JusticeZero

Point still stands; you'll learn the technique better if things are much more relaxed and you can break it down more, and you'll be more willing to push the envelope on how to apply it best when you aren't in a competition.

Thank you for that, Patrick; I never know how many people gloss over or don't read threads for whatever reason that they could have really contributed to, and I don't really know names enough to call people out for anything.

Well, let's take something basic like a foot sweep. Proper form has to be taught outside of sparring, because that's all about structure. It's a matter of alignment and momentum and such. If you just start throwing it randomly in the circle, you'll decide pretty quickly that it's useless, but it's really quite useful. How to recognize the window of when to use it - how to apply it - takes some demonstration and paired playing around with. The openings for the technique have to be explicitly laid out and taught; what an opportunity to use the sweep looks like, where the person being swept will go to, these are things that really involve giving each other openings noncompetitively and being swept in paired exercises where you can mutually explore how the technique works and examine the dynamics of the technique in isolation. Only after working out the structure and non-competitive experimentation are you going to be able to really recognize when you can apply it, and if you're in the circle with someone who wants to 'win', those opportunities will be fresh in their mind and they'll go out of their way to deny you the opportunities to practice it. Working out other ways of responding to being swept after that is going to mostly involve other drills or just thinking it through. The part that the competitive aspect helps is just finding times to use the skills covered elsewhere.

Alphabets - Stand on one foot, raise one leg as per a front kick, and start writing the letters of the alphabet in the air with your toe, as large as you reasonably can. See how many letters you can do without putting your foot down to catch yourself. Requires a lot more explicit muscle control than just standing does.

It would be hard for me, I think. Yesterday, I got a bit closer on my goal of getting to be able to do handstand pushups, then I did about an hour of fairly random practice of tesouras, role, chibata, and other floor movements (none of which I can explain easily, save that they are all ways of moving on the floor - i've been working floor a lot lately as I was inspired by some ice last winter) with some practice with some kicks and some examination of my form on galopante and cutelo (hand strikes). But I didn't exactly count and sort any of it out in any way that I could write down, beyond 'Random upper body and floor stuff - a little over an hour'.

Well, my lineage has cords (rope belts), but we don't wear them in class; they're for the most part just measurements of how trusted you are in the organization to represent one's skills. There's one for 'you know the basics', one for 'you have the routine pretty much down', one for 'OK, you know your stuff, now learn how to teach', a 'you're a teacher now, we mostly care how good your students are from here on' one, and then a few above that until you get to the white cord like the grandmaster wears. I don't give them out, personally, or haven't in any case; I might someday. Have to agree that they can be used as an ego thing, and end up being a weakness; i'd rather my students be for the most part ringers, although I do use class shirts in class, as a rule, for the first one. I do admit to wanting to get to Brasil so I can get tested to the cord i'm told I should be at; right now, my teacher considers me an instrutore, but is urging me to test in Brazil for professore; that would give me quite a bit more respectability I suppose.

We usually do a lot of paired drills with sequences of movements on both sides, to work technique with application. "X opens with Technique 1, then parks here and starts technique 2; Y escapes T1 with T-A, then does T-B. X responds by aborting T2 into T3, both au left, switch roles of X and Y and repeat.. if those kicks wouldn't hit, don't defend against it! If Y leaves their foot hanging out like she was yesterday, forget doing the next movement and just sweep it!". Those vary from day to day. Usually they are applicable to roda play, but sometimes, self defence stuff gets thrown in there such as when T1 is say, a boxing hook or a wrestling shoot or some such thing. Alternately we do stuff like put a blindfold on someone and tell them to ginga and defend while we toss punches at them, or we tell them to jogo (basically 'spar') but forbid either one of them from throwing any attacks whatsoever - just footwork, or we move down the room on their hands or some other transition movements in some way or other, or... heck, I can think of lots of things we do. But we don't just start bopping each other in a sporty sparring match.

Maybe, though I don't generally find sparring to be good for working application.. You obviously need both, but as a rule, sparring doesn't really deliver on either. At best it helps to train how to open up windows to use applications. Pair drills like the one-steps or more advanced versions of such are where you get application from. Learn how the techniques work and play around with them.

Women are vulnerable to impacts to the groin at certain angles; they are also somewhat vulnerable to shock-impact strikes to the upper chest. Anyone facing a girl who overly favors kicking male partners between the legs may be advised to do the same with scraping hits, and use a lot of things like snap backfists against the chest. Gender equality cuts both ways, after all..

What exactly is the question? I see a lot about people not wanting to spar, and I tend to sympathize with them. "Just sparring" is a terrible misuse of training time. People sport-adapt the art to work in a sparring situation, destroying the combat aspects of their training in the process. Line dancing would be a more efficient use of training time, let alone good scenario drills and pair work! Go find some of the drills that the police/military/militia/whatever RBSD types are playing with and see about doing some of those instead of "just sparring". If you're going to use sparring, it needs to be tightly focused toward developing specific skills from the work done during that class. "You can only use techniques A, B, or C." "X can only defend." "X has to stay next to the wall so they can work on the wall techniques we did today."

Right... all of the cases here are of trends of continuing disrespect for the rank, not a single off day.

Chose the structure base you WANT to use, and drill that hard instead of structures you wish to avoid; force yourself to do all of your techniques out of that stance in sparring, and heavily drill the kicks/punches that are based out of that stance. Yes, that means you will lose for awhile while you're adjusting. Do not use any technique in sparring that you would not use outside of sparring, ever. Sparring is a means to an end, and if you are focusing on "winning" sparring rather than using it to develop your skills, then sparring is a hindrance rather than a help.

It isn't clear that the opinion of people with two X chromosomes is going to be consistent JUST because of their plumbing...

Hmmm... My gut reaction would be that he can teach, but only with the provision that someone who is actually a teacher of said style checks on the student now and then and does any actual rank testing. So, if you only see the sensei of the actual style once every six months, then yeah, but if the sensei stops coming, then they really aught not teach that secondary anymore.

Yeah, it seems like it's mostly just women who think that kicking to the groin is a real fight winner.. I tell my students that in self defence, all a groin attack does is make them easier to catch after the fact. I've been hit in the groin pretty solidly before; in an adrenalized state, it only registers as slight discomfort, easily ignored in favor of doing elaborate kicking techniques and the like. It doesn't have any effect until they calm down and relax. That said, a technique intended purely to cause pain seems a bit annoying to have to deal with being applied regularly by the ladies in the gym. On the bright side, they aren't exactly invulnerable to such treatment either, if you notice some female being a bit eager with that particular target.

Not really, no... though from what I hear, you should try to use your muscles in the split as in to push yourself out of the split, and probably stretch kicks would be helpful too.

A class after 8 PM might be hard, given that I tend to wake up at 4:30 AM so I can make sure to get work for the day - that will likely change in a month, but for now, it's a limit. Alas, I can't reserve an early block either as things stand. Maybe later i'll be able to reserve a 5-7 AM or 6-8 AM block; I need to change jobs. My instrutore's classes were 6-8 and it worked great, but he never had a huge turnout. I suppose I could block out music, self defence/technique, roda, conditioning separately in some way; that was why I was considering such a long class. I'm not sure what a 15 minute break would accomplish precisely, though; an hour would at least let people walk down to Taco Hell a block away and get a snack and something to drink or some such thing.

When I look at my schedule and the committed schedule of the studio I have use of - the owner has TKD classes 5-8 pm every weekday, and I have to buy food for my family - I find that I have... Either Saturday, or Sunday. I can only do both -sometimes-. But I have pretty much as much of that day as I want.

I'm only going to really be able to teach once a week or so. Does anyone have any thoughts on long (4+ hour) classes?

My only real question being, why those six in particular?

Meh. If the police show up, just walk up to them, call them "sir" or "ma'am" as appropriate, and explain what you're doing to them matter of factly. If they ask you to leave, do what they say; I don't think that what you are talking about actually violates any laws, per se, and when dealing with the police, respect and putting everything up front with them is the best policy.

You can forbid the student from wearing the belt within your school. The rank isn't so much stripped as suppressed in that case. "You may be a brown belt, but you're not wearing it in my class until your behavior is once again befitting of a brown belt! I'm not having someone wearing a brown belt behaving like a white in my class, disgracing everyone."

Well, when you're talking "reaction time", for the most part what you're really trying to address is awareness, decisiveness, and physical ability to react. Awareness comes of learning to pay attention to more and more awareness of what details to pick up on - more experience, mirroring people are the main things to do there. Decisiveness - avoiding "brown belt syndrome" is big here. Tighten up the number of primary techniques that you use by drilling a few of them them more and expanding on what they work for. Physical ability to react - you need to wire in technique and strength here. More reps with full intention for strength, technique is best developed by drilling the movements at taiji slowness until they are fully understood and the level of competence goes up - slow movements build technical skill rapidly.

Yes, and for pretty much the same reasons. There are many of what would be considered ryu or styles of Capoeira, but for various reasons, there is no actual language to describe them well. To say "I practice Capoeira" is actually only about as descriptive as saying "I practice Kung Fu" - there are a lot of different kinds of Kung Fu out there, even if they tend to have quite a few common features. I know Chapa as a back kick with the knees together, usually with the hands on the ground, though I have seen it used in another school to describe a more typical sort of back kick.

Leg-length staff with a foot at one end and a hooked or handled top at the other for grasping, usually used as a mobility aid for the mildly impaired or occasionally as fashion accessory.