DWx

Could also be you're trying to kick too high before you've go the flexibility for it. Gentle stretching may help.

Its a great website. They have 100s of videos from various championships and stuff like the North Korean team demonstrations free to download. They also have this list of all the techniques in Korean with images attached.

Interesting to see the differences. I personally would be more afraid of breaking something with an open hand attack. Any sort of knifehand and I would be worried about either the little finger or the thumb (if its a reverse). Fist just feels better to me. Although I would say I think my outer knifehand is far more powerful than any of my punches. I do like using palm strikes for things like the nose or solar plexus..

The woman's face in the jewelry store one.. In my old job I had this woman give me a bag full of £1 coins to pay for her shopping. I think the bill was around £170.. I was not impressed. Had to count them all out whilst the queue behind her started to grow back into the store.

The Sonkal site's not bad for info http://sonkal.taekwondo.cz/index-en.html They have all the diagrams on there. It shouldn't be too hard just to put them all on a page together and then print it off. I think I did something similar when I was making up all my notes for my blackbelt grading.

Mine works out a bit weird. If you pay in advance the sessions are £3.50 each but then you get discounts for having family members training too. I think it works out to around £35 a month for me for 2 sessions a week. But then alternate weeks I train 2hrs on a Sunday too but because I pay that as I go its £5 an hour. The other 2 Sundays in a month I go squad training which is £10 for 3hrs. Our dojang also gives you discounts off of equipment, insurance and stuff too depending on how many sessions a week you get a bigger discount.

That article was quite interesting Patrick. I've never used Vista myself so I'm only going on heresay which I guess most of those people would have too. With one of the places I'm looking at for a laptop, you can actually ask specifically for it to have XP rather than Vista. You also get the choice between Vista Ultimate or Vista Home Basic, any opinions on these? If I was to choose Vista I would probably go for the Ultimate edition but is it worth it? Or the other option for me instead of just buying a laptop would be to get another custom build and have XP (or Vista) put on it. Don't know if I can be bothered with that though if I can get a decent "ready-made" laptop. Another question, anyone running one of the MacBooks? My biggest concern with getting one of them is transfering stuff between the desktop at home or the uni system which both run on Windows. I'm thinking it might just be easier to stick with Windows for now... We still use 2000 for everything at work. Its like stepping back in time.

The C stands for Canada. When the ITF split into 3 they all called themselves the "ITF" and the only real difference at the beginning was who was in it. Generally if you want to refer to a specific one you use where their headquarters are. Hence: ITF-C, Canada under GM Choi Jung Hwa, ITF-V, Vienna under M Trieu Tran Quan ITF-NK, North Korea under Prof. Chang Ung. All really confusing . I think the only technical changes this ICTF made were to change where the form started at such. So instead of facing forward to something like a judging/examining panel, they've changed it so you are backwards (I think).

Which do you prefer to use? If you could only use one of them, which would it be?

Just looking through some stuff and I can across this: http://www.ictf.info/juche.htm Apparently ITF-C isn't the first to rename Juche in favour of something else non-politically related. The International Chang Hon Taekwon-Do Federation (ICTF) made the change in 2005. I've never heard of them though but I assume they are based upon ITF style TKD as they use that form set and photos on their website show a dobok very similar to ITF doboks. Does anyone know what they mean by "major technical flaw"? I'm assuming they mean the fact that to do Juche you have to start the pattern off with room for about 10 steps going backwards... but I wouldn't have called that a technical flaw.

I'm getting a new laptop to go away to uni with and have the option of either getting one with XP or one with Vista. Which is better? At the moment I use XP for the desktops at home. Never had any major problems with it and I can pretty much do what I want with it. Seems to be loads of criticisms regarding Vista so I'm not sure I want to upgrade just yet. Anyone using Vista at the moment? Also anyone got any recommendations for good laptops?

Shaun of the Dead is the best by far . Other than that haven't really watched many zombie movies. The first Resident Evil film was good but the rest of the series wasn't as good.

Now thats just plain weird.

I also have problems with my ankles. I was born with my ankles set at something like 3° more turned out than they should be (so I'm slightly duckfooted ). Instead of my weight falling down the centre of me feet it falls slightly to the back outer edges. If I'm on my feet all day sometimes an ankle will tighten up and it has to be strapped for the next couple of days. Sometimes hurts my knees too because the weight is again going down the outside edges. Other than that it doesn't bother me on a day to day basis. The only thing is I'm prone to landing funny and going over onto the sides of my ankles and this can lead to spraining it. For me supports help a lot. I've always found neoprene type supports to be the best as they stretch and allow lots of movement but they don't provide that much support if you're needing a proper brace. Anti-inflammatory gels are good to have, I usually carry some Movelat in my bag when training. A second opinion might be worth getting. If it is untreatable you have to make the best of it you can by making sure you have it strapped, have ice on hand or whatever you need. You may end up having to adapt certain techniques slightly. Is it a recent thing or something you've had for a long time? If its recent it may just be a case of taking time off to rest.

Not an injury as such but really painful.. Last night at training I was stretching in a sort of front splits position, then my front leg all cramped up and I couldn't do anything! Was stuck in the splits, unable to move or do anything to stop the cramping.

That makes a bit more sense. What is the source for your information concerning this, DWx? Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subak TKDTutor: http://tkdtutor.com/02Taekwondo/TaekwondoHistory/05Kingdoms05.htm Both of these have their own references on the bottom. My main concern is where the proof is. When you look into the Chinese and Japanese styles, you can see evidence of when such things would have taken place. Within TKD, it doesn't seem to come to the forefront as much. That could be a by-product of the political history of the country. When Japan tried to eradicate certain cultural aspects and Korea tried to revive/create others, the history got so screwed. The Kwan leaders and indeed the President at the time wanted the country to believe TKD was their own and not a by-product of some Japanese or Chinese system so anything which referred to origins aside from Korean was most likely kept quiet. Its one of the reasons they were so adament that TKD stemmed from Tae Kyon when a lot of it didn't. I don't think it really matters a great deal about the ancient orgins of TKD when looking at what TKD is today. IMO there is so little that comes from ancient Korean styles (and what did was exaggerated so much), IMO its better to look at what can be attributed to what happen from the 1950s onward. I understand this. And I can understand why the Koreans had done what they did in propogating TKD. However, with this knowledge in mind, I think it is necessary to look around this, and find out as much as we can that is authentic information about TKD. That's the problem with history though. How can you know whether something is authentic history or authentic information? Probably a bit too philosophical for this topic, but if you've ever read something like 1984 by Orwell or Farenheit 451 by Bradbury, both authors touch upon the idea that history is what you make it. If the Koreans wanted to promote the idea of a purely Korean style, much of the information out there is likely to be infulenced by this. Any first hand accounts or writings from the time (such as the Encyclopedia) offer a biased representation of what actually happen. Modern attempts to delve into the real origins of TKD are going to be affected by this because where do you get your sources from if not the original documents and first hand accounts? 1950s Korea did not have the same transparency as we do today so even though Mr X may have learnt some Karate during his time in Japan, he could, if he wanted to, pretend it all came from Tae Kyon and that the Japanese influence was insignificant. I suppose you could try trace back lineages of individual persons but you have to either rely on their own information (which again may be affected by personal agendas) or by what others have been told or believe to be true. However sometimes the others will be misinformed. Your average ITF practitioner will claim that all TKD was born solely from the work of Gen. Choi which is true in the case of Oh Do Kwan TKD but not of TKD as a whole. Whereas on the other hand a lot of WTF practitioners will have never heard of Gen. Choi at all and will be convinced that TKD came directly from Tae Kyon. So how do you know what's right? You can go down the middle route which is generally accepted as being the truth but even then there are discrepencies. The thing with TKD history is it is so wrapped up in WII politics and Korea's national identity thereafter that IMO makes its history so hard to follow.

Stricly speaking Subak isn't exactly the same as Tae Kyon. From what I understand, Subak was a parent style that split into a Tae Kyon kicking element and a Yoo Sul Juijitsu style. So there could be some truth in Choi's words. The Hwarang were supposed to have employed Subak as their method of unarmed fighting. Maybe some Korean styles were exported. Particularly during the days of the Three Kingdoms and after the unification Korea was pretty powerful. And each of the Three Kingdoms themselves had allies in China and Japan. For example, I think it was the Silla dynasty that was allied to the Chinese Tang dynasty. One thing when reading anything written in TKD early days is that they were very anti-Japan / pro-Korea so Choi probably exaggerated the influence of certain factors such as the Korean side of the history compared the Japanese influence.

I think Oh Do Kwan was formed by Gen. Choi and Nam Tae Hi (of Chung Do Kwan). A lot of the original members were also from the Chung Do Kwan and Choi himself had ranking with them. I don't really know a great deal about the Kwans to be honest. I looked into something about the Oh Do Kwan a while back so I know a bit about that and the Chung Do Kwan but as for the rest I don't know much at all. Wikipeddia gives a brief history of the Kwans but doesn't go into much detail with some of them.

I thought it was first ~ Chung Do Kwan ~ Moo Duk Kwan ~ Jidokwan (or Yun Moo Kwan) ~ Chang Moo Kwan ~ Song Moo Kwan. Then Oh Do Kwan came out of the Chung Do Kwan and you get Han Moo Kwan, Kang Duk Won and the Jung Do Kwan but I'm not sure of their histories.

That's pretty cool. Must have taken ages to do.

In a TKD competition you are comparing TKDers to other TKDers not neccessarily style vs. style. If you wanted to I suppose you could use it as a base to compare a style's competition to another style's competition but its a fairly limited comparision if you were interested in more than the sport side of things. Often the competition side doesn't represent the majority of the style, it represents a small part of it that someone has taken and made into a competition. Isn't survival a valid way of comparing a style? After all most styles were designed and developed not for the ring but for a self defense or military purpose. I would have thought that more styles were developed for survival rather than developed to see how well it would fare against another style. And if the goal of survival is to get away from a threat then isn't it valid to compare two styles on how they can get away from a threat or how they deal with a threat rather on how well they do when pitted against each other? Maybe we should define in what terms we are comparing them by? If you want to compare how a style deals with another style then go ahead and use UFC but not all martial arts are going to flourish under those conditions. For some styles they would be largely ineffective in a UFC environment as they were not created with the sole purpose of defeating another style. A fight in the ring is different to a fight in a bar which is different to a fight as a soldier. UFC is not the most effective way to compare styles in terms of the latter two and I’m sure there are plenty more factors which wouldn’t be compared very well using an example from UFC. I think it would be far more prudent to take that style and put it in that situation for what you want to compare it in terms of. UFC wont show you how that style deals with someone such as an untrained attacker or how that style works for multiple opponents.

I'm not saying UFC isn't a way to compare fighting styles, I just think that maybe it isn't the best way. Sure UFC is good if you want to compare how effective a style is in the ring or how effective a style is in that particular environment, but what about self defense? What about pure combat where its a question of life or death? Winning a MMA fight and surviving an altercation aren't neccessarily the same thing. If a style's principle is to get you in a position where you can run away from your assailant and using this method you survive, is it not effective? Just because the style in question did not get you that KO or the submission it doesn't mean it isn't effective as a Martial Art. Most likely such a style would be pretty ineffective in UFC style matches. And as for the ruleset, IMO "dirty tactics" are more than valid for the a style's effectiveness in pure combat. If I based my own style 100% on groin strikes, eye gouges and other techniques which are disallowed under UFC rules it doesn't mean the style is any less effective at saving my life. IMO they are perfectly valid in a non-sport combat situation but such a style would clearly be severly disadvantaged under UFC conditions. UFC isn't the only way to acheive that.

Congrats.

Great article. Like the way you've broken it down into levels.

I think my grandad did a bit of boxing when he was in the army. In my immediate family its just me and then my sister. I think I have a second cousin who studied Karate once.