danbong

When you say "ends fights quickly with quick blows" If you mean throwing blows as quickly as possible, wing chun and american kenpo specialize in the speed of multiple blows. If you mean ending the fight with a very few number of blows, shotokan has the "one fast and powerful strike" philosophy of fighting, but many shotokan schools do not necessarily put a great deal of emphasis on self defence and street fighting. Wing chun and american kenpo both do.

As Jaymac said, first you have to decide what is important to you. That's the hard part. As far as his skill as an structor, look at his senior students. Ask yourself if you want to perform like they do.

There isn't a problem if it makes you feel somewhat upset. But if you let it affect you to the point where it has a negative impact on your life, you are letting other people take control of your life.

http://www.24fightingchickens.com/2005/08/29/appropriate-usage-of-osu/ is a very good reference on this topic.

I would say that you don't need to pursue TKD ranking unless you intend to "convert" and do TKD indtead of isshin ryu - which I'm pretty sure is not your intention.

If you are only going to study for 6 months before leaving for school, I would recommend BJJ. For most people, six months is just enough to learn enough TKD to be at the "not terribly awkward" stage of effectiveness. And while I firmly believe in getting a good base in one art before learning another, if you had to train in two arts at once, bjj & TKD make a good combo because they are so radically different you won't get confused between the two in the middle of a movement.

How high can you do a side kick? One common method of teaching the hook kick it to aim a side kick off to the side and then pull your leg across.

It means the instructor did not win tournaments. There are many possible reasons for that. Examples might be: The tournaments are very friendly to the style (for example a wushu forms practioner living in an area where there are only traditional Japanese tournaments). The style is not tournament focused (for example hapkido or krav maga). The instructor is skilled in his style but is not athletic compared to most of the competitors. The instructor is not skilled in his style. You would need to do a little homework to reach a valid conclusion.

I also have Tedeschi's book. It is excellent. He may not belong to an organization but his instructor was studying directly with GM Han-Jae Ji when the GM was forming the sin moo hapkido organization. I'm not sure exactly you mean by "his book doesn't fully encompass the hapkido ideology". It delves into such topics as the water theory, ki, meditation and breathing techniques, different kihaps and acupoints/pressure point fighting. It also does a good job of comparison/contrast with other martial arts, such as not hapkido does not insist that techniques must be initiated from strong rooted stances, throws emphasize speed of entry/joint lock/acupoint "helpers" rather than pure grip and leverage, and a ground fighting emphasis on speed, unbalancing, and returning to you feet instead of obtaining a dominant position and finishing on the ground. The book gives a very good unbiased job of describing how hapkido techniques were originally executed and how they have tended to evolve over the years and why they changed. Perhaps this might upset some purists, but this approach has given me a better understanding and appreciation of the techniques I learned in my hapkido school. In summary, I feel that this is an excellent reference book for hapkido practioners who already have a fairly good grounding in the basics of the art.

Ian Abernethy agrees that Funakoshi probably switched the order due to relative technical difficulty of performing the 2 katas. Additionally, he has an explanation on why they were originally ordered the way they are. http://www.iainabernethy.com/articles/Pinan1.asp The short version is that the pinan progressed through the stages of a fight, from outer range to in closer.

In this form does the cartwheel contain a kick? That's why cartwheels are performed in hapkido.

Also keep in mind that both point sparring and self defence have little resemblence to the martial arts moves seen in movies and TV shows.

The best style to study is one that makes you want to practice enthusiastically. Get ready for lots of low stance training and forearm conditioning exercises!

Run like heck, call 911 on the cell phone.

I would say that the way the school trains is more important that the style in this case. Seems to me that either TSD or MT combined with BJJ prepare you well for should self defense.

Those are studied at the black belt level in kuk sul won and hwarangdo (and some hapkido schools).

lapulid2, Being "ahead of the technique" is actually the defense for the technique. Many throws is hapkido are actually joint destruction techniques. The defense to these techniques is to do an areial breakfall. So when you are doing joint lock type throws both partners are acutally practicing. One person is learning to do the lock/throw and the other is learning to relieve the pressure of the lock by falling. With exterience you get better at recognizing what lock is being applied and "jumping into the throw". This is why with beginners you tell them what throw you will be doing where as with advanced practioners you can just trow them - they should be able to recognize the lock and stay enough ahead of it to not get hurt. The flip side is that an advanced practioner can move fast when throwing a relative novice without hurting them by doing the lock with enough "slop" that body mechanics and momentum start them into the fall before the joint is damaged.

Homma sensi is suppose to have a good aikido dojo. I had a friend who trained at the Shaolin Center and he liked it. For Wun hop kune do, Art Dacascos, the younger brother of the founder of that branch of kajukenbo lives and teaches in Denver.