DWx

Happy Birthday!!!

So did any of you guys watch? My department at uni clearly don't understand the meaning of a "public holiday" as I had lectures scheduled over the whole thing! - I'm still fuming over being made to miss it all.

We don't kihap during sparring. Or at least not audibly. The contraction is there in the abdomen and diaphragm in the form of a sharp breath but you wont hear the kiai. You would in what we call "technical sparring" or self defense type sparring where the kiai is done on the finishing/disabling blow but because this is a continuous points match where we're not necessarily finishing the fight by disabling them, we don't kihap. In fact some refs will penalize you if you shout too much. Maybe we don't block the same way sensei8. Admittedly we do absorb a lot of blows but that's in part due to the points system. If it doesn't hit a target it doesn't score. So a lot of shots are taken on the guard although you don't do that too often otherwise you go home with a lot of bruises. Bad practice really. But we do block/deflect. Sometimes If you watch the first exchange, she stops my leg from extending by lifting her own (0.16) and catching the kick on her shin, then my left arm is protecting against her 2 roundhouses (0.18 and 0.19) in a waist block type movement as I'm going back. Then in the second exchange her right arm goes down to stop my kick (0.24). Ok it doesn't look as crisp as what I've seen from Karate kumite but it does stop the movement from hitting the torso/scoring area. And yep, I was knackered at the end.

Oh apologies Liver Punch, I had watched your vid. Its always great when the ref has to pull you off your opponent You got a mean roundhouse where you took his leg out at 0.25 secs. Cheers by the way.

IMO there is a case for some light conditioning though. Maybe not to the extremes where your knuckles are the size of golf balls but a little bit should be part of your training. When you strike anything, something's got to give and personally I'd prefer it weren't my own knuckles or fingers. Mindset, knowledge and technique are of course so important but I've seen people seriously bash up their hands because they've never conditioned them. Same with the forearms. Its just maintaining your attacking tools, your equipment. You wouldn't shoot a rusty gun? or strike with a dull blade?

Trained with various high ranking master's in my style, including being lucky enough to do a masterclass with Gen. Choi's son, Choi Jung Hwa. I wouldn't be that scared, just see it as a fantastic opportunity to learn from someone who knows so much more than you. Pay attention, try hard, and it could be you people are desperate to train under in a few years.

Welcome Big Daddy

Welcome Christiane

TBH I think its the pressure. I spar much more naturally and well at the next level down; I've been undefeated at nationals for like 4 - 5 years now. Just when its an important match I lose my cool and spar like an idiot. I'm trying to get footage from the team sparring we did at the same tournament. Got paired against a 6ft+ really leggy girl but I did a lot better and forced a draw with her. I've also got some old footage of me back in 2005 (?) sparring my sister (and beating her ) and sparring another girl. I'm of two minds of whether to upload it though - it was bad Be cool to see some of you in action too Brian

We've got school shirts. Mainly for students/family members to wear outside the class at events we attend. So we all wear them to go tournaments and seminars, the people running the half-marathon this weekend have them... A couple of times when I've been wearing mine after training and when I've popped out to the shops at a tournament I've had people come up to ask about it. Mainly seems like they're inquiring about it for their kids though.

Yeah it sucks. Never ever spar like that in training. Just seem to get in the ring and completely forget I have legs. Been something I've been working on though; that video is definitely better than 3-4 years ago. Am trying to find some footage from 2009, that was a good year for me, was about 10 lbs lighter and a lot fitter Its a points based rule set, so one point for every technique landed, +1 if the kick is high, +1 if its aerial etc.

Great thread idea MasterPain Well here's one of mine from Feb this year. Continuous semi-contact. Just got the footage off of my instructor's wife who filmed for me. Another fine example of technique going out the window and fighting rubbish on the day: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4A72bBHY5Y Doesn't anyone have any videos where they win?

Welcome Alex

Congrats

This brings up a thought. Does anyone here ever throw a rear leg kick, then land it in front, and then go from the opposite stance? Do you mean as in landing and then fighting from the opposite stance? Do this all the time. Its a great way to cover a stance change if you want to swap sides. But also if a combo finishes with a rear leg kick, it's not all that advantageous to pull it all the way back to the rear again because it wastes time and you can get caught in the process. Always been taught its better to throw the leg, put it down in front and then fight that side forward until you naturally change sides again. Does mean you have to be comfortable fighting from both a southpaw and orthodox stance though.

Things like this are so subjective. None of us were there and none of us really knows this kid, what your dojo and sensei are like, or you holley, so we can't really pass proper judgement on this. If you feel bad, feel bad. If anything it shows that you maybe feel sorry for the kid. TBH I'm struggling to see how you kicked the kid in the face five times, especially when practicing roundhouses. If he moved the pad away because of reflex, maybe you might of hit him a couple of times but IMHO you should have probably adjusted your technique to compensate for this like GaryMo said. If they kid was moving it away deliberately I probably would have gotten frustrated with him too but I'd say making him have a time-out would have been better than kicking him in the face. But I do get what you were trying to do with knocking the kids ego down a peg or too. My own teacher has told me to crank it up a notch with kids/teens who've gotten too big for their boots; I think I may have posted on here in the past about making a kid cry once. Just as long as it doesn't get out of hand, and that you're not indiscriminately beating on all the kids in you're class, I think its ok and its ok to feel bad about it.

Nice! Seems you have a basic structure though. Yeah if a program gets to rigid students can get bored and leave. Yeah is pretty good. My instructor is always coming up with new exercises to do too so even if we're working on a certain muscle group over a few weeks, it'll be with different exercises each session to work the muscles in different ways. I think he reads Men's Health too much Downside though is you have to be prepared to do anything when you get to class. So if you've had a rough day and just want to go work on some forms or fundamentals you can get to class and he'll be like "Put your trainers on, let's go outside" and you'll end up having to run round the block. Or if you're really psyched up and want to do some hard sparring it can end up being a really technical lesson where you're drilling things really precisely over and over again.

Wow hope you have a speedy recovery and that you're back to full form soon. Sucks to have been out of training for so long but at least you're back now. There was a great article in TotallyTKD issue 23 where the author had had a hip replacement and how he got back into his training: http://www.raynerslanetkd.com/TTKD/TotallyTKD_Issue23.html# He talks about his whole journey, from finding out he needed the op through to all the rehab afterwards.

Holley, I really would take JusticeZero's advice. I know you're eager to get back into it but just an extra week of waiting may prevent you from injuring yourself further and having to sit out for months. About 3 - 3.5 years ago I landed on my left ankle funny and sprained it bad. I rested it for a bit, but then jumped back into training far too soon. Came down from a burpee and landed on it funny and sprained it again within a month. I had reoccurring problems (twinges, mild sprains) for nearly a year because I didn't have the patience to wait it out. Prevention is a lot better than cure. I really would wait if I were you. And I'd wear an ankle support for a good few weeks when you do start back training.

I used to condition my hands and started to build up my right hand knuckles... then I saw a picture of myself on a night out and decided that it does not look good for a female to have massive knuckles... it doesn't really go with the manicure Instead I work on stuff for knifehands and palms. So I don't think I have warriors hands and I don't want them either!

That's what my mum says . That and arnica cream. Although both of them are for treating the bruises rather than preventing them.

When stepping (and I mean technically speaking, like for forms), do you place the heel down first or the toes/ball of the foot? and why? Was just comparing my TKD training to what we learn in Tai Chi and TKD always always places the ball of the foot onto the ground first whereas in Tai Chi, we place the foot down heel first. In TKD we want to have that mobility so we can change direction or move away at a moments notice so we go ball of the foot first so we can pivot if we need to and can use that foot to push back and step again with the leg we just placed down. In Tai Chi we want to step empty (without weight) and test the ground first before moving onto that leg. Also when you walk normally we go heel-to-toe and we want to mimic that. So what do you guys do and why?

We don't really have a standard structure. Every lesson is different. We do have set lessons each week geared towards something, like Thursdays are sparring and fitness whereas Tuesday is a more technical session. But they're never the same each week. One week we'll be doing tons of pad work in the sparring class, the next week we'll spend the entire time just sparring. Or like today we had to run round the field and do sprints up and down the football pitch before sparring. Even the warm-up/cool-downs are different each time. I think it keeps training interesting as you get to class and don't know what we will be doing.

Depends on the style surely because in ITF it is definitely the "twist kick". That's what its called in all the literature and I've never heard anybody call it anything else. Just a guess but is it the spinning heel kick? (we actually call it the reverse turning) As in this:

My TKD pants have a back pocket... but they only come in white and have all the embroidery on so you probably wouldn't want them. Surely anything worn by the military like combat/cargo pants would be alright. Can get them pretty cheap from surplus shops too.