DWx

Oooohhhh...I wish I was a mouse in your pocket...I would've loved to have been there...lucky you!! USA Today, it's a big newspaper in the USA, had a 7 paragraph article with photo in the LONDON 2012 section, section D, page 5, entitled..."Taekwondo replay gives U.S. Bronze". The photo was of American Terrence Jennings; who beat Brazil's Diogo Silva for the Bronze. The OBS needs to, imho, do a better job covering Judo and TKD, after all, they've both been in the Olympics for some time now...sheech. However, the OBS did cover Fencing quite well. What's one to do? Sorry Bob, maybe I didn't explain that well enough. The OBS filmed everything: all TKD matches, all Judo matches and all of everything else. Any and every single match or heat or routine at the games gets filmed no matter what sport or what athletes are competing. That video footage then gets sent around the world to the broadcasters who have the license to show it and they can choose to put their own commentary and graphics etc. on top of the raw video before broadcasting to their country. What you see on television is the bits of the OBS filming that your country's olympics license holder wants to show. For you that's NBC, for us Brits it was the BBC. Sorry to hear that you only got to see a few TKD fights but I promise you every single fight was filmed - NBC must have decided there wasn't enough demand to see them so they didn't show it. Sucks because over here in the UK the BBC (the UK's license holder) gave us the opportunity to watch every single sport live as it was happening, you just needed to select which live stream you wanted. I watched the majority of TKD and Judo matches but didn't watch all simply because there was far too much for me to watch and I haven't had the time. I don't have a job at the moment so have all day to watch and have had several streams open and I still haven't seen everything. Still making my way through it all. That's the other thing, I don't know if NBC are doing or did it but the BBC gave us a catch-up service where we could watch any event that had already happened. So right now I can go and watch the ping-pong from the preliminaries all the way up to the finals if I wanted. If you didn't see an event on tv, its because NBC chose themselves not to show it. Maybe they didn't think there was enough interest

Hey brianw9004, welcome to the forums. What are your goals? Do you want to get stronger? Increase endurance? I mean I'm not an expert or anything, but it seems reasonable if you want to supplement your kata and kumite training outside of class.

Sorry for the long post. I was lucky enough to get tickets for the TKD at the Olympics this year. As I've also been to ITF World Championships thought you guys would be interested in how the two styles differed in their biggest competition. Was great seeing the differences in how they're run and what tactics the fighters employ and was great as an ITF person seeing TKD from a different perspective. Some of the photos I took: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/z0sk3yeq71zrr4u/U14xIcwERA Some thoughts on things: The ring The size and use of the ring was very different. ITF rings are 9x9 m. WTF rings were 10x10 m for the Beijing games but are now 8x8 m. Now I'm not sure whether it was just because I was watching the heavier fighters and the more skilled fighters (as these were the medal fights) but the Olympic fighters rarely made it to the edge of the mat. ITF fighters tend to use the whole ring and inevitably end up going outside (thus getting penalised) but maybe once or twice the WTF fighters made it to the edge of the mat. WTF fighters tended to hold the centre of the ring well but there wasn't a whole lot of movement over the mat area. Movement was more circular. On the other hand, ITF fighters will go straight backwards or forwards as well as circular if it means getting into or out of range. Contact levels I'm not sure what to make of this. WTF/Olympic TKD is full contact and in fact the new electronic hogus will only register a point if it is delivered with sufficient force. ITF is billed as semi-contact. However, having watched both in person, I would actually say the contact at the top-level ITF fights is harder. I don't know whether the hogus are soaking up some of that force but in my experience the ITF-ers seemed to be hitting harder. TBH the only difference in rules seems to be that in the Olympics you can win by knocking out your opponent. ITF rules are worded so that if you intentionally cause a knockout, you will be disqualified but if its your opponent's fault for getting knocked out (say they walked into it) and they are unable to continue, you will win the bout. Video replay One thing I really did like about the Olympic rules was the instant video replay (IVR) system. The two opposing coaches were each given a card (not sure what they call it) which allows them to protest a decision. Coaches were mainly protesting whether head shots landed or missed (they couldn't protest body shots due to the PSS system) or in the case of the Gam. If they wanted to protest, they'd stop the bout, hand in their card and then the jury would go through the video footage from all angles to decide. If the complaint was upheld, they'd get their card back and the scores would be adjusted accordingly. If the jury decided they were wrong, the coach would lose the card. It seems like a great system as human error does happen and it gives the coaches a chance to overturn unfair decisions whilst also making sure they don't abuse the power. ITF doesn't have video replays. You can put an appeal in after the match for a fee (which is returned if you are successful) however unless something was really wrong and you can prove it, you'll probably lose the appeal. Due to this, you won't get coaches contesting whether a kick scored or not (like in the Olympics) because you can't approve it. The jury won't accept a video you've filmed yourself because its not really fair if no-one videoed all of the other matches. I don't know why they don't have cameras for replays on every match but I suspect its to do with not being able to afford it. I'll post more later if people are interested but watching the Closing Ceremony now -------------- Matches I saw: +65kg women - Repechage 1: In Jong Lee (Korea)* vs Natalya Mamatova (Uzbekistan) *winner with a score 8-1 - Repechage 2: Talitiga Crawley (Samoa) vs Mario del Rosario Espinoza (Mexico)* *winner, score 0-13 - Bronze medal A: Anastasia Barry Shnikova (Russia)* vs In Jong Lee (Korea) *winner, score 7-6 - Bronze medal B: Mario del Rosario Espinoza (Mexico)* vs Glenhis Hernandez (Cuba) *winner, score 4-2 Final: Anne-Caroline Graffe (France) vs Milica Mandic (Serbia)* winner, score 7-9 +80kg men - Repechage 1: Robelis Despaigne (Cuba)* vs Kaino Tomsen-Fuataga (Samoa) *winner with a score of 14-2 - Repechage 2: Alisher Gulov (Tajikistan) vs Xiaobo Liu (China)* *winner, score 1-6 - Bronze medal A: Daba Modibo Keita (Mali) vs Robelis Despaigne (Cuba)* winner as opponent unable to compete due to injury - Bronze medal B: Xiaobo Liu (China)* vs Bahri Tankrikulu (Turkey) bronze medallist, score 3-2 - Final: Antony Obame (Gabon) vs Carlo Molfetta (Italy)* *gold medallist, score was tied at 9-9 at the end of the 3rd round so went to judges decision Score breakdown: http://www.london2012.com/taekwondo/schedule-and-results/day=11-august/all-day.html

Great post I think that that's the crux of it. Anything new has always got to prove itself first before becoming accepted.

Wow that's amazing! Definitely envious!!! Not only to get a copy but to get one signed by the author and Mas Oyama himself. Now off to scour Amazon for hidden gems ps Happy Birthday

Its what NBC are choosing to show as over here, the BBC have been televising the majority of matches and if not, you've been able to watch the live streams online for free. Feel sorry for you guys as it seems you've been missing out on stuff. Even your viewing of the Olympic ceremony got edited down. FYI its not NBC filming it or anything. The Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) are the only people allowed to film and they film absolutely everything. Each territory then has a broadcaster(s) who buys the license giving them the rights to televise it and they can put whatever banners or logos or whatever ontop. Forget the iphones, if NBC aren't showing it, its not because they weren't given the opportunity to have the footage, its because they have chosen not to show it. I went to the men's +80 kg and women's +65kg repecharges and finals last night. Getting round to posting something on it.

Agreed! But your goal is to strike and to cause damage - to break the board. Pushing is a method of controlling distance and checking movement. The board is neither rushing towards you (meaning you have to check) nor do you want to move it to a different position or push it off balance.

Its pretty hard to say exactly how many calories you are burning each time you do a kata, but you could use a heart rate monitor to get a rough estimate. http://www.shapesense.com/fitness-exercise/calculators/heart-rate-based-calorie-burn-calculator.aspx

Licence will be a membership to the school and their organisation. As you're in the UK, the licence fee will most likely include some kind of insurance too and certify you for competition. If you're licensed to train it usually = insured to train. Least that's how it works in TKD over here.

Welcome

Welcome

Used to have to wear them for work and also have a pair of steel toed rigger boots at home... Wouldn't wear them for self defence. Far too heavy tbh but I suppose you could get lighter ones. I'd be worried about the steel digging into the top of my foot if I caught a kick wrong. Also maybe not wear your working shoes for practising kicks and stuff, I'd get another pair for that. Had to wear them for work to stop things crushing my feet. I'd imagine going out and kicking tons of stuff would eventually impact on the integrity of the shoe.

Great posts Here's one of mine: That Taekwondo is all one thing: in fact Taekwondo is as diverse as Karate is. Just as you have Shotokan, Kyokushin and Wado Ryu, there are a number of different types of TKD.

If you could combine 2 Olympic sports to create a new event, what would you choose? Equestrian + fencing or equestrian + shooting would be so awesome

Interesting. I always found it odd that depending on which Karate you did you'd have to do a specific kata for that style. Although the Shitei kata are now gone, is there still a list of kata to choose from or can you do anything under the sun? What's stopping someone from taking a TKD form or a Wushu form and performing it in a Karate way? I'm unfamiliar with Karate tournaments so if you can perform anything you like, do you get a score for difficulty alongside performance?

£100 for a gi, year's licence (=insurance), belt, sparring kit and a months lessons? Sounds like a pretty good deal to me. £30 a month for 12 classes a month is also a very good rate. Wish I only had to pay £2.50 a class.

That's why I asked for clarification on what type of alternate lifestyles we were talking about as its a pretty broad term. But largely, if its not impacting on their ability to teach and they are not harming me or anybody else (including pushing their beliefs onto anyone else), it doesn't bother me much.

Is this Eastern culture though? Or is it Western practitioners trying to be more Eastern than Easterners themselves? I've trained with quite a few high ranking TKD guys and both the European and Asian guys have had no problem eating and drinking in their doboks. Often they'll throw a jacket on top when eating but that's more to do with not wanting to train in a food-stained gi than anything else.

I use both, along the same lines as this: Push to control distance and positioning, cause them to go off balance etc. Penetrating strikes to inflict damage. If I push side kick someone, I'm checking their movement and trying to create room. If I throw a piercing side kick, I'm trying to break some ribs.

What do you mean by "alternate" lifestyle? Any specific one? As long as they aren't doing anything to hurt anyone else, they can do whatever they please. This is one thing I love about everyone having to wear gi's/doboks in class; everyone's the same when we're training. Who cares what they do with the rest of their time?

I guess this is something to bear in mind in any situation; you just don't know what it will take to bring them down. However shouldn't this mean that you should start to evaluate how likely your attacks are going to do some damage and train the more effective ones? From what people have said in this thread, it's a bit hit and miss whether finger breaks would stop them from continuing to attack. But finger breaks are largely relying on the attacker to respond to the pain. Break somebody's arm or dislocate it and even if they can carry on with the pain, that arm isn't going to be of much use. But on the subject of broken fingers, one of the GB female Judoka's fought in the -78 kg final a broken thumb.

I get that its not everybody's thing. But IMHO there is some merit in doing it if you like it. I compete in the TKD equivalent to team kata and the level of understanding of the kata and each individual move skyrockets when you have to perform in synchro in a team. If you're dedicated to your Karate you probably do it already, but when in a team, its imperative that you understand each move and that you understand that not only does this strike start at point A and finish at point B, but its trajectory takes it through points C, D and F. It also does wonders for your timing and is a great team building tool. Not to mention it looks nice too. Not something everybody wishes to do but if you do, its still working on exploring and understanding the kata.

What are some of the common misconceptions about your style and about martial arts that you'd like to dispel? Give us an explanation of why its wrong.

Thankyou

Congrats