DWx

Hehe yeah I know I said weekends but I really mean Fridays and Saturdays I go down to my parents on the Friday evening and come back up to uni on the Sunday evening. Might be able to do Sunday afternoons but probably only between 3 and 5pm (10am - 12pm your time) as have trains to catch.

They don't have the same resisting effect but they are still a very good way of testing the amount of force and allow you to be a lot more quantitative about it. I break a lot using both wood and boards and re-breakable boards are equally as hard if not much harder. You have no leeway with the accuracy. You have to hit the centre because they will not break at all if you don't. With a wooden board you've got maybe the centre 1/3 of the board to strike and it will break. Wood is also so inconsistent. Yes re-breakable boards degrade over time but with wood a lot will depend on the tree growth (how close the grain is together), how much sap, how much moisture, what part of the tree it came from (curved grain or straight grain), type of wood etc. With re-breakable boards you can work you're way up the different grades too so you start with an easy one and then end up with multiples of the hardest ones.

true, but you have to really break them a lot of times first. If you're using the same board over and over again in one session they do warm up too and get a little easier to break... still its not that much easier, you still have to have power to do it.

I think that's a matter of perpective there. hehe I have a TKD friend who kicked someone through the judges' table. They weren't too happy about it. See that's part of the reason my lead arm is down as in that photo I linked to earlier. We're taught to keep it there to guard the ribs against the side kick. From that position its easy to intercept the kick, slip in to the open side and reverse punch with the rear hand while almost pushing/deflecting the kick across with the down arm. Elbows are always good, especially if they're using their instep to kick with Thanks for the breakdown tallgeese. I'll try it out. Cheers as well Wolfman08. I guess it really is just a case of forcing myself to spar differently and actively try not to revert back.

Welcome Wolfman08

Welcome Jona

Welcome hext

Use re-breakable boards. Think they're harder anyway because they won't break unless you hit the line. Can also get data from them on exactly how much force is needed to break them. I think its pretty awesome to know that I can get 200lbs of force or whatever out of a technique (I might be a bit weird though )

I said no but mainly because I'm cynical and don't think a lot of people would stick at it long enough if they didn't have a regular attainable goal, especially kids. It serves as motivation and provides short term goals. Obviously all of us who post on here have more than a casual interest in MAs and can appreciate that its not just about getting to the next level but for a lot of people it is. It isn't until several years down the line that they take a "proper" interest and some of them turn out to be really great martial artists and the next generation of teachers. By the time they've got a few years training under they're belt (excuse the pun ) they'll be at the advanced colour belt to 1st dan level where you tend to spend longer amounts of time. By then they've got both the technical foundation and actual drive to take a holistic approach to training. Until then its just learn a couple of kicks, punches, throws... not necessarily a system. Maybe it is a bit of a McDojo approach but I do like the idea of reeling in as many students as possible with superficial things like belts and then watch them develop into serious students and great fighters whilst weeding out the ones that really don't care in the long term. I don't think a belt/curriculem based approach to teaching is all that bad either as long as there's no excessive testing fees and there is a reasonable amount of learning that has to be done for each. If blackbelt isn't really the ultimate goal, then who cares how many other belts your'e going through? As long as the focus isn't just on the next set of techniques to learn but on improving on what you're already done too. Even if you learnt how to side kick 5 belts ago, your side kick now should be markedly improved and be demonstrated at your test along with new materials. I really don't think there's anything wrong with a structured approach to training. I know as I was going up through the ranks it would be good to look at my current syllabus to know what new material I needed to be able to do but also to look through at all the past levels and ask myself "can I do that technique like a [next colour] belt would?"

Congrats conrad

Doesn't sound like a brilliant school tbh. And I don't get the whole vertical fist thing. Although in my style of TKD we prefer a fully rotated fist, we do use vertical fists too so seems stupid this teacher was totally disregarding it. IMHO I think when people go on about other styles being bad or worse its mainly because they're just a little bit insecure about their own style. I think you just have to take stuff like that on the chin and ignore it. Its just makes them look ignorant.

My Wii's at my parents house so when I can play depends when I'm going to be home. Not home this weekend but for various reasons will be for the following 3 weekends. I'd be up for playing anytime up till midnight, so that's around 7pm your time. Don't worry though; just organise whenever's convenient for you guys and I might join in.

Thanks tallgeese. Will give that a go when I have time with a partner. What do you (or anyone else) suggest as to the positions of the arms? Over the years I've become more concerned with protecting my mid section and ribs so my guard reflects that and its probably not suitable just to lift it up as then my ribs will be very exposed. Guard far too open and relaxed tbh. Example of it, I'm in the blue gear (although in this fight she was a lot smaller than me so didn't have to protect my face but that's no excuse).

Yeah should do that sometime I'm 5 or 8hrs ahead depending which side of the US you're in Pretty much a night owl anyway though.

Interesting Jason, hadn't heard that take on it before. Do you have a video example? Just trying to visualise this. They way I think(?) you're describing, the upward palm under the knee and the downward palm at the shoulder? Isn't that mainly relying on the arms to do the throwing? I think from the headlock position I'd prefer to use the hip and leg for the throw as the way I think you're describing it relies a lot on strength, I'll have to try it out sometime. Do you have any applications for the use of the block from the low stance position as in the pattern?

I'd be more concerned if your teacher was only teaching you techniques that were allowed in sport matches, unless of course your only interest in the style was for the competition aspect. For all the reasons already mentioned it would be good to learn stuff that you can't use in competition. Besides you may want to compete one day in a tournament that does allow them.

My style advocates a range of responses from dodging/evading to block countering so there isn't really a a set response for this type of attack. However, I guess my own response would be to take the roundhouse on my left arm in a modified outer forearm block/parry whilst stepping in and simultaneously use my right hand to do an upset punch into the gut. From there my left hand is in a good position to grab behind the attackers head and my right could come up to grab too. If the upset punch worked, hopefully they'll already be bending double in which case I'll drive my knee upwards to the chest while pulling them down. From there downward elbow on the back or maybe something else depending on what positions we're in. Between the upset punch and grabbing the back of the head there's the opportunity to do my own roundhouse punches to their head, elbows, stomp on their feet etc. depending on how they're responding to what I'm doing. Montana's right though, heights and weights are going to effect what you can do. What I said above will work for someone shorter or same height but I'd probably have to take a different approach for someone taller.

With apcha olligi there is a danger of falling over though. Especially in beginners, the concentration is in throwing the leg up as high as possible (for the stretch) and the weight tends to go back. Seen plenty of people fall flat on their back, done it myself too before . All the power really relies on how much swing and momentum you can throw into it. Personally I'd prefer an upward knee kick in that situation or if the distance permits, a front snap kick. What's the "heel-thrust" kick he's referring to Joe? Is it a back kick? If you were only going to teach/practice two kicks I'd go with them two. They pretty much cover all angles. The front kick for targets that are straight ahead and the roundhouse for ones that you want to hit side on. If I was going to make it up to 5 kicks, personally I'd add in the side kick, back kick and hook kicks.

Good luck GeoGiant

Welcome Bdon-87!

Thanks for the suggestion MasterPain. I have considered doing that to also work on my punches too but at the moment time and lack of money means its not really possible. TBH we do get hit quite hard in the face in our point sparring; ITF Taekwondo is pretty much full contact apart from you can't win if your KO opponent. I really think my problem stems from having a high tolerance to pain and being able to roll with the punches. My coach always says I won the fight just not the spar. It just means I'm giving away points.

Does anyone have any good drills to work on to keep my hands up? Its not that I don't have a guard, I do. I just tend guard more torso instead and only raise my arms to block/parry a head shot that I think might hurt. My problem is that getting punched in the face doesn't really bother me so its not really become an ingrained habit for me to protect my face when sparring. This is a big problem for point-based sport sparring as I'm giving away too many points on the head punches because in my head I'm thinking "I can take that and it won't hurt so why block it?". Its a very bad habit that I need to get out of! Aside from the points issue, because I don't guard my face well, occasionally a harder punch will go through and twice now in competition I've had a shot land and nearly send me crashing to the mat because of it. I do shadowbox but am looking for any more drills I could work on.

You can get a lot out of training with mismatched partners. Even in my club where there are +100 people, there is literally nobody who is of similar size and weight to me. I'm 5'10 and 200lb which is in the top weight category for females and all the other women at the club are a lot smaller. Whereas most heavyweights rely on slow but heavy hits, because I've been either training with lightweight females who are a lot faster or the heavy weight men who can hit harder, I've become a lot faster and more agile than the fighters that are in my class at tournaments. Use this as an opportunity to get better.

The conditioning; both of the mind and the body. To get your "one hit, one kill" killer technique you've got to focus and commit everything first time otherwise you'll just hurt yourself so you need to have that mental conditioning to just go for it and not hold back. You also need to fully condition the body. Firstly in the sense that you need to strengthen your bones so that they can withstand the impact and in the sense that you need to develop the speed and have mastery of the technique otherwise you'll just bounce off.

Was recently talking with a friend about the name of the film and she said (I don't know how true this is) that they couldn't call the film "The Kung Fu" kid because Kung Fu Panda had the rights to it Not been able to find any else that says that though.