bushido_man96

These are interesting. In paragraph 6, I'm not sure what to make of it. I understand the idea of being like a cork on the waves, riding through the crests and the troughs. I find it interesting he chooses to address good and evil here. It seems, to me, he means to have an attitude of neutrality to it, but I'm not for sure. All I can think about is the saying, "evil thrives when good men do nothing." Paragraph 7 is also interesting. Embracing the disease to be rid of it. More confusing Zen stuff, to me.

2/10/2020 Strength Training Squats: 45x5, 135x5, 155x1, 185x5, 185x5, 185x5. Press: 45x5x2, 65x5, 85x3, 95x5, 95x5, 95x5. I felt very fatigued while squatting. I think I'm going to need to wake up a little sooner so I can eat something before going to the gym. MA Training TKD Class: 6:30 - 7:30 pm. T-shirt class. I did lots of round kick reps on the standing bag; front leg, back leg, stepping, turning, hopping, etc, single and repeat kicking. Then we spent about half an hour starting off with the Ho Sin Sul "sparring" and eventually working to scenario drills. We worked defenses from a collar grab, and then a collar grab and straight punch, and then a collar grab and hook or roundhouse punch. We found a series of defenses that start very much the same and finish very much the same, so good for retention. We also worked on some front choke defenses.

2/8/2020 Strength Training Finally back to lifting! Squats: 45x5, 135x5, 155x3, 155x3, 155x3. Press: 45x5x2, 65x5, 85x5, 85x5, 85x5. First lifting session post-covid. My legs felt very fatigued. Working night shift isn't helping either. MA Training TKD Class: 6:30 - 7:30 pm. Black Belt Class. Spent the entire class working on three-step sparring, spending a lot of time breaking things down and analyzing the various techniques, the set-ups, etc.

Geez, Bob, quite the day! I'm glad you came through it ok. I've had an MRI, and it was not fun. I'm claustrophobic, too, and they had to reschedule me for a bigger machine in order to get it done. Still, not fun. I hope and pray all your results come out well!

TKD, Hapkido, and even TSD's "origin stories" go back to the Japanese occupation of Korea, and afterwards, their desire to establish a national identity. A good book, titled A Killing Art by Alex Gillis does a good job of telling the story of Korean Martial Arts history.

I hope and pray everything goes well, Bob!

This may be the case, but timing is still an important factor in point sparring, along with rhythm, reaction time, etc. It is difficult to learn these things without someone or something to react to.

Thanks for the explanation. I like to see history time-lined out like that. For what it's worth, I tend to agree with you as far as Karate's development of high kicks.

Finally, back to class, post-covid. 2/3/2021 TKD Class: 6:30 - 7:30 pm. T-shirt class. Did some bag work, comprising mostly of basic kicks (front and back leg), spin kicks, and hand techniques. Toward the end of the class, the CI wanted to work on something he referred to as Ho Sin Sul sparring, which was a very controlled, randomized flow drill, I guess, working to locks or finishes. It's something we are going to work on and try to refine moving forward, to work into our black belt classes. 2/4/2021 TKD Testing: 6:00 - 7:30. We had 5 testing, one for recommended black belt rank, and one testing for 1st degree rank. Overall, there were some things that I was a little disappointed with this testing. I don't want to use Covid and the like as an excuse, but it has affected some of the student's attendance, which was apparent.

Welcome back to KF, advfhorn! Great post with great points!

I'm curious here as to when this exposure would have taken place?

Another great post, Wado Heretic!

I had not heard about spider style.

I had heard this as well. Wado Heretic: that was a fantastic post. If I could nominate a post of the year, that would be it. Very knowledgeable response with great information. I think to say that "Karate comes from Kung Fu" is a very blanket statement, and altogether untrue. Karate has been influenced by different styles over the years, like Kung Fu, to be sure. It is well known that those practitioners on Okinawa had contact with Chinese stylists, learned from them, and adapted to what they did. But to say that Karate comes from Kung Fu is to do a disservice as to what the Okinawan stylists also applied to the arts they studied and perpetuated.

Congrats, Himokiri Karate!

I think these two thoughts run together pretty well, and so am addressing both here. In paragraph 4, I think Lee is talking more about just seeing things as they are, without our personal biases jumping in. In paragraph 5, more of the same; not liking nor disliking. By not applying bias and jumping to conclusions, we can see things for what they truly are, and not what our judgement clouds them to be. Now, bearing all of Lee's thoughts in mind, I think it is well and good to "philosophy" about these things. But I don't believe it is entirely possible to approach every and all aspects of life in such a way, nor would it be practical to. I do think they are interesting ways to approach things, and are well worth putting into practice.

Agreed! It's cool to see your training update! Hopefully, things will be back to normal soon and training can resume!

I absolutely agree with your assessment of cross training. The time I've spent in my DT sessions, and even with my sons at Wrestling practice and tournaments have helped me to immensely understand groundfighting better.

I think both are effective, and important, to a person's training. The upside of private lessons are fairly obvious and straightforward; one-to-one ratios, with immediate feedback. No distractions from other students. The session is tailored to the student. These same advantages can also be drawbacks. If you are the only student, and the teacher has gotten use to how you pick things up and learn things, and the teacher can possibly fall into a rut. So does the student, because he/she is always comfortable. This may sound contradictory, but allow me to expound a bit.... This is where I think the importance of the class setting comes into play. It is important, nay, necessary, that a teacher understand how each of his/her students learn best, as each will learn at least a little differently (some much differently), and be able to adjust teaching styles accordingly. However, I feel that students also benefit from seeing different teaching approaches, even if they do not feel they are learning from them. The exposure itself teaches something. I'll provide an example from my own experiences as a student. The instructor walks around the class, stopping to help each student along the way, offering pointers or tips, or whatever. He walks by, offers me up a point, and I take it along my way. But, when he gives other students advise, I listen to them, too. I don't think to myself, "why didn't he tell me that?" but rather "that's a good point...I'll try it as well." I've had this happen countless times over the course of my MA career. This is where I think the value of the bigger class settings comes into play. Therefore, both settings are beneficial to the student.

Sharing videos is possible; be sure to refer to the User Guidelines in regards to sharing videos. They are great for helping to illustrate points in discussions where words tend to be lacking.

I think this is a good point. At the risk of sounding contradictory in regards to Lee's point, I do lots of reading on other MA topics that aren't TKD, and, as one might expect, I do read these things with my TKD "eye" in mind. However, I kind of like to do that because I feel like it helps me to focus more on how and what it is that is being discussed, from their point of view. I can try to take the TKD "eye" away from it, but by still thinking about my experiences, I feel that I can still take away what they are saying. But, moving forward, I will try to not do that as much, too. I'll try to see things in both aspects. Or none, perhaps!

My question would be, did you really come up with a new style, or are you presenting the style(s) you've learned in your way? I think this is a big difference, and I think this tends to be the natural order of things when it comes to MA training, especially done over the course of many years. We learn our base first. We all have a start somewhere. How long, how rich, and how deep those beginnings are end up being different for everyone. But by and large, I feel that many practitioners that think of themselves as "starting a new style" are really just presenting their version of how they've come to understand the style they've learned. I think this is a kind of natural order of things, as we all learn and do things differently, and different approaches work better for some than others. As we teach our students, we'll see these kinds of changes take place in them, too. As was mentioned by other posters, a trial lesson or two are a good idea, but not too many more than that. Wado Heretic also made a good point about the kinds of students you are going to get. This will be strongly based off your teaching style, methods, syllabus, and the demographics available to you. Older practitioners have different focuses than younger ones. But that doesn't mean that as you go along you can't find the adjustments to make to be flexible to both. As for the fighting aspect. If that is something you want to do, and have the time to pursue, for your own personal enjoyment, then do it. But I would not do it for the sake of your school. Do it for your own sake. Great post. I hope I haven't misinterpreted anything within it in my responses.

This is possibly one of the single, most difficult things for a human to do; to view something just as it is, and not as to it's meaning(s) to me and my beliefs. We all come with biases and beliefs, built up from our teaching, our learning, and our experiences with life. It can be difficult to separate these things from how we evaluate and see things. On the other end of this, is the fact that we, as people, tend to generate things from ourselves based on our own desires, thoughts, biases, beliefs, and as the collective results of our experiences. With this in mind, we expect things to be viewed a certain way already within our mind's eye. Being able to see and reflect on something as it is, can, indeed, be a challenge.

I agree, Bob.

All valid points, for sure, Miick. Everyone learns differently, and it's important to be able to reach all of your students in a way that fulfills their experience.