bushido_man96

I caught most of the Spartan episode of Warriors, and I rather enjoyed it. History Channel did a pretty good job.

Yes, its hard for me to do anything active in the early morning. The colder it is, the worse it is, too.

Mine is always fairly brief, but explosive, when doing forms. When we kihap during basics, where it tends to get a bit excessive, its just more of an audible exhalation.

Thanks for sharing this information. It is quite intriguing. When you discuss the quick exhalations in the advancing lunge punching example, is there a time to inhale after so many stepping punches, at which you have to break the rhythm, so to speak?

Michi, when we perform the kick in which the kneecap is up/horizontal, and hit with the ball of the foot, we call it a front kick, no matter if straight ahead, at 45 degrees, or to the side. When we do what we call a side kick, there are two specific ways of doing it (thrust, snap), and so it isn't confused with what we call the front kick. It's not semantics or a fixed idea; it's that we have these kicks that are executed differently, and it's necessary to give each of them a name to tell one from the other. Joe...mate, that's the point. "You" may call it a front kick if the knee cap is upermost even if the kick is performed to the side, but the rest of the karate world call any kick performed to the side... a side kick!! WNM If this is the case, then would it be incorrect to perform what we are calling a "side kick" at the beginning of this thread at the 0:36 mark of the kata link, where the "yoko geri" is performed?

This is a good idea, JusticeZero. Ok, this wasn't done today, but in last week's Thursday class, the instructor did a sparring drill to work on angles, and I got to assist in the session: With partners: 1. Clinching drill: just working on getting in close in a TKD clinch, and then breaking from it. 2. Side cut, clinch: from a closed stance, each student would side cut with the back leg, stepping in an angle forward and to the right (the "open" side, I'd call it), and then come in and clinch. 3. Clinch, then side cut away: Partners would clinch, and then situate the rear hand/arm on the outside of their partner's forward hand/arm, then side cut to the open side while using the hips to twist into the blocked arm and force them to turn away; step back into opposite stance, reset. 4. To simplify the side cut, each partner would put their lead hand stretched out, and touch hands. Each would side cut and reset to their open side, keeping distance. This was a good visual drill. When side cutting, it is important to keep the body bladed, so the side cut actually takes you into almost a front stance at a 45 degree angle. The shoulders are facing the direction the feet point, and the body is coiled for a back leg kick off of the side cut.

JusticeZero, I have been wondering about the handstand push-ups that are necessary for building the strength of Capoeira, and how you go about building up to doing a full one? I can stand on my hands to an extent, but doing a push-up is beyond me, right now. What kind of exercises do you use to build up the strength towards it? 100 Push-ups Week 5, Day 3: 13, 13, 15, 15, 12, 12, 10, 30 = 120.

I'm sorry to hear that, Kez. That sucks. But, in my experience, I have seen that people such as this don't get away with it all the time. Eventually, they will get caught, and prosecuted. You did what you could, and that's all that you can do. Stay safe, and keep your chin up.

Not the Colleseum! What!!!!

Very postcard-esque scenes. I think Germany got the most nods, didn't it? Canada had two, at least.

I think I will see it. Looks pretty good. I really did enjoy the first one.

I'm having similar problems with week 5, Patrick. I finished up day 3 of week 5 tonight, but just barely. When I test out next, I'll probably be just bumping up the tier for week 5. But, I like the way my arms are feeling now.

Alcohol or not, a blind side is a blind side, and it may not have made a difference.

I think my point is that one shouldn't be bound by a particular "classification". I am not suggesting that the way your school teaches the kick you are describing is not good, or correct for that matter, but the OP's question was "what is the correct way to perform side kick". I knew what he/she was alluding to, but the whole thread has rung a bell with me because you, (bushi, joe, tg) seem to have to have a rather "fixed” idea of what a side kick / kick to the side is, and therefore always performed. That doesn’t sit too well on my karate register. I don't see anything wrong with having a "fixed" idea as to what a specific kick is. I just like to have a streamlined terminology so as not to develop confusion in training. What many styles have labeled a "round" kick, Bruce Lee coined as a "hook" kick in his styles. I don't like the change, and if I trained in JKD or the like, I would have a hard time calling a round kick a hook kick, because I already do a hook kick, and to me, it isn't a round kick. Just because I don't identify the "front kick to the side" as a side kick, doesn't mean that I don't find it functional, or that I don't use it. Our style has the kick in several of our forms; its just called a front kick. But, its a front kick to the side. Just because I don't choose to delve into the language of a style, doesn't mean that I have only degraded myself to "punching and kicking," nor does it mean that if one chooses to study to learn soley how to punch and kick is doing a disservice to everything that an art has to offer. Reasoning, theory, and understanding of an art can come from just the physical practice and exchange with oneself or other practitioners, as much as it can from learning a small segment of a foreign language. I could look up the term "mordstreich" and find out what it is, but I can't tell you off the top of my head, although the translation "murder strike" coming to the front of my mind. I'm not so concerned about the German name of a strike, but more of the applications and uses of the strikes and blocks of Medieval Combat. Therefore, I haven't delved into language study, but combat study.

Congrats!

4-30-09 TKD class: 6:00 - 7:30. Good class tonight, especially at the end where we got to do some sparring work, working into a clinch and then working angles and footwork. It was some good focused drilling. Then, we had time to spar. The extra half hour of class is going to be very beneficial.

I would kind of fall along the lines of tallgeese's assumption, but be a bit more specific; the creators were likely right-legged, and thus, and perhaps accidentally, created the forms this way. I thought that the article was very interesting. Thanks for sharing it. I thought the breakdowns of the number of kicks per leg, and then the difficulty ratings, were a nice touch. I had never really thought about the mismatch. I did notice it in Choong Moo, but never put it together much more in the other forms. That is one thing that I did like about the ATA forms, that they were designed to be symmetrical. A jump kick on one leg was usually done on the other leg. In some of the black belt forms, there was a difference, but only by one kick, usually.

I guess if that is the way it is done in Karate, then I can understand what you are saying. However, in any of the material I have read, I haven't noticed these discrepancies in the capacity that you explain them here. From what I have seen in my TKD practices, the technique classifications are more specific. Side kick is done with the foot horizontal, parallel to or pointing slightly down toward the floor. Front kicks are with the knee held vertically, and lower leg down below. However, the tool used can be the heel, the instep, or the ball of the foot. As for whether using the language of the mother country that an art comes from, and whether or not it enriches your time there, is for each to decide. There are lots of practitioners out there that claim that the language is an essential part of learning the art, and that it gets one more in tune with the culture it comes from, etc. I don't really buy into it, because you are only learning a very small part of a much larger language, and a much larger culture than is offered from attending a Martial Arts class two to three times a week, for maybe two hours at a time.

Well, I emailed them, and alas, they don't ship to the States. But, they did mention that they will be opening an outlet across the pond in the near future, so I asked them to contact me when such an event took place.

That's nuts...

Now, how would that not fly?...

Link: http://www.combat-tkd.com/ This book tends to take an Iain Abernethy-esque approach to the form system of Kukki Taekwondo. As with so many books on TKD, O’Neill begins with an introduction of the art, beginning with its history. However, its similarity with the history section of any other TKD book ends there. He writes what is one of the most accurate and truthful accounts of TKD’s history, second only to that written by Alex Gillis in A Killing Art. O’Neill dispels the 5000 year lineage of TKD, depicting its actual roots in various forms of Karate. He also provides good information on the establishment of the Kwans and the later federations and associations that began to fragment TKD. The author also describes three models of TKD: 1. Hard style, consisting of power striking and hard blocking, and basic kicking skills consisting of front, side, round, and spin side kicks for power, with less of the intricate footwork of today’s WTF style of sparring. 2. Modern sport TKD is what is more recognizable as today’s tournament-style of TKD, propagated by both the WTF and the ITF. Even the ATA has added an Olympic-style sparring portion to its competitions, the last I had heard. High kicking, counter-kicking, intricate footwork, and very little use of the hand techniques (even for blocking!) are the hallmarks of this sport variation of TKD. 3. Patterns-based TKD is the focus of O’Neill’s book. The author uses the patterns to explore the self-defense aspects of TKD. The second part of O’Neill’s history section delves into the history of TKD forms themselves, and the influences on their design. Mentioned in this section are influences from: 1. Okinawan lineage 2. “Korean Karate” forms 3. Chang Hon forms 4. Kukki poomses In describing the TKD patterns as self-defense methods, the author lists: 1. The Shotokan influence 2. The Shudokan influence 3. The Shito-Ryu influence 4. The Yudo influence 5. The Taekyon influence 6. The Quan Fa influence O’Neill then goes into the fundamentals of his interpretations of the patterns, and different elements of self-defense. At this point, O’Neill’s work isn’t much unlike that of Abernethy’s approach to Karate forms interpretation. For the forms interpretation section of the book, O’Neill divides the patterns into three sections: 1. The Preliminary Exchange – Taegeuk 1, 2, 3 2. Infighting and Clinching – Taegeuk 4, 5, 6 3. Advanced Self-Defense – Taegeuk 7, 8 Each of these sets of forms, in O’Neill’s research, depicts a particular stage of a fight. After the forms interpretations, there is a section that describes some of the techniques from the pattern interpretation section. The author also gives an Abernethy-like rundown of sparring exercises, and finishes with thoughts on designing a syllabus for the Kukki TKD practitioner. Reading this book, I felt like I was getting a fresh, original (and honest) point-of-view of TKD. I have a little experience with the Kukki patterns of TKD, and I feel that this book can offer a path other than that of sport-sparring to the Kukki practitioner. The history section alone makes this book worth picking up, and I can’t say that about many other TKD titles. The section on the models of TKD was of special interest to me, seeing how TKD changed throughout the years. This book doesn’t focus on the performance or technical aspects of the forms themselves; that task is better left to other titles, like Complete Taekwondo Poomsae, written by Sang H. Kim and Kyu Hyung Lee. O’Neill lists the moves of the forms, and then gets into pictures and descriptions of form segments and how they apply to self-defense. Rather than being a one move description, the descriptions divulge into the entire sequence that he depicts. So, you get pictures of a form segment, followed by pictures of the self-defense sequence applying to that piece of the pattern, with the explanation as to what transpires written in a bullet list above the pictures. It seems kind of backwards, but it serves its purpose well enough. The pictures are black and white, with the pictures of the pattern moves set above the pictures of the interpretations. The pattern pictures (3/4” wide by 1” tall) are smaller than the interpretation pictures (1.5” wide by 2” tall), and the interpretation pictures are still smaller than would be desirable, especially with what the book is trying to relay to the reader. Each page contains anywhere from 4 to 8 pictures. With all of this crammed onto every page, seeing the interpretations can be a bit difficult at times, especially concerning hand positions and turns. At times, I found myself re-reading and re-reading the bullets, and re-looking at the pictures to try to get the author’s meaning, but I feel that a more experienced Kukki patterns practitioner can work his way around this layout a bit easier. Larger pictures with caption descriptions would have been more helpful to the lay reader, but that may not have been a concern of the author’s. Those with more experience with Kukki forms shouldn’t have too much trouble deciphering The Taegeuk Cipher.

The thing is, though, that you can't take into account what the other guy is going to do. We're fighting, not mind reading, at this point. To "assume" what they will do, and to prepare the defense in advance, is just setting oneself up for trouble, in my mind. This is why I avoid the whole "block before striking" mentality. I am not that fast, nor do I have very good reaction time, so I don't intend on putting myself behind the eight ball to start things off.

That sounds like you're started in the right direction, DWx. It should serve you well.

Try this link here: Hindu Push ups