Micro Post; The combo for the week (week 20)

 Playing with twisting kick this time (biteuro chagi). I’m being mindful of how I move because of my injury, but I’ve never been a good kicker 😂 I do a jab, cross and flow into a twisting kick. All to the head at first, but the angle of the twisting kick sometimes bypass the guard. I also play around with different heights at the end doing a jab cross, low section twist kick (in my mind the opponent became off balanced and presented his head to me so I followed up with an outward crescent kick)

Micro Post; The combo for the week (week 19)

 As the song goes: “I hurt myself today…” I tore my calf muscle on my left leg so I’m not sure what that will do to this series as I have to be very mindful by in my training and take it sloooow while I recover. So if you don’t get more weekly combos for a while that will explain it.

Continuing on the theme punch-kick and utilising the versatile yet often overlooked front kick; in this combo I Jab, Cross (only doing a half hip twist as in a traditional reverse punch), and then flow straight into a back leg front kick. The punches to the head draws the guard up, so the kick goes to the midsection. The “half hip twist” on the cross let’s you put the hip into the kick so the rhythm of the combo is not a quick 1-2 and the BOOOM a kick, it’s a 1-2-3 no pause. 

Micro Post; The combo for the week (week 18)

I hurt my right ankle/achilles in December so I’m just starting to train myself in taekwondo again. As a part of my training I do shaddow sparring, so I thought a fun way of posting more regularly here (and YouTube) would be to present different combinations that I like (and you can try out yourself). 

This week and the first combo is supposed to be a Jab-Cross-Shuffle into lead leg front kick. The jab works as a range finder, the cross is supposed to be a power shot and the shuffle step is done to adapt to what an opponent is doing (in this case backing out of range). Try it out and let me know what you think in a comment (either here on the blog or on YouTube). 
 

Kyeongdang Yedo 24 Se part 1; Lifting the cauldron

If you haven't already read my previous posts on the Yedo 24 Se you might want to check them out. I have written about the history of the Yedo system (click here to read more) and I have also provided the historical illustrations and translations of the different forms (click here to read the post). I have since writing that studied more, and I am now very happy to have a rudimentary knowledge of all 24 forms. That means that I can continue this series for a very long while. Again, if you as a reader feel that this blog is starting to contain too much swordstuffythingy please let me know. If enough people say that, I will start a new blog focusing on that aspect. For now suffice to say, kyeongdang is a huge part of "my" taekwondo, but I do understand that might not apply to many. 

Geom or Do? How language changes in martial arts

Hi there :-) I have been going full Muyedobotongji rabbit hole these last few months :-P I have posted a lot of stuff on facebook, and one of the things I wrote was that the Sang H. Kim's translation of the Muyedobotongji is a wonderful resource, but it does contain flaws and errors, and the biggest "flaw" for me was that he did not include any Hanja or Hangul for any of the Korean terms. This means that you get quite a few paragraphs containing interesting and vital information that comes out as pure guibberish. The section that annoyed me at that time of writing was in the Yedo chapter where he translates: 

"There are four strategic fighting methods in Chosun; ahnbub, kyukbub, sebup and jabup." 

Now reading this you get four strategic fighting methods and four words that you have no idea what it is supposed to be. Had he included the hanja and or hangul you might be able to use this to research into the matter and come up with something, but since there are only latin alphabet and he does not transcribe into it following a strict transcription system you really can just guess at that he means. Even if you speak Korean this makes the job impossible and it would really be so much better if he or the publisher could just include the terms in the Hanja at least. Hanja is traditional characters of Chinese origin by the way.

Product review on Training Katana (Iaito) from Ryan Swords

You can click the link below if you want to go directly to YouTube :-) 

https://youtu.be/Y9E5E4dRoOQ

Product review on a training sword from Ryan Swords. Unsharpened Katana (Iaito), Ryan-1316. Short answer: I’m very pleased with it 🙂 You want the long answer? Go check out the video and I’ll give you an 11 minute rant 😂

Solo Sword Training [Yedo24Se]

https://youtu.be/RH-CFi5Db7g

 Filmed myself so I could get feedback from my teacher :-) It was a lovely evening with very nice weather :-) In my last two posts I’ve written about Yedo 24 Se it’s history and a list on the different postures (we train each posture as a mini form).  It’s still a work in progress and there’s a ton of things that needs improving but I thought you guys and gals might want to see the forms in real life and not just old illustrations :-)  I do each one 4 times slow for technique and then 4 times with “intent”. It’s not all 24 here but rather 15 (or 14 as I managed to skip one)