bushido_man96

8/3/2021 TKD Testing: 6:00 - 7:20 pm. We had another small group testing, but one was testing for 2nd dan. The rest were colored belts. It's always fun to watch their improvement. 8/4/2021 Strength Training Squats: 45x5, 135x5, 205x3, 235x1, 255x5, 255x5, 255x5. Bench Press: 45x5, 95x5, 115x3, 135x1, 155x1, 180x5, 180x5, 180x5. Neutral-grip Chins: 3, 2, 2, 2, 2. Deadlifts: 135x5, 205x3, 225x1, 245x1, 290x5. MA Training TKD Class: 6:30 - 7:30 pm. T-shirt Class. Spent the bulk of the hour working on counters and footwork sparring drills. No gear, just light and easy movement. Spent a good amount of time before class stretching out.

Thank you for all the kind words, everyone! They mean a lot to me!

Congratulations!

We had a grading last night at our dojang, rather small one, but they all have been lately. Despite that, it was a good testing, and the school owner and I were the judges. Throughout our testing, we usually take notes on various things we notice, along with jotting down the testing scores on the material at hand, as I'm sure most instructors do. At the end of testing, we'll address these with the students and audience. As per usual, technique usually comes up in some way, shape or form, and last night, the CI was discussing it. While he was making his points, it kind of struck me that we talk about technique a lot; good technique vs bad technique, how we want techniques done, etc. Although we tend to know it when we see it, we don't really but a face to the name, so to speak. So while he was addressing his point, I had one of those "a ha" moments that Bob (sensei8) mentions, and I addressed with the students. I defined technique for them as "the efficiency of movement," and now that I've thought on it a bit more, I think I would amend that to "the efficiency and application of movement." We see good technique as fluid movement that allows the technique to be performed with precision, power, economy of movement, etc. We see proper technique as the way that allows movements to have speed and power generated through them. It's also usually done in a direct manner, thus the efficiency aspect. I'd love to hear everyone else's thoughts on the matter. I've always thought about good technique, and I feel like I can teach good techniques, but I'd never really verbalized it out loud in this way. Anyone else have a thought like this, or do you have a different analogy for defining technique? I'd love to hear the discussion.

7/30/2021 Strength Training Squats: 45x5, 135x5, 205x3, 235x1, 260x1, 280x5, 280x5, 280x5. Bench Press: 45x5, 95x5, 115x3, 135x2, 175x5, 175x5, 175x5. Deadlifts: 135x5, 185x3, 205x2, 275x2. 8/2/2021 Strength Training Squats: 45x5, 135x5, 205x3, 235x1, 260x1, 285x5, 285x5, 285x5. Press: 45x5, 85x5, 100x2, 120x1, 140x5, 140x5, 140x3, 140x2. Neutral-grip Chins: 2, 2, 2, 2. Deadlifts: 135x5, 185x3, 205x2, 225x1, 245x1, 285x5. Meniere's really messed with me today while squatting. Really light headed after the sets. I'm struggling with the press right now, too. MA Training TKD Class: 6:30 - 7:30 pm. Black Belt Class. Do-Kangs 1-3, and Choong Jang hyung. Three-steps, then self-defense, working on chokes from the front, from the side, and from the front with a push.

That sounds great! Getting to start working on bunkai and things that bring out applications is a great way to retain information.

Wow, 15 years on staff! I didn't realize it'd been that long! I feel truly blessed to be part of such a great community, discussing something that is very near and dear to me in this world. At first, I thought KF was a great place to come and talk about Martial Arts. As I've gone along all these years, I've found that KF is just a great place to come and talk with good people about anything; I've shared ups and downs, highs and lows, within my MA journey and from life in general. Outside of my immediate family, I've never found so much great support and camaraderie. I can only hope that I've given back to this community as much as it has given to me over the years. Thank you everyone!

Oh, that's great.

7/26/2021 Strength Training Squats: 45x5, 135x5, 205x3, 225x1, 245x1, 290x5, 290x5, 290x5. Bench Press: 45x5, 95x5, 115x3, 135x2, 165x5, 165x5, 165x5. Neutral-grip Chins: 3, 3, 2, 2. Deadlifts: 135x5, 185x5, 225x5. Back to pulling deadlifts. I still have the pain in my back, but it didn't change in any way deadlifting, so I'm back at it. Bench is still going well. MA Training TKD Class: 6:30 - 7:30 pm. Black Belt Class. We did Do-Kangs 1 through 3 (did 2 twice), then got into self-defense. We did some choke defenses, based off the Krav Maga system. Mainly worked front choke. 7/28/2021 MA Training TKD Class: 6:30 - 7:30 pm. T-shirt Class. I spent a lot of time teaching in this class. I had the students pad up, and worked them on several contact drills. I had them stand close enough to each other that they could throw a front leg side kick without stepping and make contact, so they could start to get used to the idea of being kinestheticly aware. After that, it was a side kick counter drill, using a block and side-step, and setting up "crossing the T" to start attacking. Then we moved on to round kick counters, countering with spin side kicks. 7/29/2021 Firearms Training Range: About 5 hours of range time. Duty pistol, backup, rifle, shotgun, and bean bag round qualifications, along with use-of-force training and review. I had a really great day at the range with my pistols. I was 46 out of 50 with my duty pistol, with only 1 off from the 25 yard line, and 47 out of 50 on my backup, with 2 off from the 25 yard line. I was one off on each of the rifle and shotgun, too, but I usually have all of them on. Not sure what happened. But overall, very happy with my performance with the pistols.

7/23/2021 Strength Training Squats: 45x5, 135x5, 205x3, 225x1, 245x1, 285x5, 285x5, 285x5. Press: 45x5, 85x5, 100x3, 120x1, 144.5x4, 1, 3, 2, 2, 3. Neutral-grip Chins: 3, 2, 2, 2, 2. Press wasn't going well, so I just decided to do as many as I could at a time, break for a few minutes, then throw it up again, to get 15 total reps.

Welcome to KF, Jack! I've read a book of Graden's, and still have it in my library. Glad to have you here!

Are they planning on spinning it off!? Boy, I really hope so. I did rather enjoy it. The final season was a pretty good one.

7/21/2021 Strength Training Squats: 45x5, 135x5, 205x3, 225x1, 250x5, 250x5, 250x5. Bench Press: 45x5, 95x5, 115x3, 135x2, 160x5, 160x5, 160x5. Assisted Chins: 100x10, 100x10, 100x8, 100x9. TKD Class: 6:30 - 7:30 pm. T-shirt class. My first night back in some time, so I paced myself. I did Choong Jang a few times, and did some basics up and down the floor. Later, I kept time and center judged sparring.

I read a book titled Black Belt Management by John Graden some time ago. I'm not sure if it's the best, but it might be worth a look.

7/14/2021 Strength Training Squats: 45x5, 135x5, 205x3, 225x1, 250x5, 250x5, 250x5. Press: 45x5, 85x3, 115x1, 141.5x5, 141.5x5, 141.5x5 Assisted Chins: 100x10, 100x10, 100x8, 100x7. Missed a day, so back for a Wednesday light day. 7/16/2021 Strength Training Squats: 45x5, 135x5, 205x3, 225x1, 275x5, 275x5, 275x5. Bench Press: 45x5, 95x5, 115x3, 135x2, 155x5, 155x5, 155x5. Neutral-grip Chins: 2, 2, 2, 2. Decided to give bench press a go. After a few reps, I started feeling it in my shoulder again. One of the guys at the gym suggested widening the grip slightly. I did, and it seemed to have helped. 7/19/2021 Strength Training Squats: 45x5, 135x5, 205x3, 225x1, 245x1, 280x5, 280x5, 280x5. Press: 45x5, 85x5, 115x1, 143x5, 143x5, 143x5. Neutral-grip Chins: 3, 2, 2, 2, 2.

That sounds like great news moving forward, Bob. I'm glad you've found a doctor that will engage with you.

You can find instructions all over the internet for different versions of makiwara, if that's what you're interested in. The Wavemaster standing heavy bag is hard to beat, too. Although it won't swing like a nice heavy bag, you can work around it, and you can roll it out of the way to a corner when you're done.

Excellent! Enjoy your journey together!

I do whey protein shakes as well, with creatine added in. I don't currently do a multivitamin.

7/7/2021 Strength Training Squats: 45x5, 135x5, 205x3, 225x1, 250x5, 250x5, 250x5. Press: 45x5, 85x5, 115x1, 141.5x5, 141.5x5 141.5x5. Assisted Chins: 100x10, 100x8, 100x7, 100x7. Still sticking with the Wednesday light day, at least on squats. Still no deadlifts yet. 7/9/2021 Strength Training Squats: 45x5, 135x5, 205x3, 225x1, 245x1, 290x5, 290x5, 290x5. Press: 45x5, 85x5, 115x1, 143x5, 143x5, 143x5. Neutral-grip Chins: 3, 3, 2, 2.

Yes, thank you for the update. It does sound interesting. Like Danielle, I share concerns about not being able to instruct in person, and losing that interaction.

Your not wrong, but let me offer a comparison. When I did Thai kickboxing, we were told to "hit as hard as you can" and now that I am training Taekwondo/Korean Karate, I am told by my instructor that I should "snap it real quick, dont worry about power" My best way to compare is, power kick does more damage but has a longer reload time. Speed base kick is more rapid and has a less reload time if that makes sense. Although one thing to mention is, lots of Korean martial artist tend to start with speed, proper mechanics, attention to detail and flexibility. Afterwards, they start adding more and more power to it. This is something I noticed from Tang Soo Do and Taekwondo. You're talking about two different ways of kicking. "Snap" implies "pulling," to me anyways, so you aren't delivering it all into the target. When executing techniques, does someone try to be slow on purpose? Especially if the result sought out to do damage? I guess we could take an example of watching guys kick in the UFC, or other MMA events. I don't think they are kicking slow, nor do I think they are "snapping" their kicks. Yet they are very fast. They want to follow through with their kicks...I guess this is what you mean by the "loading" time? Either way, the equation doesn't change, no matter how you are kicking: P=Fxd/t.

I'm not sure that whole styles were lost, but I'm sure there were great teachers with their own methods and outlooks on training that were lost at the end of WWII.

Oh ok I see what you're saying now. Yeah removing all those aspects would be really sad and you definitely would lose a lot of what makes the art what it is. This is truly sad to see, I believe it bled over into TKD, when it got started. That, combined with the fact that the influx of a sense of building Korean nationalism, and using this to differentiate TKD from it's roots in Karate. Although the skill levels that can be seen in Olympic TKD can be exciting to watch, I don't think it's what the vast majority of TKD practitioners should be training for.

I remember working together on various grappling aspects when we trained together, Bob. I kind of planted that kind of seed with the "new management" of our school, and I believe they've been doing more and more with it in self-defense training.