Teaching a class using only one technique?

I've been a fan of "repetition by stealth" ever since I heard about it, and last Friday I wanted to
challenge myself as an instructor and see if it was possible to teach a whole class with a narrow focus on one technique without it being boring for the students. To challenge myself even further I decided on going on the most basic of techniques, the traditional straight punch (one hand going back to the hip as you punch). It is heavily featured in our Poomsae, and it is also the perhaps most often trained hand technique in traditional Taekwondo. The Friday class consists of students from 13 year old to people in their 40s. Theres beginners (just gotten their uniform) to black belt students in that same class. Teaching this kind of class where everyone gained something from it, and narrowing the focus down into one technique was a challenge. So I made a rough plan, then tweaked it into a more detailed plan and "went to work" :-) Below is how the class was done.

Sharing some Quotes, Notes and other stuff Part 4

I am very happy to have learned that people actually enjoy this series so here is the last one (I think) this time around as I am running out of journal :-P When I change books again (earliest at new year) I will see if I will revive this series and share some more. I also have some older notebooks which I can also share stuff from if people are interested. Because these are notes taken from my journal these posts might look a little chaotic but that is the nature of my notes. I have an index and I am also using a method called "threading" which is a brilliant method to use when taking notes all over the place so to me this is all logical and helpful but since I am sharing bits and pieces here as they show up in the journal it might look a lot more disjointed than it really is:-P So for those of you jumping in here in part 4 I will share that I am using the Bullet Journal System as Ryder Carroll presents it. It is a clean no nonsense system, but if you google it today you will probably be swarmed with elaborate pieces of art. The original system is great, but these elaborate pieces of arts I am sure is great for those with the time and artistic sense to make them but dont look to them if you want to start journaling. In my mind they're kinda missing the point :-P Think on Taekwondo and how if you google it you will find K-pop and circus demonstrations all over the place, while the practical application of the art for self defense is something entirely different :-P  As always the things written in cursive is diretly from the journal while regular writing is me adding context or thoughts to the quotes.

Sharing some Quotes, Notes and other stuff Part 3

I have always been a fan of journaling, and I have tried keeping training journals and I have several notebooks in regards to my Martial Arts study. Back around November 2018 I started with Ryder Carroll's Bullet Journal Method which has suited me incredibly well. Now we are in September 2019 and I have written through a whole book over 200 pages and well into my second one. Ryder Carroll's original system is great and minimalistic but it can easily be adapted to any persons needs, and so for me it is my training journal, my notebook for self study (Martial Arts, Philosophy, Norse Mythology etc), my work planner, my free time planner etc wrapped into one neat book. I have become a much more productive person after starting this and if you are strugling keeping up with things I recommend looking into it. Once I moved out of my old book and into my new book I reflect by going back and looking through the last year of notes. I noticed that a lot of my Martial Arts notes might be of interest to readers of this blog, so I am sharing my martial arts related material here. Everything written in cursive is quotes directly from the book, while stuff written in plain old text is me giving some context or comment on what you are seeing. These are my notes, so things making sense to me might not make sense to you without a little embellishing :-) So without further adu we will jump straight into March 2019:

Sharing some Quotes, Notes and other stuff Part 2

In part one we saw a lot of quotes on various topics of martial arts, and notes on a theory lecture of self defense. The presentation of this stuff might be a little disjointed but I am sure everyone who enjoy this blog can find something in these posts :-) As I explained the background of this series in Part 1 you can go there to read the intro there, in this Part 2 I will simply continue on where I left off. For those who do not bother reading the intro in Part 1 (I know you are out there :-P ) the things written here in cursive writing is taken from my notes while everything written in regular writing is my comments to provide a little context etc on it :-) So without further adu lets go straight into it:

Sharing Some Notes, Quotes and other stuff Part 1

Image Source

I haven't been the best at posting lately, but I am trying to get back at it :-) Yesteday I moved from my old journal to a new one, and flipping through the book so far (November 2018- August 2019) I saw that there were a few quotes, notes, ideas, etc that readers of this blog might enjoy :-) The way I journal is based on Ryder Carrolls "The Bullet Journal-method". If you had to google that you probably found the artsy beautiful works of art, that is not the original bullet point method, it is a stripped down bare way to organise everything into one book. If you are interested in how that works check out Ryder Carrols work, do not get fuzzed on beauty, I have no decorations, colours or anything in mine. It is pure function ;-) With that out of the way let us start this sharing of everything martial art related (semi or otherwise).

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.

The ABC's Of Practical Poomsae Applications, Part 9: Explaining "Chambers"; Deung Joomeok Ap and Bakkat Chigi

Last time I said I would share how to explain "chambers" to students in a combative way, and in this
post we will be looking at that. In our previous posts I have given practical applications to a multitude of basic techniques, and if you have not already read these posts I would recommend that you read them in the order they came out. Below is direct links to the other posts in this series as well as a short comment on what technique we looked closer on.

Part 1 which you can find here, which focuses on Arae Makki, Part 2 which you can find here which focuses on Momtong An Makki, Part 3 which you can find here focusing on Eulgeul Makki, and Part 4 which you can find here that focuses on the spear hand strike, Part 5, which focuses on the knife hand guarding block and Part 6 focusing on the inward knife hand strike, Part 7 that lookesd at the outward block can be found here. Part 8 which you can find here, it focuses on the Oe Santeul Makki (one high and low block at same time from Taegeuk Pal Jang) Since I have already given applications to those techniques, I thought I should explain chambers for a couple of techniques that we have not looked at yet. This time we are looking at the chamber for Deung Jomeok Ap Chigi (back fist strike to the front) and Deung Jomeok Bakkat Chigi (Back first outward strike). The reason why I share these two is that if you explain these two chambers it "unlocks" a whole host of techniques using the same chamber but using a different striking surface. The outward knife hand strike that you will see in Horse Stance in Hansu Poomsae looks very different from the Outward Back Fist Strike in Taegeuk Chil Jang. The usage of stances is different so they are variations on a common theme, but the chamber for both technique is identical and esures more than a little overlap in my own opinion. This is one example of how teaching someone one application can open up doors to other applications in other Poomsae if the underlying principles are understood.