John G

Thank goodness you told us what is was, I couldn't wait any longer

Welcome to the forums Kirves

KSN Doug, Connected moves; i.e a kick followed by a strike followed by a block in general could be defined as 3 movements.

Ok SaiFightsMS, curiosity has got the better of me. Whats that Avatar your using?

Taebot are you refering to the American TaeKwonDo chongi forms or to the ITF Chon gi tul pattern? Please excuse my ignorance. Respectfully,

Welcome to the forums Pyros

Patterns/forms/tuls can be deceiving, at a seminar several years ago Master Choi Jung Hwa said to us "If you knew Chon ji through and through, you would know everything there is to know about Taekwon-do". At the time I was a green belt and his comment didn't make much sense. But when you think about the complexities of balance, breath control, sine motion, crossings, action-reaction, power, efficiency, application, purpose, timing and a whole lot of other things yet to be learnt, I thing I know what he meant, and can see why taebot stated "I've been working on Chong ji for at least a quarter of a century and I STILL can't get it right". Good call taebot. The next difficult pattern (well I think) would have to be Joon-Gun. My favourites are Choong-Moo and Ge-Baek. Can't wait to snap an ankle or pop a knee doing Juche.

I enjoy the challenge tournaments present, the preparation and overcoming the fear factor make them worth while entering. Being a late starter in martial arts and part of the 40 something club I'm usually the cannon fodder when it comes to tournaments, but hey, for me its not about winning, its about giving it a go and having some fun while I sill can. With regard to seminars, I go to as many as I can, you can never learn too much. Over the last five years most of my time money has gone into martial arts, is it worth it? I think so.

RockyMtnMark good to see another 40 something join the KF forums, and good luck on your next grading. It sounds like your family has caught the Martial Arts bug.. keep it up and enjoy.

Welcome to the forums RockyMtnMark

Wecome to the forums taebot

Welcome taebot to KF and the 40's club, for the most part people posting at KF are courteous and informative. I can understand and respect your need for anonymity. Its not who you are or what rank you hold that counts on these forums, it's the sharing of knowledge taken from your life experiences and martial arts expertise that counts. Toleration, understanding and a willingness to keep an open mind are the keys to these forums. Contribute and enjoy. Respectfully,

Welcome

Good to see another TKD'er, welcome aboard.

Welcome to the forums XjourneyX..

Sure Patrick just email me or pm me the details.

I’m just off down the hill (Perth) to celebrate Christmas with the relations, so a merry Christmas and a happy new year to my other family (you lot) . P.S. Take a look at a few pikkies I took yesterday of our emergency services taking the big guy (Santa) around our town. Go to https://www.wundowie.com and look under gallery. I bashed this site up over the last few days (my christmas present to the community) so hopefully everything is working. See you all next year. Keep well.

GM William Chueng's grading structure. http://www.cheungswingchun.com/GradingStructure.html

Absolute scorcher yesterday; 47*C (116*F) in the shade with 40km/h winds. I posted a photo in the KF album taken the other day overlooking our town. You can see why we’re a little bit paranoid about high temperatures and winds.

I totally agree with you Taekwon-do no matter what variant is hopeless for the street, but so is every other martial art / combat training. “The Street” is an undefined variable. No matter how big you are or what skill level, “The Street” will always get you. Do as I, use your head and avoid “The Street”.

Freestyler, Although I don’t practice Karate, I would like to address some of the issues you have raised, as ITF Taekwon-do (TKD) has many of the traits you described in you post. This comes about because ITF TKD borrowed heavily from Shotokan when it was first developed. You wrote: Think of a piece of string that represents your habits. Everytime you perform something, you wrap a piece of string around it. After doing this hundreds of time, it'll become quite strong & very hard to break! -- this analogy comes from 'The seven habits of highy effective people' by Stephen Covey. ---------- I totally agree, it’s like driving a vehicle, the first time everything is awkward and difficult but after a while, it becomes second nature and you act immediately to any situation without thinking about it. The same goes for training, we drill over and over until what we do is second nature, and we become more focused on the task at hand instead of thinking about how to do it. (One day ill get there) You Wrote: The basics - when going through the basics I notice they seem to be done slow, medium paced and then fast! I think this is fine when you've developed your technique, but for beginners who are just starting out, they need to focus on getting the technique right first, before executing it as fast as possible. Hence, a lot of karate practioners have poor technique from repeatedly doing techniques poorly. ----------- Again I agree, although I think all martial arts suffer from this problem and not just Karate practitioners. It’s far harder to train a technique slowly and correctly then build up the speed than it is to execute the technique quickly. You soon find out that you have wasted your time developing lightning fast punches at the expense of technique when it comes to breaking boards. If the techniques not there you hurt your fist. I myself use to mask poor technique with quick actions; it’s difficult for the instructor to see what you are doing when you are doing something fast. After a while you learn it’s far easier to spend 3 months learning the technique correctly than 2 months doing it wrong then 4 months reprogramming and learning to do it properly. You Wrote: The placement of the hands at the hips - this creates a bad habit as well. A lot of people adopt this when sparring. After placing your hands on your hips thousands of times after performing a punch, what makes you think you're going to keep them up in a real fight ? Boxers have trouble keeping their hands up at first, only after being constantly told to keep their hands up & kicked in the face so they keep them up. ----------- The placement of hands beside the hips is more about muscle development and awareness of where you hands are at all times than it is about being a platform to launch your punch. I agree if all you did was punch from the hip, replace it, punch from the hip replace it etc… you would indeed come to grief for all the reasons you stated. ITF Taekwon-do and from the little knowledge I have about Karate, are martial arts that take decades not just years to master. You start off with your punches near your hips and it takes years before you are taught to punch with your hands raised. By this time you have learnt the value of good blocking / dodging / guarding / verbal defence techniques. In our “We want it now” society, its difficult for some people to take the time to learn a martial art, to build good foundations, to learn techniques correctly. I guess that’s why there are so many Mc dojos/dojungs catering for their instant gratification needs. You Wrote: The stances - some of the stances can supposedly be adopted to provide a solid stance, so your opponent can't move you. Are you seriously going to adopt one of these in a fight ? If someone punches/kicks you in the head, it'd actually work better for them since you've got nowhere to move your head and lessen the impact of the strike. ---------- There are many different stances employed, some offensive, some defensive some transient. You would fool hardy to use an offensives stance when something coming for your head, horses for courses. One of the misconceptions about having a solid stance is that you sit there and wait for something to come at you. As a matter of technique you are required stay in a solid stance only at the moment of impact and then move. To over simplify this, try standing on your tip tows and punching a heavy bag, now do the same from a solid stance. Karate tends to use lower stances than TKD and TKD uses the downward force using sine motion on a shorter stance. Either way the principle is the same. Strike from a solid platform then move. You Wrote: Sparring - this one is more dojo specific, but anyway. A lot of dojos do non contact sparring to 'eliminate the chance of injury'. GKR (Go Kan Ryu) is one example of such a style. They have a student base of over 35 000 members and they're increasingly exponentially. It sad to see that so many students believe they are getting taught real self defense, when they really have no idea what it's like to hit somoene, get hit, etc. These students are in for a shock if they ever have a fight on the street! -------- Sparring is only point scoring, you only use a handful of techniques. ITF TKD is also “Non-Contact” however I have had several broken ribs on more than one occasion to prove that point wrong. (Don’t worry coloured belts its only at black belt rather aggressive tourneys you get the odd injury.) In days gone by it would be quite common for you to sustain injuries at the hands of your master just so you could experience taking a hit. These days if you did something like that to your students you would be lucky if they didn’t sue you. I agree with your point, but what can you do? Thankyou Freestyler for your post, in one way or another these are the same comments I made to my master and instructors over the years. Hope some of my answers help. Respectfully,

For what its worth, I train with and know several police officers who do ITF Taekwon-do. One officer told me how he had to used his training on the job against a knife attack, and to his surprise his TKD training actually works (I’m not talking flashy kicks here). Mind you, the officers I know are all black belts, but hey, you have to start somewhere. Anyway whichever martial art you choose, stick with it, it may save your life one day.

38*C, I had to turn the air conditioner on. So what’s it like to play in the snow? Sounds like great fun.

30 something is probably the busiest time in your life, work, family and community. No wonder there aren’t too many 30 something practicing martial artists. A little word of advice from a sedentary peer (great description WhiteShark ). Don’t be so hard on yourself, and don’t take life so seriously, stress kills. Your impressions of what people think about you are just that, your impressions. People are far to busy worrying about what you think of them to be bothered about you. Be yourself and enjoy life. Sorry about that people, just had to write it down before I forgot it. Now where did I put that keyboard

Only off line for a week.. It felt like a month or two. Glad your back