From: the_dojang-owner@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com To: the_dojang-digest@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com Subject: The_Dojang-Digest V6 #561 Reply-To: the_dojang@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com Errors-To: the_dojang-owner@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com Precedence: The_Dojang-Digest Wed, 10 Nov 1999 Vol 06 : Num 561 In this issue: the_dojang: Re: "Topic for Discussion" the_dojang: Re: Roundhouse Variations the_dojang: Re: The_Dojang-Digest V6 #560 the_dojang: Re: The_Dojang-Digest V6 #560 the_dojang: Semper Fi the_dojang: Politically Active Karate Practitioners the_dojang: Re: Kwans the_dojang: Re: Kwans Re: the_dojang: Re: Kwans the_dojang: . ========================================================================= The_Dojang, serving the Internet since June 1994. ~780 members strong! Copyright 1994-99: Ray Terry, California Taekwondo, Martial Arts Resource Replying to this message will NOT unsubscribe you. To unsubscribe, send "unsubscribe the_dojang-digest" (no quotes) in the body (top line, left justified) of a plain text e-mail addressed to majordomo@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com. To send e-mail to this list use the_dojang@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com See the Korean Martial Arts (KMA) FAQ and online search the last four years worth of digest issues at http://www.MartialArtsResource.com Pil Seung! Ray Terry, PO Box 110841, Campbell, CA 95011 KMA@MartialArtsResource.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Mark M. Smith" Date: Tue, 09 Nov 1999 13:50:54 -0500 Subject: the_dojang: Re: "Topic for Discussion" I have not been online for a few days, so sorry for the late response on these topics > 1) Kicking: Off The Toes or Flat Foot? I was taught Off The Toes for added > extension, speed, and power...it is also what I teach...there are many who > prefer and teach Flat Foot...(much of the choice depends on each person's > ability of course)...What's your Preference and Why? I would like to change the question a little. Do you keep the weight on the ball of the foot, the heel or both while kicking? Do you fully extend the knee (straight leg) or keep knee slightly bent? My preference is to keep the weight on the ball of the foot with a bend in the knee. The reason for this is that it provides the most stable platform enabling a balance powerful kick. Try standing on the ball of the foot, heel up, with a straight leg and keep you balance. Try the same with the weight on the heel. Now try with the weight on the ball and the heel touching or just off the ground and a bent knee. What is the most stable platform? I find the bent leg and weight on the ball of the foot is the most stable platform. This is an almost universal sport position. Ask any basketball, football, baseball, etc. coach and they will tell you knees bent weight on the balls of the feet for quickness, power and stability. While a flat foot, weight on both the ball and heel, can be stable, it sacrifices agility (quickness) and power. Also with the quick pivoting involved in most TKD kicks, it can cause stress on the knee joint. > 2) Sparring: No Contact vs Light Contact: I prefer Light Contact without > pads...I believe if you don't touch your opponent and vice versa you have no > idea what parts of your body are susceptible to attack...you get use to not > blocking because you are not getting hit and the same for the opponent...the > attacker has no idea if the attacks are effective and the defender has no > idea if the defense is effective...it seems you would have a rough time > following through in tournament and on the street... What's your Preference > and Why? If my choices were No Contact vs Light Contact, I guess I would have to pick Light Contact. But, those are not my only choices, so I personally choose Olympic Style sparring. I agree with the reasons given for choosing Light Contact above, I also believe that following the same logic Olympic Style sparring is superior to Light Contact, much as tink (the poser of the questions) believes Light Contact is preferable to No Contact. Olympic Style sparring tends to weed out strategies and techniques that are not effective (not powerful). I will agree that because of the restriction on techniques and target areas, some effective techniques can not be practiced, but on the balance I believe more is gained than is lost. I have included links to a couple of articles that go into more detail and explain better than I can in this forum: http://www.ustu.com/pubs/spar-notspar.html http://www.ustu.com/pubs/judosinfluence.htm http://www.ustu.com/pubs/shotokan.htm Tink, you did a good job generating discussion with those questions. Mark M. Smith Merrimack, NH email: msmith@p2software.com ------------------------------ From: IMATC@aol.com Date: Tue, 9 Nov 1999 16:24:05 EST Subject: the_dojang: Re: Roundhouse Variations Here's a trivial little question for you. Does you school teach the traditional roundhouse - "knee out and around" version or the "knee in front and pivot" last second version( or both). The latter is to be quicker of course and harder to defend against. ------------------------------ From: TKDSCRIBE@aol.com Date: Tue, 9 Nov 1999 17:21:17 EST Subject: the_dojang: Re: The_Dojang-Digest V6 #560 In a message dated 11/9/99 10:50:42 AM Pacific Standard Time, the_dojang-owner@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com writes: > Maybe the conduct of the Taekwon-Doin would improve if the refs. started > disqualifying people for bad conduct. > > Taekwon, Points well taken, about sumo, sir. I'm for the DQ idea, too. SESilz ------------------------------ From: J Thomas Howard Date: Tue, 9 Nov 1999 16:50:46 -0600 (CST) Subject: the_dojang: Re: The_Dojang-Digest V6 #560 > From: "Lasich, Mark D." > > I agree with Thomas' overview, and would like to add to this section: > > >Well, I'm not sure which definition of "learning" that she is using, but > >from what I know, there are three basic (and obvious) ways people intake > >information: > > Auditory > > Visual > > Kinesthetic > > It is important when interacting with people (teaching) that you get a > feeling for which of these three categories they fall into. Then, when you > are explaining things to them you can tailor your choice of words/type of > instruction to match how they learn. For example: > Auditory - repeat the NAME of the technique/parts of the technique > as you/they perform it > Visual - demonstrate the technique, POINTING out the important > things about the correct technique > Kinesthetic - have them perform it wrong/right and ask if they FEEL > the difference Agreed. I'll note here that you can also generalize some things acording to the age group you are working with---for example, younger children are _strongly_ kinesthetic learner, if not almost exclusively so. So you younger children, having them do it, and occasionally placing them into the correct position so that they can feel it, can make a large difference in the amount of correct information they retain. > This leads me into reposting a message I posted on another MA List, and > would like some feedback here as well, thanks: > *** > I am curious if the other instructors out there go through any formal > "instructor development program" or something like that? In particular, I In the case of the classes I took: No. I went out on my own and read a lot, and talked to a number of teachers. I will note that people will tend to teach like their instructors, (barring outside educational training) which meant that in my case, I got lucky in that my instructor is remarkable in the retention rate of his student's knowledge. That doesn't mean I can manage it that well yet---but I had good examples to look at. :) I found that common paradigms of education, mixed with information from physical therapy and physical education classes (for topics such as retention, "muscle memory," and operant learning) gave me a lot of ammo (so to speak) with regards to getting the point across to students in ways that they understood, could retain, AND use on their own. I'm a big advocate of reading everything there is to know on a subject. You can't afford to believe it all, since on any given topic, some stuff is nonsense----but if absolutely nothing else, everything can give you ideas. > From: SunBiNim@aol.com > > In a message dated 11/9/99 8:37:42 AM Central Standard Time, Thomas writes: > > Just some thoughts. > > Thank you for the excellent post. I stole it and forwarded it to a mailing > list for instructors in my organization. Please take that as flattery. Thank you. Compliments are always welcome. :) > Of course, my instructor has mentioned that "pain is the best teacher", and I > must admit I do remember things better when he uses that method.... One of the common memes from our classes, straight from my instructor to me to my students, is that "the price for knowledge is pain." Ow. Thomas (Have to admit, you DON'T forget a technique when taught that way...) - ------------------------------------ thomcat@binary.net http://www.binary.net/thomcat/ "If you aren't modeling what you are teaching then you are teaching something else." ------------------------------ From: "Prof. William Upton-Knittle" Date: Tue, 09 Nov 1999 22:41:44 -0800 Subject: the_dojang: Semper Fi At 06:43 AM 11/9/99 -0800, you wrote: >Any US Marines out there? > >Happy Birthday! (on Wednesday) > >Ray Terry >rterry@best.com Thanks....and "Semper Fi" to you, Mr. Terry. b ------------------------------ From: Timothy Bruening Date: Tue, 9 Nov 1999 23:39:07 -0800 (PST) Subject: the_dojang: Politically Active Karate Practitioners Dear Karate Practitioners: I am politically active in the peace movement and also in the Green Party. Are any of you politically active? Sincerely, Tim. ------------------------------ From: CBAUGHN@aol.com Date: Wed, 10 Nov 1999 06:26:53 EST Subject: the_dojang: Re: Kwans Chris wrote: << Does that make it better or worse? :) Hmmm. >> And the answer is.... YES!!! Sally cbaughn@aol.com ------------------------------ From: CBAUGHN@aol.com Date: Wed, 10 Nov 1999 06:26:52 EST Subject: the_dojang: Re: Kwans Ray wrote: << In the mid-late 1940s several kwans/schools were formed in Korea, each kwan had its own head or Master. Most of the Masters had at least some prior training in martial arts. An early attempt was made in the 40s to get the kwans to unite, but each Master (or most of them) wanted to be in charge of his own school (or be the one to be in charge of all the schools). The South Korean government finally got more involved, most of the kwans were uniting but the Masters still held tight to their kwans roots. Their kwan affiliation was more important to them than their affiliation to Taekwondo or the Kukkiwon. Along this time came the attempt to stomp out the kwans, to get people to forget about them. They replaced their names with numbers, and later didn't even acknowledge the numbers. This was again to get the kwan affiliation to be replaced with the Taekwondo and Kukkiwon affiliation. It worked, to some degree. 15-25 years ago it was rather difficult to get a Korean TKD master to talk about the kwans. They'd claim that the kwans didn't exist anymore, they were dead. If you'd ask a question about the kwans, they'd reply with a 'it isn't important' answer. But more recently many of those same masters seem to be willing to admit their kwan affiliation. And many are even telling their students something along the line of "I was Chung Do Kwan, I made you a 1st Dan, therefore you are Chung Do Kwan". >> So... a kwan was basically just an individual school -- on the order of Smith's TKD down the block and Jones's TKD around the corner in the US today? Or was there a much larger affiliation in kwans - as in, say, Shotokan Karate and Shorin-Ryu Karate are both types of karate, each with a very large following. And why is there such a seemingly great desire to get back to the kwan system when the unification of Taekwondo seems to be what gave it the recognition and allowed it to become such a popular martial art in the world today? When my son was competing in Karate tournaments, one of the most maddening things was that there would be judges and referees who had no knowledge of a particular style's forms and would give extremely low scores to a competitor because he wasn't doing the "right" (i.e., "their") forms. Another side of tournaments without any seeming rhyme or reason was rules for sparring -- they varied from person to person, place to place, and you could never be sure what rules a judge or referee might be applying. As he put it, coming to Taekwondo was like coming home. The rules are the same at all the tournaments. The forms are known to all the judges. The sparring rules are always the same. No surprises. I'm still having a hard time understanding what would be gained by going back to a non-standardized system. Help! : ) I guess I'm just swimming in deep, muddy waters. Sally cbaughn@aol.com ------------------------------ From: Ray Terry Date: Wed, 10 Nov 1999 06:52:28 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: the_dojang: Re: Kwans > So... a kwan was basically just an individual school -- on the order of > Smith's TKD down the block and Jones's TKD around the corner in the US today? That is the way it was when the kwans started. > Or was there a much larger affiliation in kwans - as in, say, Shotokan Karate > and Shorin-Ryu Karate are both types of karate, each with a very large > following. And then it sort of grew into this, w/several schools having the affiliation of the original kwan/school. > And why is there such a seemingly great desire to get back to the kwan system > when the unification of Taekwondo seems to be what gave it the recognition > and allowed it to become such a popular martial art in the world today? I not so sure that people want to go back (well, some probably do), but just as people are interested in knowing their roots they are also interested in knowing the roots of their art. Now if people start using that to say that 'I'm TKD Chung Do Kwan and I'm therefore better than someone who is TKD Moo Duk Kwan' or ... then that IMHO would be bad. Are you seeing that??? > I'm still having a hard time understanding what would be gained by going > back to a non-standardized system. Agreed. I guess I haven't seen that. Ray Terry raymail@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com ------------------------------ From: Ray Terry Date: Wed, 10 Nov 1999 06:43:50 -0800 (PST) Subject: the_dojang: . ------------------------------ End of The_Dojang-Digest V6 #561 ******************************** Support the USTU by joining today! US Taekwondo Union, 1 Olympic Plaza, Ste 405, Colorado Spgs, CO 80909 719-578-4632 FAX 719-578-4642 ustutkd1@aol.com http://www.ustu.com ===================================================================== To unsubscribe from this digest, the_dojang-digest, send the command: unsubscribe the_dojang-digest -or- unsubscribe the_dojang-digest your.old@address in the BODY of an email (top line, left justified) addressed to majordomo@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com. Old digest issues are available via ftp://ftp.martialartsresource.com in pub/the_dojang/digests. All digest files have the suffix '.txt' Copyright 1994-99: Ray Terry, Martial Arts Resource, California Taekwondo Standard disclaimers apply.