DWx

Why we do it slow, I couldn't tell you. I'm honestly not sure why so many of the things we do are different, because it is never shared with us. Well tbh likewise for me. Alot of these moves where we do something slower or faster than the normal speed of the rest of the form I get told are purely for artistic content. Some of it, like slow kicks or slow stance changes, are as an exercise in control and used to train your balance and technique, but a lot of the rest of it is to look nice.

Yep totally agree. It's all a bit arbitrary and depends a lot on what style you're doing and what you're focus is on. Thanks, Danielle. Those aren't really kicks at the end, just more of a leg raising to build momentum for the mountain blocks, kind of like in the last link you have posted. We stomp down to really power the block home. Ah ok cool. We stamp too but I only raise my leg like I was going to do a front kick with the knee going about as high as chest level but not higher. Some other differences I noticed that maybe you have a different application for: - 1st move, x-checking block. Your's comes up whereas I block forwards. I block so that my front arm knifehand strikes forward with my back arm supporting and assisting. But that difference might be to do with how we each apply the block. - As with hammer, I do the arc hands at full speed and only do one nine shape block each time. - Scooping block. Now I know you guys probably don't do sine wave, but I think that this is one of those moves where using the stance in that way really does help. When I do this block, I'm lifting a leg upwards. I circle my arm under their foot and then instead of just lifting with the arm, I push up with my legs too. Effectively this is the high position of the sine wave. See here. - A minor difference, but you do some of the steps differently to me Brian. Like after the scooping block segment (0.20 in your video). There I step back with my right foot then step forward with my left whereas you guys just move the left foot on it's own. Also after the last roundhouse kick, I put my kicking leg down and step out with left as I punch. Doesn't really have an effect on anything but interesting to note Looking at that 2nd link you posted, one thing I would note is that he does . My preference, and how I'm taught, is to keep the stance at a shoulder width maximum.Anyway, good topic I'll see if I can video mine sometime over the weekend. Another video for comparison, GM Park Jung Tae of GTF doing Ge Baek:

Congrats on your first board breaks PaulS. I love breaking Just the feeling of smashing things up

Welcome silverback

There's this caretaker at the school we train at once a week. Really friendly guy but he's also your typical biker: bandanna wearing, tattoos, leather jacket etc. and rides this massive noisy bike. He's also a black sash in Wing Chun and trained for something like 30 years before giving up due to health reasons. Also the headteacher at the local primary school does some form of Karate.

It might not be possible, but could you give us some more details on this controversy? If it were me in your position, it would depend on whether this issue is going to affect me and my training. Is it going to impact on your instructor's ability/availability to teach? The best instructor in the city? It'd probably take a lot for me to move in that case. His character would really have to come into question for me to make the move. Regardless of all this, are you happy training with him? Ultimately doesn't matter what your friends think.

Welcome seikokaistudent

TBH I don't try to do anything outside the box as I'm competing so train for and stay within the rules. Having said that, compared to other styles, TKD has very dynamic kicking as that's what the style is all about. As far as the type of kicks, I'll use roundhouses, sidekicks, back kicks, hook, spinning heel, front, axe... Mostly I work on footwork and putting these kicks into practice but lately I'm trying to work on the spinning jumping variations to see if I can push myself, both in ability to do the kick itself and having to get the set up right. Not everyone's cup of tea but it pushes me to get my kicks working better.

That's a lot of styles going on at once, I'd get confused with all the mechanics and forms! which one are competing in? Btw do you not have a rest day? I don't have a set schedule because it depends on work and things but during the week I'll make sure I do 2x 5km runs, at least one 30 min session of bag work/skipping routines, 1 short session each of upper body, core and leg bodyweight training and then depending what I'm training for, I'll do some sort of technical work for 30 mins. This is to go with the 5-8 hours of class time I do too. Saturday days are my rest day where I do absolutely nothing

Well I practice ITF so is largely similar to the 1st one. However one thing to note with the Suska video, he's doing that at a seminar (along with the other 23) and it's being filmed so people can watch and learn from it. If you watch him in competition, the rhythm is better. The other thing is there's a bit of divergence depending on which of the 3 ITF's you're looking at. Compare the speed of from ITF-V to from ITF-NK. Both are taken from their respective World Championships. As a comparison, here's how Ge Baek was originally shown and taught: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf8R4W_Mne0 (skip to 2:15) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXQ6bdyfE9E Nice job on your's I see that TTA add in a couple of kicks in at the end. I'll post more when I'm not on my phone. edit for typos

I'm impressed with the instep break! That's one I have no inclination to try at the moment!!! When I was at my last grading, there was a guy going for his 4th dan (or maybe 5th) and he chose to do an instep kick on this inch thick piece of hardwood. Looked like a chopping block to me! He broke it as well but had this massive egg shaped lump on his foot afterwards. I don't use them a great deal; I'm a bit more limited in terms of flexibility to be good at them. Out of the two I'd use the spin heel kick (although we call it the reverse turning). For sparring, I'll mainly use it when countering a side kick or something like that and land it upper chest, or the face if I can reach. Usually with the flat of the foot as it gives you a tiny bit more length to the kick but I wouldn't be adverse to dropping the heel on someone's chest. In terms of how I do the kick, I spin most of the way around before picking the leg up. It'll be more or less straight and then I'll use the hip to whip it round the last little bit. Hook kick is largely the same but there'll be a little less rigidity to my leg and I'll let the momentum start the hooking part and them speed it up at the end.

It is a great kick, very versatile too! What kind of striking tool are you using mainly? ball of the foot, instep, shin? I'm supposed to really use the instep for (competition) sparring but I do use the ball of the foot sometimes and have been trying to work on the shin version too so that if someone steps in, I can switch the focus and hit them with the shin instead. Me too If I started on about side kicks and roundhouses at home I'd get told to shut up and go away Well we might as well carry on, what other kicks do you use loads of?

Miesha Tate's now signed too: http://www.5thround.com/130527/miesha-tate-becomes-ufcs-second-female-fighter/

In a way it's sort of analogous to the side kick where you go with the front kick chamber. Maybe worth experimenting with if you prefer that side kick because the start position is nearly the same. Don't have to be that flexible for it. It works well at hip level or on the thigh. Advantage is that because it comes down onto the target, you can really slam it down onto the hip or leg to incapacitate them.

I don't know tbh. I guess it just lets her "defend" her title. Although I don't see why they don't do what you say. What did they do for UFC 1?

With respect, you might have been shown all the techniques your style has to offer be that doesn't mean your ready to write them off as learnt. Information is one thing, but thoroughly understanding them and refining them to a point where you have truly learnt them takes years. Forgive me for saying this, but how can you, with relatively few years of training (in the grand scheme of things) know that these techniques are wrong in the first place? Can you explain the twisting more? I'm just curious. Twisting of the hip or twisting of the technique? If you're talking about twisting the attacking tool itself, that's hardly something that was lost. Plenty of styled do that; in fact it a core principle of the Taekwon Do I do. Heck, if it's there is the Karate Kid, it's not information that needs to be dug up as such, you just have to start incorporating it into your training.

As of yesterday Rousey has officially signed to the UFC and automatically becomes the 135 lb champ: http://www.tmz.com/2012/11/08/ronda-rousey-female-fighter-ufc-fighter/ (Also Strikeforce is set to end after the January card: http://www.mmafighting.com/ufc/2012/11/8/3620502/strikeforce-back-jan-12-with-three-title-fights-daniel-cormiers-return )

I have three methods for the roundhouse. One is tabletop style kick where I chamber straight away and really only kick using the extension of the lower leg. Not really a powerful kick but more a quick kick for setting up other techniques. The 2nd method is very similar and uses the tabletop style chamber but I bring it in from the side and then extend. Or the other one I use is more like a . The tabletop where I rotate in is more powerful for me but because it comes around and in it's easier to intercept.

What do you do about consecutive kicking? So when you double up on the same leg without putting it down? Definitely for me the table top method would be the way I'd go.

I agree with this. Its hard to come off the back leg and keep that table top position; it makes it long and clunky, and telegraphic bad. I prefer to keep the knee tight, and then burst with the hips and pivot to get power into that kick. But, even when I'm side on, I still tend to bring the knee up into more of the front kick style chamber now, because as along as I pivot and twist, I can still get good hip power into the kick, too. Again, I base my bias here on my body build more than anything, and it feels better to me to utilize my rather ample legs in this way. Don't know about you, but I always feel that back leg kicking using that table-top method seems a bit awkward to me. You're almost going back on yourself to go forward again. I guess most of this is down to personal preference. For a long time, I preferred the table-top method because I struggled to get the front-kick knee high enough when doing the kick by the other method. But nowadays, both are ok. I still prefer to break with a lead leg, table-top style kick though.

Because most schools will charge for it. I've always had to pay for testings.Well there is that. I've always paid for my testings, however when I pay, I'm paying for the examiner's time and expertise to come and test me and see if I deserve the next grade. I'd rather have to chance that I might fail because to me, it means I'm getting good value for money and they're actually scrutinising what I'm doing. But in the event of failure, that brings up another issue: do you charge for retestings?

^ judging sparring is always fun. Although (more questions!) what's the format for that? Point stop or continuous? Corner refs doing points or just a centre ref + shadow ref?

Bread and butter for me would be: side kick, roundhouses (lead and back leg), and back kick with some jabs, crosses and uppercuts thrown in for good measure. With respect, Alpha One Four, I echo bushido_man96 and Kuma's sentiments, unless you are doing something different with the core principles or adding lots and lots of new techniques, it probably isn't a new style as such.

Ok. I still think my constraints on which side kick to pick still stand, at least in my school anyway. If the rotation is key anyway to moving into position or delivering a side kick with the leg you want to, the knee up front-kick style is the one I'll use because that rotation might as well be used as part of the kick. If I don't need to rotate my hips because I'm already side on and I just want to throw my front leg out, it is quicker (albeit less powerful) for me to use the other version. That doesn't mean to say I can't use either version from either position, I just try to reduce any extra movements and utilise any movements I do have to make as part of the technique. The knee-up one doesn't necessarily have to be off of the back leg but if I were to do a back leg kick, 9/10 this would be my choice of version because my hips are going to have to turn in the process anyway. It can be done with the front leg, but again, I'll choose to do it when the hips are more square and use the other method for when more side on because I can build the hip rotation into the kick. NB. By front facing, I mean hips front facing or square, the rest of the body, the feet etc. doesn't matter. Videos might help, I'll see if I can find my camera too

If you can't fail then it's not a test; it's a procedure or formality. Why not just assess in class if a student can just turn up on the day, perform sub-par and still be awarded the belt because they usually do better? Why bother with the testing?