DWx

Welcome

Thank you for the kind words all You're all great

I think this is it really. Larger body mass puts more strain on the heart, lungs and other organs. I'm overweight, I know it. I've run half marathons and score pretty decently when it comes to strength standards or fitness standards like the Bleep test. But am I healthy? Honestly the answer is no. One of the examples I always see for "fat but fit" is rugby players. Many of these guys are overweight or obese yet can spend 90 minutes sprinting and tackling. Where does this stop though? Do we consider strongmen, many of whom are overweight, fit? How about sumo?

Hi all, Last month England had the privilege to host the European ITF Taekwon-Do Championships to mark 50 years of TKD in the UK. I was fortunate enough to take part as both competitor and coach and we had a great showing, finishing 7th on the medal table. If you are in the UK, Channel 4 showed a documentary yesterday following several of our fighters, including 2 of my training partners who both medalled. It'll be up on their catch up service for the next 30 days and well worth a watch if you're interested in martial arts competition: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/triathlon-endurance-events/on-demand/66386-005

Congratulations Patrick Thank you for creating this community and for fostering such a great atmosphere.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-39936138 What are your thoughts on this? Can you both be fat (i.e. overweight) and fit?

Alan, can you give an example where hip turnout is beneficial to a movement? In my style hip turn in seems to be more important in all the examples of kicks and stances that I can think of. As I said above, tibial torsion and femoral torsion are normally things that need to be corrected in posture, and aren't always seen as a good thing. http://www.orthoseek.com/articles/femtorsion.html https://www.drgreene.com/articles/tibial-torsion/

I have to agree with Kusotare here. Let's be honest, self defense is a byproduct of what we do.. it's not actually what we train for when we train in traditional martial arts. There are far more effective and quicker ways to learn to defend yourself than learning a kata. I suspect a lot of us enjoy learning the intricacies associated with learning a system in its entirety. It's like working towards a PhD in a style then continuing on with post-doc research versus getting a basic diploma in a lot of subjects. Loyalty to one style or group of styles then comes hand in hand with this. You might choose to cross train and experience other stuff but you always return back to your base style.

Thanks for all you've done over the last 14 years at KF Heidi. Best of luck for the future

Welcome Karate Guy

Welcome NifanchinxSanchin

Welcome navi72

Best if luck with the move Bob

I was wondering if the training injuries incurred, with all the comments so far are all from male participants, or are there females that have sustained injuries, such as broken noses and cracked ribs also?I'm not sure whether gender comes in to it as far as injuries go. I've seen both male and female take some bad injuries.

In personal experience I actually find that students need to learn to rotate inwards from the hip joint as outwards comes more naturally. For example, proper side kick foot position needs the heel higher than the toes but a lot of students, especially beginners, end up kicking toes up and so connect with the sole or flat of the foot rather than blade of the foot. The same for roundhouses; toes should end up below the hip if the hips are rotated and engaged properly, but you find those with limited flexibility connecting with the side of the foot like a crescent kick rather than the ball of the foot. Myself, I really struggle with this and have naturally toed out all of my life (external tibial torsion). External and internal tibial torsion can have a knock on effect on hip alignment, resulting in pelvic tilt, spinal misalignment and affect overall posture.

Bob, lets hope you don't need a Judan to get an A*. You normally sit your GCSE's when you're 15 - 16. Don't know many teens who have that rank

Welcome to the forums subjectkate I think this answer depends on which exam board you're sitting PE with. From memory most go with Shotokan syllabus but you can do a different style as long as you submit written explanation as to how your style differs. To be honest best to ask your teachers who should give you a copy of the syllabus. I don't think the criteria is particularly taxing though. For GCSE the Taekwondo syllabus was equivalent to about an 8th kup / yellow belt level. (This tallies up with what the KUGB say: https://www.kugb.org/karate-gcse-alevels.php) If you are 2nd dan I think you'd pass the top level requirements for each. The TKD requirements were some basic fundamentals, the first two forms (kata) and basic step sparring. The idea is that over the 2 years you do your GCSE's, a student should be able to pick up any sport and then test in it for GCSE PE after 2 years. So the criteria is written with complete novices in mind.

Based on what I can see through the video, and that is that he's repeating the same set of movements over and over; mimic overtones. I'd say, no, he's not a black belt...not even close!! Imho!! He's running through drills so I don't think him repeating the same combination is a reason to discount him. I posted the video more to look at his mechanics and movement.

As for what countries don't have Karate, I'd imagine you'd be looking at island nations or smaller African nations? But for the most part Karate will be everywhere. And almost guaranteed every nation will have a historic method of fighting. Funnily enough I found out my cousin who lives in Guyana even trained Karate as a kid. Guyana is a small developing country in South America, population 750 000, and even they have Karate.

North Korea has ITF Taekwon-Do. Have a look at the Arirang Mass Games: DPRK has the best ITF TKD team in the world too and nearly always tops the medal rankings at the ITF World Championships. Their TKD demo team is also amazing (here demonstrating at the WTF Worlds):

Have you all seen the Japanese kid they're calling mini-Bruce Lee, Ryusei Imai? Blackbelt or not blackbelt?? https://www.facebook.com/ryu.bruce.3/videos/pcb.10208995382623043/10208995371502765/?type=3&theater

I do a warm up game with my kids where we sometimes use superheros. They have to go up and down the room moving like Spiderman would, or maybe like the Hulk or Catwoman.

Ultimately I think it's all about moderation. Yes you have to be healthy but you also have to enjoy yourself too. That said, its not easy to be athletic and though sometimes these people don't have a perfect lifestyle, it does take a heck of a lot of work to build muscle and maintain a low bodyfat. You can't take that away from them.

Congrats on the birth of your godson Whisky and for your grading too I've only ever done formal gradings and think I prefer this way as it puts pressure on you to do well.

Sounds like we're all a bunch of wrecks. I've had the usual sprains, strains and pulled muscles over the years but two injuries stand out as pretty bad and are unfortunately recent ones: - Dec 2015 I ruptured the ulnar collateral ligament (also known as medial collateral ligament) in my elbow. Waiting on what's known as the "Tommy John" surgery to reconstruct it using a tendon from my wrist. This will put me out of action for 6 months or more. - Last week... unfortunately received a mild concussion after being kicked in the face. Taking it easy and not training for a couple of weeks. When I do, it will be just basics and solo work for a bit.