bushido_man96

Boy, I've been remiss in updating this thread. Kenneth started his high school wrestling career this year. The team has few members, and he is the heavyweight varsity wrestler...as a freshman. He's taken some lumps, to be sure; he's gone up against the 3-2-1A state champ and runner up multiple times. The defending state champ is the same age as Kendall....who is a freshman in college. The runner-up is a junior. I'd say Kenneth is giving up at least 45 lbs to both of them. Even seeing guys like that at the tournaments, Kenneth as been holding his own, and has placed in 5 tournaments now I think. Several 3rd place finishes, some 4th place finishes, and one 1st place finish. I don't think he has gone 2-and-out at all this year. We talked at the beginning of the year about this season, and I told him how he just needs to go out and work, and he will probably be taking a lot of lumps this year, as a freshman wrestling against junior and senior varsity wrestlers (young men, really). I told him, stay the course, and by the time junior year rolls around, he should have himself in a good place. What I'm most proud of this year from him: We were going into what he knew would be a tough tournament, where the defending state champ and runner up would be there. Coach gave him the option: he could wrestle JV or varsity at the tournament. He chose to wrestle varsity. He went to the bracket with the big dogs. He ended up with not only those two wrestlers in the bracket, but also the #5 ranked 4A heavyweight in the state. He didn't place in that tournament, but he went 3-2, losing matches to the state runner up and the #5 ranked kid on the backside.

Yeah baby!!!! CAN'T WAIT!!!!!

1/22/2025 TKD Class: Traditional Class: 5:30 - 6:30 pm. Taught this class. Basics - went with the usual basics, except for the jump front snap kicks, I had the intermediate and advanced students do jump front snap/jump round/hop side kick combination. Forms were Dan Gun (low orange), Won Hyo (high green), Choong Moo (high brown), and Yoo Sin (3rd dan). One-steps - low orange and green belt. Had plenty of time to get some sparring in, and had the students work on a side kick defense drill: offensive partner does a step-together or hop side kick, and the defender moves to either the back side or the front side, at a 45ish degree angle forward and counters. Pros and cons to each: Moving back side of the kick cuts off a lot of weapons for the kicker to bring to bear; they must turn and face the defensive partner first, or try to spin. This is great in self-defense because you have their back. In sparring, it limits point opportunities. Stepping to the front side of the kick allows the student to do what I call "cross the T," which puts the kicker's body fully front-on to the defender, who is side on (their bodies kind of form a T). Defensive partner can then go on the offensive with lots of targets. Bad thing is that the attacker has all their tools to bring to bear. Open Class: 6:30 - 7:15 pm. Choi Yong hyung x3, Gae Baek hyung x2. Brief floor stretch. There was a mother/daughter combo that showed up for some self-defense lessons, and the other two instructors were working with them.

1/20/2025 TKD Class: Traditional Class: 5:30 - 6:30 pm. Basics - paced myself. I was feeling light-headed, and my knees were also really sore. I tried to focus on my balance. While students were doing forms, I stretched out, as there were only a few in the class. I watched our CI perform Choi Yong at his request, and then I went through it once myself. I still struggle with balance a bit here and there, and there is are two spots where there is a repeat kick, back leg round kick to a side kick. The adjustment is taking some time. I tried to put some "oomph" into the form, and I got a little dizzy at the end. One-steps - green belt one steps, which are always good to work on. I worked with the student on using proper footwork/placement to set up the techniques. Sparring - I worked with an orange belt kid, mainly trying to get him to tie strings of techniques together so he wasn't throwing just one at a time. Black Belt Class: 6:30 - 7:30 pm. Forms - Choi Yong, Choong Jang, Yoo Sin, and Se Jong. Three-steps 1-12.

Cultish, or an ego trip.

I don't hear about these kinds of issues at our school. However, there are people that tend to think that way, and they generally go away eventually. Which is fine. I want the students that want to be there and are interested in training. Belts are a great motivational tool for students early on; earning a new rank is fun. But eventually, the serious ones, figure out that the rank isn't as important as the journey, and they are the ones that stay. I always hear it as a "western culture" characteristic, but I don't know that that is the case. Not every Japanese person is walking around with black belt. I'm sure there were Japanese students that have acted similarly. I've heard a saying that goes, "experience is something you gain shortly after you need it." Something like that. Those who have experiences such as these tend to be the most motivated students that show up. It's terrible that she had to experience such a thing. But hopefully it drives her training for years to come.

1/16/2025 TKD Class: Beginners Class: 5:45 - 6:30 pm. Took it pretty easy today, as my head was not feeling good. Basics were very paced out to help newer students pick up on nuances better. I stretched while the few students did their forms. I did white belt one-steps, and after helping with a ridge hand strike, it started a conversation with the other instructors about when/how to rotate the wrist during the strike. Traditional Class: 6:30 - 7:30 pm. Basics with the advanced jumping kicks, another brief stretch, then some work on Choi Yong hyung. Green belt one-steps, with lots of breakdown of angles and footwork. Oversaw some sparring.

Congrats, @Chuck!

Ho Sin Sul, Conceptual Self Defense, by Daeshik Kim and Jung Nam Lee. It's an older title I picked up at a Half-Priced Books.

Glad you and your family are well, Patrick! I hope it all gets taken care of soon!

I'm not saying that this is an "issue" with classical karate, but it is difficult to translate it to a competitive format because of the very nature of competitions having rules. Even the early UFCs, with their very limited rule set and lack of weight classes, were still what we'd categorize as "mutual combat," and thus not self-defense. The two are very different animals, and the general public doesn't see this, let alone understand it. I don't think the answer is for every classical karate style to come up with a rule set and make sure it gets public exposure through competition. That would be pretty counter to what those styles are all about. The hope would be for people to see the difference and understand it, but aside from those of us that study Martial Arts on the regular, it won't resonate. And those who are in the prime of their athletic careers and fighting professionally or semi-professionally likely won't concern themselves with it. I think these remote styles are right in the place they want to be; since they aren't very popular, those that do end up studying them end up and staying for the long haul will be diligent in carrying on their traditions in the right ways. They end up with the right people in the end. Just not a lot of them.

It's easy to be pessimistic a day or so after a big loss. I don't imagine they will back slide as much as you think.

Congratulations @aurik!

Congratulation @KarateKen!

1/15/2025 TKD Class: Traditional Class: 5:30 - 6:30 pm. I joined in this class; 3rd dan did the teaching. He does a good job. Basics was all the regular basics. Forms; supervised Won Hyo hyung, gave some more technical advice for power on some hand techniques, keeping the hand and hip back in order to land with power into the strikes. For one-steps, I worked through with low orange, green, blue and brown belt. I helped the students work on lots of technique work and foot placement. After class was over, I did about 10 minutes of floor stretching and went through Choi Yong 3 times.

1/13/2025 TKD Class: Traditional Class: 5:30 - 6:30 pm. This class went ok. Felt good to get out and do some moving. Basics: for our jump front snap kick section, we added a jump round kick and a hop side kick to it. I like this variation. I supervised students doing Won Hyo and Choong Moo hyungs. For one-steps, I went through low orange belt, and did continuous attacks for white/orange belt for a high brown belt. I supervised some sparring after that. Black Belt Class: 6:30 - 7:30 pm. Helped a second dan with some stance and movement work. He's recently recovered from a knee injury. I went through my 5th dan form, Choi Yong, 4 times, once at speed.

I agree with you here, but it wouldn't be strange for a CI to feel a sense of guilt for providing such student the skills used to commit untoward actions on others.

1/8/2025 TKD Class: Traditional Class: 5:30 - 6:30 pm. I taught this class. Got through basics, and for forms went through Dan Goon, Won Hyo, Choong Moo, and Yoo Sin. Got through one-steps and then worked a sparring drill with the students. Offensive student would do a switch-foot round kick a few times and made contact with the chest protector. After each student getting reps on that, I had the defending student throw a spin side kick counter. Next time I'll parse the drill out a bit more to make it more progressive.

Some fighters that have bases in those styles have performed well, but they probably altered their training to mimic MMA training more in order to accomplish those goals. They excel in their style first, then move up to MMA style training, and that helps to give credence to the base training they had in their original style, if they had success. I don't think there are many dojo-to-cage stories that omit the MMA training aspect.

Cool, let us know how that goes.

I imagine some could tell better than others, and some had probably been burned by taking on the wrong student and learned from their mistakes. I think if you have a long enough conversation with someone, you can start to discern what their motivations are. They'll eventually reveal what their about, and that will answer the question for itself.

12/31/2024 Did some solo work on the new TKD form, Choi Yong, for about a half hour. Aikido Winter Camp Session: 3:00 - 6:00 pm. The camp had been going all week, but as I had been working afternoons and then switching to night shift, I wasn't able to make many sessions. Not feeling good most of the time doesn't help, either. But I made this session, and had a good time. There was a focus on tai-sabaki. We were doing a technique where the attacker would run to you and grab one wrist and circle around to grab the other, as if to apply a double chicken-wing from behind. We'd use the body movement and it set up a sankyo lock quite nicely, and that's the one I went to most of the time when we were doing it dynamically. We slowed it down and did it from stationary, and, worked it to a kotegashi application. This one took some work, and some feeling around to get into the right position, but it started to come together pretty well. We finished with some drills designed to get students ready for randori.

Making changes is always difficult. You really have to work at keeping the routine.

Love it, @Luther unleashed!

It's an interesting article, and the insight into the language is helpful. As has already been mentioned, people study their style for many different reasons. Some lean more martial, and some lean more art; and some have done more one way that the other based on where they were in their lives at the time of their study. Approaches to training and outlooks on aspects of life ebb and flow; I see this article as a picture of that. We all may have a different outlook on what we are doing and why 10 years from now, and 20, and 30.