Aodhan

Treatment for any acute (recent, single incident) type muscle injury/sprain for the first 48 hours is RICE (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation). Ice should be on for 15-20 mins, off for 10. Repeat 2-3 times per session, 2-3 sessions per day. Keep it wrapped and elevated. After 48 hours, ice alternated with warm, moist heat. Large bags of generic frozen corn or peas make excellent ice wraps. John

I take a multi-vitamin as a "just in case" every morning. Other than that, a good diet and plenty of rest. The best recovery drink out there, including all the complex formula protein/recovery drinks, etc., is chocolate milk. Proven in studies. If your diet is horrible, no supplements will make up for that. If your diet is well planned, supplements give you expensive urine. About the only supplement not covered in diet that has been proven to work is creatine. Oh, and this whole 8 glasses of water a day thing is a myth too. Yeah, there is a daily liquid requirement, but the "8 glasses" doesn't take into consideration that if you are eating fruits and veggies a lot, you get a lot of that liquid from them. Drink when you're thirsty, and a little extra after workouts, and you should be fine. John

You may have just bruised the area and/or the muscle/tendon. The most likely place for a fracture is going to me the long bones running through the hand, not in the finger itself. This is also known as a boxer's, or brawler's fracture. Straighten your fingers. Tap on the end of the left pinky. If you feel a sharp stabbing/pinching kind of pain, probably a fracture. (You may still have a fracture without the pain, though.) John

10 years of TKD and you don't have the spatial awareness to avoid hitting a wall? Limited range of motion where? Fingers? Wrist? John

If that's the reason, it's silly. I don't even look at the belt when judging. I don't like longer belts because when I do front kicks, the end has a tendency to fly up into my face. So, I wear my proper size or 1/2 size small. John I agree with you here. If a judge is too busy staring at belt length, and not judging the form, then he probably doesn't have the necessary requirments to be a judge. One caveat - If I am center judge (ATA has a three judge system) I do look at the uniform/belt when a competitor first enters the ring and bows in. I check for a neat, well pressed uniform, no stains or evidence of the morning breakfast, patches (if any) in the correct places, etc. As center judge, I am judging presentation and overall correctness of the form. Uniform appearance before they start is part of that presentation score. And yes, I have had two people do killer forms and be pretty much tied, but one was in a wrinkled, dirty uniform. He got 2nd. John

Even in 3-4 months, internalizing 7 forms is pretty difficult. Sure, you could learn the moves, but to actually do the form as it is intended and have someone SEE it as being a sequence of defensive/offensive moves against opponents is hard to pull off when learning 1 form every two months. John

Being as the main emphasis of most training is to do the minimum amount of damage to get out of a situation, I would say the TKD guy didn't pay attention in class. Especially kicking him after he is down, that is just begging for a lawsuit. (And the TKD guy would lose. Badly.) Not to mention there is almost no way I would be going for a kick to the head in a street fight. John

There should be an option for "both". I do triathlons in addition to martial arts. But, I ran cross country for longer than I raced bikes as individual sports, so I voted for running. Biking is just as if not more strenuous than running as far as caloric expenditure. If you run at a 10 min/mile pace (6 miles per hour), a 190 lb man will burn ~ 860 calories in an hour. Cycling for an hour at between 14-16 miles per hour burns the same amount. The best low/non impact activity out there is swimming. Bar none. John

If that's the reason, it's silly. I don't even look at the belt when judging. I don't like longer belts because when I do front kicks, the end has a tendency to fly up into my face. So, I wear my proper size or 1/2 size small. John

The Sport side (Most commonly seen is the Olympic style, which falls under the WTF umbrella) is markedly different than "real" TKD because of the scoring rules. Even in WTF schools, you will/should be learning things like joint locks, take down combinations, basic groundfighting as well as all the traditional elements such as forms, weapons, sparring, etc. My current style is ATA, and we go through all of the above a few times a year on various cycles. We start learning the basics as colored belts and add on as you increase in rank. John

I am the same way. I've had 8 regular teeth and all 4 wisdom teeth removed. I had IV sedation for the wisdoms and don't even remember the procedure. John

They haven't shown much Olympic boxing since the Cubans got into the fight in the stands. Add to that the fact that the US has had very slim medal hopes in recent Olympics, and it adds up to no coverage. John

Yes, it's possible to have both with the correct training regimen. All too often, however, you see one trained at the expense of the other. And, the gymnasts are fast IN THEIR SPORT, they may not necessarily be fast doing a spin crescent kick. One of the things I beat (not literally) into my students and the people I coach in other sports is sports specific training. Train for your sport, and if you do supplement with weights, make the exercise mimic the movement of your sport as much as possible. John

Speed is also adversely affected by muscle development without stretching, and it depends on the application that you are aiming for. If you are MMA oriented, by all means, bulk it up. Very few MMA fights are won with knockout kicks to the head. If you are more towards the sport/tag type point sparring, musculature is a definite hindrance. I mean look at the Lopez's, not a one of them weighs over 160, and Stephen is like 6'2" and 160 lbs. For the average person wanting self defense/street application, you could probably easily add 10-12 lbs of muscle without adversely impacting speed or flexibility. John

True, but very few people stretch enough to counterbalance the musculature, especially for something like martial arts. Truth be told, very few people stretch enough without the weights. John

Working out with weights will do one thing. Give you bigger muscles. Whether that is good for your martial arts or not is how you apply it. Personally, I'm not a big proponent of huge muscles, as I think the weight is counterproductive. Also, unless you REALLY work at it, beefing up negatively impacts your flexibility, as the stronger muscles tend to pull harder on the tendons. If you work one muscle group, work the opposing muscle group. If you do biceps, do triceps. If you do back, do chest. Quads/hamstrings, abs/lower back. I would aim for middleish weight, sets no more than 4, reps in the 6-15 range. Do weights 3, MAYBE 4 times a week, and do cardio (swimming/running/biking) at a fairly decent intensity almost every day for 20-45 minutes. John

I'm still around here and there. John

1. Concentrate on footwork. Not crossing your feet in stances, moving lightly, staying on the balls of your feet. Direction shifts, stance shifts, movement/agility drills. Drill until you're sick and then do some more. Movement will save and help you more than any combination ever will. V in and V out are two words my students get sick of in the first 6 months they start sparring. 2. Learn to watch your opponents, both when you are sparring someone, or sitting on the sidelines. Everyone has signature moves, most people have little giveaway moves that foretell a move. See if you can figure out how they set up and how they move (Sensing a theme here?) from technique to technique. 3. As others have said, relax. Learn to stay relaxed right up until just before impact, then drive your muscles through the target, then relax again just after impact. Tensing before will slow you down, staying tensed after contact will transmit some of your attack force back to you. 4. Learn how to watch your opponent. Don't fall for head/foot fakes. The center of gravity of a body is the only part of the body you really can't fake with, because for it to be convincing, you have to shift your weight. 5. Work on the fancy stuff, because you can often score an unexpected point, but don't do it at the expense of basics. A good ratio is 3:1, for every drill you do on a "fancy" trick, do 3 basics. 6. Combinations. Never throw just one attack, unless it's a complete feint. When you attack, you want 3-5 moves that end with you in a position to move away from the opponent if necessary. So often, especially in tag, er, point sparring, I see a beautiful 4 move combo that misses, and the person is then standing flatfooted in front of their opponent. Oops. Have 4 or 5 "pet" combinations that you can throw at any time from any angle, and be able to move (There's that word again!) into and out of them without stopping. Don't worry about being great right away. Because you are new to sparring, you ARE going to get lit up like a Christmas tree. Happens to everyone. Just keep working on it, and eventually you'll be the one lighting up the n00bs, and maybe a few others as well. John

Weight Positioning. Ding ding a ring a ding ding, we have a winnah!!! ANYTHING, whether it's gymnastics, martial arts, soccer, whatever, the absolute bottom line is how you control and move your weight. Proprioception is a key component of this, but the most basic element is weight control. If you want a good example, watch a dance sequence with Fred Astaire, and then watch one with Gene Kelley, or watch one of the sequences where they are dancing the same choreography together. Fred is an astonishingly good dancer, but he is very technically correct and seems a little grounded. Gene, no matter what he is doing, seems to "float" through everything. That is entirely due to perfect control over his weight shifts, and using it to keep his momentum going. Bent knee, wide stance, narrow stance, whatever, all rely on proper weight positioning and movement. John

Not to rain on your parade, but you don't have the background to start doing the tricking, unless all you want to do is kinda flip around "looking cool". Our school has the XMA DVD package that Mike Chat put together for teaching entry to mid level XMA, and all through the DVD's (And borne out by my own experience), you HAVE to have a solid grounding in basic technique. No offense to you or your dads notes, but it's a very rare person that can learn quality martial arts from a book. (Your shotokan may help you, but I'd be interested in seeing your basic form before anything else.) I have been certified to teach basic gymnastics, and I also teach TKD, and learning XMA is a real bear (I'd use another word, actually.) Just watching a few videos and trying it out, you could get to the point where you might be able to do some tricks and look cool to someone that doesn't know MA, but that's about it. John

Very unlikely. Kukkiwon/WTF is recognized as the governing body for Olympic qualification. ITF would have to completely supplant the WTF at all levels, from International down through National and regional championships. Plus, I don't think that various ITF bodies have the requisite #'s in various countries to qualify, although I stand to be corrected on that. John

Either cheese whiz with bacon on ritz crackers, or the frito lay jalepeno cheese dip with ruffles chips. I can eat a whole can of either at one sitting and feel just great about it. Aodhan

One note: When you supplement creatine, your organs stop producing it. You still get the benefits since you are taking in more than you would produce anyway, but just thought I'd throw that out there. I have a short monograph on creatine in this forum, do a search by author Aodhan with Creatine in the title. Aodhan

Actually, I think you will be surprised. Most "girl's" sports that have a mens competition highly welcome men, just because of that perception. Just go in workout clothes, leave the tabi boots at home, and work your butt off and they will be more than happy to have you there. Aodhan

Actually, it's not that hard to learn if you have a good gymnastics instructor. Most of the stuff they were showing were gymnastics moves, and once you get those, the 540s and side semis that they were doing aren't that much different, just a different direction for the momentum. I'm 39 and I finally just got my 540 down. (I started late ) Aodhan