DWx

Welcome MAMom78

Good luck for both competing and judging Evil Dave's advice is great. What kind of method are you competing under? Two competitors do their kata side by side and you pick a winner or they go up individually and you give scores? For the former, I think it's more difficult as you have to keep switching your attention; particularly bad if they're doing different kata! Sometimes you'll have a clear winner straight off so that should be simple enough but for when two people's rhythm, power etc. are close, I count faults on my fingers Things like positioning or the techniques themselves might count as a fault and whoever has the less fingers I'll usually award it to. Otherwise I tend to lose track... Is it a mixed styles tournament? Because then you have to kind of pay less attention to techniques and award more based on flow and power as you might not know what they are doing. For a points system, it depends on how it's done. The way we do it is to mark out of 10 (or something like that) for technical content, power, speed, balance etc. then take an average score taking into account weightings. Or the other method is to start from a base score and mark up or down depending on the performance. For this, check with your sensei or the tournament organisers just to make sure you're on the same page with regards to how much to mark things. You scoring sparring too?

We have them here too in the UK. UFC is a whole new ball game though. Increased funding and exposure and an "international" stage for women's MMA.

Heh well now I'm confused So we have 2 main ways to do a side kick in my school: 1. Lift the knee straight up shin pointing forward to the target, knee up to the ceiling, front kick like position. Then as the leg extends it rotates over into position. You're front facing the target. 2. Leg is brought up into a position so that the side of the leg and ankle point to the ceiling. Knee is almost at a right angle to where you want to kick. The leg then extends straight out without rotation to the target. You're side on to the target. These match the two types you do?

Congrats Harkon72

Interesting topic sensei8. I'd say in my style it's a bit of everything. Although perhaps instead of saying "evolving" it is more "refinement" instead. Stripping away the unnecessary movements and working towards more efficiency. A lot of the changes we implement in my school are when my instructor or one of the higher grades attends a seminar run by one of the 8th or 9th dans and they come back with their teachings as each one has their own slightly different way of doing things or their own preference. If we get conflicting opinions my instructor then advises us on which he thinks is right but ultimately we can choose how we're going to do something. Even through my short training time I've been told to change things one way and then to another way etc. Nowadays though it seems we're getting told to go back to doing things by the book (quite literally in this case: Taekwon-Do by Gen. Choi) so by your descriptions maybe this is being stagnant. One thing I've always found interesting though, is how the style evolves depending on which country you're in/which master you have. Because I tend to go to a lot of overseas events and competitions it is always interesting for me to sit back and watch and compare how each country looks subtly different due to their lead master's own preferences and style. Although it's all the same style and the differences are very subtle, you can usually pick out which country someone is from based on how they move and what their strengths are. For example, Russian TKDers look different from Czech, and different again from Korean.

Hope you guys are all ok

I agree, the instructor shouldn't have said anything to you in the first place. And although it's a longer wait, those extra months focusing on the 1st kyu material are only going to make you a better practitioner in the long run so why the rush? Better to be an awesome 1st kyu than a mediocre blacklbelt. In my school it's the same, there's a time requirement at 1st gup (or you can do it at 2nd instead). It's there to absolutely make sure you're ready but also those extra months are also supposed to about the mental training too. At about that level you should take time to read around more and see more and perhaps even cross-train to get to really understand your style.

wow the instructor sounds like a right idiot. Sorry you had a bad experience. But don't let this put you off TKD; there are loads of good schools out there.

Good topic. I would actually say that we use both in my school. It all depends on the preceding position and what you're trying to accomplish with the kick. In general, if my hips are already side on, I'll use what you call the ATA method and if my hips are full-facing (or I want to bring my back leg through and kick with that), I'll use the second (TTA) method. It seems counter-intuitive to me to waste time and effort moving to a specific knee-chambered position when I might as well use my current position to my advantage. Take the right lead leg side-kick for example: if I'm full facing/hips square to the target, I'm going to have to rotate my hips over and turn my body to the left anyway so I might as well use that rotation as part of the kick and I'd bring my leg knee up front kick style. If I'm already standing side on my hips are already in position for the ATA method. It would be a wasted effort to turn my hips and body back round just to bring the knee up forwards to have to go back to side on again not to mention slower. For me, it's also dependant on what I'm using the kick for. In sparring, I'm largely side on so I'd go with the ATA method as it fits my position and it's a bit quicker. Unless that is my movement on the floor had left me more square on to my opponent so the TTA method would be the one I'd pick. Also for me, the TTA method is more powerful so when I want to really want to stop somebody coming in on me or cause damage I will use that version even if it means that extra movement to rotate round. Wallace does say this in one of his books I have. But again, he always fought from a side facing stance so you could say that that chamber was more natural to him.

You might not see them so much normally because they're not allowed in normal TKD competition but thigh kicks are taught. Likewise with the spinning backfist.

Nice find

Sounds good enough. Although you might want to do chest/arms one day then legs another? Then you can incorporate explosive stuff too like burpees, various jumps, explosive push ups etc. Also highly recommend skipping for cardio and stamina or as part of your warmup. There's actually examples of 20 minute workout's on the You are your own gym website: http://www.marklauren.com/20-minute-workouts-details.html and it describes all the different types of workouts you might want to do.

He's a Gurkha. Was probably just a papercut to him.

^It might be slow at first but it'll probably pick up once you have a good setup. Think a lot of competitive women fighters just stick to their respective styles: kickiboxing, BJJ, Judo etc. because there isn't an incentive to go MMA when the opportunities for competing is limited. I'd imagine as well it'd be like men's UFC; once it becomes popular you'll get women specifically wanting to train at MMA gyms.

To defend against something is it not advantageous to know how it works? I don't at the moment (but I'd like to) train with the knife purely so I can understand how someone, trained or untrained would use said weapon against me. And in a lot of Filipino styles, techniques using the knife easily translate to empty hand movements. I agree that if you had a knife, don't wave it about - just use it. Coincidently this was in the news recently: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-19944833

Video feedback is fantastic. For forms/kata just watching from a 3rd person point of view helps you pick up mistakes that you didn't even know you did and help you give yourself corrections. Run it side-by-side with a video of someone you know is good like your sensei or a well-known Karateka and you can compare how you stack up. For sparring it's an even better tool. Film your sparring often; both class sparring and competition. Again on a superficial level you can see how well you move and what techniques you are good and bad at and what your opponent can land on you. A little more time consuming but worth it is to really break down the fight and analyse the stats. How many times do you engage with your opponent over a round? Average length of these engagements? This is how long you're "sprinting" for and you should do some interval training to match then eventually surpass this. What percentage of your attacks are landing during these engagements? How many strikes are you doing per average engagement length? What type of attacks are landing? Are you initiating or is your opponent? What's your go-to counter move? Is it effective? Hit %? If the hit % is low, you need to train this move more or pick other counters to work. What's the hit% for each type of your attacks? More kicks landing than punches or the other way round? Similar thing for your opponent: what and how much are they landing on you?

If anything, what I hope is that they don't restrict the fighters in any way because they're female. Like adjust what techniques they can use and stuff like that. I agree, they've got to be market it right and keep it about the combat.

Agree with you on all accounts. White is a horrendous colour for keeping clean! One of my doboks is pepto-bismol pink on the back from when it was sweaty in my bag and dye leached off of my red sparring gear. Tried tons of different concoctions to get it off but can't get it out.

Yes totally agree. Although kata training is good for a variety of reasons, this is one of the limitations if the gap isn't successfully bridged between it and a more free model of sparring. No I think that's a great training exercise A lot of the time sparring and self defense training start from a (guarding) ready position. It's good to learn to throw something from anywhere. However, having said that, if you can see a situation building you should get your hands up in a defensive position. If you can't see the situation building, chances are it's too late anyway because you're too slow to react and you'll be caught off-guard anyway. And it's probably not a great idea to always fight hands down as it will train bad habits but yes IMHO it does sound like something that would be good to fit into a training programme. WRT to the moving the feet thing: I do think it's a case of having to make the jump from "I want to be there to do this technique so let's move my feet there" to "I want to do this technique and in the process of doing, so my feet will pass through there". Learning to unconsciously move and flicker in between stances was a hurdle for me in my training. It really required forgetting to kick and punch and just learning to move and forcing myself to move and just let the stance naturally happen (if it was going to). As a bigger person as well, I'd be tempted to just stand there and soak it up so I really had to say to myself I was going to evade rather than take the shot. Required a lot of footwork drills which I still do now.

Agreed, but as smaller people, that last second move/counter is our bread and butter. We can't go toe-to-toe with someone that has reach and weight on us, especially against a blitz, but as we generally are more flexible and quicker, we can use that to our advantage. Works great if you're good at it and yeah it is harder when you're smaller to go toe-to-toe. I hate it when smaller people are constantly moving around me But it's still a risk to do it. Often times, as the bigger person, I can anticipate that my opponent will want to move that way and my blitz then becomes more of a fake and I'm then waiting for them to step into my attack.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/mma/10/23/ronda-rousey On Tuesday Dana White commented to Sports Illustrated that a Women's UFC division would be happening. Ronda Rousey will undoubtedly be one of the fighters but thoughts on who else might fight? Who else would you want to see? Or would you even want to watch a women's division? How different, if at all, would it be from the men's competition?

Is that requirement set forth by the UK government for MA business requirements, or is it in regards to the NGBs of the MAs there. Is it universal? Does GKR have instructors at level below black belt? I'm not citing them as the model to follow, but just trying to establish where the rule comes from you stated. I'm unsure of this too. Perhaps it's a requirement of the org you belong to Dobbersky? Blackbelts are not equal across styles and there's no standardization there for the govn't or UKSport to try to regulate who opens a school based on this. TBH wouldn't think they'd care either. Maybe it's a requirement from wherever you get your insurance from? I know I've heard of blue belt run BJJ schools and in my local area there used to be a TKD school run by a red belt (albeit supervised by his own instructor). Every NGB in the UK I have spoken to specifies 1st Dan Black belt to open a club. I got a 1st Kyu going for 1st Dan who's chomping at the bit to open his own club near where he lives and we've had to wait for him to be 1st Dan for it to be authorised. As you stated with the Red Belt, I'm sure if you look into it, his Instructor is down as being the mian instructor. regards GKR I'm think my response my contravene with the T's & C's of this forum. but its registered with NAKMAS as far as I'm aware, I could be wrong. They do state that one has to be a 1st Dan to open a club with them. Yeap you have me over a barrel with this one, I can't comment on this as I have no knowledge at all of the terms and conditions regards BJJ grade levels I agree most NGBs probably would say blackbelt level at least because that's most likely what the insurance companies would want because they'd think represents a good standard. But there's nothing stopping anyone just going out and starting up a school if they can get insurance to cover them. In any case, some NGB's won't even let you teach at blackbelt level unless you do specific instructor training to learn how to teach. At least that is how TKD is regulated in the UK. You can't get a BTC license unless you do all the appropriate courses. It's less about the actual belt and more to do with whether you understand how to teach.

Great topic. I think it somewhat depends on your styles ethos and how they teach it and I guess, your skill level. Nowadays I wholeheartedly agree with the idea that stances are momentary positions which exist at the moment the technique lands and I hope that my sparring reflects this. But as a beginner, it can be hard to get this idea into your head. Like you said, stances are often taught with the technique applied on top. Even in the style of TKD I do where it is explicit that as any technique connects, the stance locks momentarily then you return to the neutral relaxed position, it's a hard idea to grasp as a beginner. Early on in my training, I'd be thinking in terms of moving my stance and then using a technique on top. So in sparring I'd want to move, would think about moving my feet first and then the technique would come. I think the idea that you are just controlling your falling is great as it is the motion itself that results in stances. Seems simple to you I guess because it's inherent to your style As has been said, in the Eastern Martial Arts, stances are often taught as fixed positions to launch a punch or strike from (as in how they are in kata).

All good in theory but blitzers usually tend to be bigger with bigger arms and legs so will be able to follow you round. You've really got to leave it to the very last minute to move which can be risky.