DWx

That sucks Patrick. Are you all healed up otherwise?

Apparently it just happens sometimes and there are rarely warning signs. The nurse did say to me they've been seeing lots of these recently (there were at least 12 others with the same when I went into clinic). They think it's because after the Covid lockdown everyone has gone back to exercising at the same level and your body is like nope that's not going to happen! I've got to see what the phsyio says about braces. I guess I'll end up wearing one temporarily on the bad leg but ultimately there isn't any reason why the other leg would be at risk. Blood thinners were because you're at high risk of DVTs and I guess the injections are an efficient way to get it in to the body?. The boot immobilizes your ankle so your calf isn't pumping blood in and out of the leg so the thinners help minimise the risk. Speaking of which the muscle wastage is unreal. My leg has already seriously shrunk already compared to the other one. Not looking forward to the physio.

Hitting some big numbers there Brian!

Thanks Brian. I've got to come up with a good story because the truth isn't that exciting Running warm up in class. Working footwork, bouncing shifting etc. Switched stance and bang! Loud pop as my foot came down and it felt like someone had kicked the back of my leg. Knew I'd done it straight away and crawled off to the side. Went hospital and they did the Thompson test and straight away put me in a boot to lock my foot pointing down. Had to inject blood thinners daily for the first 6 weeks and I change the boot weekly from pointing down through to going flat again. Back in the hospital next week to see if its working.

I think most people go through this. At the early stages you are just focused on getting through to the next belt and blackbelt seems a long way off. After some time though you shift to enjoying training for trainings sake and set other goals than getting to the next belt.

Sending positive thoughts your way Bob. Don't dwell on the statistics, stay positive.

Rodtang's great fun to watch! He showboats a lot but backs it up with a solid chin and great striking. Plus he seems like a really decent guy outside the ring.

That's frustrating Bob and I'm sorry to hear this. I find it bonkers they can charge that much for Leuprolid, how can they justify it? A dose costs £225 in the UK... Not that the patient would pay for it anyway.

https://www.onefc.com/news/dj-vs-rodtang-two-world-title-fights-announced-for-one-x/ Anyone else excited for this fight? ONE Championship announced a special fight last week between Muay Thai legend Rodtang “The Iron Man” Jitmuangnon and former UFC Flyweight champion Demetrious “Mighty Mouse” Johnson. The match will be 4 alternating rounds of Muay Thai and MMA. Any predictions? I think if Rodtang comes out heavy in the first round and gets a clean shot on DJ then he'll be well away. If it goes to round 2 and then 4 Rodtang will seriously struggle with the grappling.

Congratulations Zaine!

Depends on what you want to teach but Noah's list covers it. Heck if you only want to teach kata and kihon you wouldn't even need anything, just a clear space.

Thanks Bob It really sucks. Would much rather have broken a bone at this point. I'd been lifting loads, set new squat PB 2 days before, and now my leg has just shriveled up from being in this boot. I was even supposed to grade in November but that's now not going to happen. Worst is it's my right leg and I'm not going to be able to drive for months. Oh and I did it the day before my birthday so spent my birthday alone in the hospital all day.

Congratulations Bob!

I agree with this. Any Taek Kyon claims you see now are more of a retcon or a reimaging of what Taek Kyon really was and squeezing it into Korean Karate to make it different from Japanese Karate (spinning kicks).

I think its a difficult one to define and its going to mean different things in different styles. That said for me I'm looking for correct start and correct end, but more importantly the way that the student gets to the end. In ITF TKD I feel like the "9 training secrets" we have covers a lot of what good technique should and shouldn't be. We talk about eyes, hands, feet, breath in a single coordinated action. Having "backward motion" to every movement, i.e. relaxing before moving. Having soft knees during the movement etc.

Who are you marketing to as that will dictate when, where and how you market. Are you targetting for adult students? Child students? Are you a sports school? self defense? Once you have that clear that will tell you where you need to be. In general get all the basics covered, Facebook page, website, Google page then you can branch out from there. Post photos from your classes, people having fun, learning stuff. Post your instructors teaching so people can get a feel for the class before attending. There are some marketing books aimed at Martial Arts instructors but actually any general marketing books will be useful. I listen to a lot of marketing podcasts too as books for digital marketing tend to go out of date pretty quickly.

We were online for the best part of last year. What age kids are you working with? We were doing a few different games: * Jungle Run - jogging on the spot, instructor says "branch" kids have to squat to duck, "log" kids have to tuck jump, "tiger" sprint for 10 seconds, "quicksand" for high knees We even put up virtual backgrounds of a jungle and did it with that. * Scavenger hunt - instructor says go find something red, or go find something round etc. then the kids run off and bring back to the screen something that fits that. First one back gets to pick an exercise for everyone else to do * Relay races - needs some coordination but the easiest way we found was to write teams on a whiteboard everyone could see. First person in the team does the exercise whilst the rest jogs, then second person, then third. Anything that the kids would have done on the spot in regular class will work.

Been pretty down for the last month as I snapped my Achilles at the start of August! Has anyone ever done this before? Could use some positive recovery stories. No surgery but have a massive boot which I have to wear 24/7. Sucks because whilst I've never broken a bone, a couple of years ago I snapped the ligament in my elbow. I'd only just gotten back to feeling strong again

More ITF Taekwon-Do related though he does interview kickboxers and MMA fighters, but I really like the BlackBelter podcast. I'd be interested in any other recommendations.

Sounds like an interesting model. How do you get feedback on a day to day basis? (rather than just at testing). We've had to do around 18 months of online teaching due to the pandemic and as a teacher I've found it really difficult to correct students only verbally and not offer physical correction. How does the program manage things like sparring, breaking or hosin sul (self defence)?

Congrats Mo!

You might consider a sit-down with her and the parents, and talk about how it's important to learn to work hard and push through adversity, and still find the enjoyment in things, especially the accomplishments. This can be a tough conversation to have with someone so young, but the parents might be able to help out with it, too. See if you can get her to flip her attitude on the matter, and motivate her to work hard and find the enjoyment in the training. Yeah I think that's the way I'm going to go. It might be a good time to talk anyway as we just had a belt test and they were not invited to participate..

I'm definitely not an expert but I think its probably not ADHD. We have 3 we ADHD diagnoses and it's very different from each of them. She just doesn't want to be there.

Thanks for the replies so far all. I totally don't want to force her to do anything as she clearly doesn't enjoy it. She did back in the early days but I think once she got past the first couple of belts things got a bit hard for her and she needed to work. Quite honestly I think she lacks any self-discipline and is a bit lazy. From watching her with her parents she gets her own way all the time and has never worked for anything. It's a hard one as my sister hated TKD at one point around 3rd kup and my parents made her do 6 months more before she was allowed to quit. She got over it and has now been in it 20 years.

She's 8 and been with us 2 years now