I appreciate all the good input, there are definitely a lot of very important and valid points to the psychological aspects of the fight. Luckily, I suppose I could say, that I know how I respond in these situations, and I remain fairly calm and cool. Granted I haven't been approached by an armed or combat trained assailant, but either way it's something. I will be keeping this side of things in mind. A lot of the sentiments and points made I can certainly understand the rational behind and largely agree with. I enjoy TKD for many of its facets, including the sporting side of things, but I do look to be capable of applying my experience and training in a practical way (as mentioned I am also pursuing krav maga to a degree, and intend on training in Hopkido in the not too distant future). Haven't had a chance to check out the videos yet, dashing off of the computer, but will check back later and hopefully have a bit more specific of a reply to make. Again thanks all for the input thus far.
Yes. I have 4 High Gear suits that are used extensively less the arm and neck pieces, and then I also use another type of body armour that I've been developing with help from TKDMitch which I intend will eventually replace all the High Gear as it is more versatile. At the moment the maximum number of full contact personnel that I'll involve in any one scenario is 6.
jwt, that looks like some great training there. i personally would consider that sparring, just with one person playing the attacker and one playing the defender. it places you in a situation where you have to react to a series of unknown attacks. i love the way you guys do try and talk your way out of the situation first and i agree that is always the best thing to do. i guess everyone uses different terminology and has different definitions of things though. what do you guys call that type of drill?
Thanks. In general terms I would refer to them as dynamic or alive drills depending on the degree of foreknowledge as to what is going on. For example in a dynamic drill the defender will know who is going to attack, and often how they are going to attack. In an alive drill however I might have five people together and no-one knows who is going to attack - not even the attacker - because they have all been briefed to act in particular ways and have particular things that might set them off, or make them back down etc. Those drills sometimes don't even come to fighting - but they really work awareness. In 'in house terminology' these are Phase 1 to 5 drills. The best term for what is being done is probably Live Action Role Playing. For me I tend to not use the term sparring since (for me) that generally means two people competing against one another, whereas I have one person competing against a role player who is deliberately using a different arsenal. Furthermore the fact these may be two on one, or two on two, or three on one events etc, and have heavy verbal elements, take it out of what I believe most people would consider sparring.
I haven't trained with shoes on for a long time. But a long time ago I did a bunch of breaking and bag work with shoes to see what the difference would be. I supposed I should not have been surprised that the power increased substantially (I mean you have extra weight at the end of the whip). Obviously the ability to throw fancy combos decreased. But in self defense one good strike would probably be more important anyway. Algavinn- you are in my town. Where do you train at?
I train with Grand Master Hung Choi over in his Beaverton school on Hall and Allen. I met him at PSU, taking a TKD class on campus as the last credit for my bach and kept on with him. Amazing teacher. He has a SE portland location as well on Halsey.
:topic: Yes. His father was one of the early pioneers of TKD in the Portland area (with my instructor Kim Hong Sik being the other). At one point they were the two main TKD instructors of the area with one being the WTF line (Choi) and the other being the ITF line (Kim). Years ago Choi brought the Korean national demonstration team to the Rose Garden and pretty much every TKDist in the area went to watch it (whether you were ITF or WTF). Quite a show.
Grand Master Kim? If so I'm familiar with his organization at least (haven't met the man), a friend of mine is a 3rd dan instructor at Master George's school when she's in the area. As I understand the two grand masters were friends.
Well there is a new younger Kim in the area (beaverton, olympic gold medalist from Korea). Choi and Kim (my GM Kim) were rivals for many many years. GM Kim tells a funny story about opening the yellow pages and seeing Choi's ad saying, "Director of all Oregon TKD". So then he immediately had one of his students opening up a Washington school and changed his ad to read, "Director of all NW TKD." But of course they got older and less into the whole business thing and GM Kim said they became friendly later. I actually have a VHS video from the 80s that has Choi and his sons (I think it is his sons) doing a Hapkido demo at a Korean festival. At the same festival GM Kim had his students do a TKD demo and he jumps over someone and broke some boards. He is in his late 40s in the video. What is funny is one of his students is originally trying the break but missed it twice so GM Kim whips off his shoes and does it. The Koreans watching, of course, start clapping like mad loving the white guy missing it and the Korean nailing it. Totally off topic, but I was getting in a workout today and Olympic Gold Medalist, Herb Perez, happened to be walking by and stopped in for a chat. I had heard the name before, so I didn't make a complete jerk of myself but didn't know much about him. We had a nice little visit and he seemed to be a great and down to earth kind of guy. While WTF and ITF have their differences we also have a lot in common...
Sadly I've only been with GM Choi some 6-8 months so far at most, and never met his father (I study under one of his sons, he does have a second son that did practice at one point in the past but is no longer local), and have only had a few chances to talk with some of the other instructors about what the school used to be like, and his father, etc.
