How many forms can you have before it is too much?

Author performing
Taegeuk Oh Jang

The other day I was thinking about this. Ron (an American Martial Artist who I deeply respect) asked a question on a forum about how a martial arts school would fare if they only taught 3 forms (I am widely parahprasing here because his question is not the point of the post only the train of thought it
resulted in). I answered as I believed: That it would fare great if it taught those three forms in sufficient depth, but only with a relative small but very stable number of adult practisioners. I highly doubt it would become a great comercial succsess because as far as the general public is concerned more forms = more knowledge. I also had a short discussion online with a Master who has his own Dojang about how many forms you can teach which again ties into the question: How many forms can you have before they are too much.

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.

Korean language in Taekwondo

Hanja for "Mountain"

This is not a post on different Korean Words and their meaning in English (or vice versa). This post
is about my thoughts on the usage of Korean in or during Taekwondo training and study. I recently had a lengthy discussion with a high ranking American Master who did not use any Korean language during his training and teaching at all and this post is the recults of my "afterthoughts" on that discussion, so it is a post about my thoughts on the why is Korean used in Taekwondo.

Thoughts from "Advancing in Taekwondo"

Image Soruce: Amazon kindle

I recently read one of Richard Chun`s books since they were recommended by a few of this blogs readers. The only book that was available from him on Kindle was "Advancing in Taekwondo" and is aimed for black belt students (my Guess those who are nearing the jump from 1st gup to 1st dan or those who have recently gotten 1st dan). It is a generic Taekwondo textbook which covers a multitude of different aspects of Taekwondo and I found it to be a great read. It is one of those few Taekwondo textbooks that actually treat Taekwondo as something more than a combative sport. Something that grown ups can practise and something serious. In fact the way Richard Chun presents Taekwondo is extremly (not quite but) close to the Taekwondo I practise with the Dojang I belong to. If his other books becomes available on Kindle I will not hessitate to buy them as well (I will probably have to order the "analoge" books on Amazon though). I will share a little more from his books in the future but for now here are a few interesting quotes from "Advancing in Taekwondo"`s self defense section

Micro Post; Side Kick Toturial

I was sendt a link to a Side Kick Toturial some time ago (time passes sooo fast) and I really really liked it. It is made by a Chang Hon Ryu student called Simon and he is quite good. He has some other Toturials that I will share in the future but I will start with this one. The side kick is one of the most challenging kicks we have. It is so many ways to do it and while the Kukkiwon has their Version (which actually has a few small differences from Simon`s Version) I think that it should really be up to the students to find one that will be safe for them to do and which is effective for them in terms of ease of movement and how much power and speed they can generate. It does not matter which version of the side kick you choose in terms of the excersises Simon presents in his video. I use many of them my self and I will try out a few of his tips that I do not currently follow. I enjoy his presenting style which is so full of energy that you just want to get off your behind and train once you see it. Simon is open for comments and wishes feedback so if you have anything you would like to share do not hessitate on commenting on youtube. And if you really enjoy the video do not hessitate to share:-)

Basic Taekwondo Theory for Gup Graders (coloured belts) Part 2

Image Source

In the last post I wrote about basic Taekwondo theory aimed at coloured belts and people doing the jump from 1st gup to 1st dan. In that post we covered what does Taekwondo mean, how to write Taekwondo in Korean Hangul, the different heights of the body in Korean as well as counting to 100 and some body parts. This time I wanted to provide a quick reference to the 8 "Gwe" and a chart of Vital points as well as a few examples of techniques to use to attack a few of those points. I will keep this relatively basic but it is always good to review this material as this is what people usually get on a theory test and knowing this stuff will make you able to answer many lower graders questions if you are a senior student or an instructor. Again a short caveat: I practise Kukki Taekwondo, I follow the Kukkiwon standard and I practise the KTA Poomsae (Taegeuk and Black Belt Poomsae). If you are ITF or belong to an independant Dojang some of this theory might deviate from what you are using.

Basic Taekwondo Theory for Gup Graders (coloured belts) Part 1

Usually I write about stuff that are aimed for black belts or people nearing black belt ranks. I write for people like me who have practised for many years and who wants a little more than what you usually find in textbooks. This post is NOT one of the usual ones. This time of year many people are preparing to grade for a new belt and a part of that grading should in my opinion be a theory test. If not between the coloured belts than at least it should be a part for the grading from 1st gup to 1st dan
. With that in mind I thought many would benifit from a post that shares basic Taekwondo theory (body parts, the different heights, vital points, examples of techniques to attack those points, the tenets and laws of Taekwondo, what Taekwondo means, how to write Taekwondo in Korean plus the different "Gwe", their Korean name and a shorthand answer of their symbolic nature. If you are reading this keep in mind that I am a Kukki Taekwondo practisioner, I follow the Kukkiwon standard and I practise the KTA forms (Taegeuk and Black belt forms). So if you are ITF or belong to a different independent Dojang your words and theory might differ from mine.

I can not promise that I will get all that down in this one post but I will start writing and see how much time I get, and if I cant finish I will write (a) follow up post(s). So with that lengthy introduction out of the way lets just dive straight in: