (Wikipedia describes a similar set of circumstances behind Sanshou's history) From everything I've heard and read, it seems that Sanda was the practical strategy of fighting that was taught along (or within) various Kung Fu styles like Wing Chun and Wushu. Sanshou became a style used in military training in the early 20th century, and eventually became the sport we recognize today. I had the chance to take a few classes at a Kung Fu school near me, and they actually separate Sanshou into a different class, while at the same time continuing to tie in Kung Fu principles and technique. It really was the fighting style, whereas the Kung Fu classes were all about forms and show. Strangely, not many of the Kung Fu students also attended the Sanshou class and vice-versa. I guess the instructor realized that some people wanted only to fight, while others wanted to only learn forms, so he separated the two in his classes.

Oh how I wish I was a BJJ beginner again. What an exciting time. (Actually, after 2 and a half years, I wouldn't consider myself much beyond beginner, but anyway . . .) Get ready to change the whole way you think about martial arts. When I started BJJ, and got more into 'grappling' arts like AikiJuJitsu, and Hapkido, my strategy, even for TKD sparring completely changed. I became a much more relaxed and laid back fighter. It taught me a lot about taking my time, getting proper positioning, conserving energy, and I especially gained a lot of confidence in fighting bigger, stronger, and faster opponents. BJJ training really lead me to understand that timing, patience, and perfect technique (or as perfect as possible) can beat purely physical dominance in most cases. Have fun!!