DWx

In this TKD Times interview (Jan 200), Gen Choi says he studied under Funakoshi whilst at university in Japan. I can't remember where I saw it but I once read an article comparing the Chang Hon patterns to Shotokan forms. If you look through them there are some nearly identical combinations across the two. It would make sense that some of the orignal Kwan members studied some form of Karate under the Japanese occupation.

Welcome!

Can you really use UFC to compare fighters or fighting styles? Even UFC 1 had a rule set which would put some styles at a disadvantage to others and the ultimate goal of the fighters is different to how they would be in a total free-for-all combat. And I would argue that modern UFC fighters train for the rules and for a "style" that fits within the ruleset. Things like small joint manipulation or pressure points won't be all that effective in the ring but given a self defense or life/death combat situation they may work. If you look at the principles of certain styles some of them wouldn't have you continuing to fight until TKO.. some styles would rather you evade then ran as fast as you could in the opposite direction. Not effective in the ring but effective as a style. And the people you get in UFC aren't your Grandmasters who have been training for a lifetime, they're sportsmen. IMO if you want to compare styles something like tallgeese suggested would be more appropriate than UFC.

Why is it that TKD is "good" for flashy demos and the like? If you go into YouTube and search for various generic styles of MA like "karate", "kungfu" or "taekwondo" or even the term "martial arts" itself, there are 100s of videos where people have put TKD to music and created a demo vid but not that many where other martial arts are concerned. Is it because TKD has elements that are seen to be more spectacular than functional (540 kicks and the like)? The predominance of the legs? Comparable number of practitioners? Or do TKDers just like to show off?

Welcome back. That's good of your Sensei to train you for free.

Yeah all the politics is really confusing if you don't know the history behind it all. I'm not really familiar with Ko-Dang so I don't know. It could be just that that particular person does it differently? The official moves list below says it is just a front snap kick. I can't get onto Youtube at the moment to view the form but you could also be referring to a hook kick in which the foot is vertical (I can't see whether it is that type of hook kick at the moment). http://www.taekwondo-legacy.com/pattern-KoDang.php What org are you part of at the moment? Most ITF schools discarded Ko-Dang a few years ago in favour of Juche so its interesting to see why ITF-C want to revert this.

I've always had it drilled into me not to go into a corner. Especially if there are a number of attackers. Reason being is you can't escape without going forward towards your attackers and you personally are more likely to be constantly on the defensive. We get told just to keep moving and to control the positioning of the assailants. I guess it depends on training ideologies though as for us we have like an idea that you have your long range, mid range and close range attacks and you try to keep it to the furthest away range in most senarios.

Great topic. Right now I have my short term goals but in the long term I really don't know. I'd like to think I'll keep going within my system, maybe pick up a few other styles properly. One day I think I want to teach but that's not really feasible right now. In the short term I plan to devote some time now to getting myself in better physical condition as what with studying and everything I have to sideline the MA sometimes. I like competing so I want to see how far I can take that and how much I can acheive down that route. I'm also working towards maybe testing for my 3rd dan but even if I don't I'm trying to get everything I've been taught so far to as near perfect as possible.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7490899.stm He even has his own sun glasses.

I'm jealous jaedeshi. I tried to convince my old man to let me get rid of all his stuff in our garage but he wasn't too impressed. Seems like you have a great set up there.

The Kukkiwon is only interested in dan ranks: http://www.kukkiwon.or.kr/english/examination/examination08.jsp?div=01

Congrats!

I think you do learn from day one but that the type of learning you do changes. White belts learn to copy and just to place their arms and legs in position but I think more advanced grades learn to understand why and start to be able to learn to apply. I think by blackbelt people learn to learn on their own and are more independant in what they spend their time doing. They don't need their instructor to spoonfeed them as such as they can go away and should know what they could do to generate more power etc. In my experience, once you get to blackbelt you have time to pull yourself away from a set syllabus and to start adapting the techniques to create your own personal style. For me when I started everything was like you had this punch for this angle and this kick for that etc. but once you start to really learn the techniques you learn yourself where and when they can be applied and how to set yourself up for that move and the learning process is so much more about you discovering stuff for yourself.

Thanks. I think I ramble way too much.

Here's both: Kodang: and Juche: They are kinda similar as if you look there's bits and pieces the same in both. Juche is much more a leg form though and IMO harder because of the jumps. Juche is a North Korean ideology: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juche With regards to the ITF/WTF merger I doubt this will have much effect as this is the wrong ITF. This is ITF-C as opposed to ITF-NK which is involved in the talks… its kinda confusing. ITF-C is also the smallest out of the three and I doubt whether the other two would be changing. Still it would be interesting to see which forms as a whole a new ITF/WTF org would keep.

ITF-C has announced that they are changing the pattern Juche back to Kodang in their forms set. http://www.itf-administration.com/news.asp?nurn=1651 Kodang was originally replaced with Juche but are they changing their official forms set back to Kodang or are the just changing the name? I'm not sure entirely but I always though that the reason Kodang was replaced in the first place was because it was not hard enough for prospective 3rd dans and it was too similar to the other 2nd dan patterns, Eui-Am and Choong-Jang. If they are just changing the name it seems a bit petty to me because although the whole Juche philosophy is politically grounded, IMO it is a good mindset to have and in any case most practitioners don't know the political side to it or if they do they don't pay attention. Opinions on this?

Anyone following this? The Murray / Nadal match was great, too bad Murray lost out. My money's on Federer to win.

I loved all the four I took for A-Level: Maths, Chemistry, History and English Lit/Lang.

I tend to get individual songs rather than the whole album.. last one I downloaded was the soundtrack to House of Flying Daggers, last physical copy which I bought ages and ages ago was Maroon 5: It Won't Be Soon Before Long.

If the alarm didn't get you up the angry calls from the people it rang would! I would so end up with a huge phone bill with one of those.

Extra jail time is a myth.. although if a verdict is up to a jury maybe being a martial artist could be a negative?

From a self defense perspective, defense against multiple attackers is IMO something everyone should cover in some way. From about blue/red belt we require students to demonstrate 2-onto-1 sparring which then progresses into greater numbers the higher the grade. Tallgeese's advice is good. Some things I would add though is that with multiple attackers you have to be very aware of your surroundings, probably even more so than you have to be against one attacker. Probably the worst senarios are when you are surrounded or backed into a corner. When practicing multiple attacker defense I try to keep control of my and my attackers' positioning even if I'm not attacking by trying to manoeuvre them one behind each other. Also don't try to go between them unless you can attack both sides at once (which is risky) its much better to circle off and go around rather than through. As a kid one thing my dad used to tell me was go for the biggest one there and then that will scare the rest off. It worked in about the only real self defense situation I've ever been in but I was about 8 at the time and my "attackers" were a group of teenage boys. I guess showing the rest of the group who's boss is good as it seemed to work for you Montana.

Welcome back

Welcome

It depends how official you want it to be. Most ranks are only as official as the association/school backing them. I don't really know how WTF and the Kukkiwon work myself but I'm guessing that the Kukkiwon are really only interested in 1st dan and higher if you wanted to go down that route. If you wanted to grade your wife in coloured belts I guess you could go right ahead and then once the time comes for blackbelt see if you can attend a proper grading held on behalf of the WTF/Kukkiwon. Or you could see if there is a organisation or something you could join as an instructor and then use their gradings. Welcome to the forums by the way