Fosgate

No matter it be forms, sparring, breaking, or basic techniques, my best performance comes when there's nothing on my mind at all.

My suggestion is to lie on the floor on your back with your legs (calves) resting up on the sitting surface of a chair or low bed. You can use a pillow under your head for comfort. What this does is put one in a sitting position, knees bent at 90 degrees, and decompresses the lumbar and sacral areas. Chiropractic, physical therapy, gravity boots, and those inversion tables accomplish the same thing through traction. Before going to bed, I used to fall asleep on the floor doing this. Straighten your legs while doing it, arc them to the left and right like a metronome, then put them back down. Feels great.

You're muscles will be fine only they'll be covered with sponge. Just kidding. These are calorically dense protein concoctions that, just like any building block consumed in excess, will be converted to fat. They are not necessarily bad for you. If you use them as part of an exercise program (or the rest of your life), track your BMI, measure your chest, waist, neck, biceps, etc. to make sure you're not making more fat than muscle.

I've got Only the Strong, The Last Dragon, Best of the Best 1 and 2, and Kickboxer on DVD! They're the greatest! I'd even have No Retreat No Surrender and Cyborg if I could find them. Some of you just have no appreciation for good aged cheese! Padanaweh! Padanaweh! Ohhh ohh, oohh ohhh!

Wow! Sounds like you earned it. Congrats!

Sure I do. Problem is, My instructors (to my knowledge) and I have never signed releases forbidding that we teach what we've learned to others outside of the MDK or our organization.

Alright question. I'm sure I know the answer and can probably look it up on the internet, but tell me, what's bunkai?

The running and heart pounding part could be your main problem. You could continue doing it but adding resistance to your training--weights, bands, etc.--would help prevent those muscles from deteriorating. The real weight gainer would be anaerobic muscle conditioning with free weights, machines, or your own body weight. You certainly don't want to add body fat, do you?

It really doesn't concern me nor do I believe it would my instructor or organization leaders. There's nothing stopping anyone from performing a set of techniques in a given order, only some silly notion that a select group of people can call it what it is. Push come to shove one could just call it something else and state what "copyrighting organization A" calls it, for clarification of course.

Not to my knowledge and no, there haven't been any threats or other problems.

Of course!

Probably months before it completely heals. As for punching the bag, I guess that would depend on how uncomfortable it is when hitting it IF you can bend your broken finger. Last time I jammed a finger I put it in a splint and drove myself to whatever new limit the injury imposed on me. You could always practice ridgehands.

Should anyone have heard of it, Islandman? I belong to a relativesly small TSD organization and I'm sure not many have heard of it. However, we and our organization head still consider Hwang Kee and HC Hwang our KJN's and ultimate authorities with regard to our training techniques, forms, etc.

For me, crescent and axe are two entirely different kicks. An axe differs from a cresent in that one chambers in the latter. Axe would be a straight leg kick, no bent knee, all the way through and striking with the heel of the foot after the leg has peaked in height. One chambers with the crescent, striking with the ball of the foot as the foot rises from outside to inside, or with the blade if going from inside to outside.

Thanks everyone!

I drink enough such that I visit the restroom about once an hour. If I'm working out I just drink all I can stand and don't worry about it. My last cramp was in high school. I drink tea, gatorade, and water, in order of greatest to least consumption.

I've had good results using lace-up ankle braces. Not the $10-15 variety, mind you, but the $30 and up ones, specific to right or left, that keep feet from rolling out from under a leg, period.

So it would seem. Very good reference for TSD and Korean practitioners alike, this book is. (I'm not trying to sound like Yoda. I really talk like this).

I'm looking in GM Ho Sik Pak's TSD manual right now at the discussed technique in Pyang Ahn Cho Dan. GM Pak executes a backfist immediately after the low block and before the hammer fist. My question is, why a backfist that low? The answer to this comes a few pages later where application of this series of techniques is shown. An attacker has taken hold of the wrist area as the low block is executed. The backfist frees the wrist and is followed by the hammer strike.

Yeah that's it. Thanks.

I would have preferred a clean break! That way I could have at least set it straight and maybe it would have healed the same.

Do fictional versions of real weapons count? If so, light saber, hands down!

Attitude is everything. Pour your heart out and if you fail, you gave it your all. My bet is that you won't, though.

Tore off 35 lbs in 3 months playing racquetball a few years ago. That's before I got into martial arts. Then I gained it all back! Go figure.

I've always liked outside to inside crescent immediately followed by a side kick. Although, more occasions than not I end up planting the crescent kick to the head first.