tessone

Good luck, Bill! I doubt you'll ever get bored with KSW. Get ready for a heck of a workout, though!

Or perhaps you're not the master of wit and irony you think you are. Please don't assume everyone else is dimwitted if your attempt at sarcasm didn't come off the way you'd intended. Does anyone in the UK know how your laws regarding guns, murder, etc., stack up to US ones? I'm curious whether you can really draw a link between stiffness of penalties and drops in crime rate...

I would hardly say we play fair. There's a reason Henry Kissinger is so against human rights trials at The Hague--he knows he might have to undergo trial for some of the things he's done too. As for TKD_McGee's post, show me a citation showing that the United States pays out trillions of dollars in foreign aid. You'd do well to back up your assertions with facts, rather than just trying to get a heated response with unsupported nonsense. While I find thoughtless "I hate America"-ism pointless and stupid, I don't think it's clear that the "US does more for all the countries than anyone else does". The world's a pretty complex place, and raw expenditures doesn't mean the USA is without question making the world a better place for everyone. _________________ Chris Tessone White Belt, Kuk Sool Won [ This Message was edited by: tessone on 2002-05-15 15:31 ]

Good luck!

Not in KSW. The art is extremely unified, and there is no variance from the belt order established by the World Kuk Sool Won Federation. The path to a black belt is through white, yellow, blue, red, brown, and brown-black, in that order, at every KSW school. As for time to the black belt, I spend 5 hours in the dojang a week, plus another 5 spent outside of class running through forms and practicing techniques. With that kind of time invested, I don't see 2 1/2 years as unreasonable, and it's definitely not McDojo material. Having a black belt doesn't imply you're a badass--it means you've gotten the basics down pretty well and you're ready to become an advanced student. IMHO, anyway. ZR440, where did you get your 5+ years figure? The figure I always hear is 2-3 years to 1st dan, as long as you're training 4 times a week and don't take long breaks. You suggest 5+ years training 2-5 days a week--2 days a week is a pretty different situation from 5. I could see 5+ years training twice a week, but that number ought to be cut in half if training 4-5 times a week. Note that this assumes the 4-5 days a week in the dojang are being spent optimally. Even if one's own teacher will accept quantity in place of quality (I know our KJN does not), the masters doing your black belt test won't--there's no danger of someone getting a black belt in KSW just by attending a certain number of classes. I stand by my previous figure of 30 months, unless it's the case that blue, red, or brown belts cannot be earned in four months. _________________ Chris Tessone White Belt, Kuk Sool Won [ This Message was edited by: tessone on 2002-05-15 08:51 ]

I'm not sure what you hope to do by being so inflammatory. While I didn't vote for President Bush, nor do I have much love for the man, he is not a Nazi. If you're out to insult him, you might find a label that fits him better. You're also conflating the American government and America as a nation. What do you mean when you say "they" are using 9/11 to "their" advantage? Personally, I was shocked and saddened when I watched the events unfold from afar in Russia. I was terrified, both afraid to go home and anxious to see my loved ones. I was also saddened when the attacks started without a clear notion of who was to blame. As for your final point, Americans lost many, many people in Korea and Vietnam, but those were hardly considered victories. But here is the real question--what country fights wars it won't profit from? Name one conflict where a country was not thinking about its own well-being and prosperity. Can't think of one, can you?

Hi, GEO! If you would, post an introduction in the Introductions forum and say hi to everyone. If you're wanting to stay in the Korean arts, you might look at Kuk Sool Won, or if you want to stay closer to your TKD roots, maybe Tang Soo Do. I'm not 100% sure about hapkido, but as KSW has similarities to that system (and because it's a Korean system period), I'd say there's probably a fair bit of kicking involved.

Yes, but 30 years of people searching for the "truth" means that if hard facts haven't come up now, it's not likely that they'll pop up. Possible, yes, but not likely.

I dunno. The promotion doesn't seem to be that slow if you're really dedicated. Isn't two years the time typically quoted for a black belt? Even with four months in each belt, that's promotion to yellow, blue, red, then brown = 4*4 = 16 months. First test for black after, say, 2 months in brown belt plus a year til the second test and promotion is 30 months or a year and a half, which seems reasonable to me. It is true that promotion after 1st dan is significantly slower than some TKD schools. 2nd dan is at least two years in rank, 3rd dan is three, etc., IIRC.

Yeah, those crazy Australians and their strange language.

Heh. I'd buy one if I weren't a poor college student working just to pay for my next testing fees and random books.

Of TEXT? Yow.

Hmm... Thought provoking. How big are your archives anyway, YODA?

Are you okay, KickChick?

You seem to be contradicting yourself, first advocating strict gun control, then satirizing it. To respond to Bitsearch, the problem is not toughening up the US's gun laws now, it's that our history makes it tough to enact such laws and do more than take guns away from law-abiding citizens. It's a rock-and-a-hard-place kind of issue.

Ohyez. We call this kicking from in the hole. One of our master's favorite exercises is this: Divide the class into A Team and B Team. A Team throws kicks (usually 20 reps--five each side normal, five each side in the hole) and the black belt in charge of B Team does whatever he/she wants to B Team--pushups, situps, free squats, calf raises, you name it. Note that the team leaders also do these things. Then the teams switch. We usually run through this three or so times. _________________ Chris Tessone White Belt, Kuk Sool Won [ This Message was edited by: tessone on 2002-05-14 12:48 ]

In KSW, you're supposed to call anyone who outranks you (except color belts) sir. The black belts tend also to call each other sir, regardless of rank. The color belts often do this too. I think it's probably more a reflection of the formal mode used in most Korean speech.

I'd have to say music would be distracting, and that it'd be tough to find music that exactly matches the pace and rhythm of the form.

Makes me happy that they're not in the official KSW curriculum.

Are they planning to make films of all the books? Personally, I didn't go see the movie, but it'd be nice if book V would come out one of these days.

I think there's probably some kind of prescription you can get for that.

My book came in today--more word later about my progress in Korean.

I searched and couldn't find a similar question. What is your favorite drill or workout? Today we did calf raises with people mounted on our backs. I didn't think I'd get through 50/50 (50 weighted down, 50 normal), but I did and got a grin out of our teacher when I said, "Too easy, sir!"

I know a bit--I've certainly seen a lot at this point. Kuk Sool is indeed extremely comprehensive. You'd be hard pressed to find something it doesn't cover. You start weapons at the brown belt level (though even white belts get to do things like twirl staves, etc.). I'm not sure exactly what all the weapons are, but some of them are sword, double swords, short sword, double short sword, staff (bong), short staff (dan dong), fan, cane, and rope. I think 30mins. of driving is VERY worth it for this system. It's really awesome, and I bet you'd love it. Since everyone falls in martial arts, learning how to fall correctly is indeed important. Whether your instructor does a lot of falls will depend on his or her background, probably. Back flips are much rarer, so don't worry.

I'm waiting til Friday.