taiji fajin

haha, thanks, I love it. Aodhon was close, it's Space Ghost Coast to Coast, from 1999. The Chambraigne episode.

All injuries are - to differing degrees - debilitating. I would be very careful about breaking boards with your condition. Is it needed in your martial art to promote in rank? What does that mean to you? What does your health mean to you? While a single board, if held and broken correctly, probably won't cause you harm, I'm not about to speculate on what repeated breaks will do. I would also avoid breaking multiple boards/bricks/etc. Best piece of advice? Talk to your doctor about it, and be honest with him.

What do you mean by this?

Sorry to hear about your bad luck, but at least you still train with him some. It's always interesting to see the different mentalities for meditation. Some, like the icy stream incident you talked of or when Kuk Sa Nim brought the monk, seem more intent on meditating through unpleasant circumstances, they to me are about learning how to focus through distraction. Others are about building your internal energy. They disagree with the "no pain no gain" philosophy and instead seek to nurture the body and enhancing the mind-body connection. Just my take on it, one sec while I put on some body armor against the responses . As for the last post, I agree that trust and practice with a certain partner are needed before you can go at full speed without fear of hurting the other person. However, I don't think that people should be striking the air instead of the head/body/etc. Even if you do not know your partner, you should aim for the correct spot. Just be sure to not go all out and are able to pull back/stop if they do not get their defenses in place.

Training with KJN Simms would be awesome. While I am against the idea of people getting injured in a class as being ok or expected to happen occasionally, I dislike how easily training can become an "armchair" art, or worse, how paper tigers get produced. You've trained with KJN Simms? I'm curious, do you know what his views are on internal energy work / meditation / etc? Possibly even what type he does, if he does do it? Thanks.

Nice link , it saved me from having to put up a video of myself doing the form. I have two problems when I see most people do this form (no offense to anyone). The first is that the strikes are not at the other person, but at their staff. Many times in the form you will see an "attack" that would simply go by in the air if the defender had not put out his staff. Why bother blocking if it's not going to hit you? The other is that people put their staff out to block long before the attack comes. Not only does this look aesthetically displeasing, but it's impractical. If a person had the block waiting out there, I would just strike somewhere else. I love doing staff sparring with one particular JGN in my class, who is actually my roommate. We've been doing it together for long enough that when we do the form, we are actually trying to hit each other. Literally. We don't hold back our swings (which occasionally results in a broken staff), because we know the other person will be able to block it (or had better block it!) In our last demo, at one point my roommate did a side strike to my head, which I blocked, but it was a strong enough attack that his staff bent around mine and brushed my hair. Let me tell you, doing this form when the other person is actually aiming for you, not holding back, and not letting you get your defense in place before they swing keeps you on your toes!

It's all about how you bend your arms. Do you know Bohng Dae Ryuhn? You do a cartwheel holding a staff during it. It's the same thing picking one up . . . . you're just not holding it during the first half.

True, but forms aren't always (and in my opinion shouldn't usually be) a series of attacks that you use one right after the other. More often they teach body control / conditioning, and small chunks of moves you could do. I would probably never use more than two or three moves that are in a row in a form, usually less.

My understanding was that it was done to pick up a weapon (generally one with a decently sized non-sharp portion, such as a staff or spear). Of course, it is also done to give strength and yada yada, but the picking up of the weapon was the "application" as far as I knew.

This is the school taught by PSN Kellog, right? I'll vouch for him, great instructor, very knowledgable, and will make sure you actually improve, not just get a new belt every x months for paying dues.

hi aefibird, While I wasn't one of the people you are talking about, I'm very glad to hear that you met some nice KSW'ers. I think that they were polite and nice reflects better on them (and KSW) than any skill level they may or may not have had. Kuk Sool tries to be "Hard-Soft". I'm sure lots has been posted about it or on other internet sites so I won't go into detail about what KSW "is", but you are right, it is not "not as hard or linear as other Korean (TKD-esque) patterns." and purposely so. To answer your question, I have never heard it "officially" said that KSW has Chinese influences. It is officially said to be derived from three Korean sources: Buddhist, Family, and Royal Court martial arts. That being said, after practicing it and a Chinese martial art for some years now, I would say yes, it does have Chinese influences. I've even had a master in KSW talk to me about how some of our form movements come from Chinese martial arts. Is it deliberate? *shrug* If it is they aren't saying, at least not to me. Oh yeah, and congratulations on your non-auditory onomatopoeia

For internal martial arts? I wish I had better news, but if you want real internal martial arts training you need to be training with an instructor, not from a video or website.

in Kuk Sool it goes white->yellow->blue->red->brown->black

Where have all the Kuk Sool'ers gone? I never see a post about KS anymore.

Look at the official site, there's been some . . . . action. New 10th degree and some people left. Sims is gone and so are some of his students. I'm not basing "Sims left" off of just the website, just giving you a place to check it out.