DWx

My favourite combo I suppose would be: roundhouse, spinning axe kick and then follow through with punches.... thats if I can get it to work though

Depending on how fast you can do the tornado, it can be easily countered. Say if your opponent is kicking with their right leg and intend to follow through with a right leg tornado, as soon as their body turns, you go to your right (and around to the side) and set up for a punch. Works 9/10 for me. And even if they change their technique to something like a back kick instead, you're out of the way.

Anyone seen any of the show? I think its only aired in the UK. Basically there's these 6 men who are trained every episode in a tribal sport and they then compete with the locals to win. Anyway, I tuned into episode 7 of 8 last night and it was on Senegalese wrestling. Quite interesting really. Wish I'd watched the rest of them now as there was Zulu Stick fighting and Nagaland kickboxing too. So did anyone watch the rest of the series?

Another thing you could do that helps me, is to do everything slow. Walk it through first even if you don't jump/get your feet off the ground. That ay you can feel where everything needs to be at each point of the kick...

Doesn't matter where you go. As long as the place has a lot of Guiness you're sorted

Good Luck

Congrats!

He moves sooo fast

There are some that are called "instructor hogus" or something to that effect, and they are quite a bit thicker, but less maneuverable, I think. However, instructors will wear them to allow full-speed counters and such to be worked on by students gearing up for sparring in tournaments or what-not. Maybe that would be better for your purposes. It doesn't hurt or anything. Just not very pleasant having to run around in the thing. I hate them. Can't breathe fully and they restrict my movement, especially my arms.

We don't use them for sparring... although my instructor has a few that he sometimes makes us wear so we can be a "living punch bag" for our opponent. Its cool to be the one kicking, not so good it your the one who has to be the target.

But they're boiling hot when you put em in! Its tough trying to fight the reflex to spit the thing out. As for gagging, my solution is to effectively grit my teeth with it in, breathe through my nose & spar so hard I forget about it.

This is just my opinion but... If student is awarded a black belt, they have attained a certain skill level. To me, this means that they should have full, or as near as full, control over their techniques as part of the requirement of being a blackbelt IMO is to have mastered all of the basic (coloured belt) technical content. Part of being able to do the techniques is having a level of control over them. Since earlier you stated that students do not practise full contact until blackbelt, how have all these current blackbelts sparred over their TKD lives before being allowed to engage in full contact? Have they never been allowed to do high section kicks because they have too much power? IMO they've had 3+ years (?) to attain blackbelt so over that time they have either been taught to kick that hard or they've not been told/taught to tone down the power level in their sparring.

Well in that case should they be black belts?

As other's have stated themselves, IMO people can go do these boxercise/kickfit classes if they like just as long as they recognise that they aren't getting fighting training. When someone tells me that they do boxing/kickboxing when all they do is cardio stuff, I tell them to hit me. None of them have managed it so far On a sort of side note, here's a guy with extremely bad form. What really gets me is that he claims that these are martial arts punches which they are clearly not! (on the action replay his arms barely extend) & Guiness World Records goes and hands him a title! http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=TWz0n5EcR54

IMO not allowing a student to practise a technique during sparring because they can't control it isn't the best way to resolve a safety issue. For one, if you say to students that they should be sparring full contact then they should be allowed to spar full contact and not be restricted on what "full contact" power is. "A full-contact sport is similar to a semi-contact sport, but which contains physical contact between the combatants with the aim of causing a knockout or otherwise rendering the opponent unable to continue the match. Injuries are much more common in full-contact sports since the amount of protective gear is often reduced, and the techniques are executed at full power. " I just took that quote from Wikipedia . Now by that definition I would say that full power head shots would be allowed. However, if an instructor feels that certain students/techniques are hazardous then they should be toned down not removed completely. If a student, especially a black belt, cannot adapt their techniques to a required intensity then they need to go away and train those techniques in a new way. Surely by black belt a student should have the ability and self control to judge the necessary power? A black should be able to kick full contact to someone's head with just enough force to ensure a reasonable amount of contact is made but then not take their opponent's head off. Its fair enough that you train by WTF tournament rules so you don't allow sweeps, but I still think that they pose no more of a threat than a full power sidekick does. Also doesn't WTF allow you to do head punches now?

Congrats!

If you are so concerned about safety, how can you justify a full contact technique, lets say a roundhouse to the temple, but do not allow leg sweeps or a punch to the face? IMO a properly executed sweep is no worse than a full power side kick that sends you flying. In fact, in some cases such a sidekick would be worse as you would be travelling across an area into such hazards as walls, other people, equipment etc. At least with a proper sweep the emphasis is on you travelling down to the ground rather than pushing you across a room.

I had my current one made by my dentist. Costs a lot more than the thermoset ones you can buy but I definately feel the difference. Its a lot thicker and because it really is an exact mould of my teeth, I don't feel like its going to slip off all the time. I also had problems with the ones that you heat up. Couldn't get the damn things to set exactly around my teeth. If you can't get a specially made one off of your dentist, the Shockdoctor ones are supposed to be quite good: http://shockdoctor.com/mouthguards.html

Anyone like to share any words that inspire them in any aspect of their MA training? Don't get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water. Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water. Now you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup; You put water into a bottle it becomes the bottle; You put it into a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend. ~ Bruce Lee I guess this quote kinda reminds me not to be too set in my ways... like I have to constantly adapt to keep winning, whether in fighting or in any aspect of my life...

I don't do a Japanese style but I prefer to use the original language (in my case Korean) when referring to stuff like techniques or specific moves like bowing or stopping. All the seminars and tournaments I've been to use Korean so if I didn't learn it I wouldn't have a clue what was going on. I think learning the language also helps remove ambiguity over what techniques are called. Like, for instance, a roundhouse kick. Where I train we don't call it a roundhouse, its a turning kick and that's only an English language variation. The same technique will be called other names in different countries so at multi-national events its just simpler to use a standard name. In our club we've also found that the young children who take the time to learn Korean-English translations have better association skills and find it easier at school to link ideas and subjects... however this may be beacuse the ones that want to learn the Korean are more intelligent... I like using non-English in the dojang as well because it makes me feel special . I don't know why it just does. It also seems to impress visitors when there's a load of kids wandering around counting in an Asian language...

Congrats!

Mr Logic, do you have any videos on the web or even action shots? I'd be interested to see your Montgomery Style Karate in action. Also, the 98% success rate... not that I know too much about the inner workings of the CIA but... are we talking 98% of fights where firearms were not in use or what? And are we talking fights vs. other people trained in combat or fights against untrained threats?

Beckham probably doesn't even need most of that, the amount he gets for just appearing on some ad or endorsing some product. He's also getting paid money to have channel FIVE I think follow him around when he starts playing for Galaxy. Plus lil old Posh spice is probably raking it in with the Spice Girls reformation. Even if he doesn't play too good, he still has that public image appeal for Galaxy.

All you have to do is keep practising. There's a form in TKD called Juche and at the start you have to do a slow side kick, hold and then turn slowly as you do a slow hook around 180 degrees. For ages I couldn't do it properly until my instructor told me one exercise to do. Ideally you need a partner but you can do it without one. To start with, find a wall or something to lean against and then later progress onto no support. You wanna lift your left into a sorta side kick position as slowly and as controlled as you can. Have you partner place their hand out about 2-3" higher than your foot. Then, keeping your leg straight, raise your leg up to touch your partners hand and then lower you leg to where your original kicking height was. Do about 30 reps. off of each leg. The next bit is exactly the same apart from instead of raising your leg up, you will need your partner to have both their hands either side of your leg horizontally. Move your leg back and forth to touch each of their hands. Again do about 30 reps where 1 rep is to touch both the left and the right hand. To improve your roundhouses, chamber your leg slowly then again have a target that you can touch with your foot. Kick with your lower leg as slowly as you can and then pull back so that your heel touches your bum (at normal speed). Hope this helps

My BMI says that I'm overweight, but the regular exercise I get from martial arts has done nothing but good for me. I'm a lot healthier than the majority of my peers and can do more fitness-wise than they can. Most of my mates were shocked when we had to fitness tests in a sport lesson a while back. I was doing more sit-ups, push-ups etc. than some of the guys and could drop into the splits when no-one else could. IMO no martial arts school should ever turn away someone because they are overweight. Even if they cant do everything, martial arts will still be physical activity which will be better than nothing and will help people to shed those pounds.