- An Update -

I'm truly, sincerely Sorry.

 

much as i dislike being the only person not offering praise for your decision a few questions came to mind. where did you learn tkd? what kind of various techniques were taught? how much emphasis was placed on well-rounded skills?

because i have an older brother that has practiced taekwondo for years. in fact he made lots of attempts to get me to learn the style. yet learning jeet kune do has always been my goal. back to subject at hand. during his time in the military there was a tour in korea. and he learned/practiced taekwondo over there as well.

without bias my brother actually can fight and does so very well. during the past several years he sparred with many taekwondo critics and usually won the matches. additionally there have been a few times were fights occured that had little to do with a friendly exchange. again my brother has more than not dealt with those problems with success.

yet there is the proverbial fly in the ointment. what my older sibiling does barely resembles what ive seen from other taekwondo schools/students. for one thing he uses knee strikes more than i have while practicing muay thai skills. anytime somebody gets close my brother nails them. and ive seen things like headbutts and throws. not to mention chokes.

even the punching style varies. ever watched a lot of those old kung-fu movies? those circular punches are regular fare when he practices the style. and from experience i can say they often land with convincing power. makes me wonder if taekwondo has some heavy chinese influence and not just a japanesse core?

the point here is there might be some question about were you learned and what had been taught. maybe it has to do with the school, instructor and material. not to forget the efforts of the student. forgot to mention his kicking skills are envyable. they are fast and really hurt.

 

So erm... He isnt really using Taekwon-Do?

The school I learned at was fine in terms of material. The instructor used to fight a lot and he's seriously not a guy I'd ever want to cross. Its the teaching style. No contact sparring or grappling or conditioning or fitness.

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Heres a more important update:

I'm mad, mad, crazy 3AM in the morning in love.

Aint that something?

 

Yep

Young love is good.

 

Are you still on about being in love with yourself or have you found someone else?

 

Lord Spooky giving out presents even though it's HIS birthday!

 

Yeah man!

You know its the real deal when I love somebody. And they arent even myself or anything.

I never thought I could feel the same feelings for somebody else I feel about me.

 

I'm sure you and Warren Vice will be very happy together

 

hey ragnarok2005,

heres another question? whos really learning/teaching authentic tkd?

 

I'm sure we would. But he never returns my calls. So I had to make do with a local female instead

Your brother?

Who do you think WindTalker?

 

hey ragnarok2005,

my point was there seems to be considerable differences between how the same martial art has been taught in different places. bad schools often lead to bad impressions of any given martial art. some find it too easy to base thier impression of a style based on what they saw in one school that may or not have accurately taught what they were supposed to be representing.

not to suggest the given schools are entirely to blame. there are instructors who probably mislead students for whatever reasons. and those very same instructors might lack the credintials to be teaching in the first place. then you have to consider the individual students.

just recently i heard the term "mcdojos" and honestly was not certain what the refrence made was toward. at first i thought it represented a name for a chain of martial art schools. only later did i realize it meant that students will stand in line waiting to purchase thier rank. maybe that sounds naive yet i have never had to deal with that kind of enviorment before.

nor would i suggest that to recieve the best quality training a person has to go overseas. it seems possible to me there could be poor quality schools anywhere in the world. still i maintain there can be a significant difference between what is being taught and to what level of quality.

this is a very real problem in jkd these days. theres a big difference between someone that has actively practiced something for decades and those who learned some concepts of the same. the problem there is when people claim to be capable of teaching an entire art form with limited exposure. saying for example that i learned elements of wing chun while in jkd is not the same as i have the background to actually teach wing chun.

having developed some intrest in recent years to what actually goes on in other schools i have been suprised and disapointed to realize the poor reflection of martial arts that some places give. to be fair i honestly cant asess taekwondo in terms of strenghts or weaknesses. yet i know what my older brother does looks/sounds entrely different that what i hear about the stlye. and his efforts work.

 

I wouldn't say it was a good kicking, IIRC it wasn't you who limped home with an injury!

When we were sparring he did a very nice job of not letting me close in, I could barely get into punch range let alone clinch range.

 

Don't get your hopes up, grappling comps can be just as bad. Judo ones tend to be pretty well organised though.

Whats with the change of opinion of Judo anyway, i'm sure i saw a post of yours slagging it off. When do you start?

 

Oh Christ man... That was nearly a year ago. So much has changed since then. Its horrible looking at my sparring from that time.

And stop being modest. Hahaha.

You dont live around there anymore do you? We might be going again soon for a weekend

Did I ? If I did I apologize quite sincerely. I did see a LOT of ****-poor Judo guys before I seen good Judo practitioners so its not impossible I said something [stupid]

I started Judo last month. I think I have my first tourney in October.

Will be video'd for sure though. Sensei says cut the ponytail or someone will grab it "accidentally"

 

LOL.

 

I've genuinely accidentally choked someone out with their hair before, it got caught up in their collar when I was on their back, I'd say that would teach them to stop being a damn hippy but it didn't.

 

First Judo match[es] will take place, probably in Andover, on the 27th October along with my grading.

Any advice is more than welcome

 

Nice Avatar Rags - but which one is you again?

 

I've only been to two gradings myself but I'd say the most important thing by far is to chill out about what your doing and not stress about the result. A whole bunch of guys from my Uni club went to our first grading together and most of us had past experience in grappling so figured we would do ok at the grading. We did alright but none of us did what you would call well, turns out that experience in other MA's doesn't help anywhere near as much as experience in Judo helps at a grading.

I think you get 3 fights usually, don't expect to win your first fight, if you can win one of the next two thats cool but the most important thing (IMO) is to try and get video of your performance and see why you lost the fights you did (And you can be pretty sure you will loose most of your fights).