DWx

https://youtu.be/_4y50bJvvMM Thanks Is that a 540?? https://youtu.be/_4y50bJvvMM?t=1m7s These all look a heck of a lot harder than the older poomse

Thanks everyone. Im doing ok now, was quite happy to.pull a hamstring last week, it means my stitchd up bowels arent the weak link now. I skip one session every other week the day after chemo, apart from that and one day absolutely flattened in bed im in the very lucky group. Its very confronting to see others in the chemo rooms who cant get in under their own steam and they arent all old. The new poomsae are very flashy. In the two for the 30-50 age group's theres things like back hook kick into jump back hook kick and roundhouse into spin jump rh. All seems to be geared to that showy side of tkd but ill give them a go and expect them to be fun to try if KKW ever documents them properly Sounds pretty challenging! What are they called as would be good to watch a video of them.

Goals for me in 2017: 1. Continue to work on general conditioning, both strength and cardio. Have started to enjoy weight lifting so hope to be 2. Get more sparring time in. I made the transition to more of a teaching or coaching role this year and my sparring is really suffering through lack of practice. Need to get back on the mats rather than just observing from the sides. About this time last year I completely tore my elbow UCL. I'm due reconstructive surgery sometime in 2017 which involves 6 weeks in a cast then potentially 6 months rehabbing before being able to train. Above all I just want to make a good recovery from this.

Welcome xwingday

TKD is so popular you are talking 1 000 000's of blackbelts in WTF, ITF and independents. How you look at the numbers depends on whether you want to look at this as a whole or break it down into the various sub-styles. The Kukkiwon gives a figure of 9 million people holding Poom or Dan certificates which is a heck of a lot. http://www.kukkiwon.or.kr/front/pageView.action?cmd=/eng/introduce/business They actually also have a database where you can search for poom and dan ranks: http://www.kukkiwon.or.kr/front/eng/main.action ITF will be smaller than this and a little harder to quantify as you have 3 organisations claiming to be the ITF plus many breakaway groups. But to give some context, 10 years ago I was the 1086th person in the UK to obtain a 1st dan in my country in the ITF group I was a member of at the time. Now multiply that up to account for all the different ITF groups and independents and that's 1000's of blackbelts in my country alone. We've even had in the region of 60 blackbelts grade at our club in the past 15 years too. Even if you look at a smaller group like the ATA, they have somewhere in the region of 350 000 students according to their website. If we conservatively say 10% of those students are blackbelts, that's still 35 000 dan ranks.

I'm sure there's very good reason behind. Would be interesting to see that research

Surely that would be flashier? Out of the two, I still think ITF is closer to Shotokan kata than the Kukkiwon equivalents. They essentially just copied and pasted them and added a TKD twist. Loads of examples of this: vs How do you know it's from Shotokan when Funakoshi copied and modified his Katas from Okinawans, who took it from Kung Fu... Not sure I understand the question? As to how close Chang Hon TKD is to Shotokan the above videos IMHO illustrate that. If you really want to take it down to bare bones... then yes ultimately everyone comes from something else. However as far as Chang Hon TKD is concerned, this is widely regarding to be directly descendant from Shotokan.

Best of luck tubby Hope you're back fighting fit soon What are the new KKW poomse like? Much different from what you've done before?

Another year gone. Another set of resolutions. Kinda reached these. 1. I have started going to the gym 1 night a week in addition to 4 nights in the dojang. Started off the year more cardio focused but now I'm doing more weight lifting as actually enjoy that rather than the soul destroying monotony of the treadmill. I am back up to 5K runs but have decided not to bother training specifically for the 10K. Unfortunately have been missing the last few weeks because of heavy work schedule but hope to get back to it in the New Year. 2. I haven't been dedicating half an hour on it as I said I would, but more taking time throughout the day to stretch out and keep mobile. My static range hasn't improved much but I am noticing an improvement in dynamic range. Re. the elbow injury I mentioned. Full test results came back to say that I hadn't dislocated, rather completely torn the ulnar collateral ligament. I am due reconstructive surgery on this but we decided to postpone due to other commitments so will be looking at this for next year.

Surely that would be flashier? Out of the two, I still think ITF is closer to Shotokan kata than the Kukkiwon equivalents. They essentially just copied and pasted them and added a TKD twist. Loads of examples of this: vs

OK the jump back kicks can be seen as "flashy". Other than that most of the other stuff is just basic side kicks and hook kicks. To the original question of which is closer to Shotokan, I do believe ITF looks closer. Most of the ITF patterns are lifted from Shotokan kata and the lower stances, lower kicks seem to me to be closer. Shotokan katas have in comparison: 0% spin kicks. 0% aerial kicks. 0% hook kicks. 0% Roundhouse kicks. The list goes on.. There are definitely mae geri, yoko geri, mikazuki geri and mawashi geri in Shotokan kata. Unsu is a pretty "flashy" kata for example containing these kicks: Of course TKD forms are going to be more "flashy" than their Shotokan counterparts if you equate "flashy" to "kicking". Its the Foot-Hand-Art. Kicking is an integral part of it. But to say that ITF are more flashy than the Kukkiwon counterparts, I disagree.

Interesting article Justice, thanks for sharing. https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/jan/25/ioc-rules-transgender-athletes-can-take-part-in-olympics-without-surgery To me this seems fair. Cis-male T-levels are considerably higher and are the reason why men perform better than women in most sports. By monitoring T-levels until the are consistently lower for 12 months, however long that may take seems to me to be a good way to level the playing field. Though I do wonder why it has to be so low if normal range for cis-women is 15 to 70 ng/dL? It is a difficult one and Semenya is by no means the first or last athlete to have been subjected to this testing. Should we be able to decide that a natural variation is an unfair advantage? FWIW Michael Phelps' success is in part due to him being an outlier. He as a relatively long torso and shorter legs, but also a disproportionate armspan, and large feet which are hyperflexible. On a side note, I think we should have some sort of super olympics where super-athletes can do what they want to get results via doping or other means

Sorry to hear that JR. I hope you have a speedy recovery and are back to training soon.

Happy holidays to all

Best of luck Lex I suggest it might be worthwhile only sparring to tournament rules from now until the competition to try and overcome the muscle memory or you might just through those leg kicks Look after your back too, not worth getting injured for.

The major factor here is body weight: competitions are separated into weight categories for a reason, and it is good to train with people of a similar body weight so you can anticipate the sort of contact you will receive in competition. Secondarily, I do witness a slight change in the men right before a competition, but it isn't about physicality, it is about a mental approach that I think is a bit different, broadly speaking, to the women's preparation. How does your assumption of physical difference play out practically speaking? For instance, would you ask a large man, an older woman, a teenage girl and a small skinny child to do the same number of push ups or kicks? Weight plays a part yes, and I agree that before a competition it is important to train with similar weights. However there are plenty of studies comparing physical ability between male and female which conclude males have greater strength so it's not really an assumption. Looking at this study on grip strength for example, which in of itself is a decent indicator of overall upper and lower strength in adults, the conclusion is that even in highly training athletes which require good grip like Judoka and handball players, their grip strength is lower than the average man. Forgetting the studies if you compare performances between men and women at the Olympics, men are categorically faster and stronger. In short, no I don't expect them to do the same. I coach a competition team and I don't, for example, expect a female to complete 20 push ups as fast as the male competitors complete them. Despite being high level athletes the females will run a mile slower and score lower on average in fitness tests like the bleep test or McCloy test. Our juniors, seniors and over 40's also have different expectations especially when it comes to fitness testing and I don't ask them to perform to the same standards. It's not a requirement (yet) but if we also look at strength requirements scaled for weight and age, female 1 rep max on all lifts are lower: http://strengthlevel.com/strength-standards

OK the jump back kicks can be seen as "flashy". Other than that most of the other stuff is just basic side kicks and hook kicks. To the original question of which is closer to Shotokan, I do believe ITF looks closer. Most of the ITF patterns are lifted from Shotokan kata and the lower stances, lower kicks seem to me to be closer.

I don't see such differences as you describe, and normally in class I would not think to separate by gender. If you assume that women are weak, then I think there is a high chance you just end up reinforcing that. In the couple of weeks before a competition, I mostly (but not always) separate the men for full-contact sparring, because they suddenly get adrenaline surges and can become very powerful, and in competition they will only fight other men. For students beginning to learn partner stretching for the first or second time, I agree that some care is taken in who to partner them with, as it can be a new experience for them to get used to. With all due respect I disagree. There are physical differences which sometimes necessitate differences in training. Otherwise why do you separate your male students for full-contact before a tournament? I'm not saying that you have to separate genders for every class or exercise but it should be a consideration depending on what you are doing. At the end of the day, its about safeguarding and creating an environment that your students are comfortable in but more importantly, safe in. I don't assume women are weak but I do assume most women are weaker than most men. There are plenty of studies to back this up and this is why we have different competitions for male and female athletes in virtually all sports. Lower body strength is generally comparable between genders but upper body strength differs greatly with most studies suggesting females have 50 - 60% of the strength of males. The flip side to this is that women generally have better flexibility, different hip structure (easier kicks) and their endurance is also generally better, but testosterone = muscle mass and power. What does this mean for training? For the most part all students can do the same exercises. But as you said in your post, in sparring or other partner work there are instances where you might want to separate the female students off or at least only pair up the stronger individuals with male partners. Fitness requirements might also be altered slightly as it is unreasonable for females to compete on strength or performance requirements. I also think it's important to consider the hormonal changes teens and young adults go through as this is different between male and female students. If you teach or coach teens you'll appreciate that puberty hits males and females at different points and effects their performance in different ways. At the other end of the spectrum the menopause can hit some women hard and have a detrimental effect on physical performance. Females also have to contend with cyclical hormonal and metabolic changes meaning their performance peaks and troughs.

I don't but my sister wears glasses. She manages with contacts. You can get away with glasses for kata and solo work but they aren't great for sparring. You can get prescription sports goggles which might be safer??

Different from both WTF and ITF? That's interesting. Do you have an example?

Welcome abusadiq84

I would say of the TKD styles out there, the WTF has done the most work of tying to make TKD stand out more from Shotokan and its Karate roots. This is easily seen in the progression of its form/poomsae syllabus over the years. Although performed differently, many of the poomsae (pattern) techniques in WTF are the same as in Shotokan but not in ITF. So based on the patterns, it's closer to Shotokan than ITF. Basically Everything has been modified in ITF patterns and the black belt patterns are much more extravagant (plenty of aerial kicks) compared to the ultra conservative WTF/KKW and Shotokan katas. I think I would actually say ITF patterns are much closer to Shotokan than the WTF ones, check out this thread where we've been comparing them: http://www.karateforums.com/tkd-forms-a-running-comparison-vt47646.html Excluding Juche and Moon Moo, the kicking in ITF patterns seems no more more extravagant than WTF poomse. Koryo is pretty flashy when it comes to kicks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NH2wQsAUVwY

How much drills would you estimate you guys devote to punches vs kicks? I train ITF/Chang Hon-TaeKwon-Do which was based on Shotokan and Id' say it's roughly 80% kicks in drills (mitts), while training basics (excluding patterns) it's 95% hand techniques. I suspect our grandmasters age (60+) has something to do with it because he does not demonstrate any elaborate kicks, thus has no interest in devoting the basics to it. Which is a shame given that he's a 9th Dan (highest). I am sure he knows a thing or too about kicking... The asisstant instructors are the ones demonstrating kicks in our power training (mitts). I think this depends very much on which master you are under. I also do ITF TKD and some of the people I've trained with are very kick orientated including for fundamentals, others are very hand orientated. Ultimately the style is supposed to more balanced between the two.

Welcome Sebastian

Whilst it is commendable that you treat all students equal, male and female, I think it is still really important to acknowledge that males and females have different experiences in MA. You have differences in physiology which impact ability and how well a student might or might not be able to do something. This is especially important for young adults and teens who are just discovering themselves and are going through complex physical changes. To not recognise gender is to dismiss what these kids are going through. Practically I think for partner work it is good to distinguish between genders. Most definitely for some partner stretches it can be very uncomfortable for some students to be partnered with the opposite gender. Its also beneficial to sometimes deliberately partner male and female together such as in any self defense work so the females feel what it is like to be attacked by a stronger opponent.