DWx

I think it also depends on the person themselves and how they wish to conduct their lessons. My instructor and his wife (our assistant instructor) are full time; TKD is their main income. But he is always welcome to suggestions or questions. We have a number of students who go to National Squad training where you get to see people from all different schools. If they are doing something slightly different or at the sessions we get told to do something different, our instructor will evaluate which he thinks is the better method. Sometimes he does change the way he does things. Similarly if he (or one of us) goes on a seminar or see something in another school or at a tournament, he will evaluate which way is the better way to do things. Personally I don't think you can have progression within a style if somebody doesn't question things. Not neccessarily question everything but I think sometimes its good to re-assess how you go about performing certain moves etc. IMO its only a call for the instructor to defend their style if the student is indeed asking it in a challenging manner. For the sake of furthering knowledge I'm all for asking my teachers why and why not. Just a difference in teaching philosphies really.

I actually have a similar problem. For me its a flexibility issue. Loosening up your hamstring and gastrocnemius may help in your case as it did in mine.

Likewise for us we ask as many questions as possible. If our instructor doesn't know, he will look it up. He carries the TKD Condensed Encyclopedia with him and if that doesn't have the answers he usually goes away and finds out. If you ask why you are more likely to understand the technique and be able to apply it properly rather than just copying motions and just taking what you're told for granted.

Congrats to Afghanistan too who got their first ever Olympic medal: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/olympics/taekwondo/7572409.stm Full list of match results, stats and bouts for the week: http://results.beijing2008.cn/WRM/ENG/Schedule/TK.shtml

You obviously wanted to do it so much and have overcome your body so I think Korean was a good choice. You have to really enjoy it if you're ever going to get anywhere with it and it doesn't really matter that you're not the best. I myself am not built for jumping or flying kicks yet on a higher level in TKD I'm supposed to be able to do them with ease. WOuldn't change though because I really enjoy it and I think that is the most important part of deciding which MA is best for yourself.

If you do it properly, that is what you are supposed to be doing in Push Hands. I'm not very good at it but trying to over power your opponent like a Judo contest will work against you if your opponent is any good at Push Hands. Takes a lot of time but eventually you learn to use their momentum against them.

Welcome back! That is a pretty cool story Joesteph.

Welcome!

Welcome!

Welcome!

My instructor's always saying that when we do forms we are expressing the artistic side of TKD.. but not all Martial Arts have forms. So what makes us "artists" and to what extent is fighting an art form?

Worst case senario for those who like to kick (either for self defense or a tournament situation): What happens when the other person grabs your leg? What can you do to free yourself from that senario? Obviously your balance is compromised and you want to free yourself as soon as possible. However the attacker is also at a disadvantage because they are having to hold your leg somehow. A couple of options I can think of are to go in closer and attempt to use a punch/strike but then that brings you closer to the attacker and you can't really put that much mass (and power) behind the attack. If it fails you are then in an even worse position. The other thing I thought was a scarificial type of kick where you use the other leg in something like a scissor kick or if all else fails you take a fall and hope to disrupt their momentum. Any suggestions?

What about Best of the Best? You don't really get Korean MA movies at all. Most Kung Fu movies come out of Hong Kong and the whole wuxia and wire work style looks good even if you don't do MAs. Plus the Koreans don't really have stars like Jackie Chan and Jet Li; I think the closest they ever came would be Hee Il Cho.

It will also depend on your interpretations of the moves in the forms. Is that a downward block, or a downward hammerfist strike to the groin? It just depends. I think that depends on what style you do. For example, in ITF there isn't exactly much interpretation. Everything is defined right down to the exact degree your arm is bent, the distancing and the cm² you are connecting with. A low block must finish bent at 15° from the elbow so the fist would not be at the correct angle for a proper hammerfist. The way we perform the block means that path of the arm would also not be that suited for a downward strike. We have specifics like for forms but that's not to say you couldn't learn to adapt the motion so it is a strike. Personally my whole philosphy is that the attack starts with the intention and not the physical motion. So I would always let the attacker "attack" first, be it through words, posture, attitude or whatever, but I wouldn't have a problem with throwing the first physical attack. How would this concept work with something like Aikido or Tai Chi though? You'd have to let the attacker move first because otherwise how can you use their momentum?

Cool but I still like the Yoda voice I have

Bushio_man96 pretty much sums it up. Gen. Choi and the ITF used to send their demo team out to various nations and then send their masters to go out and set up schools. The other Kwans also promoted their styles in order to promote Korea as a separate nation.

Been on the Magic Roundabout.. its so confusing!

I don't think in a street fight there is anything as fighting dirty. You have to do what you have to do in order to survive it. But I take the same sort of line as The BB of C. If your opponent is already defeated then any additional uneccessary techniques are "dirty techniques". However during the course of a fight I have no problem with things like groin attacks and gouges. As for a fair fight, in an ideal world I would say that its a one-one-one situation and neither of the fighters has any advantage as in weaponary and stuff.

I think another thing is how you won't keep on getting new belts and ranks after blackbelt. It takes years to grade again and a lot of people don't stick it out till the next level. Physically and mentally I think its a lot tougher as you are expected to keep your standard high throughout.

Good Luck!

You don't need a dojo as in a solid building; our classes are in at a different venue nearly every day of the week. But like everyone else has said you do need a dojo as in a group of people to train with and learn from. I think that once you get to a certain level and are fairly competent you can do more on your own but for the most part how can you learn to fight without somebody to fight against? Even if you are the highest ranking person in your style and think you know more than everyone else you still need a dojo to keep your skills alive and to keep improving. I wouldn't say formal lessons were necessary but you definately need opportunities to learn and time to practice what you've learnt.

I don't think it would be such a bad thing if you had one move perfect. As Bruce Lee said: "I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times." Personally I like to keep working on a move until I think I know it and can do it reasonably well. I move on and try something new but will come back and revisit at some point to see if there is more I can do. However having done school exams recently I've had it drilled into me that you can't concentrate on one thing properly for anything over 20 mins so what I try to do is work a couple of techniques alternately during a session but then do that for multiple sessions. Rather than allocate a whole day to one technique I'd prefer to allocate 15 mins max to one technique but then do some more the next day or whatever. I think something like this will be largely down to what you can cope with yourself and what you find works for you.

ITF-C are launching a new resource site for ITF style TKD, https://www.tkdsource.com . They say the site will have videos of the patterns and other bits and pieces like drills and training/teaching tips so it might be interesting even if you aren't ITF. As far as I can tell so far there are no joining fees and you don't have to be ITF to be able to use it. Just in case anyone is interested.

Welcome to the forums!

Juche as a philosophy may have clear ties to NK but in reality does its name really affect the pattern? The definition given to ITF practitioners is Juche in its barest form minus the political applications and for the majority fo your average students a lot of them don't even know what Juche really means. For me the name is quite fitting if you use the definition given by the ITF. Its a tough pattern to do and requires a lot of work to get it right; i.e. it requires mastery over oneself in order to perform each and every move perfectly. You don't have to follow the political applications at all as long as you take away the general meaning of it.