I just don't feel that Taekwon-do would be the same without patterns. It would be like another form of kick boxing with board breaks. Wheres the tradition? (I know Taekwon-do was invented like 50 years ago but its still an art with tradition) I believe that patterns are a way great way to work on technique next to shadow sparring/boxing.
Theres nothing wrong with kick boxing. Im quite a big fan of watching kick boxing videos myself. I'm just saying its patterns that make Taekwon-do. General choi made it very clear that patterns are an important part of Taekwon-do. Why don't you like patterns? Is it because you think they are boring to do? I have to admit that patterns are not as exciting as sparring and my favorite, board breaks, but I still have high respect for patterns and their meaning. Do you study the meaning and the history behind each pattern?
Half of me feels like getting in to this debate and the other half can't be bothered. But just a quick one on pattern meanings. Why do you learn pattern meanings? The best answer I was given, is that by learning about the great acts or events of people in the past you can draw inspiration from said acts, people or events to help you become a better person. Like the guy who devoted his entire life to the education of Korea, it makes you think about how we focus so much on material things when other people are willing to forget about such things and focus all there efforts not on themselves but on the development of their country. Now this is a nice idea of why you should learn pattern meaning, but tell me something, do you think that you can't learn about the life of Do-San and draw impartation from it with out learning the random set of movements contained with in a patter with his name. Why do these movements have anything to do with the meanings? They don't, I could make up a crazy dance and call it Do-San if I wanted to. If you want to learn about great people from history and draw inspirations from them there is nothing stopping you doing this right now, you have the world wide web at your finger tips to get the information. The Movements that share these peoples names are totally unrelated.
Best Taekwon-do practioner or best Taekwon-do sparrer!! To my mind to even be considered "the best Taekwon-do practioner" they would have to be well versed and top notch in all aspects of TKD not just sparring! Stuart
The good moves in patterns are from Shotokan Karate. The rest is General Choi throwing together untried, untested and unrealistic movements. And Taekwon-Do's great contribution is its kicks. Before Taekwon-Do, I believe Karate did not use any spinning kick, or hook and axe kick. I actually quite like learning and performing patterns. I have, in total now, 7 first place trophies at tournaments for my patterns. Both Open and Taekwon-Do. I began my training back in 2004, aged 15 with the ITF and patterns was their emphasis too and I've spent many many hours practicing them. I know that any skill I have, either in sparring or fighting I got from real training. Not patterns. And yes I've also studied the history and meanings of patterns. Even though I don't need to, as our instructor doesn't test us on it. History fascinates me and I researched it with a passion. But that's irrelevant. It has no bearing on your martial skill. - Mr Anslow: - Practitioner.
Back to the Thread Topic Here is a video spoof on the Karate Kid. That movie will always be special to me!!! [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFlQNtL8F9s"]YouTube[/ame]
Technique before Application my friend. I see what you're saying, but patterns ARE an effective way of practicing techniques. I know various anti wrist-lock moves, swiped from choi's patterns. I never attempted trying them out until last saturday with some friends. I was shocked at how no-one could even get close to keeping hold of my wrist. Also, you can practice patterns on your own. you gain better balance, all very very important when attempting multiple high kicks. On kickboxing; I used to study Lau Gar Kung Fu with Sean Viera in Bristol, he also had a kickboxing class. Every so often both classes would meet and I noticed a key difference in both groups. The kickboxers (who had never done patterns) had very sloppy techniques to say the least. People who had trained for half the amount of time (in kung fu) as many of these kickboxers could hold their own against them. Patterns also show a lot about someones school, if all of someone's students are doing something wrong it can be picked up on. If we were to lose patterns, just what would happen to the standardisation!
I'll deal with the rest of that post when I care enough. I'm tired. I've been practicing Choong-Moo all night. I met Sean Viera last week. He was reffing one of my fights at CIMAC and sent me off and told me my feet were too big for my foot pads and I had 5 mins to get a bigger pair or get disqualified. Hows that for a first impression? Anyway. I borrowed a pair off a friend and then went and beat the guy. How is he? Ever spar with him? I hear he was amazing at the Overhand Blitz.
my instructor who is 5th dan said after my black belt test which is in 10 days that they will be taking forms out completely...i need to know 4 forms
http://chi-blast.blogspot.com/ My latest article in my blog is called "The futility of pattern/kata training" if you have the time give it a read I think you might find it interesting.
I read it and you make some decent observations on the generalization of patterns training, though from my POV it is incorrect.. my reason for practicing them isnt even listed ( as I think they are neither an exercise nor a fight!) As a note, when I learnt basketball at high school, the first thing they made you do was jump in the air and pretend to shoot an imaginary ball using the correct hand positions!!! Funnily enough I made the basketball team!! Me thinks you been hanging around a certain forum too much and have been tainted! Shame, but each to each his own Stuart
LOL, its true a couple of years back I would have been arguing on the side of patterns (although never really for them being an effective tool at training for actual fights). But I just found with all the evidence staring me in the face I couldn't help but come to this conclusion.
Yeah, Sean is the bomb. I only trained with him for a year but his gaurd was brilliant. sticky hands etc (you've seen the movies). He and his fellow instructors won a tv show called masters of combat years ago, apart from that he's won something like 8 world championships. I wasn't a great sparrer at the time so I never experienced his real power.
Rayners Lane 2007 Video We've been compiling a video for the Academy recently and even though its not finished totally I thought Id leave the link here for you guys and girls to have a peek, as after this weekend Im gonna be offline for a couple of weeks. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB9K6ljoy-c"]Rayners Lane Taekwon-do Academy - YouTube[/ame] Stuart ps. A newer version will replace this when we get around to updating it some more
