DWx

Easiest thing to do is get 2 pads and "spar". Move around and have one person present the pad every so often in positions for roundhouse, hooks, punches or side kick / back kick. Other person has to react accordingly. Or for a good footwork drill, have a pad at punching height and move back forward and left and right. Other person has to continually punch whilst tracking your position. Or track you whilst throwing roundhouses. I always find looking at competitor training videos give good ideas of how to work the pads: Or search YouTube for videos from seminars with your favourite fighter / teacher: It's not with pads per se but the following has loads of great drills snippets: Whatever drill it is, to teach good habits I always encourage the pad holder to try to tag the kicker after the drill. They've either got to move or cover up.

So this is really a question for those who are already training but I thought it would make for good discussion and provide some advice for Martial Arts newcomers: What is the one piece of advice you would give to someone who was just about to start out on their martial arts journey? What do you wish someone had told you right at the beginning?

Great interview Alex. I think in every one of your posts what comes across is how knowledgeable you are and how much experience you have, both in the martial arts and in your professional life.

Brian there's a reason why you've earned the Community Spirit Award so many times; through all your posts you can definitely see community is a big part of each and every post. And all 20 000+ posts are top quality too. It's great to be able to bounce TKD ideas off of you too and to have an alternative perspective take on things.

You know in my style of TKD we have exactly 24 forms. Gen. Choi Hong Hi You've only got 24hours to make your mark so you have to seize each moment; you'll never get an opportunity to live it again and you don't want to get older and less physically and mentally able and be thinking "what if?". A favourite quote of mine is from a Winston Churchill speech :

Don't really follow anything religiously but I do like rugby (union). Local team are Leicester Tigers so occasionally go to matches and will watch if it's on TV or if any of the home nation's are playing.

I think it depends on the level of competition and also how experienced the fighters are. I do agree that competitors need to be able to think for themselves and see opportunities but when the stakes are high it helps to have an additional pair of eyes. When I compete (and also I do when I'm coaching) my coach is constantly feeding me info and giving instruction.

Great advice. Don't be looking to change anything this soon as it will just confuse him but maybe start working on it when you come back. I know you do already but be sure you video his fights so that a week or 2 down the line you can both sit down and dissect them and work out his strengths and weaknesses. Look for good points but also points for both him as a fighter and you as a competitor to improve.

Wow that must have taken quite a bit of time and effort to collate! Didn't quite realise how many styles we had.

Again congrats Heidi! Most definitely deserved.

So I got a copy of the paper. I think the BBC article is slightly misleading. Three experiments were carried out: Experiment 1 - all subjects tested were female between ages of 13 and 35, predominantly European - they had to walk across a darkened room with lights on their clothing (like for motion capture) - told to walk normally then told to walk as if they were alone in a park - 3 groups of women; those who had just completed a SD course (20), those who had done so in the last 6 months (15),and those with no training (44) - self defence course was considered 6hrs of study - walkers then rated by equal numbers of male and female viewers as to their vulnerabilities - interesting to note that they also had 18 people who had completed at least 1 month of MA study but they chose not to include this data Experiments 2: - same set up as above, taking females who had never done a self defense course and videotaping them walking immediately before and immediately after, then 1 week later and 1 month later - all European and aged between 18 and 25 What's interesting is: Experiment 3 is the same as 2 except that the training was in how to walk. (Not clear to me whether this was the same group of women from exp 2) Then finally from the conclusion: I've not had a chance to trawl through all 24 pages of results yet but I thought the above would be interesting at least.

Ok Ok it's not strictly martial arts related but on Sunday I completed my first Wolf Run! The Winter Wolf is a 10 km obstacle race cross-country including walls, tires, cargo nets, wading through waist deep mud and swimming down river! All in about 10 °C when I did it. Has got to be one of the hardest things I have ever done but amazing fun and would totally recommend it to anyone. Not got any photos yet but take a look at the website for the type of things it included: http://www.thewolfrun.com/

Great interview and thanks for providing some insight into yourself and your MA journey Bob.

Good interview Definitely enjoy your humour MasterPain. Look forward to seeing more of your posts over the winter

From Sun Tzu, The Art of War You cannot go into any match with a preconceived idea of exactly what you will do. You'll struggle to win like that. It would be OK if you were fighting a low level opponent who only has one default attack and response but a good competition fighter has to react to their opponent's reactions. You have to constantly change your game based on the new information you receive every minute of the bout. You know a good chess player doesn't go into a match thinking "first I'll move this pawn, then that bishop, then that knight etc." a good player plays a strategy but also must react to what their opponent is trying to do. Sparring is kinetic chess. Go into a match knowing what your capabilities are (or in this case your son's) and having practiced a variety of responses and attacks. Then I'd say he needs to spend the 1st half of the round feeling out his opponent: how is this person reacting when I do a side kick? do they have any tells? At this point you aren't necessarily chasing the points, as long as you are either even or slightly up at the halfway mark then you're all OK. Even if you are a point or two down that is OK. This is the recon part of the spar, gather as much info as possible as to how the other person responds then use that info to construct your battle plan. For example, if the fighter always goes right leg back then does a shuffle step before side kicking, use that info to plan your response. Shut them down as soon as they shuffle? Move off to the side of the side kick and counter? He will always default under pressure as it's the easiest thing to do and sub-conciously it is the safer option because he's used to doing it. All student's go through this - this is why competition is good to see what you will do under stress. To get around that he needs to force all of these new and uncomfortable moves to feel comfortable and the only way to do that is practice practice practice. First of all a ton of drill and pad work and then incorporate this in sparring. And you need to change the way he spars in class. There's no point your son just sparring in class the same way week in week out; winning with the same strategy every week doesn't teach him anything. You can turn it into a game for him to encourage variety. In one bout he can only attack with his left side or he has to land at least one back kick or he has to not get caught be a single technique (i.e. use footwork instead of relying on blocking). No offense but blitzing is OK but it's not a high skill level game plan. Force him to be more technical in training and you will see massive improvements. You as a coach have to help him win the fight too. A general is always in contact with his troops on the frontline and constantly monitors them and gives new instruction based on new info. First of all, get yourself a stop watch and time every bout. Then you can prompt him as to when you are 50%, 15 secs left etc. Have a plan to either go crazy in the last 15 (if he's losing) or move off and away if he is up on points. Throughout a bout you aren't watching what he is doing you are watching what his opponent is doing. Those things like tells and weaknesses you need to be picking up on as it's much easier when you're watching as an outsider. You then need to communicate this info so a good rapport is essential too. Your instruction to him needs to be very clear and concise, in essence you need to work out a sort of code for him. When I shout "off" to the kids I coach they know it means, get the hell away from there and circle off. Likewise I can tell them to side kick with just a hand gesture. You've got to think of yourself as the puppet master and get them to do what you want. I highly recommend reading The Art of War: http://classics.mit.edu/Tzu/artwar.html

Congratulations CredoTe! Massive achievement

Unfortunately UK viewers don't have access to that article, international viewing only. However, at least anecdotally, I would agree with the quotes that how somebody walks and how their body language conveys how confident they are and subsequently how vulnerable they may be to attackers. Does the article say anything on how long the SD course was or the content. How successful are these short self defense courses in actually teaching skills and / or boosting confidence levels? Maybe instead of SD courses people should take this research and take classes on body language instead.

Great interview! Certainly gives an insight into early KF days. I too looked at the thread, interesting read. Some of the points hit home with me as I was also a fairly young "senior" student. In fact I joined KF to say my piece in a thread about young or junior blackbelts and some of the points in your thread seem surprisingly familiar! And I totally agree with this. (Btw do you remember which ITF masters you trained with as I too train in that style of TKD )

For me the value of sparring is the spontaneity. OK to a point you know that your opponent can throw only x, y, z attacks or defenses under your rules but you don't know which one or when they will do it. Drill work is great for teaching specific responses to specific attacks but you will always know what you will be hit by and what your response should be. Unlike sparring you are already in a particular mind set and poised ready to move and respond in a certain way. IMHO drills should be incorporated into your training alongside sparring but shouldn't be the only thing you do if your goal is self defense. In my style of TKD we say that prearranged is the learning of platoon tactics, sparring the field exercise. Both culminate in actual combat or self defense.

Thanks for the kind words guys. It's down to you guys for creating such an awesome community that I am fortunate to be a part of.

Great interview DoctorQui. Didn't realise you were in Bolton. My mum actually lives in Wigan - maybe next time I'm up we could get together for a training session

Wow pretty crazy that you met Heidi here, I'd always just assumed you had trained together beforehand! I second Brian's post too, would be great to hear your insight on competition shooting.

Thanks for sharing all this. Great that you've made such an impact on one of your students that they consider you to be their role model

Great read! It's great working with you on the staff and I always keep an eye out for your posts. And thanks for the mention, glad one of my posts was helpful

I couldn't agree more. Its great having someone with your background around here to help us with various equipment questions. I also have to say its so cool that you originally trained with Gene LeBell! Awesome! Second that. You're definitely the go-to guy when it comes to equipment queries! Great interview