DWx

Got to say Martialart, I agree with Sibylla that 22 months for a blackbelt is a really short time. Its not even two years. I probably wouldn't question it that much if I found quality examples of ITA students on stuff like YouTube.. but I can't. is a guy testing for his 3rd dan. Can't say I'm impressed.If you want to compare it to the unknown blackbelt from the obscure Karate club, this is where competition is great. Open style or even just against clubs of the same style but different groups will show you what level people are on. Actually my instructor says that if a person stops training altogether then they are no longer a blackbelt. If they walked back into the dojang twelve months down the line they wouldn't look like or have the ability of a blackbelt so they aren't really one anymore. When we do have people turn up again, he still lets them wear their old belt (unless its been a really long time) but they are generally not considered that rank yet. Unfortunately most that come back can't hack it anymore and stop training again after a while.

Well said Lupin1. I also see forms as a place for practising perfect form. When I think back to other sports I did, we would drill everything with a perfect form before trying them out in a live situation. So the perfect forehand for tennis or perfect throw for netball. The moves may seem exaggerated at the time but what it does is promote muscle memory. TBH you needn't do forms if you are drilling everything in this way with all the different moves and stances and combinations, its just forms provide a nice way of keeping that altogether.

Didn't think about them.. Although the smaller person has more mass to try to throw. Not so sure about longer limbs being a liability, if they do get within the punching kicking range, switch to elbows and knees.

A group of people from my club are doing on this weekend for charity... I declined the offer to join them. I'll sponsor but you won't find me at the starting line.

The bigger person is, in most cases, always going to have the advantage. Longer reach, more mass, takes a lot more to take them down... only benefit of being small is its generally easier for you to be faster. The other stuff you listed is just a general problem with competition. If the smaller person wants to have the opportunity to get inside, they have to be quick. That or try continuous sparring instead.

Depends what system your in. Over this side of the pond our degrees are broken down into classes, you can get a 1st, 2:1, 2:2 or a 3rd. And depending on what institute you go to the "value" of you degree is more or less. And of course you can get kicked out if you fail to meet the minimum standards at the end of each year. The belts may not be broken down into these sub-class as such but the bit about what institute you go to definitely applies. If you go to X school and your teacher was Mr Y with a very good reputation for developing high quality students, then I'd say your belt was worth more than someone who got it from a poorer school. Of course it shouldn't be like this though, every school should be able to produce top-quality students but then again this is what this topic is about. Unfortunately paying the bills means its not really feasible for most to kick students out if they don't meet standards but it is something to consider. In any case you never know, someone might see your good example and want to follow your lead. Competitions are a great proving ground and if students at your school see you winning, they may just ask what that is and will want to copy you and up their game. Or even in class sparring and you beat a higher belt or whatever. All you have to do is inspire them in order to become a good example that they want to copy. BTW I'm not getting at you for where you train. If you don't have any other options then its the best you can do and you'll have to make the best situation out of it. To have some is better than to have none.

First off make sure you're lifting and moving your feet correctly. It may be a technical problem rather than surface problem. Aside from that, use talc for sticky floors, hairspray for slippery surfaces.

Congrats to both her and you Jeffrey.

I wouldn't be trying any of the "if he does I'll do that" just yet. Its hard to pick up on what people are going to do when you've had limited experience. You could end up waiting for that one shot while the other guy is collecting his own points. First tournament so just keep a tight guard use a handful of techniques, like roundhouse and punches and you should do fine. Stay relaxed and enjoy it more than anything. and good luck!

Having never trained with Ho-Am TKD, I'm not really in a position to comment. I'm sure that if you have good instructors and are willing to train hard, you'll be very good. I was just basing my opinion of them on a couple of videos I saw on YouTube. What I saw didn't impress me with the quality of technique shown but then again people could say that about the style of TKD I do and there are plenty of vids of people doing our style poorly. Its a problem a lot of styles and schools have. If you want the the students and money sometimes quality control suffers.

We can wear just the dobok (Korean gi) trousers and t-shirt in training for any sparring or fitness stuff. Obviously no belt with it.

Can have a gap or no gap. A lot of people squeeze their fingers together but you shouldn't really need to if you are striking with the right part of the hand and gripping the muscles in your palm. I think when people first start doing it they are taught to squeeze the whole thing for good practice and when striking because it protects the fingers a bit more if you hit wrong. The "experts" have probably done it so much they don't have to do that and can just grip the part used. I love breaking with knifehand and don't hold my fingers together really anymore, like I said, you don't need to if you hit right.

Martialart, just had a look for TKD Plus to see what type of TKD it was and it seems its part of the ITA (correct me if I'm wrong). I've not really heard of the ITA and from YouTube I'm not overly impressed, rather the opposite actually. It certainly doesn't look credible. However, having said that, if you yourself know what makes a good punch and kick and you have good teachers there's no reason why it can't be good effective MA. Like you said the kids just bring in the money to keep it running for those who are serious.

Our whole school clubs together every year to give our instructor and his wife a gift. One year she got a spa-day... he got vouchers for a full body wax! so that he can feel the same pain he puts us through every session.

...you shake the job interviewer's hand with both hands and bow.. and use them to pull chairs out from tables.

Luckily we don't actually have predefined one-steps and unless specified the attack can be anything. Unless the defender is wanting to dodge first, they can't anticipate what they're going to do. But yeah moving before the attack is even initiated is also a waste of time.

Great article. Totally agree with this. I hate it when people throw a punch but don't even try to make it connect. In most cases I'll just leave it and not block and if they ask why, its because I didn't need to block.

Congratulations

Well from what I gather from stonecrusher69's article, Chi Sao is similar to the initial part of push hands training where you learn to feel what your opponent is doing, but in push hands it ultimately builds up to where you're goal is to actually push your partner over or off balance as in a form of sparring. Does Chi Sao do this too?

On the TKD side it gets very messy what with all the different orgs. People split away from orgs and create their own then it all starts to deviate down the line. ITF and WTF are obviously the two main ones but then within that there is a whole load of variation. The group I trained with at uni are from Master Hee Il Cho's line and call themselves ITF-style but they are noticeably different from the actual ITF. I'd imagine its the same for Karate.

Nice article. Am I right in thinking Chi Sao is similar to the push hands of Tai Chi?

I studied Yang style for a couple of years. Was a lot of older people doing it for gentle exercise and rehab but since I was more interested in the martial side my teacher always made sure she taught that for me. Whatever style of Tai Chi you do, make sure you find someone who does teach the combat side of things. Chen style generally focuses more on the combat/MA side of things. Chen might be more rigorous than the other styles but even so its not that rigorous as such compared to other forms of MA. Look around YouTube if you want examples: I heard Sun style is fairly gentle and doesn't do a lot of leaping/jumping and deep stances that you'll find in the other styles so that might be good for rehab. Have you ever studied it? My experience of it there has always been a huge overlap. First and foremost the movements are combative but in doing them it would be great physical therapy.

Ours are the same as that although we use different names for them. Also have a ton of other stances with varying weight distributions betwenn 50/50, 60/40, 100/0.

Tai Chi definitely helped my TKD. Made me much more aware of my hip movement and where I was placing my weight. I think my forms improved ten fold after doing Tai Chi for a couple of months.

Have to get round to reading this. Someone bought me the uncut version but I haven't had a chance to read it yet. Yeah, the Stand is a great book. I read it a few years ago as my first Stephen King novel. I have since started reading the Dark Tower series. The next book in the series for me is Song of Susannah. I've got so many books I want to read right now though that it might be a few more months before I actually get to it. As far as favorite book, though, I'd have to say Lord of the Rings tops the list for me. I just finished reading Song of Susannah. Pretty good but I prefer the the previous ones in the series. Leaving the last one till this summer though otherwise I'll never get any uni work done! Lord of the Rings is pretty good. Read it when I was younger but think I was too young to appreciate it properly!