CTTKDKing

I, like some of the others have said, only can give you a TKD perspective. We have a lady whos nephew visits from Florida every year, and who studies Goju-ryu. He came an observed some classes at my TKD dojang. He came and watched a sparring class and asked if he could participate. We matched him against some of our best, and he did very well. He didn't win every match, but he did well. (he was a red belt by the way)

You could really get into any style if you really want to. Just make sure you give your instructor all the info on your physicall disabilities. I study TKD and we have a 46 year old deputy black belt that has bad knee's and a slip disc in his back. He does everything in class, but when the workouts involve alot of jumping he's placed with one of the assistants to practive his poomse or self defense techniques instead. Other than the jumping factor you'd never know of these ailments unless he told you.

This is the most well educated thread I've seen on this site.

If it's arieal kicking you want than you might want to look into some of the more acrobatic kung fu styles.

That is a cool story.

In my school there was an article posted on the bulitin board about a little old lady who was walking through a plaza at night. She was heading to her car when a young man in his late teens ran up and stole her purse. Neer by a TKD master was locking up his dojang for the evening and saw what happened he confronted the running teenager and the young guy attacked the master. The master simply put a stop to it without hurting the kid too bad and gave the lady back her purse. They called the police and that was that. She then asked the master if she (at 72 years old) was too old to learn TKD. Years later (at 78 years old) she recieved her 1st dan BB. Goes to show you, you really are never too old.

I personally love TKD. My school is a WTF school so it focuses on alot of olympic style sparring with alot of high class kicking. If you want a large variety of kicks. TKD is the way to go. If you want to keep it very defense oriented and stay away from WTF style sparring and what not, then I recomend seeking out a Moo Duk Kwan school. MDK is TKD military style. Still with alot of kicks but for practical uses. My head instructor has a strong baking in MDK TKD so he has alot of defence oriented stuff integrated into the system he teaches. I know alot of other WTF schools focus only on the sport side of things. I hope this helps.

Thanks Armor of God. I'll check out that site. Thanks DokterVet as well, although I just found out I can't send PM's yet for some reason.

I wouldn't be too embarrassed about that. I love that movie. The acting is a bit cheesy, and Van Damme is a bit of an over actor in it, but I thought the correography was very good, and it demonstrated alot of different styles to everyone that dosen't know the difference in the different martial systems. People are still like that. You talk to some of the guys I work with and if you get into disscussion of specific styles they get all weird on you, mock it and say something like, "It's all karate" or "it's all the same thing".

I agree with the 2 of you, Bruce Lee is very inspirational. If you never have seen Matt Mullins compete though I highly recomend checking out his site as he is who did it for me. https://www.mathewmullins.com His primary style is Shorin ryu.

I would love a chance to try my hand at sparring against students of different systems. I don't know of any place where I could do this though. I live in Hartford area of CT. Anyone know of a place, or have any suggestions.

I was told by one of the black belts in my school that he trained under a different Master previously. He asked this man why it was called a roundhouse kick and he said they called it that to explain the action, or movement of the kick. Think of your body as a house being attacked. You cradel your back leg early on then bring it around the house to defend the door in the front and snap strike to attack. Roundhouse.

I haven't seen that one, but I loved Fists of Fury, and Enter the Dragon.

I was severly overweight when I started TKD, and I was given a v neck uniform to wear. It didn't feel right because the uniforms are cut for skinny people. From what I've seen, the bigger the size the taller the person is supposed to be, but it's not cut any roomier. I found a site on the internet that sells bigger gi's. Check it out. Since I started TKD I've lost 90lbs and feel great. http://www.oddessy.com/Uniforms/GiHeavy.html

I was just curious to hear some other peoples reasons for wanting to study the martial arts, weather it be a person, movie, friend, family member, or any other reason you can think of. I always found a certain attraction to any of the martail arts, even when I was i kid. However I saw Matt Mullins and the Sideswipe demo team do a performance on TV and I knew that I had to try to do some of the things that they do. I now am a TKD student of a year and a half and I am having a blast. I just competed in the CT Open TKD Championship and I did very well. I won first place in breaking, and second in forms and WTF style sparring.

I agree, Hapkido is a very good flow through from TKD. In my school our head instructor likes to integrate hapkido into alot of our self defence techniques and I have found (compared to other tkd schools in my area) that our self defence techniques are alot more "street appliable" than many.

Effectivness = Back kick Show = Hurricain kick

I am in a WTF school, and I have to say you must have been in a low grade WTF school if all they tought you was point sparring. In my school (yes you get points for striking your oponent) it's full contact to the degree where you win if you knock your oponent out. That's too bad you had a bad experience, however don't go nocking the whole federation because the one school you went to stunk.