FETKD

Ha Ha yes yes.

Yeah that's why I said as the "story' goes, heh

Our black belt tests are incredibly strict, we only test one black belt candidate at a time. Strict tests are a good way to measure a students performance under pressure and confidence in themselves. How ever our candidates are hand selected for each test (lower belts too) doesn't matter how long you've been at a certain belt, if we don't think you are ready then you don't test. So far we've only failed two students so things have gone pretty well. We tell them let the butterflies in your stomach fuel you, let it give you an edge. Our students usually do well so it seems to work. As for me, I've never had much problems with belt tests I've always tried to treat them as much like class as possible that way I stay relaxed. Even my black belt test, it was just me an my sensei, two people who live for the martial arts so we had a blast.

Just wondering, this isn't really that much of a big deal. Do you prefer the Black Belt, or Midnight Blue belt to be the "highest" belt. So the story goes, before the ranking system, and almost everyone has heard this. There was one belt, and after years of training, and I mean YEARS the blood and sweat,and mud and rain from training had soaked into the belt causing it to turn a "blackish color" when in reality this color was midnight blue, (a very dark blue) I've only seen like two schools use the midnght blue belt, and it looks really cool. what do you think To me it does't so much matter, it's the symbol not the color that matters to me. To me the Black belt represens the martial artists spirit, sort of an embodiment of all s/he's been through to get to this point, and now, finally they are ready to learn what it means to be a martial artist, the black belt is the true beginning. Sort of like the Zen story "Empty your cup" Black reprsents an absence of light, thus and absence of knowledge, with an empty mind the martial artist can finally begin to take in all the martial arts has to offer.

I fixed it.. never mind

Yeah Naihanchi has alot of neat applications in it Yeah he does still teach the taikyoku series. He brings alot of stuff into his teaching that isn't typically "just" goju, and to me that makes him a much more effecive teacher.

I've never broken abone in my training knock on wood, I few dislocations, sprains and bruises. man, sorry to hear about your foot.

TKD is effective if applied correctly, (and I know this has been said before) you wouldn't throw a high round kick to the face on the street, but a low side kick to the knee would work, we all know a side kick don't we? and once again it all goes back to the training, at my school we even do some grappling excersises and that's not normally a charateristic of TKD.

Alot of it has to do with associations and schools. There is typically two perceived observations of TKd Modern and Traditional The newer TKD systems and schools tend to be more consumer concious instead of worrying about teaching martial arts. As long as the students pay money the instructors will let them get by with "just barely" I've seen my Teen Orange belts mop the ring with grown black belts! It just really depends on the school and the instructor.

Once again I never said directly linked to Goju I said Karate I was using Goju as a reference, and in truth the katas I were talking about come from shorin, it's just my goju instructor taught them is all. No offense takin by the way

all forms of Karate come from okinawa-te as taught by the old masters such as Itosu and Matsumura. There are four main styles as most know Shito-Ryu, goju-ryu, Shatokan, and Wado-ryu These forms of Karate were modified by the founders to fit there needs, Take Shito and Goju for example. Mabuni and Miyagi sensei trained together. Mabuni was considerably bigger than Miyagi and prefered large circular movements and that is why most of the Differences in Shito and Goju. I never said TKD was directly realted to Goju itself, I said Karate. My Goju instructor is well rounded in many forms of traditional karate and a very knowlegeable man, that is why he teaches these forms because they are infact related to tae-kwon-do

Take Goju for example... Goju literally means hard/soft so it employs both hard and soft in order to adapt to the cirumstances

Sometimes trouble comes looking for you... I was 15 and simply walking down my street to get my dog who got lose from his pen, it was maybe 11:00 at night or so and three older boys jumped me and it was all I could do to subdue one kid and run home. You just have to be prepared, if those kids would have been trained I could have been severely hurt or worse so, yeah I don't train because maybe one day that fight will come looking for me again, I train out of passion and love for the martial arts, I always have. But it's still nice to know I have a heads up on what's going on

And I too agreet with both of your posts, (thanks for the reply by the way) It just seems that TKD is always the target of ridicule and more often than not justly so I just wanted to make the point that not ALL TKD is the same. My Goju instructor teaches the Pinan kata and Naihanchi to me to bridge the gap between TKD and traditional Karate I beleive he said He learned those kata from the Shorin.

hmmm... Budo Secret-Teachings of the Martial Arts Masters by John Stevens