Owner: Taekwondo Blog URL:http://tkd.tomcatuk.net/blog.html Join Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 15:33:06 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: Been doing Taekwondo on and off for over a decade. The only sport I seem to be able to maintain an interest in. For me (in order of preference) the aspects of Taekwondo that appeal are flexibility, fitness, destruction, technique (including patterns) and Site statistics:Click here
New year's resolutions 2008-01-08 12:22:00 Perhaps a bit late, and perhaps more for my own benefit than anyone else, this is what I want to achieve this year and I'm going to push hard for it!1. A gold medal for me (and my club of course!) in competition. Shameful, but Silver has always been the best I've managed. Watch out if you're in my weight category and keep your guard up!2. Up my training to 3 times a week as many weeks as I can so that I have a chance of...3. Moving up to Red Belt. This is going to be tough, but if it wasn't, it wouldn't be worth doing. Red tag needs attaining first of course, so time to get Taegeuk Yuk Jang "right".Happy new yearAndy
Black Belt Class 2008-03-28 13:21:00 I was very honored last week to get invited to attend Master Rose's Black
Belt class. Before going (bare in mind I am still at 4th Kup - Blue Belt) I felt a certain amount of trepidation as to what to expect. Was I going to be the instructors punch bag for the evening? Would I struggle to keep up?I enjoyed the class enormously - Master Rose gave me a lot of help with the finer points of my technique which I will most certainly be doing my best to remember. I felt I was able to keep up reasonably well, although my instructor told me afterwoods he felt Master Rose had definately "toned down" the pace of things for my benefit and usually they are pushed a lot harder. I'm going to have to move my fitness level up quite a lot when I (hopefully) reach that elusive 1st Dan and start attending Mas
Green Belt Grading 2008-04-03 03:20:00 Today I am the proudest dad in the world. James took his grading for 6th Kup (Green
Belt) last Saturday, and at last night squad training session in Mitcham he was awarded his Green Belt.James took his grading among the adults, and as such was allowed to attempt his first break. Master Rose asked him to break using back kick. Unfortunately, 4 attempts were not enough and James wasn't able to break the board, however, I tried my best to assure him that since at his age breaking wasn't a required part of his grading he shouldn't worry too much about it. He did say he felt happy with his pattern (Taegeuk Sam Jang - third Poomse), his Kibom, the 3 step sparring and free sparring.James is now just one belt behind me - better get moving and work on staying ahead or he'll be the one showing me wh
Are you a black belt? 2008-04-04 12:31:00 The first question you get asked when someone finds out you're practicing a martial art tends to be about the mythical Black Belt. Normally to try and avoid this one I just tell new people I meet that I do fitness training, rather than mentioning Taekwondo at all, but that's not always enough. People tend to find these things out and once the cat's out of the bag the question of belt colour isn't far off.No is the reply and then comes a look of shock when I tell them how long I've been at it (it's getting close to a decade I think now). The important thing is that, to me at least IT DOESN'T MATTER all that much. If I was in it simply for a certain colour of belt I wouldn't go through all the effort, pain, sweat and tears. I'd just go out and buy the Black Belt (any sports shop will happily
The origin of Teakwondo 2008-04-23 12:08:00 Steve Conway mentions on his site the large number of differing way Taekwondo is spelled, in particular "Teakwondo" comes up time and time again. I've always thought this must just be a simple miss spell on the part of the people using it, but have actually found an official source for this spelling.Page 60 of the Taekwondo Textbook (the official guide to WTF Taekwondo published by the Kukkiwan) refers to Teakwondo. I found another version on page 78 - "Thekwondo" although I've never seen anyone using that particular one and hope I never will ;)
Longer training 2008-04-24 03:47:00 The Wednesday adult class at Mitcham is now running for an hour and a half (it was an hour until recently) and I finally got along to it last night. Really good lesson - I can always tell by how much difficulty I have walking the following morning!I was very pleased to get some heavy practice of Yuk Jang (the sixth Taegeuk pattern). It's a lot harder than I thought it would be though. The stances are quite a bit more complex than the previous patterns and my finishing position is way, way too far from my starting position. It's going to take a lot of practice to get this one right.
BTCB Competition - Dorset Championships 2008-05-08 02:47:00 The Dorset Championships
are set for the 1st of June (Sunday). Apparently there's a patterns competition on the 31st May (the day before). Can't wait for this one - missed it last year due to family commitments. From what I hear this is the biggest BTCB Taekwondo Competition held in the UK or at least one of the biggest. Looking forward to meeting lots of fighters and, of course, hoping to improve on my lackluster performance at this years Chungdokwan Nationals.The Dorset Taekwondo Association run this event - their website is here.Particularly hoping to bump into Phill Payne as he says he'll be attending this event. He's got more information about this event on his Taekwondo Site.See you there!
Taekwondo injury 2008-05-09 13:02:00 Taekwondo is a contact sport of course, but this week I got a shock with a nasty swelling on my left elbow as a result of a kick from Wayne during sparring at Wednesday's squad training. Boy, does he kick hard - I had my arm protectors on, and yet the swelling is quite something. Hope it goes down soon.Val was cornering me, and wasn't shy about the fact I really need to evade kicks rather than block them. We did some footwork excercises and I'm hoping they'll help.I also spotted a very bad habit that's no doubt high on the list of reasons my tournament fights haven't been going so well. I'm kicking with my front foot nearly all the time. I can't imagine why as the moment I thought about it, it was obvious this is hardly ever going to score a point with an attack to an opponents body armour
What makes Taekwondo different to Karate? 2008-05-15 03:11:00 Seems there is a lot of confusion about the difference, and which is "better" between Taekwondo and Karate
. There are some fundamental differences of course:Taekwondo is has a focus on destruction and high spinning kicks. These are distinctly Korean aspects of martial arts. As a result, Taekwondo practitioners will have a tendancy to use kicks at least as much, if not more than hand techniques, pa Read more:makes
, different
Press ups on knuckles in Taekwondo 2008-05-22 03:01:00 Taekwondo students over 16 ought to do press ups on the knuckles. This has a few benefits, which I'll cover further down. If knuckles are injured, you shouldn't do this though. It's particularly important that children do NOT do press ups this way as it can interfere with bone development and cause problems later in life.It's vital that the press up is done on the first two knuckles (index and mid Read more:Press
Site progress for Tomcat's Taekwondo 2008-05-26 17:33:00 I've been working on the Taekwondo site on and off for 2 years now. I thought at this juncture it might be a good idea, for my own record, to show the stats to date. The counter was installed 28th September 2006, and StatCounter tells me that since then:Pageloads: 94731Unique Visitors: 33745Returning Visitors (my favourite one!): 4684So...I've reached out to over 30k people with the site, and hope Read more:progress
, Tomcat
Kihap - shouting in Taekwondo 2008-05-30 14:18:00 One of my favourite topics - the Kihap (the loud shout made when you perform a striking technique or adopt fighting stance before sparring).When I first started Taekwondo, I (probably like most people) felt very self conscious about shouting at the top of my voice in front of a collection of new people. There were other people in the class (some quite high grades) who were also fairly quiet. On th
Dorset Championships results 2008-06-08 04:36:00 We made it to Dorset after a VERY late submission of our entry forms. It's quite a drive from where we live, and my wife decided to use that excuse to take the whole family down to stay in a hotel which meant we were better rested before arriving for weigh in on the Sunday. The competition was as big as I'd expected - there were something like 300 competitors there and the place was packed out. Th Read more:Championships
, results
Competition sparring - avoiding getting hit 2008-06-10 10:22:00 Last week's squad training (coming as it did after the Dorset Championships) was a great lesson for me to try and get to grips with some of the weaknesses in my sparring technique. There seem to be two major issues.I'm not getting out of the way of attacks - just standing there taking them andI'm kicking with the front leg far, far too much.Mr Gibbs decided to use a novel approach to teach me how
Which Martial Art should I choose? 2008-06-20 17:05:00 Choosing a Martial
Art to practice is most certainly the first, and perhaps the most important question we ask ourselves before beginning the journey. If we are to base the question purely on the merits of which one will suit our needs best, the answer is fairly straightforward. If self defense is your top priority you want a "soft" or "internal" Art. If that was what I was looking for, JuJitSu, H Read more:choose
Taekwondo translations 2008-07-11 13:53:00 Translating Taekwondo moves from Korean to English (that is, to a phonetic form so you can understand them when spoken) is quite possibly one of the most controversial parts of Taekwondo. I've got a lot of translations on my Taekwondo glossary page, and yet more on the pattern pages. Browse the web, and you'll find other sets of translations that are different. Some will basically be simply differ
Etiquette in Taekwondo (bowing) 2008-09-09 10:09:00 The first of the five tenets of Taekwondo is Etiquette
, which means that as a student of Taekwondo you should show respect and good manners to others. Not just within the training hall (Dojang) but in your everyday life.The most noticeable way this happens within the Dojang is the bow which should be performed whenever appropriate, and specifically:When entering or leaving the Dojang. If an instru
Congratulations Sarah 2008-08-31 17:22:00 A bit late (I've been on holiday) but I simply have to publish my congratulations to Sarah
Stevenson for achieving Britains' first ever Olympic Medal in Taekwondo. Obviously a Gold Medal would have been fantastic, but a Bronze is no mean feat by any standards in a sport that is so well dominated by it's home nation, the Koreans.A truly great achievement, and something to spark great optimism for t Read more:Congratulations
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