Thoughts on sparring

(Ramble alert:) I have been thinking more and more on sparring and its role in taekwondo. In most
modern taekwondo dojang (taekwondojang) sparring is in reality based on competition rules. If you do more kicks than punches, if you do no grabbing, no sweeps, no low kicks etc when sparring then that is the case in your dojang wether you admit it or not. There's nothing inherent wrong in this, as long as we can freely admit it, the trouble comes when people start to equate what is essentually sport sparring with real life violence.

Practical applications drill covering a whole Poomsae!

This is the first time I have made this public, but it is the first drill of its kind (as far as I know) where you apply a Poomsae from start to finish without overlooking any techniques, and you use all the sequences as is. I have many to thank for my jurney into Taekwondo applications, perhaps too many to mention, but a shoutout to Samir Bernardo who inspired me into making this drill, to Iain Abernethy who I have also taken inspiration from, to Stuart Anslow, Simon O'Neill, Colin Wee, Matthew Sylvester and many many more and of course my own instructors Master Cho and Master Oppedal :-) I have tried giving as much context as possible in the clip itself so it became pretty long, but if all you want to see is the drill itself you can skip to the end (about three minutes from the end). If you enjoyed the clip please consider subscribing to my channel if you have not already done so ;-), share the video etc. If you did NOT like it, please make your own version that you do like and share it with the world :-D

Mini lecture #2 Why do we pull our hand to our hip?[2018]

In this video you will get some of the reasons why we pull our hand to our hip in forms and basics, as well as why we chamber techniques, the role of blocks and much more. I again did this without any script, but I did a better job at editing this time (at least I think so) and I placed my camera so I did not have to hold it while filming so the presentation is way better than in the first lecture. I still have a far way to go both in editing skills and in presentation, but its a steep learning curve, and hopefully I will give an alternative to the text dominated content I have been providing so far.

What would YOU like to see in a future mini lecture? Please answer in a comment or PM :-)

Part 2: Flow drills for Taekwondo hand techniques

In my previous post (part 1) I wrote about flow drills, and presented the first template. This time I
will present the second one I use, which follows the same 3 point template but this time things have changed a little:-) I did not get to video more so you get this series in more parts than I would have liked, but then again I could wait until I had the rest of the videos I need to complete the post (about 6 more) and not give you any content in the meantime. Something is better than nothing so here goes template number 2:

Part 1: Flow drills for Taekwondo hand techniques

Taekwondo is not exactly renowned for its hand techniques which I have always felt was a little odd.

Not odd becuase we do normally stress leg techniques over hand techniques, but odd because we have just about every hand technique that you would find in any Karate style. Again, many have a superficial knowledge about Taekwondo, and it does not help that:

1. Many hand techniques never appear in Poomsae
2. Many who practise Taekwondo to later convert to other styles only learn rudementary or basic Taekwondo.

Now every strike you would find in Karate, most of the common strikes in Chinese Martial Arts and in Boxing are all present within Taekwondo. Hand Techniques of Taekwondo for actual fighting does a very good job documenting these strikes, allthough the author does it primarily form a "non-attached" striking viewpoint or "boxing style" strikes. I come from the opposite side of the spectrum as I usually like to be "attached" i.e. using my other hand active so I do not have what Choki Motobu called "dead hand" or inactive hand. Most students of Taekwondo will spar using the competition rulesets so for Kukki-TKD people they will go sparring much like the WT competition style fights go. Lots and lots of emphasis on kicking, long distance, and handtechniques are scarce or non-existant. If they do drill their hand techniques with a partner it is usually in a ritualised manner of formal sparring; one, two or three step sparring.

Micro Post; Chulgi Chudan Hyung applications

Samir Berardo has been a long time friend to this blog (and me) going back a few years now. How time flies.... Well anyway, I have been trading mails and facebook messages with him for several years now and I have been lucky enough to get to see his work. You see, Samir is very passionate about applications of Karate forms and since Taekwondo is Karate based (yup I am not sugarcoating it) I have taken great interest in his work. He has a very indepth and unique approach to forms applications which has influenced me and given me a whole new benchmark to measure up against. He has waited to make his work public for various reasons, but lately after a seminar with Jesse Enkamp (Yeah, THE Karatebyjesse.com Jesse) he was encouraged by Jesse to make it public. The result (well the first public glimpse) of his work is just scratching the surface of his method, but loads and loads can be learned from the clip I am about to share. He is demonstrating the Naihanchi Kata, which to us KMA practisioners would be Naebojin/ Kima/ Chulgi Chudan Hyung. Po Eun Tul practised in ITF or Chang Hon based Taekwondo styles is partly based on this form (along with the two other Karate forms), and you can see all the techniques scattered around the various Kukki Taekwondo Poomsae. The good news is that now that he is making his work public, I can stop holding back on the applications (Yup, I have sooooo much more in store) which has been directly influenced by his approach. I will wait to he shares more material though :-) My stuff is childs play when compared to his work though so I am sure you will enjoy the clip:-) So without further adu I give you: Samir Berardo:

Basic Taekwondo limb-control drill

I "borrowed" this drill after viewing another instructor performing it. It is short, relatively simple and drills the usage of the "non striking hand", angles and several traditional techniques all in one compact drill. The traditional techniques are "round strike" (in the specific example I share it is a bear hand strike), a knife hand strike, a low block in long front stance and a middle level punch. One of the perhaps most important aspects though is the clearing of limbs and basic limb control. Many Taekwondo students are never introduced to this combative range at all, and if you only study your defenses against strikes in the ritualistic formal sparring you will never really learn how to deal with the opponents defenses. In this drill the opponent reacts to your strikes by parrying and covering, which again is something most Taekwondo students never really learn how to deal with.

Let us make Gibon Dongjak great again!

Sorry for making that terrible pun at president Trump's expense, but come on, give me this one. At

the time of writing this I have been discussing the realism and usefullness of Gibon Dongjak training. Gibon means fundamental, and dongjak can be translated as movement. In English we often hear the term "basics" which I really do not like because that sounds like something you learn, and then move on to "advancics" instead. Fundamental movements gives at least me better mental connotation as we are talking about functional movements that need to be adapted slightly for applications. It is like Iain Abernethy talks a little about in his podcast "The Case for Kihon" where he likens Kihon (Gibon Dongjak) to the foundations to a building. The foundation is vital to the health and stability of the building but it is not the directly usable bit. Again to paraphrase that podcast, as I write this I am not using the foundations of my house, but I am in a room built on top of it. There are a few issues with typical gibon dongjak training though so let us look a little on that first.

Two basic dangkinun son drills (incorporating the pulling arm into training)

I have gradually introduced practical applications to our Poomsae during the last two years of training. There has been a lot of pitfalls by starting to teach them to people who do not "get it" and who have trained for years pulling their hands on their hips "because it is tradition" etc. One of my greatest pains was to get people to use both hands instead of one. You see we use both hands in our forms, and in our basic techniques, but once we start applying the moves in formal 1, 2, and three step sparring we usually use the one "active" hand and the other hand is just pulled back to the hip because it is tradition. So eventhough our forms and basics ingrain a functional movement, I struggled to get people to use it in a functional way. The simple punch is a great example. I realized only later what I was doing wrong. I was teaching the Poomsae applications just as they appear in Poomsae. This can surely be done, but if we are doing it that way we need to devote much training time so people understand it. Breaking the Poomsae down into single techniques and drilling the core concepts instead proved to be much faster and easier so I made two drills using the focus mitts to introduce impact too, and I did not mention Poomsae or basic techniques when I introduced them. I made it very simple.

The relationship between sparring and forms, a Taekwondo perspective

This article was originally published in Totally Taekwondo Magazine 1st of July 2016. It looks at Taekwondo litterature ranging from 1958 to 2010 and looks into how Taekwondo textbooks have defined sparring and forms individually and then tackles the age old quesiton wether the two have a relationship between them. I hope you will find this interesting, and since this is meant to be a serious article and not "just a blogpost" it contains references to all the books I have used for this article, as well as exactly where each of my quotes has been found. Earlier I have done a lousy job With this, just providing the person behind the quote and maybe a title, but if a reference is to have true value it needs to pinpoint a location so that people can go and check all my claims, and do it easily instead of having to sift through a whole book each time. It is my hope that more will try to write and produce more serious Taekwondo litterature over time so that we can elevate the martial art we all love and respect. I might not be a scholar but I do try, and this is the result of just that.

Warm up for Taekwondo

I got an interesting question the other day when I chatted with a friend about general Taekwondo training, and the conversation turned toward warm up. This is something that is often a missunderstood part of training, and it also comes with its own myths as well. I like to believe that Taekwondo being in the Olympics has made more instructors aware of sport science and that we generally have moved on from the 1950s/60s idea of a warm up based on army training. I see that modern Dojang that leans toward Olympic sparring is actually more up to date on this area, and holds an advantage over "traditional" oriented Dojang around the world. It is more often than not those "traditional" oriented Dojang that does not understand what a warm up is for in my own opinion. There is a lot of heavy science and theory behind what a good warm up should be, and what the purpose of a warm up is.

However instead of sharing a lot of dry research material, and a lot of theory, I would rather just share my thoughts on the topic of warm up, both its purpose, its length and proposed drills, and why those drills have been selected.

Training Video: Working on Taekwondo Makki techniques

It is not often that I post videoclips on the blog and especially not with myself in them. In the martial arts if you stick your head out it gets quickly hammered down by the "keyboard warriors". Also I thought I needed someone to actually film me, but I see that with my new phone I can do it myself when the conditions are right. This time I spendt a couple of minutes after work to show off a few drills you can use with a partner or if you are in lack of a partner like I was, against a stick.

Micro Post: "Look Eye, Always look eye Daniel San"

Simon Scher has made another tutorial that I whish to share with the readers. It focuses on where to look at your opponent. It does not matter what lineage you hail from or what style of Taekwondo you do, the principles on where to look at your opponent is pretty universal;-)

Applying Taekwondo the old way?

Having spendt the last few weeks fighting a vicous cold that has effectivly prevented me from training I have spendt a lot of my training time devouring martial arts books instead. One of these
books was "The Essence of Okinawan Karate-Do" by Soshin Nagamine. It is a great read and I love almost everything he says in the book. I am not star struck by him though. His thoughts on philosophy and what he writes theoretically of applying martial arts is great stuff, but frankly I find that the set "Kumite" that he developed for his style contradicts a lot of what he laid out as his reasonings behind developing the Kumite drills in the first place. The book is a well worth read though and it touches on several things, that we as Taekwondoin will find very interesting.

The Past often holds the answer to todays problems



In my last blogpost "Principles of defending with "Makki" techniques" I shared some (in my opinion) great insights into the principles of defence as taught in the older Kwan (forerunners of modern Taekwondo) and Karate. Those principles were gathered from the book: "Karate; The art of Empty-Hand" by Hidetaka Nishiyama and Richard Brown" and as I said in that post if you enjoyed the writings in Choi Hong Hi`s 1965 book or any of the more classice Taekwondo books out there this book is also for you:-)

Principles of defending with "Makki" techniques

I recently got myself a copy of "Karate; The art of Empty-Hand" by Hidetaka Nishiyama and Richard Brown after there was some speculation about it being related to my study of Choi Hong Hi`s 1965 book (the Karate book was published in 1960). While the two works do share a few editorial tricks to save printing space, a similar layout and cover many of the same techniques (well Taekwondo in 1965 would be very very close to Karate so no suprise there) the information in both books and examples of application of the art is so different that I do not think that there is a closer relation between the two books other than the shared lineage and timeframe. The books cover many of the same techniques but each one contributes something the other does not so if you enjoy Choi Hong Hi`s 1965 book and want something similar but not the same I recommend "Karate; The art of Empty-Hand".

Makki - It is more than you think! Part 2

Image Soruce: Sihak Henry Cho`s 1968 book

Last time we looked closer on "Makki" (often translated as "blocking") techniques and how they can be more neuanced than what many people usually think about them. Often they are portrayed as
"hard blocks". In mainstream Taekwondo today this is often the be all and end all of "Makki training". You do the Makki techniques in a hard way. Just like you would do any punch or kick. In the Kukkiwon Textbook these blocks (which constitutes most blocks for mainstream Taekwondo) is called Chyomakki. They are described as hard blocks where the ultimate goal is to block as hard as to hurt the attackers attacking limb. There are also other examples of this in older incarnation of Taekwondo where you would punch the instep of a front snap kick aimed at your groin. There is no real "defense", you go straight to offense. It is just that instead of attacking the center (the body or head) you start with the attacking limb and work your way inward towards the body and head. This strategy also entails deflecting an attack and counter attacking with your defending arm in the same movement.

Review of "Combative Elbow Strikes" by Jeff Rosser

Combative Elbow Strikes;

A Guide to Strikes, Blocks, Locks and Take Downs

Review By Ørjan Nilsen

Originally published in the January issue of Totally Taekwondo Magazine

Makki - It is more than you think! Part 1

Image Source:
Kukkiwon Textbook 2006 edition

In Taekwondo there is a few things that is very well understood these days. Two of those things are Taekwondo defense and combat distance. Taekwondo defense these days amount to either hard blocking (smashing the attacking limbs away from you) or dodging the attacks (sometimes there is also a focus on dodging and countering in the same movement). I am
not saying that hard blocking does not have their place (I think they do), but to exclude all neuances in "Makki" and dogmatically apply everything as hard blocks each and every time is something I think is wrong. Likewise with the focus on sport sparring the distance techniques are applied in is just plain wrong. Taekwondo as a martial art is relativly "new" when compared to other Martial Arts out there, but the techniques it contains are a lot older than the art itself. This is important to understand.
Some techniques are meant and developed for sport, other for combativly "duelling" (fighting) and yet others are old school self defense techniques. The forms we have and practise today largely consists of techniques and sequences of the latter which is why so many fail to see the link between application of forms and the performance of forms.

Micro Post; This Months Quote

Here is the latest quote. The original quote is a little longer and explains more about the role throws have in Taekwondo (they should only be used when the oppertunity presents themselves and the opponent can not counter) but the thing I wanted to get across was that Choi Hong Hi himself said in writing that a Taekwondo man should know how to throw an opponent and gave examples of how to do just that. Unfortunatly few people practise this skill set today be it in Kukki, Chang Hon Ryu or independent Dojang (plural). Therefore I think this "Picture-Quote" (new word for the new format) is very important to share. Not just with those claiming to follow the system that Choi Hong Hi designed but all of Taekwondo. Oh Do Kwan representatives were a part of the formation of Kukki Taekwondo so this applies to us as well:-)

 

"Though the throwing techniques are not

so important as the falling techniques,

situation may sometimes dictate their use;

furthermore, a Taekwon-Do man should

also know how to throw the opponent."

-Choi Hong Hi

Founder of Oh Do Kwan