DWx

I think I might buy a new game. Any suggestions?

The bag I've got is about 6ft, is an uppercut one, made from vinyl so I can go bare knuckle and is suspended. I've no idea about the weight though. At the moment its stuffed full of off cut bits of cloth but this has all settled at the bottom so I'm going to have to re-stuff it. Since I'm taking it all down anyway, is there anything better to stuff it with or how can I stop it all from settling so quickly? Any help is much appreciated.

Whats your favourite form/kata/hyung/whatever to perfom? Whats your favourite one to watch? My favourite one to do at the moment is Choong Jang (from the Korean Chang Hon set) but I really like Juche, I just can't do it very well. I don't really know that many forms outside of Korean sets but I also like seeing Bassai Dai done well.

This is exactly my problem. It is really difficult for me or my training partner to throw things like haymakers without having some sort of reaction arm or breathing or whatever and I definately can't kick like an untrained fighter. Even when we try real hard to just throw something it goes straight to a "proper" target so you know where the attack is travelling too. We do do a fair bit in normal training its just again the attacks are coming from MAists who can't but help attack properly. I do think a non-MA partner would help and have had somebody do it before but they didn't like having the contact when I was blocking or coming back with techniques.

I was practicing with my sister and it occurred to me that although I could probably block a TKD or MA attack, blocking a general attack from an aggressor would be completely different. Its not that I don't know how necessarily, but the only people I ever practice self defense against is other MAists. You tell them to throw a punch at you and they still throw it in a MA way. To some extent there are nearly always features of the "proper" punch and even though you ask them to just randomnly attack you any kick or strike or takedown will be done in an MA fashion. So how effective is it to learn self defense when practising against a martial artist? I have virtually no real self defense experience and it concerns me that I have no idea how I am going to react to an unwieldly fist that could seem to be thrown almost erratically. Through my training I am fairly good at recognising the signals of an attack but these are signals from an MAist and you kinda know the path their fist or foot will travel.

I think the problem a lot of teachers have nowadays it that financially it is very difficult to teach unless you have students to pay for it. Even if it isn't your main source of income you still have to consider other factors such as can you afford to spend time doing it? can you fund room rental costs, insurance? etc. Of course some of these are going to affect others less and some people more but it is hard to keep it going with little to no students. And if other places are watering down their curriculum and a person can get a blackbelt from someone else within 3 years but it'll take 10 years with you, the consumer may jest go to the easier place. Then there is always the issue about "old fashioned methods". Sure they work and maybe more people should do them but many people today aren't prepared to go into work the next day looking bruised and battered. So again watering down the teaching methods must sometimes be done to stay in buisness. Personally I don't think you should water it down because like NE_KyoSa said you'd be compromising yourself and your students. If you can get by with 10 students and teach them properly then thats great.

Never been but it is definately one of my things to do before I die. Anyone on here want to take me?

Congrats!

One of the best things I've heard about carrying is one of those rape alarm thingys. They usually sit on a keyring and emit a high pitch noise when you press them. Good for distracting your attacker and attracting attention.

Welcome!

Well my sister didn't get anything but its here first time competing for the team and I don't think she did too badly. Apparently the sparring didn't go too well as the first technique her opponent threw gave my sis a bloody nose and she caused her eyes to water. Other than that no major injuries. She did come home with a cut above her eye but that was from playing basketball . Didn't bring me home a souvenir though!

We don't have a drinking policy as such. Obviously you are expected to turn up to class sober but I don't think there's ever been a problem with an alcoholic before. It isn't expected that we refrain from drink we even have socials where we go down the pub, not to mention the Christmas party where several individuals got very drunk and did some very embaressing things.

$40 a month seems cheap to me. I shell out (my parents shell out) £20 a week which is about $40 dollars. A month that works out to around $160. And I only have 4-5 hours a week.

I think I've kinda reversed my opinions on this. I sparred in a tournament a few months back where this rule wasn't implemented. It was awful. I think our club was the only ones doing what resembled like proper fighting, everyone else was brawling. In my first (and only) bout I had 6 foot girl who literally jumped on me. I kept catching her with punches as she came in and then following through and she simply just soaked it all up and started windmilling. Looked like she was doing the front crawl. The only viable techniques for me to do that close were elbows and knees which aren't allowed. Although I think a two punch rule is bad.. I do think it is the lesser of two evils when compared to something like this. Granted it is totally unrealistic but it does keep those two punches proper punches whereas these people were just throwing their arms around. Also with hindsight I've had to learn to get in there, do my punches and then get out quickly without getting caught. I don't like it but I like it a lot more than windmilling.

I currently compete within ITF TKD. My training is pretty much ongoing rather than geared towards specific tournaments although at the moment I have scaled back a lot due to exams. For forms I try to spend time going through and perfecting the technical content and then when I'm happy with that start working the techniques to build up speed and power. I'm lucky in that I get to attend national squad training every fortnight so I get tuition from the national coaches, masters and competitors. Every session they give us sparring drills and tactics which I try to practice during the week and during normal training sessions. The only special I would do just before a tourny is to not train/only do light training a coupla days before to give myself a rest period. Oh and a good nights sleep too .

Dunno whether I'd call it chi but something I've learnt to do is be able to tell who's walking behind you and how far away. Sounds weird but the whole time I've been in high school I've walked about a mile to my mum's work after school for a lift home. Gets pretty boring so I used to try and guess how far away and roughly what build the person behind me was. You get pretty good at it after a while. You can sort of tell how big they are from their footfall and can pick up how far they are away from the sound and by noticing things like shadows.. I also live in a house with a 14 year old who hides behind stuff and then tries to jump me as I walk into the room. Again I've sort of learnt when its going to happen and at what point to duck.

I'm talking about MySpace, Facebook and the like.. Which ones do you have? Which ones do you prefer? I have profiles on quite a few but only use Facebook regularly. Its so easy to use and to find people on it. Hate MySpace because I have to mess around with HTML coding.

My old and battered black 6103. Camera's awful, virtually no storage space. Its only saving grace was it was cheap and seeing as I had no job that's mostly what mattered to me. Don't really intend to replace it soon as it phones and texts people and thats all I care about.

I guess for us it depends how many are testing to as how long you are there for. For us coloured belt gradings are usually a couple of hours as you have to be there while everyone else of the same grade tests. The examiners will most likely be there all day though if lots of students test. The last few blackbelt gradings I've seen were around 3-4 hours. They weren't so much an actual test but more as a demo to the examiner as you don't get put forward for blackbelt until you are are to that standard.

v funny. I'm really just a classmate beating girl in her teens! Obviously my evil genius plan is working as I had you all fooled from the beginning!

For those of you that practice breaking, anyone ever had an accident doing it? Saw this video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=0UZl8AY7Uc8 and seriously feel sorry for the guy, (although it was a pretty stupid thing to do). So whats the worst thing you've done while breaking?

I do ITF TKD.. and there are a lot of stances: Charyot Sogi/Attention Stance - heels together, 45° between feet, weight 50/50 Moa Sogi/Closed Stance - feet together, weight 50/50 Gunnun Sogi/Walking Stance - front stance? Niunja Sogi/L-Stance - back stance?, weight 70/30 Annun Sogi/Sitting Stance - horse stance? Narani Sogi/Parallel Stance - feet parallel, shoulder width Gojang Sogi/Fixed Stance - this is a foot width longer than L-Stance and weight is 50/50 Nachuo Sogi/Low Stance - same as walking stance but one foot longer Kyocha Sogi/X-Stance - feet crossed, nearly 100% weight on one leg Goburyo Junbi Sogi/Bending Ready Stance - various ones of these but basically a preparatory stance for a kick Soojik Sogi/Vertical Stance Dwit Bal Sogi/Rear Foot Stance - similar to cat stance? Waebal Sogi/One Legged Stance - another preparatory stance Sasun Sogi/Diagonal Stance - very similar to sitting stance These are just the ones I know.. probably more.

I have addressed this opinion before, but I will do it again. Being a "jack of all trades" doesn't necessarily mean that you can't be a master. It depends on what your goals as a Martial Artist are. Do you want to be a master at kicking? Then focusing entirely on TKD may be your choice. However, if you want to be able to fight effectively from all ranges, then training in MMA or RBSD may be the way to go. It isn't fair to say that one's goals in the Martial Arts dictate the ability to achieve mastery. It just depends on what you want to master. This is just my own opinion. But surely if you wanted train in different ranges, say grappling, kicking and striking, then dividing yourself amoung them might not be most effective. You could end up with a mediocre level in all three. You are rounded yes, but you don't have a specific strength and if your opponent is a tad more efficient in any of those diciplines he would most likely beat you. If on the other hand you were fairly skilled at kicking and you had a basic level of grappling and striking then maybe you could push the fight towards your strength, kicking. Of course being great at all disciplines would be the best senario but can everyone manage that? Especially seeing as the vast amount of the MA community aren't professional fighters and have neither the time nor resources for that. For me, being a jack of all trades of MA would be like going out and learning phrases from 20 different languages, you'd be able to say the bare minimum but to hold a conversation? Of course I'm not an MMA fighter but this is just my own opinion. No its not fair to say that, there are plenty of examples where people are a master fighter but not necessarily a master of one style. I was just using the phrase to illustrate my point.

Wow DWx funny sometimes you can chat to members for months and months and not realise weather they are a boy or a girl lol i don't know why but i always figured you were a boy Please don't be offended lol lol nevermind the fact that I have a flower as my avatar There's probably plenty of people on here I've got the wrong idea about myself.

Thanks bushido_man96.. I think she's going to need it. The latest I've heard from her is that she has a by through the first round of patterns, then will either face Croatia or Greenland in round 2. In sparring she's up against Greece first round. The event website has a live webcam running now if anyone wants to watch.