DWx

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Happy Holidays! Hope you guys all have a good time

Welcome JamesWMH I study ITF TKD which is very similar to what you TAGB guys do. We sometimes get your guys coming to train with us at my home club and I've competed against TAGB students in the nationals before.

Welcome to KF Lupin1 Its going to depend on which brand you buy as to how they're cut. Some are very generous, others not so much. Trying them on would be the best option. But if not I would probably go for a taller size and then alter the lengths of arms and legs. You could always ask your Sensei as they'll have a much better idea of what you should buy.

Being a good coach/teacher doesn't necessarily mean you are or were very good at it yourself. My friend's running coach is actually in a wheelchair but that doesn't make him a bad coach, he still understands about all the factors that go in to making the athlete better. Same with MA tecahers, they don't have to be physically gifted, can just have a good mind and be able to teach.

Good luck Blade96! All good suggestions so far. Probably a bit late but only thing I'll add is make sure you know the what I'd call diagram of the kata. That is, where and how far you're going to be moving. The judges may tell you to stand on a spot but if you think there isn't enough room ask to move. Nothing worse than ending up standing on one of the judges halfway through. Oh and also good etiquette is always a must. It shouldn't but it does help bias the judges towards you sometimes.

I'm not a Japanese stylist but in our style there are some pretty specific rules about who can have what title. 1st through to 3rd dans are boosabum (assistant instructors) although its not a big deal if you call them instructor, 4th to 6th sabum (instructor). Only at 7th can you be called "master" (sahyun), 8th are called senior masters although we still use the same Korean title and 9th are grandmasters (saseong). Its generally considered a big faux pas if you use the wrong title especially for a master or above, less so for below 6th. In most cases I say stick with Sir and Ma'am, can't really go wrong with that.

Welcome bub4444

Welcome the phoenix

Worse one I've got at the minute is a neck injury from getting punched too hard in the head in a tournament a couple of months ago. Pretty much gave me whiplash and I still have problems turning my head and get pain there sometimes. Got a recurring ankle injury from a couple of years ago that flares up every so often, usually just cover it in tiger balm, take some painkillers and strap it.

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Welcome Ichi_Geki

Thats cool Chuck. Did he teach you any of the poomse?

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Bring it on. Obviously though I share be declared the indisputable winner. Can you face the pain of losing? Congrats to everyone.

Maybe I'm just not understanding what you mean about returning along the same path. Do you mean do the same action in reverse? I'm just failing to see how this would make a difference with regards to the power/effectiveness of that particular punch. It may look better with regards to form and neatness but will a punch's power really be all less efficient if I just let it swing down to my side after or some other movement. I mean obviously its probably not wise to just let the arm drop after hitting someone but with regards to power, I just don't understand. Same with the backfist. From a mechanics point of view, albeit fairly limited in my case, I just can't see why it must.

Great post tonydee. Although the towel example is definitely interesting with regards to motion, how much does it apply to a punching motion regarding recoil? When I considered the punch earlier I simplified it down by assuming it travelled in a linear motion, but the towel definitely doesn't travel this way. If you consider how the towel travels, on the forward movement of your wrist it arcs across as its dragged through the air with your hand. At this point the tip is travelling behind the rest of the towel because (like tonydee said) the material offers no rigidity, the towel itself is not straight and is in fact arced too. When you "recoil" your wrist you create a wave down the towel to get the end to bend round and snap. Its this flicking motion at the end which really creates the speed and power and the faster you flick the faster the end snaps round. In essence I don't think you can apply this principle of "recoil" to the punch or many other techniques because they just don't behave in the same way. The towel whipping relies on the fact that you can create this wave down its length parallel (or do I mean perpendicular?) to where you want to impact. Its the bones and joints that are the problem, you just can't get the whipping effect unless you have a joint which is capable of bending one way and then the other freely. I'm struggling to think of anything other than the wrist which would allow for this type of movement and even then it can only be applied to movements like the backfist (if you don't lock the wrist) and not to anything where the power travels down the forearm e.g. punches. Having said that though, I'm thinking that you'd lose a fair bit of the power doing the backfist this way as you're mainly relying on the speed and mass of the fist to create the power. With a more rigid hand you can bring more of the body into play on the mass side of things. (Besides, for me, my style recommends having joints rigid on impact to prevent damage, bent wrists and twisted anles and all that). What would be your reasoning for this sensei8? As per my earlier post and tonydee's post, what happens after impact isn't really crucial as far as power is concerned.

Honestly joesteph I don't know. My physics isn't that good . But I'd guess yes? If you liken the push vs snap to the thrust vs strike I think you could use similar arguments as in this thread. Personally I think the pushing doesn't strike as such but that you make contact and then apply pressure and keep driving forward with your mass rather than transferring the power in an instant. As a result it is slightly slower. Does the snap with recoil encourage a faster punch? I'd go with tonydee's point: I'd agree with that. This is now starting to going way past my knowledge base.... was never too good at physics at school... although I do live with a physics postgrad so might go ask him later.

Welcome solomona

No of course not. You can't really compare ranking systems across different styles. The majority don't even have the same coloured system. Red in my style would be 2nd gup (so 2nd kyu level) but in a number of styles red is a beginner level belt or even in some it denotes the highest levels. However within the same style, where all practitioners wear the same ranking system and stripes, then I think you could make the assumption that someone who has 8 stripes is more advanced than someone with 5.

But, as with academics, once the primary goal is achieved, is this truly enough? Not for some academics; those who choose to enter research or study. You could equate them to the lifelong practitioners of MA, the people who keep studying and training even though they've passed all their exams and there aren't any set short term goals to achieve. If they still want short-term goals they can set them personally but I think at this point, both in MA and academia you could say that the person is advanced enough not to need set short-term goals in order to guide their learning. Beginner students in either field often need short term goals to focus in order to know where to start and what they should be concentrating on at each stage.

Ok I only did up to A-Level mechanics and bits of particle physics in uni, but that doesn't make much sense to me. Change in momentum basically means velocity or acceleration, so force=mass x acceleration , i.e. Newton's first law. Means you hit the target when you fist is travelling the fastest in order to gain maximum force. That's pretty straightforward. But it means its not so much spending less time in contact with the target as transferring the mass as fast as possible i.e. acceleration. Doesn't matter how long you are in contact for because if you are travelling fast enough when you impact the mass is transferred in a split second rather than over a longer time period which would happen if you were travelling slower. After the energy has been transferred as impact you can keep your fist there if you want, its not going to suck the energy back. Think car hitting a wall, once it hits and kinetic energy becomes impact, doesn't matter if you then accelerate in reverse, the damage is already done. Another example, a sledgehammer wont do more damage if you hit and then recoil. Once it's hit, it's hit. You also have to punch through because your arm isn't travelling the fastest at the end of the punch, its travelling fastest at probably around 75-80% of the distance. No matter how fast you accelerate throughout the punch, you have to stop your arm at some point so you decelerate towards the end of the motion. Therefore to maximise the energy transfer you want to hit when its travelling the fastest, ~25% before full extension. So for a better punch, don't decrease the time you are in contact, decrease the time it takes you to make contact. Also decrease the time/increase the distance before you have to decelerate and you will maximise the amount of acceleration created.

I don't celebrate, but Happy Thanksgiving to all of you who do