From: the_dojang-owner@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com To: the_dojang-digest@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com Subject: The_Dojang-Digest V7 #237 Reply-To: the_dojang@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com Errors-To: the_dojang-owner@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com Precedence: The_Dojang-Digest Tues, 11 April 2000 Vol 07 : Num 237 In this issue: the_dojang: Song-am forms, Terre Haute Karate the_dojang: Re: The_Dojang-Digest V7 #236 the_dojang: Anne Marie's questions regarding power, focus and space the_dojang: re: Weapon sparring [none] ========================================================================= The_Dojang, serving the Internet since June 1994. 800 members strong! Copyright 1994-2000: Ray Terry and 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! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: burdickd Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 09:12:19 -0500 (EST) Subject: the_dojang: Song-am forms, Terre Haute Karate ON THE SONG-AM SET: Thanks to everybody for the help on the Song-am forms. Pine rock sounds like the translation I'll go with for now. For others interested in researching this stuff, check out the Minjung Essence Korean-English Dictionary. Page 1021 gives some words with "song" as "pine." Page 1161 gives some words with "am" as "rock." Pages 1160 and 1162 point out that "am" can be the same as "amja," which is "a small Buddhist temple; a Buddhist hermitage [retreat]; a hermit's cell [cottage]." ON TERRE HAUTE: Stickfighter27@cs.com has asked about classes around Terre Haute. Get in touch with Jason Winkle, who is the martial arts coordinator at Indiana State University. He teaches muay thai, hapkido, kali, jeet kune do, etc., but he also knows Indiana karate pioneers like Glenn Keeney, etc. and can get you started. If you want good Okinawan karate, the closest place I know is the Shorin-ryu schools under Doug Adamson in Indianapolis. Mr. Adamson is very good, and he's got four sons in the arts who are going to be even better. If you want Ryukyu Kempo, contact Will Higginbotham, who is also in Indianapolis. Will is under the Dillman Karate system, and is a great guy. Take care, Dakin Burdick burdickd@indiana.edu ------------------------------ From: d.d.parker@juno.com Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 09:03:45 -0600 Subject: the_dojang: Re: The_Dojang-Digest V7 #236 Anne-Marie, I understand your frustrations with sparring "up close and personal". Before starting my Taekwondo studies, I was involved with several Chinese arts which had a lot of infighting techniques. It was very hard for me to get in close to my opponent because of my previous Tang Soo Do (I guess it is now Soo Bahk Do) training from when I was a teenager where I had developed a more long-range style. In order to overcome my fear of getting in close, one of my instructors started me doing what was essentially slow-motion sparring. We would spar at a slow, even pace, attacking and defending just as we would if going at full speed. During these matches, I was to specifically work on getting inside and using that styles infighting techniques. Once I got the hang of closing the distance and being comfortable inside, we gradually speeded things up and I eventually got to the point where inside is the place where I prefer to be, much to the chagrin of my present Taekwondo instructors who keep yelling at me to "get out of there"! Try some slow, even sparring with a friend out of class. By slow, I mean almost slow motion, with an even tempo. Then, try going inside and staying there for a while. Use light contact where you just brush against your opponent, so each of you knows when the other connects. At first, don't be overly concerned with getting hit. Just get used to being in that range and working on your techniques. After a while, gradually incorporate more defensive techniques. Also, try to concentrate on your body positioning while in close. After a while, you will learn that there really is a lot of space in which to maneuver and that you can control this space, to an extent, taking away some of your opponents offensive arsenal by the mere positioning of your body and setting up openings for your own attacks. This is very hard to do as people have a natural tendency to speed up. Try using a metronome in the background to help you keep your pace. Once you get the hang of it, gradually speed things up until you are going full blast. It takes a couple of months to go through the process so be patient with yourself. I know this is kind of an unorthodox technique, but it does work. Good Luck, Daniel ------------------------------ From: "Dunn, Danny J RASA" Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 11:14:36 -0500 Subject: the_dojang: Anne Marie's questions regarding power, focus and space First of all, I don't know the level of your training at this point in time, but I would guess an intermediate level color belt or yu gup ja. I agree with your instructor that you will gain more confidence and control as you gain more experience. On the subject of power, you should gain more power through technique. I remember an old study that showed a fairly rapid increase on average to advanced student level. The primary difference after black belt stage, I believe was the consistency of power for a given technique for say sam dans versus cho dans. Power was still pretty variable for cho dans. As for measuring power, there are a few items on the market which can give you an idea of relative power. One that comes to mind is a body shield from century. Most of these give you a relative index rather than a power reading. But keep in mind that the actual mechanics of the technique and the proper delivery (focus), and speed are the factors you are working with, whether or not you have a measuring instrument. As for fear of injuring someone and your control, it comes with practice. There are some solo exercises that I use. You can focus your strikes on a curtain so that when you throw a full speed technique you can just barely touch the curtain. You can use patterns for separate focus points. Alternately, you can hang a string from the ceiling with a small rubber ball on the end and try to touch the ball without making it swing. With more practice, you can use just the string. If you practice outside, you can do the same thing with leaves on lower branches on trees. As for the personal space issue, the feeling of security increases with your level of experience. Almost everyone has to learn how to use personal space. I say almost everyone, because it has been my experience that young children have not developed the idea of personal space. Based on my experience, I believe that females have a harder time with personal space issues than males, probably because of our societal programming. This may be one of the reasons that there seem to be fewer women in grappling systems. I don't know that I have any advice other than to focus on the techniques and your strategy and comfort will increase with experience. You should not try to totally change your perception of personal space, since it is probably a persons first warning of a potential problem in a self defense situation. Danny Dunn danny.dunn@redstone.army.mil ------------------------------ From: Thayne_Coffman@trilogy.com Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 13:05:29 -0500 Subject: the_dojang: re: Weapon sparring Thanks to everyone on the weapons sparring responses. It's definitely interesting. I think it might be a while before I start looking into becoming a dog brother... > I believe that Kuk Sool Won also has staff sparring, don't they? From what I > have seen this is done with regular, non-padded staves but is more like the > ITF's semi-free sparring. So, I'm not sure I have all the information on this, but I have a few data points at least. There is a choreographed KSW staff sparring form, bong dae ree hyung, whose spelling I probably butchered. It's usually taught at the higher end of 1st degree. There are a couple ways of doing this form, from what I can gather, some more choreographed, and some less. I think it basically boils down to 5 attack/defense patterns that either party can chose to initiate at any point in time. Once someone initiates one of those patterns, the course of the fight is set until the pattern is complete. Most people will practice this by having each fighter go through all 5 patterns in sequence, and it's done with non-padded staves and non-padded students. I'm not sure if this is what you meant by the ITF semi-free sparring, but it sounds like it might be similar. There is also at least one empty-handed sparring form in KSW, gun dae ree hyung (probably also misspelled), taught at 1st degree. There are also weapons sparring one-steps that our Kwan Jang Nim has started teaching to 1st and 2nd degrees. So far, we've gone through a basic set of jun bong attacks and defenses, and one jung gum one-step. I believe there are a bunch more, but we've just started on them. There are a lot of master-level weapons demonstrations in KSW, which are typically fully choreographed (they're demos, not sparring). Anyway, I may have incorrect or incomplete information, but that's my understanding of some of the things in KSW. - -Thayne Coffman 1st dan KSW ------------------------------ From: Ray Terry Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 17:23:55 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [none] ------------------------------ End of The_Dojang-Digest V7 #237 ******************************** It's a great day for Taekwondo! 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 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. Copyright 1994-2000: Ray Terry and Martial Arts Resource Standard disclaimers apply.