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My son (7) took a free intro TKD course back in January and ended up loving it. After a couple of weeks, he was CONSTANYLY asking me if I'd start taking classes as well, which is something I've always wanted to do anyway. I ended up signing up for an intro week and had my first class Monday night, and man, after a year of work from home IT work and not being able to go to the gym, I am SORE AF. The general ab and quad soreness is fine since I'll just adapt to that anyway, but the hip soreness from side and round kicks and my general lack of flexibility is killing me. What would be some good stretches to increase my flexibility and minimize this moving forward?
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May 19, 2021 17:44
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| # ¿ May 22, 2024 02:13 |
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Thanks for all of this! I actually talked to my instructor about the hip soreness and general clumsiness I was feeling and he gave me some good stretches that I've been doing every day. Also, one of my friends that's a 2nd dan black belt in Shotokan and a yoga teacher decided to sit in on classes with me and gave me a lot more good daily stretches and poses that have helped as well. We're going to a Tiger Rock school (I know, I know, but they're REALLY good with kids) which is now an ITA offshoot. I *think* the founders of Tiger Rock started ITA as a breakaway from ATA, but I'm not terribly sure.
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Jun 1, 2021 19:15
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Woah, that looks pretty cool; I'll definitely check it out. As an update, I'm feeling a lot of that "bad" soreness is going away and giving way to "good" soreness. I don't really hold back when we're doing bag drill or forms and always try to go full on (well, as much as I can at my age). I'm actually testing up for yellow belt this Monday; pretty sure I've got it, but still a little nervous about it. My son has actually been my biggest cheerleader on this, which I love. EDIT: Also, History on Fire this week is part 1 of a multipart series on Bruce Lee. Really good so far. EdsTeioh fucked around with this message at 19:44 on Jun 8, 2021 |
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Jun 8, 2021 19:27
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Our requirements for white to yellow testing are 10 classes, then I think 12 to go from yellow to green. At green we start live sparring as opposed to bag sparring, and that's where they want you to get to, so I *think* they intentionally make yellow a sort of "slam dunk" to build confidence and then ramp up the requirements from there and increase the number of classes you need. For testing, there's 6 requirements of which you have to pass 4 to advance. These are for white to yellow: -Ho Am form (first 8 steps). I've been doing this with my son since January, so I'm pretty sure I'm good here. -Bag sparring, scoring 30 points in 1 minute. This is on a Wavemaster XXL with targets at head, gut, and shin height. Head=3 points, gut=2 points, shin=1 point. You can't hit the same target twice in a row, front hand hits do not count, back hand hits score only 1 point regardless of target, you must follow up a scoring hand strike with a kick, when you kick, your foot must touch the ground before you can kick again. From what I'm told these requirements basically mimic live sparring with the match being "reset" when a hit is scored. My high score on this is 69 points. NICE. -Board breaking - 1 shot each of reverse front kick, step side kick, downward palm strike, overhand hammerfist. For yellow you only need to break 1 of the 4. I can do all of these with no issues except the side kick because I loving suck at side kicks. -Sparring flow - basically you stand in a ready stance and they call out 2-4 moves, you do them in that order. Should be fine on this. -Current rotation techniques-this cycle we're doing a modified kamakubi/goose neck wrist lock, and step spin side kick, and flipping a full mount. I'm good with most of these. -Some inspirational saying thing; it's like 2 sentences. All good. I'm sure this is RADICALLY different from actual testing, but I'm interested to hear how different it is. ninja edit: Here's a link to the first part of the Ho Am form. This isn't my school, but the steps are (almost) the same: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIyhKRuNW0Y EdsTeioh fucked around with this message at 17:04 on Jun 10, 2021 |
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Jun 10, 2021 16:59
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Dang man, that’s pretty intense and a lot closer to what I’d always made belt testing to be in my mind. That also sounds closer to “real” TKD to me, which is cool. We did a sort of trial run in class today and I feel much better about the whole thing. Funny story, though there is legit a lady in a back brace with both knees and wrists in braces that just started with us. She’s barely mobile and I have zero clue why she thinks any art outside of non martial Tai chi is a good idea in that condition. I got partnered up with her for wrist locks today which was SUPER awkward trying to work around those braces but still do techniques correctly.
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Jun 12, 2021 22:58
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I think "real" may have been a poor choice of words there. "Traditional" is probably closer to what I actually meant.
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Jun 13, 2021 16:55
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Man, thanks a lot for this; that guys form is super crisp and makes that look effortless. I'll write more words about instruction and all that in a bit; you can go ahead and edit that link out.
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Jun 13, 2021 18:01
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That might be Meniere's Disease; I had a boss that had it and would just randomly get dizzy and fall down at work every now and then. You have tinnitus as well? Also, as an update, I DID go ahead and test for yellow and did very well. I finally hit a point where class isn't absolutely exhausting anymore (still tiring and I'm still sore the next day, but as sore as would be expected from a good workout) and things are finally starting to "click" as it were. Loving it!
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Jun 30, 2021 20:16
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Son and I tested and passed for green belt this weekend. Live sparring starts next week, so I'm 100% sure I'll have some getting my bell rung stories soon enough.
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Aug 19, 2021 17:12
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slidebite posted:No concussion - so yay me I guess? I do have a tentative diagnosis though, not standard vertigo. The good news is it should be treatable and they've given me some totally different physio to try at home. Thanks! We do the same thing, with the lower student dictating the intensity, but also new green belts are supposed to *not* make contact for the first few weeks and instead attempt to get within an inch or 2 of the target. The logic being that "the most dangerous person to spar with is a new greenbelt." I'm not sure if that's common logic at other schools, but it makes sense to me. Yes, I did just get yellow in spring. This undoubtedly a product of Tiger Rock being a McDojo, but I think their plan is to sort of just rush through the white and yellow basics and get to green so we're live sparring instead of beating up a Wavemaster 3 times a week. I'm not sure exactly how you're referring to "stripes" but we have sort of 2 versions of this. For accomplishing something small or notable in class, they'll award you with a stripe for your existing belt. In my son's class, they have paragraphs to recite and that sort of thing, and they get them for that, but also doing boardbreaking or nailing a form during an impromptu test. We also have 3 "levels" for belts beyond yellow, so once you attain a green, you're technically "green level 1" and then have to test into green level 2, then 3, which gets progressively more difficult. We call those "stripes" since you have a distinct belt for each one, with level one having a white stripe, 2 having no stripe, and 3 having a black stripe. This DOES slow down advancement though.
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Aug 20, 2021 18:09
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Ah, gotcha. Yeah, that looks a bit similar to us, but we have 15 levels (not counting black as that's a separate thing).
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Aug 20, 2021 19:43
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Man, that's awesome; good luck! Again, I'm a sort of McDojo guy, so take this for what it is: Our program isn't nearly as restrictive as that from what I've seen, but it's definitely not the same as normal belt testing. Once you're a red, you still go to the normal classes, but there are separate classes as well. If you're a teenager, there are "leadership" classes where they mix in some personal development with the martial arts aspect. Both teens and adults are both expected to then assist with classes for either the children's classes or the adults as they have time. I'm not sure if there are a set number of required times you have to do this or not, but there are always red and black belts assisting my son's classes in addition to the instructor. Once you're a black belt, you're free to still attend the regular classes but then there are also black belt only classes as well. The testing itself to move from red 3 to black takes place during the normal testing, but as far as I know, moving up the ranks in black slows down tremendously and I *think* can only be done at larger tournaments or when a "Grand Master" is attending testing.
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Sep 17, 2021 15:19
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Man, I hurt my knee in class a couple of weeks ago and that sounds like absolute MURDER for me right now.
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Nov 3, 2021 22:26
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slidebite posted:Hah, yeah, I was quite worried about my foot with fasciitis, but wearing shoes helped a ton (as opposed to barefoot like training). Ah poo poo man; good luck with that. Other news: I'm competing in my first tournament in like 10 days. Pretty excited; pretty scared, lol
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Nov 4, 2021 14:21
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slidebite posted:Being older and a color belt it might be slimmer pickings for your class/division, but I suspect you'll have guys like you in it and they're probably having the exact same thoughts you are. Is it an open tournament? Do you know how many other schools are participating? It's a fun way to meet people. TBH I'm not exactly sure what the age brackets are. In class we generally pair up with folks about our same age, but randomly draw a lot of times and I've gone against 18 year old kids that are black belt/instructors and are AMAZING martial artists and insane parkour types and then 19 year olds that are 6'4" and like freight trains, but then also folks older than I am (46) and in MUCH worst shape visibly. The only time I'm ever really nervous honestly is when I get paired up with younger women that are a lot smaller than I am. We have a few ladies that are fantastic martial artists and kick the crap out of me every time, but then a couple that tend to be a bit timid and are on the smaller side. At green we're not "supposed" to even make contact (1" counts as a point) but poo poo happens and I don't want to hurt anyone, especially a 19 year old girl. This tournament counts as "districts" which is the smallest one that we do and basically just consists of our city+surrounding smaller towns, so I *think* it's like 6 schools? I did just hear that my friend (Shotokan black belt that used to train with me until he got restationed) will be down here for USAF stuff for 8 weeks, so he'll be able to come as well; SUPER excited for that. He's a monster and always pushes me in really great ways and shows me little weird tricks that make things work. My knee being banged up means I've been missing a few classes, but have been training as much as I can at home. I'll update as this gets closer. Are pics allowed in here? Or even a good idea? I have no clue.
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Nov 5, 2021 16:00
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Holy crap that sucks. Did my tournament today; did better than I thought. My son did insanely well; more details later.
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Nov 14, 2021 00:41
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Ok, so we had 4 events: forms competition, 1v1 sparring, heavy bag sparring (basically just getting as many points in 60 secs as possible) and then board breaking. I think there ended up being 7 of us in our grouping (adult men); youngest was a 19 year old active duty Navy brownbelt that's built like a freight train; oldest being a 51 year old Kiwi bluebelt that is super cool but spars a *bit* too snug for some folks' taste. I ended up taking bronze in forms competition and board breaking and probably could have done better in both but I ended up having some serious tournament nerves. For sparring (what I was most excited about) those nerves hit me HARD and I basically just fell back on BASIC poo poo; front leg round kicks and back punches and didn't shift stances nearly enough. I lost my fight 7-5, but honestly was ok that I even got points and immediately knew what I was doing wrong and saw the stuff I was a sucker for (round kick fakes into hook kicks). Impressively though, the women's division had I think twice as many competitors as we did, which I find really cool and there are a lot of really good martial artists in that group of ladies. Overall I had a blast and learned a lot about what I know and don't know and had some REALLY good conversations with both my head instructor and also instructors from a couple of different schools that gave me really good pointers on what I need to work on and also just good general info on training in your 40's. The whole process really upped my enthusiasm for training sort of made me "excited" for TKD again (if that makes sense). My son was in a group of I want to say 20-25 kids (age 7-10 green/blue belts) and took gold in forms, silver in board breaking and then lost the gold in sparring in a SUPER close 7-6 match to the son of one of my classmates. We had a really good time trash talking each other on our kids' behalf during that one! Dumb pic of us afterwards; me on the far left with way too serious face; my Shotokan blackbelt buddy next to me. 
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Nov 15, 2021 17:22
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Thanks! Yeah, those nerves were a KILLER, but hopefully I should be a little more comfortable and confident next time. Bag sparring is a timed attack against a heavy bag; you get 60 seconds to score as many points as you can against it. If you take a look at the Wavemasters behind us in the pic, they have 3 levels of targets on them roughly corresponding to the height for thigh, torso, and head. A kick against a low target is 1 pt, middle is 2pts, head height is 3. A hand technique is only worth 1 point regardless of position, but you can only score with your back hand. There are a bunch of other caveats, like you can't hit the same target more than once in a row, you have to follow up a hand strike with a kick, can't do the same kick more than twice, etc. In that event, we just did 2 60 sec rounds and took the higher score; top 3 took medals. I was absolutely GASSED after that as a lot of other guys will just wort of graze the bag. gently caress that. I hit that thing like I'm out for blood. Probably to my detriment as far as medals and poo poo goes, but for real training I think it's the better approach. Board breaking and all the other events had us in a single elimination bracket system with a random person getting a bye due to the odd number. In board breaking they set up 4 stations and you had, I think, 14 secs to do all 4 breaks (front kick, step side kick, downward palm strike, downward elbow strike). Most breaks won, ties determined by lowest time. I f'd up a bit on my side kick breaks as I'm having trouble getting power in that step side kick. We use reusable plastic boards from UMAB; basically they're 2 piece boards with pegs that hold them together. They have multiple "levels" of these that get progressively harder to break as the pegs get longer. It's kinda dumb honestly, but we have fun with it. I do like that it essentially teaches strike accuracy (hitting the seam of the board) and then also power since you really need to train to punch past the board and not at the board itself (my son has a big problem with this on hand techniques where he pulls his strikes at the last second). Hah, "working snug" is a pro-wrestling term for "hitting really hard for real." At green we're supposed to have zero actual contact to learn control and also to not actually hurt anyone. He'll kick you straight in the ribs, which on the one hand is fine since I'm in a martial arts class, but I guess some folks have complained. He did give me a bad accidental shot to the knee when I was blocking a leg check that I thought was going to put me out, but ended up not being bad. I think the general rule for contact in tournaments is "yeah, it's going to happen" but they'll absolutely call you out and DQ you if you're intentionally hitting hard. In fact, in the black belt tournament, apparently someone got DQd for that exact reason.
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Nov 16, 2021 20:55
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slidebite posted:Thats an interesting challenge for the heavy bag points. Not sure if we'd ever see it in a tournament, but I could see something like that in training. We do "similar" drills with kicks and punches often (even last night) and yeah, it totally gasses you even with hands. 60 seconds is a long time and with real power each time would be killer. A normal run for us in drills is ~30 seconds and its exhausting. 60 would be brutal and I don'. I presume for kicks you want to keep your leg up as long as you can? Putting it down/resetting would kill the time. Actually, once you score a foot hit, you HAVE to touch that foot to the ground before you can score again. Reason being here is that bag sparring is supposed to sort of be "training wheels" for live sparring. In our normal sparring (and I think sport TKD sparring in general), when you score a point via a kick (or any technique), they immediately call a break and reset you. This is meant to simulate that instead of just chambering a round kick and staying on your base foot and spamming that same kick for 60 seconds. I'm working very hard to NOT be that guy. Monday night after class I got a lot of good compliments from more senior students about how much they like sparring and training against me because a. they think I'm getting better (I don't really see it, but if they think so, then awesome) and b. apparently they think I'm fast as poo poo and stay more mobile during rounds than most of the other students and it keeps them on guard and makes everyone up their game. I'm not sure how much truth there is to that as I'm my own worst critic, but the whole thing made me feel really good and gave me a sort of benchmark for my progression. VulgarandStupid posted:Can’t we just beat up a car or smash barrels like the Street Fighter bonus stages? You DON'T???
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Nov 17, 2021 16:54
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We do that also sometimes; we call it "open sparring" and it's generally either a single round in class or as a special invitation only tournament at our Nationals or Worlds event. I'm not really sure what the criteria for that invitation is; I got one this time around but my son didn't despite him being basically 3rd overall in his group of 20+. ninjaedit: The "leg up and followthrough" thing is something I've been working on. I tend to lose my balance after 2-3 kicks (if not less) usually, so that's one of my current things I'm focusing on. Dropping 10 lbs or so would probably help out tremendously I'm sure but man that poo poo gets hard the older you get. EdsTeioh fucked around with this message at 18:52 on Nov 17, 2021 |
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Nov 17, 2021 18:50
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What do you mean by a "pump kick"? We probably do these, but call them something different.
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Nov 17, 2021 19:18
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CommonShore posted:Hey I'm just jumping in to say that I think that this thread's new dynamic as of the last 6 months or so is great, even if I don't have as much to contribute. I feel like most of the last 6 months has been me talking with SlideBite about what it's like to be middle aged and starting martial arts for the first time.
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Nov 17, 2021 19:25
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slidebite posted:Basically think of continually side kicking without putting your foot down while moving forward.... or backward. Can be useful in sparring if you have an aggressive opponent to keep them back or push them in a direction. NO don't apologize. When it comes to naming mismatches, I usually assume that whatever I've learned is wrong or non-standard (outside of a really specific period of Japanese MMA; I'll talk about those throws/holds all day long). I DO know the move you're talking about now and I don't think we've done it in a while. I should really add that into my home workouts though once I finish up building my practice space in the garage. For simplicity, our naming conventions for kicks come down to a number qualifier and then the technique itself, so in class, things will be called like "#1 front kick" "#2 side kick" etc. #1 refers to front or leading leg, #2 is back leg, #3 is a step with the back leg and then striking with the front leg. I'm not sure what an outsider perspective is on that convention but it makes for consistency across the age groups since I don't think they can really expect kids to learn the Korean names for these moves OR learn a simplified name and then switch to the traditional names when they get to a certain age or whatever. On the other hand, when I studied Kendo, we DID call strikes and count exclusively in Japanese, which was pretty cool and I remember every bit of that despite it being 15 years since I've even touched a shinai.
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Nov 17, 2021 19:37
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Joonbi and kyong ye are the only actual Korean we use also. Our basic kicks are front (which yes, I think is the same as your snap kick), side (pretty universal), and round and to a lesser degree, crescent. We have spin variations of those as well 100% of which I absolutely hate and suck at.
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Nov 17, 2021 21:45
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They push a lot of “leading with the shoulder” on us for those. It helps a bit but invariably my foot weight distribution gets hosed up. It’s one of those things that’ll probably get better with repetition but it’s brutal when you repeat it over and over and then get dizzy etc.
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Nov 18, 2021 01:47
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Ok, so when I keep my weight on the ball, are you almost "spinning?" Like it feels like some sort of dance move almost; sounds about right? To clarify that, I mean more like ALL of my weight should be there and the movement should be very fast? I think where I might be losing it is trying it very slowly to get the mechanics down which doesn't really give you the momentum that you need to do it correctly. I dunno. EdsTeioh fucked around with this message at 15:44 on Nov 18, 2021 |
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Nov 18, 2021 15:25
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Go ahead and edit out; I emailed you from my doughnut.ninja domain.
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Nov 18, 2021 17:22
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Well cool, glad y'all are enjoying it but I STILL haven't gotten a good rec for running shoes 
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Nov 18, 2021 23:23
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Post some grappling; I love that poo poo! We do a grapple class on Sundays as one of our instructors also has a BB in jiu jitsu but I haven't had a chance to make it.
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Nov 19, 2021 15:25
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Mechafunkzilla posted:The thread was never about being mean to TMA people, it's just when spurious claims are made that we get annoyed. Tons of us who are into combat sports got our start in karate or kung fu as kids. Traditional martial arts are rad, as long as people aren't delusional about what they are and aren't. I mean, if people show up thinking that they're going to do some Dim Mak poo poo or deflect bullets or any 5 Deadly Venoms bullshit, then yeah, rip 'em up. (disclaimer: I love 5 Deadly Venoms) My motivations and what I get from class are basically: hanging out with and practicing with my son, personal fitness, improved mental focus/clarity. I have zero illusions that I'll ever be "good" but if I'm better than I was last week, then that's success. Is anything I'm learning good in an actual fight? Depends on the fight, but probably not, at least not if you don't mix in techniques at every range/phase of a fight (start of fight/striking, closing in/throw/takedown, ground). Basically my opinion on that is that the majority of TMA teaches basically JUST the first and maybe a bit of the second phase. We do learn some basic wristlocks and headlock escapes, but I don't think the wristlocks (kukki/gooseneck wristlock is the main one we train on) that we do would be effective AT ALL at our level since they rely on fine motor skills and that's generally the first thing to go when your adrenaline kicks in. We legit had a guy that ran a "Kung Fu" school here for YEARS (like...early 80's-last year) and had TONS of students. I and a couple of friends stopped by to check out the classes years ago and we'd see poo poo like people doing "iron body" techniques where they're standing in horse stance and have someone repeatedly punching them in the stomach or dudes wearing ankle weights hopping on one leg while SWINGING LIVE STEEL CHINESE BROADSWORDS OVER THEIR HEADS. Like lined up doing this. Apparently at some point it came out that all of this guys credentials we absolute bullshit and he'd literally made his entire style up from watching movies. slidebite posted:Eds - did those vids help at all? Make any sense? YES absolutely; thanks a TON. I had a super busy last few days and haven't been on here as much as I wanted. Funny story: We had a mixed teenager (16+) and adult class yesterday. My Shotokan buddy has an insanely loud kiai was sparring a 16 year old red belt. Round starts, buddy take a step forward, throws a fake out front kick and kiais so loud he scared the kid out of the drat ring. Like almost fell backwards. Amazing. Pryor on Fire posted:Lmao people still break boards? Like people who aren’t children? Yeah, cool guy, we do.
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Nov 21, 2021 16:18
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Xand_Man posted:I do grappling primarily and honestly kata and board-breaking are what I miss the most from TMA. How many opportunities do you get to break poo poo just to see if you can? I know right? The whole process reminds me of poo poo from dumb 70's/80's martial arts movies, but honestly, if you're over a certain age, that's most likely where your interest in martial arts in the first place stems from. Now I'm taking the rest of the day to go watch Bloodsport and Kickboxer.
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Nov 21, 2021 16:38
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kimbo305 posted:There should be a grappling dummy that taps when you put a certain amount of torque on its joints. Or actually lets you hyperextend, though maybe that's too gruesome. I think those are called “Whitebelts” in most schools.
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Nov 21, 2021 19:39
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oh god no
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Nov 21, 2021 23:09
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I'll never quit TKD now; it's now my life's mission to not be a lower rank than Trump.
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Nov 22, 2021 00:21
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Our blackbelts do concrete blocks as an optional thing. Also, I watched a dude on youtube break a baseball bat with a straight ankle lock and holy crap.
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Nov 22, 2021 17:41
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Y'all I f'd my back up this weekend and am supposed to test for a stripe tonight. Dunno if I'm gonna make it.
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Dec 6, 2021 17:26
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Ok, so I'm pretty sure I DID pass, but I was DYING. I'd stretched my back most of the day before (laying on a foam roller in my office making calls to clients on a wireless headset) so that wasn't TOO bad. Couple of parts of my form were painful, but not terrible. We generally go through them twice and they take the better of the 2, but if they're confident in your first run, they'll just call it complete and I didn't have to do a 2nd. Sparring friggin KILLED me though. I'd picked up a slight cold last week for a day or so and am over it for the most part except for some congestion and couldn't get enough oxygen breathing through my nose and couldn't breath through my mouth due to my mouthguard. Last round (of 4 one minute rounds) I was getting that panicy feeling you get when you hold your breath too long; not good.
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Dec 7, 2021 16:14
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Red Crown posted:I'm hoping to take up TKD. The biggest local establishment has a "student creed" to recite at the beginning of class, requires "yes sir/ma'am" for instructors and black belts, and has a little closing creed. Is this weird? We do that; seems normal enough and it’s fine once you do it. We generally also address black belts as “Mr./Ms. lastname” which is weird the first few times you address a 19 year old like that when you’re 46. We also have a creed to recite as part of belt testing. What’s your local school?
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Dec 8, 2021 14:21
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My (MUCH more experienced) friend explained bowing like this: When you face and bow a training partner (whether for sparring or just technique flows), you're entering into a contract to not only train at your highest level but also to do your best to take care of your partner and not to intentionally hurt them (beyond acceptable limits in sparring). Also TBH it looks v. cool. EDIT: Redcrown, what's your background with martial arts? EdsTeioh fucked around with this message at 16:30 on Dec 8, 2021 |
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Dec 8, 2021 16:26
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| # ¿ May 22, 2024 02:13 |
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Well, buddy, that was about the extent of my background with martial arts as well (outside of about a year of Kendo back in like 2003 but also watching a shitload of Kung Fu Theater). As a fellow newcomer, my big advise is to stretch. Daily. Twice a day. Taekwondo has a lot of flashy kicks and high points in competition sparring come from head kicks. When I started, I could not kick that high, and could barely kick above my hips in almost any form. I got a leg stretcher and use it almost every day and then also do a few yoga poses to help with this. In particular, "pigeon pose" seems to help me out a lot. At this point, my side and round kicks are higher, front/snap kicks are much higher, and I can pretty reliably hit head height with inside crescent kicks (as well as hitting 3 point targets on our heavy bags). Have you taken classes yet?
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Dec 10, 2021 22:08
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