EternalRage

Also, probably reiterating this, but style vs style comparisons are useless. Too many people these days crosstrain and have varying real life experiences and also competition experiences. Hence styles can end up encompassing a wide array of practitioners, from well rounded cross training competition seasoned fighters to the narrowminded newbie. Can't compare anymore, it is all on the individual. How hard you train, how conditioned you are, how much resistance you have in sparring, how much crosstraining you do to counter inherent weaknesses in your style and your own physical attributes.

The problem with the "deadly strikes in WC" argument is that yes, muay thai do not practice these things. Neither does WC, at least not against a fully resisting opponent where you can execute these techniques with proper power, accuracy, and contact. Most WC schools (I say this from first hand experience) do point of contact drills where they stop strikes like the bil jee before hitting their partner's eye. The way you train is the way you fight. They train this way, with incorrect distance, timing, and without practice of true target accuracty, that is the way they will execute them. In fact, the practice of this can potentially lead to such bad distance/accuracy habits that perhaps a MT fighter who HASN'T done drills like this may do them better in a real confrontation than a WC fighter who has practiced jabbing the air in front of their partner's eyes. On the flip side, I have heard of WC schools putting on goggles and jabbing eyes for real, which is far better than the alternative of striking air, but these are few and far in between.

Haven't really revisted this thread for a while, but some great discussion on this topic. I agree with the contention that it comes down to a matter of quality versus quantity. There are drawbacks to setting up a belt system to solely either, and since it is a versus issue, trying to resolve them against each other in some sort of compromise would be very difficult. The only option I see is to abolish the practice alltogether. It has been already stated that many schools use the belt system as a way to make money. As for its worth as an organizational tool for a large amount of students, tournaments, etc, the meaning behind belts has become so scattered that whatever potential benefit has been utterly destroyed. Ideally I'd say pulling a Jerry Maguire would be best, narrowing down the clientele list to a few, teaching a few, getting to know their skills, POTENTIAL, and rate of growth, and evaluating them from there. Would result in better instructors too, because then they'd be focusing on a better professional relationship with their students as well. Rantings of a guy at 3 AM inflicted by insomnia. (very Jerry Maguireish indeed

I’ve no prior knowledge of this style or anything about it. I haven’t done any research at all yet, so I don’t want to pick a side on this topic. I only want to say and ask a few things about...[edited for space] You can’t just say that the style is a cult because they taught bad technique. What is it about the style, or its leaders, that make it a cult? The US government categorizes different recognized organizations as cults. At some point in the last 30 years, it labeled Oom Yung Doe as a cult under its own criteria. Forgotten where the source was, if I find it, I will post it here. But is US government says so, I guess that's good enough for me...

A 4th Gup learning Bassai and Jin Do???? Go back and make sure your earlier forms are solid. Your instructor is not letting you go to an advanced class because he thinks you are that level. He's doing it probably because you are a somewhat decent hard worker and he wants you to have a taste of what's to come so that you keep up the hard work. It doesn't mean he wants you to operate on a cho dan level. So instead of trying to get seconary training on forms that you don't need to learn in the first place, just work on getting your technique better on what you are supposed to know for your rank.

Yeah, its something I've always wondered about many Korean styles/organizations. If you look at Japanese and Chinese systems, there are many offered tournaments that are mostly full contact fighting with a host of different ranges. Japan = kumite, best examples include Kyokushin. Chinese systems = lei tai fighting, san shou/shui jiao. Korean systems don't have anything like that. Everything from TSD, to TKD, to whatever generally tends to only have some form of point sparring, or some form of heavily restricted continuous contact. Now I'm not saying get rid of point sparring or Olympic sparring or whatever, but all these organizations and styles should at the very least offer some sort of full contact full range fighting competitions, because I think it would be very interesting to see a Korean version. There's not even a Korean word describing such a competition like kumite or lei tai. : /

WTF does continuous sparring but with no punches to head or takedowns. The contact is hard. ITF does point stop and go sparring but they punch to the head and don't wear too much gear (ie NO HOGUS) I think if the two merged, it would be great. Continuous sparring with punching to the head with takedowns and hard contact with minimal gear. THAT would be old school TKD. ie more Tang Soo Do like aka not a sport but hey Kukkiwon and Choi do it how they like it.

There's alot of politics involved with TSD and the Moo Duk Kwan branches in TKD. Some TSDers see the MDK TKDers as sell outs to the government, feel that sport shouldn't replace tradition, or maybe they see the MDK TKDers as traitors who left the founder Hwang Kee. Mostly I think the political hate comes from the fact that the Korean government battled it out with Hwang Kee in court for 4 years, trying to force him to join the TKD wave, also shutting down his TSD schools in the process temporarily. This dislike was probably handed down from instructor to student in some form or another - outright degrading statments or perhaps just subtle pokes, who knows. The only thing I don't like about TKD is that generally they promote too fast and are geared only towards sport competition. Its like there's no alternatives for TKD people who might want to focus on other purposes to their training. The other thing I don't like about TKD is that it breeds athletes, and part of being a successful athlete is having the winning attitude, which sometimes gets turned into inflated ego. Sport TKD practitioners who think they can fight and are the deadliest people on the planet yet come up with a convenient excuse when its time to throw down make me not like TKD. But those are starting to die down thank God...

stretching machines are a waste of money unless you're just impatient and have the money to throw away. Just discipline yourself to do it naturally, you don't need a torture machine. There are many different routines for stretching, a 5 second google search will get you good ones (will dig up links later). Machines only take you into the side splits. They don't work any other stretches. the ideal way to do it is to work everything gradually up to the splits. you need hamstring stretches, quad stretches, butterfly stretches, groin stretches, hip stretching, and work on all your splits, not just the side splits. get a machine if every thing you try blows up in your face, if you have the money, and if you don't mind only being able to do side splits and nothing else.

Probably can't give you tips without looking at it. For now just make sure that your basic form skills are sharp. Ie - breathe well, make sure your stances are defined, don't have limbs just laying about during your form if you have special moves in them, make sure your kicks are crisp and all at a consistent height for each different kick. If there are slower parts and faster parts, distinguish between both. Make sure you're always looking where you're supposed to look, etc etc you're a black belt so you probably should be aware of all the many factors.

The risk of recoil is why people learn all those moves where you fold the nunchaku around parts of your body - ideally after striking something and having it fly off randomly, you can just take that momentum and direct it around your body and not have to stop and restart. Done correctly, you can chain together many different attacks fluidly even though its flying off everywhere. Fumio Demura has a beginners and advanced Nunchaku book. The advanced has a form in it. There is no set nunchaku form that everyone practices, although I would assume that various styles/lineages of Kobudo probably have ones that are standardized to their own organizations. But you will find many many weapons forms. It's not like empty handed where you have forms like Bassai which everyone and their mothers know from here to Tokyo.

MT is more straightforward. No forms (except for that dance thing they got), heavy conditioning, fully resistive training (ie padwork, bagwork, etc instead of fighting air with techniques you would never use), and alot of sparring. Basically you get to test what you learn, then train the heck out of it, then test it some more, etc etc while all the time hardening your body into a painless rock. There are some TSD schools that do this, albeit along with forms and one steps and whatever, but it's generally not the common standard. MT is solid and strong for competition or street or whatever because you are constantly training and testing yourself. Alot of TSD doesn't encourage this as a system, although there are practitioners who definitely do it. Difference is how and what they train, MT is overall better these days. Yes you have TSD schools out there that do train hard, that do produce equivalent fighters, but they are the minority whereas in MT they are the majority. And yes, there are even practitioners in cruddy TSD schools who push themselves hard regardless of the current state of TSD to become good fighters, but at least in MT, the majority pushes you to that standard whereas in most TSD its "based on the individual."

Well that was me. The Songahm forms are protected as the intellectual property of the ATA. If anyone is caught teaching the Songahm forms without permission form the ATA (good luck with that) legal action will probably be taken. It's happened before, a group of former ATA instructors (ITC) were teaching the Songahm forms and were sued. The suit was dropped after they agreed to refrain from teaching them. Heck, when GM Pierce dropped out of the ATA, I was given explicit instructions on how to answer the phones. After what happened with the ITC gents, he wanted to give no reason for anyone to look at him, for any reason. Bah all this politics. I thought TKD was supposed to be an art everyone could appreciate. How do you "copyright" art... you could always argue that the way you do it makes it different, that your interpretation makes it uniquely yours. When you have copyrighting and trademarking of martial arts material, red flags should go up.

ATA is not fighting. ATA is sport. ATA has no groundwork. You take an ATA to the ground, he will know as much as the layman. That being said, if ATA schools are advertising their art as the "uber deadly system that can contend with anything on the planet, the best martial art" then we have a problem. BUt looking solely at the system of course they won't be able to defend a wrestler... they don't teach that. Good lord man. You're criticizing ATA and then recommending SCARS??? Talk about pot calling kettle black and jumping from frying pan into the fire... This is a generalization, if ATA members choose to, they can train to the bone. If they want to be fat lazy stumps who can't kick above their ankles then that's their choice too. Although the latter presents a problem. Point is they can train hard if they choose to and if their instructor is good. That's a legit question. At least have ATA hosted open tournaments... My TSD organization does the same thing, but mainly because they want people to pay money and register... not really a ego thing. If people want to be members come in and trounce everyone go for it.

Ok so Do Hap Sool is different than TKD. What's the difference between Do Hap Sool and Hap Sool Do? (someone previously asked, but I'm suspecting there is no difference, just different ways to say the name). Can you give us any references - like good DHS websites or possibly even books. Also do you know who the founder is and whether or not this art was derived from one of the original kwans that opened in post occupation Korea in 1945-1947? (most korean arts can be traced back to one of these, even the founders of the different korean arts.)

My crescent alone is not that great. But most powerful is my jumping spinning back leg crescent (inside out as you turning). I call it my Meteor Lighting Crescent.

Mix it with BJJ. Brazilian Soo Bahk Jitsu!

You never know, he might need to kick above the waist someday. Cross training is the best way to become versatile and fluid with sparring, no system has an answer to every situation, and not every situation requires one response. As long as you have a strong foundation in your base style, cross training is very very important. FYI brawler, many of the US SBD Federation members and Dans crosstrain. Some schools offer groundfighting or even weapons training that masters have cross trained in. I myself took up Wing Chun for a couple years and a little smattering of BJJ.

I think he's talking about soft techniques (nei gong - internal type techniques) and hard techniques (wei gong - more external techniques). For example, shotokan karate is generally considered hard whereas tai chi is considered soft.

As far as accepting challenges goes, they were and are very common in Asia. Masters would go around challenging each other - not so much for ego or to see who's the best reasons - more to see if what they trained would work and also to learn from others. Challenges back then had less to do with flinging around testosterone - as long as its the same now (even if you're trying to teach some punk some manners - as long as you are humble about it) I don't see anything wrong with it. For freestyle sparring, I really feel, especially for TKD, it depends on the purpose of training at the dojang. TKD has become a tremendously popular competition sport. If competition is all the school trains for and if it is all that the students want, why waste time sparring in a way that's not done in tournaments? It would create habits - that albeit would be good for more free fighting purposes - that would hamper tournament efficiency. If you are training for more fighting purposes, then training under WTF rules for example, would be pretty ridiculous considering the no head contact rule. So it all comes down to what the school trains and how you want to train. If its sport, then train sport. If its not, then don't. If you want both, that's even better - my SBD instructor always says that if you are truly skilled, no matter what the rules, you can adapt with flowing versatility.

Hey Hwoarang, How is it you couldn't find a book on Korean Martial Arts???? There's so many from Ohara Publications and Unique Publications... unless you are talking about a comprehensive history/summary book of every Korean martial art. Anyway, it is very hard to find consistent information on each of the Korean Martial Arts. You will find that many of the Korean arts claim that they originate in the Silla Dynasty and the Hwarang (Korea's elite royal class). They might even reference of two statues depicting marital arts-like poses that date back to that time. All of that is crap. The ancient arts have been lost over generations. Be skeptical of any history presented that is pre-Japanese occupation Korea. Most of the more reliable information will be found post-Japanese occupation (starting in 1945), at which point many of the different styles of Korean martial art came into the public domain. The info is generally reliable because primary sources (people who were actually there at the time) are still alive. HOWEVER, this isn't to say there aren't marked controversies. You can generally accept the founder of each art and the date that it was opened to the public (in post occupation Korea) - those things are generally not disputed. The first five kwans to open were the Chung Do Kwan, Chang Moo Kwan, Ji Do Kwan, Moo Duk Kwan, and the Song Moo Kwan. Another 9-10 opened afterwards. The Korean government ordered all Kwans to merge in the mid 1950s under the TaeKwonDo banner. The non-TKD arts that exist today are there because they refused to join (ie Tang Soo Do Moo Duk Kwan) When it comes to influences of other martial arts on Korean martial arts, sometimes this information can get tricky, especially around TKD. The Korean government wanted to "purge" martial arts of all external influences, however, no matter how much they claim that they are separate, it is impossible to "purify" the arts. During occupation, Japanese/Okinawan Karate influenced Korean arts (underground due to bans by the Japanese) heavily. To separate the two is all but impossible, since Karate/Judo/Kendo were the only arts available, and even after immediate liberation, masters found it hard to market their arts unless some resemblance to Karate was evident. As far as Korean styles influencing each other, since most of the original kwan masters studied Karate formally (except for Hwang Kee of the Moo Duk Kwan) - many things are similar between the original kwans. Of course, the styles you see today have evolved since then. Most other basic information on Korean Styles can be found in threads on this forum, other forums, as well as basic googling. I practice Soo Bahk Do (Tang Soo Do) Moo Duk Kwan. A good source on this style is Soo Bahk Do Tang Soo Do Moo Duk Kwan Volume 1, written by Hwang Kee, the founder of the Moo Duk Kwan. Be careful what you read - the Korean styles (especially the Kukkiwon and Korean government - you probably have seen this since you are ITF) organizations have been vying for dominance since there are now many to choose from - it is easy for them to misconvey a fact here or there to gain the historical advantage.

I know this isn't exactly a thread about "appropriate age for Black Belt" and I'm sure there have been plenty of threads on this in the past, so I just will make a passing statement on this issue. Depending on your school/style/association, children with black belts may or may not be acceptable. At least in the more traditional arts, I feel that children (definitely under the ages of 10) shouldn't be allowed to have a black belt. The belt signifies not only physical conditioning, but maturity and mental understanding of an art as well - unless they're child prodigies, they most likely will not understand. A martial artist must be more than just an athlete - it is a journey of development that coincides with everyday life. Frightmaster, as Sam pointed out, 2.5 years is pretty quick to black belt. You expressed interest in switching to a Moo Duk Kwan affiliated art - just for comparison, most Tang Soo Do/Soo Bahk Do Moo Duk Kwan associations/schools do not allow black belt certification below ages of 13 and under 3-4 years of practice. The more time you give your child to develop her skills, the better black belt she will be in the future, and the more it will mean to her. You will also be helping raise the standards of your TKD system/association. Situations like these may be detrimental to a child. Whereas the respect given to her as a black belt by a 30 year old junior ranked student will help build the 30 year old's humility and patience, it can be strange for a child to receive "yessirs" and "yes maams" and other forms of respect from adults. Most kids that I have seen cannot handle it and end up developing an ego instead of good Moo Do. Not to say your child would, but you probably wouldn't want to set them on that road in the first place. Rather than concerning yourself over your child's placement in ranking hierarchies of your class, perhaps it would be more pertinent to devote your concerns to whether your child is truly ready to receive the black belt, whether she is capable of understanding - physically, mentally, spiritually - your system as a martial artist as well as athlete.

Kicking should optimally be done with the hip. So to go inside to outside, torque your hip inward then torque it back outside. Hip initiates the leg. If you try just to use leg muscle, it can be done, just inefficient.

The effectiveness of an art, the ability of a practitioner of an art to fight proficiently is an issue that must be continuously reanalyzed about one's training. Martial arts is about fighting - hence 'martial' otherwise you would just be dancing. How you fight, when you fight, why you fight is up to you, and that's where all that stuff about "fight only in self defense" and similar creeds come in. Can you fight is a question that must always be reevaluated, as the original poster of this thread had in mind. That being said, TKD can be effective if trained for fighting. If you're training for Olympic sparring or point sparring, you're not training for fighting. My TKD instructor always said "you will fight the way you train." That's why alot of ppl give crap to TKD for not being effective in a fight - they don't train that way. Its like Michael Jordan, who trained basketball, tried to use his athleticism for baseball. It just doesn't work. You can't take training from one thing, flip a switch, and be able to do something else. If you want to be a good TKD fighter, go find an old school TKD dojang where they still fight (no hogus, contact anywhere, etc) and also revamp their system to make up for apparent weaknesses (no groundwork).

Jumping spinning inside outside crescent. Hitting people with it is like trying to thread a needle with a tree but oh well.