DWx

Happy Holidays everyone

^dunno guess they just mean old how long before things become tradition anyway?

Mats on the floor and halfway up 3 walls, and a mirror down the 4th wall. Row of heavy bags down one side (opposite the mirror). Would like to put up photos of students and instructors that I've taught/trained with over the years above the mats and would have to have the Korean flag and a UK flag somewhere. Also organisation logo/flag and a picture of the founder and founding masters of the style somewhere. For functionality, some sort of big noticeboard near the entrance/desk for announcements and news. If space permits, a small seating area near the entrance too.

Generic lose weight get fitter resolution plus keep working on my flexibility as I saw some improvement this year. Also want to work on my forms for competition. Usually place 3rd but can't seem to just go one better and move up to 2nd. Got to improve my running too. Being hounded to do the local half marathon as my school enters a team every year. Someone from the club went from running no miles a week to completing the whole thing so the rest of us are being badgered into doing the same as it'll be "good for us". So maybe I'll do it or I might not want to increase my run distance anyway so that's what I want to work on. Roll on 2012

hmm these were mine. The weight thing didn't work out so well But I'm going to pretend its muscle replacing fat. Feel fitter and stronger and flexibility is better and am finding it easier to land the side kick face shots when I need to although I'd hoped for better improvement tbh. Just being really tentative with it as it was trying to force a stretch that ruined my flexibility in the first place.

Kinda depends on your budget and what you're doing. Can get away with no mats if you're only doing standup and you don't need anything else to train. Kick shields and focus pads would probably be on my "essentials" list, along with a stereo. Other than that... If I had the money, I'd also invest in rebreakable boards and a stand to hold them as breaking is a big part of my style.

Congrats

That's awesome. Congrats to Kendall Hope he enjoyed himself and its the first of many comps

Welcome to KF Koopyetz

Congrats to everyone who won & was nominated

(I don't do statistics or economics so maybe this is wrong.) Manchester is an averaged sized city for the UK. That's why I tried to relate it in terms of city size vs overall population, sort of like a concentration factor. If we're talking raw numbers only then in the UK we never hit the same "expensiveness level" because our cities are nowhere near as big. You have 9 cities with over 1 million population and 24 in the 0.5-1 million bracket. Compare that to the UK where we only have 1 city over 1 million and only 2 cities in the 0.5-1 million bracket. I agree that its more expensive to maintain a larger populace and that's why for us, London is so different from everywhere else and if we're just comparing cities themselves, then you could compare MA tuition fees in London to Chicago. In terms of raw numbers, Manchester's expensiveness level would match up to somewhere like Cleveland. But then does Cleveland represent the US as much as Manchester represents the UK?

Good punching drill with a bag (or person with pads) is left-right jab, down 2 pushups, up left-right-left-right jabs, down 4 pushups, up for 6, down for 6, etc. all the way up to ten and then back down. Leg variation is to do 2 kicks, 2 squat thrusts. Or the absolute killer is left-right leg and hands then down for burpees. We also do loads of sprint stamina training e.g.: - Hill sprints: sprint up the hill and jog back down for x amount of sets (also do the with stairs) - Timed sprints: have a set time limit (e.g. 20 secs) to sprint the length of the hall and then rest before sprinting back. The faster you sprint, the more of the time limit you have to rest before going again. Do this for 5 mins. - Sprint relay: groups of 4 or more, (kinda hard to describe). Persons A and B are at one end of the room, persons C and D at the other end. A sprints across to C and D. Then A races C back to where B is. Then C races B back towards D. Then B and D race. etc. - this works well if you have loads of people. Need two lines (maybe 1/2 your class) holding pads down the edges of the room. Other 1/2 a class take it in turns to sprint to the first one, hit it with a strike or kick then sprint across the room to the next one and hit it (so that you're zig-zagging between the two lines). Then when you get to the end, sprint down the length of the room until you end up where you started then join the back of the queue. Stagger it a bit, but if the person behind you catches you up, some kind of forfeit is involved

please tell me you guys tried it too? I just can't control my pinky finger

Welcome chopper It kinda depends on what you want from Karate. If its just the exercise and the training time with your kid then GKR may be the thing for you. If you want self defense, I'd be a little more wary. Although that's not to say there aren't good GKR schools out there. WRT not having a dedicated location, few MA schools have that. Majority will train out of school gyms, sports halls, church halls etc. Sprung wooden gym floors are great surfaces to train on anyway Where abouts are you? And what do you want from your training? Maybe the forum members can help Its hard to decide on a school without having any prior knowledge but check out the "Getting Started in the Martial arts" section as loads of great advice on there, e.g. this thread: http://www.karateforums.com/how-should-one-go-about-choosing-a-school-and-instructor-vt38789.html

That's only because I do so many sessions in a week. People training at the same school who do 1 or 2 sessions per week (which is more normal) will pay the £20-£40. Not every single school will charge £5 a lesson but the pricing on average doesn't (at least anecdotally) deviate much from this and it does seem to be a good starting point. Manchester is a major UK city. If you look at what percentage of the population lives there, its a good enough comparison to Chicago. Going with the 2.6 million, that's 4% of our population (62.3 million total population). Compare that to Chicago's 9.8 million, 3% of the population (312.7 million) live there. Trouble I have with the comparison to London is that it is so extreme compared to the rest of the UK and isn't a good representation of our cities. Just to put that in perspective, London's met population in 2001 was 12.5 million. Our next largest city Birmingham had a met population of 0.97 million. So London's met is 12x larger than our 2nd largest city! and that is most definitely reflected in the price of things. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_United_Kingdom_settlements_by_population

http://youtu.be/X6fDomrm_KE

Ah well heal up soon and good luck for next season

It just means that they've now recognised that it is part of Korea's cultural heritage and will most likely mean that there will be extra funding etc. to ensure that it keeps being passed down the generations to keep it alive and that awareness of the style is raised. I think its also the first martial art to be recognised by UNESCO.

I think tallgeese is on the money with "never say never" and it depends on what you're comfortable with. A switch spinning back kick would be considered flashy by most but we use them tons in my school (one of my instructor's fav techniques) and train them a lot inc. in our self defense work so personally I would consider one if the situation called for it.

Congrats

Congrats If you don't mind me asking, why aren't you competing?

Welcome Mark

I'd agree with Dobbersky on the £5 a lesson thing. At least that is my experience with training with various TKD people across the country. £5 seems to be the standard rate all over which is £60 - £70 a month if you're doing 4-5 sessions a week. I don't think that "in the UK" is too vague as pricing for most things are fairly consistent. London though really is a different story and is not really a good basis for comparison as things invariably cost a lot more there compared to the rest of the country. Even vs the other major cities, London is more expensive. But Lrtucker raises a good point about costs compared to income. In London you'll probably earn a lot more than if you do the same job elsewhere in the country but because the cost of living is much higher, it evens out in the end.

Pretty fun demo idea: http://youtu.be/K1Cfy4d9-to

Great post Lrtucker!!! and welcome to KF Is there anything you wouldn't do if you had to do it again or would warn people about doing? To everyone: What kind of class structure would you guys consider? Who are you targeting (adults and/or children, fitness freaks or self defense nuts)? How many classes are you going to lay on at the start? What happens if no-one turns up to your first class?