From: the_dojang-owner@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com To: the_dojang-digest@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com Subject: The_Dojang-Digest V7 #497 Reply-To: the_dojang@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com Errors-To: the_dojang-owner@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com Precedence: The_Dojang-Digest Tues, 25 July 2000 Vol 07 : Num 497 In this issue: the_dojang: learning forms early the_dojang: goodbye for now the_dojang: ITF Patterns the_dojang: Interpretation of Hyung the_dojang: Re: Instructor Requirements/Andrew the_dojang: RE: McHenry web site the_dojang: Re: Learning forms protocol the_dojang: Hoshinsool, One-steps, Two-steps,Three-steps? the_dojang: Re: Learning forms early the_dojang: . ========================================================================= The_Dojang, serving the Internet since June 1994. 920 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 five years worth of digest issues at http://www.MartialArtsResource.com Pil Seung! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Mac" Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 12:37:49 -0500 Subject: the_dojang: learning forms early <> I think students should learn the form from their instructors first. Then, a manual or video reference will help the student to remember what their instructors taught them and remind them how to do it correctly. Some people can actually learn from a book, others can't - same with video. Most students usually need an instructor. Once they've been shown, sometimes they just need a picture to help jog their memory. It's only a tool. I don't think it should be relied upon as the primary basis of learning. Even if you did try to pick up a form from a book or video, you will still need a qualified instructor to help you learn it correctly. If you learn it incorrectly first, you run the risk of getting into bad habits and incorrect technique, which can then become harder to unlearn than to have learned correctly to begin with. I offered the videos as more of a check, visual refresher. I don't remember the URL where I first saw them though, it was posted on one of these lists(don't remember which one) some time ago (4/99). Mac ------------------------------ From: foxdragon@cuttingedge.net Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 00:42:48 -0700 Subject: the_dojang: goodbye for now Well gang, I decided after some thinking to do this now. With 2 motorcycle rallies and getting myself and kids ready for school I just will not have time. Starting on the 28th of August I am going to tech school to become a medical office specialist. Since home schooling did not cut it for me I figured this way will. I will have teachers on hand to ask questions for things I do not understand. I will still continue my training but I will not be teaching until this is over and I become a black belt. Jeremy, the list is great. I will be back when I can. Ray, u too. Illona, Ken, Alain, Dave, Jere, Mac. U are great friends. I know we will keep in touch. The same goes with the rest of you. J.R., I look forwards to seeing you in Mosinee. My instructor is working more hapkido lately on me and my wrists are sore but I love it. I will bring my fans. Maybe I will come up the nite before so we can get to know each other better. I wish Jere would come but he isn't. Crafty, I enjoyed your posts. You are one cool dude. So is the rest of the eskrima gang. Glenn!! (I know you are out there) I know u aren't speaking to me, but I still love u man!! You have a great intelligence. But I cannot respect you until you learn to let go of this anger you have. Get over it and get on with your life. You will not get anywhere until u do. Is it worth losing respect and friends over? To me it isn't. Maybe that is why I let it go. I hope that u do well with your life. :) Anyhow, within the next few days I will be unsubbing from these groups. Train hard and have fun doing it. Oh b!!! I almost forgot. I admire you. Keep on telling it like it is. It seems you have both feet on the ground. I respect you Sir. Dave, give Josh my love and tell him if I find out he is back on the internet and hasn't e-mailed me I will get that Rat!! AND HIS LITTLE DOG TOO!! Donna - -- "So, you want to be a dragon. First you must learn how to be human." ------------------------------ From: "=?iso-8859-1?q?A.C.?=" Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 15:07:21 -0400 (EDT) Subject: the_dojang: ITF Patterns Does anyone know if there is a website with ITF Patterns in video form? I swore I found one once but I guess I either forgot to bookmark it or it's just a case of wishful thinking. Thanks. _______________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.ca address at http://mail.yahoo.ca ------------------------------ From: "Rudy Timmerman" Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 15:52:55 -0400 Subject: the_dojang: Interpretation of Hyung Greetings everyone: Some recent, and interesting, topics of the list adressed the values of "cloning" the forms to the millimeter. > Is there any benefit of learning a form as it was meant to be done by its > creator? Isn't a pattern a way of practicing and rehearsing the proper > execution of techniques thus, again giving the student insight into how the > creator of the form interpreted the technique(s) and movement(s)? I had the opportunity to carefully observe an attempt by the WKSA to do just that, and I found some interesting problems associated with this idea. The first problem I noticed was that, despite books and video tapes (which incidentally are NOT identical), not everyone interprets these books in the same way. As with the bible, people have their own interpretations. The second problem I saw was the lack of coordinating the higher Masters in an effort to make THEIR interpretation the same. During one seminar tour, I actually video taped no less than four "seminar Instructors" teaching the same form all in a different way. It was at this point I decided that I was wasting my time trying to conform to cloning hyung. Instead I went back to making sure that the underlying principles of the hyung were understood. It gets worse than that; in closed competitions (where all hyung was supposed to be performed the same), I have seen Masters ranging their scores from 2's and 3's to 8's and 9's ????? It was as if they were looking at two different people, and I have this on tape. Ofcourse, this could have been the result of cheating, but I'd hate to even think about that. Since most major organizations have students in many parts of the world, it is nearly impossible to reach them all in order to accomplish cloning. Added to this is the fact that most higher ranking martial artists have strong personalities who believe they can make valuable contributions. As a result, in my opinion, the attempt to have all schools (of at least one organization) perform hyung in the same manner has miserably failed. I don't know about others on the list, but I have enough problems to get the students in my own school perform Hyung in an identical manner. Indeed, I don't even try. In my humble opinion, difference in size, philosophies, and abilities etc. dictate that each student perform a hyung to suit them best. My job is to inprove the ability and quality of each individual, and the hyung is merely a tool that helps me accomplish this. No doubt, I make sure that the underlying principles are clearly understood, and neither do I make (or allow students to make) changes for the sake of change. On the other hand, I give my students the opportunity to make themselves look best. Has this created problems? I guess that depends on the size of the ego of the Master, and/or his ability to make the Hyung principles work for his students despite the differences in their body, mind, and spirit. Just one more experience shared. Respectfully, Rudy W. Timmerman National Korean Martial Arts Association. ------------------------------ From: "Lasich, Mark D." Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 16:26:48 -0400 Subject: the_dojang: Re: Instructor Requirements/Andrew I agree with Andrew's comments, and would like to add some additional information. The ATA has set standards for Certification for a number of things - especially for Instructors and Tournament Judges. Judging certification expires yearly and must be re-certified - regardless of rank, or certification level (there are three levels, with varying levels of responsibility). For Instructors: there is a LOT of material that goes into Instructorship: CPR, First Aid, physical requirements (knowledge of material), a thesis, videos, written tests, forms (written) need completed, guidance from a mentor, people skills, etc. This is about a three year process of learning, growing and developing your own abilities to plan, organize and conduct effective classes. More recently the concept of "Instructor's Camp" has evolved to realize that not everyone with a desire to teach has a desire to open/own their own school. Camp is being supplemented with a series of courses designed to help you achieve your goals without being subjected to aspects that you do not want/need. Each level is recognized by a different collar on your dobok, red being Instructor Trainee, the beginning - black being Certified Instructor. There are other collars in between that signify certain qualifications. Certified Instructors also need "re-certified" - I believe this is on a three year cycle. Schools are opened under the guidance of your instructor, or a senior in your region. Clubs are essentially satellite schools of a main school. All testings, etc. are usually handled at the main school. In all cases, the school/club is opened with the involvement of the ATA and regional seniors. You don't just open a school, then "ask" to join the ATA. Hope this information helps in better understanding the ATA. Mark Lasich ------------------------------ From: "StarrAvis" Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 16:36:12 -0400 Subject: the_dojang: RE: McHenry web site Thanks for the good job. I will be linking to your site at: http://users.ev1.net/~D.McHenry/TaeKwonDo/ for the followers of my site at: http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Towers/8602/wtf.html and http://www.dreamwater.com/sport/sungjado/wtf.html As most of you know videos send a message but we still need text and stop-action pictures. So I will provide this link to master mac's site for all to use. george petrotta ------------------------------ From: Kim Jones Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 14:53:57 -0700 (PDT) Subject: the_dojang: Re: Learning forms protocol Greetings all...haven't posted in a while, but here goes. As far as learning forms ahead of time, what if your instructor teaches them to you well before you know you'll be tested on them? My example extends to my own, who has had the group of first dan black belts learn up through Pyongwon (and none of us are testing for sa-dan anytime soon). A very long time ago (okay, May, when we started learning Keumgang), someone asked my sabomnim why we were learning all those forms in advance. His reasoning is that many of us are military (Yongsan Army Garrison is at least 95% military in some manner or form) and will move within a year or even less of achieving our black belts. He said that he would like to teach us a couple of the black belt forms in advance so we can start working on them NOW (as in make corrections, tweak here and there) before we are tested on them LATER. What sense, he said, does it make to hold back knowledge from a person who will somehow eventually get it? Thus, sometimes against his better judgment, all of his chodan black belts learn at least through Taebaek before leaving his class. (BTW, same philosophy applies to color belts. Since he only uses yellow, blue, and red besides the traditional white, you'll tend to see a lot of yellow belts in the classes I attend up until Friday know up through Taegeuk 5 before they test for their first blue, about 6th geup or so.) Just my 22 won for the conversation. ===== ~kim~ =^_^= Purdue University, c/o '04 AOL IM: Lady Timberland ICQ# 52828008 http://kenochi_timberland.tripod.com/ <~homepage~> __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get Yahoo! Mail – Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ From: "Brian Woodard" Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 17:16:40 CDT Subject: the_dojang: Hoshinsool, One-steps, Two-steps,Three-steps? .....Exiting lurk mode. I have a question for all the TKDers out there. I have read where several schools also include in the curriculum Hoshinsool, one-steps, two-steps,escapes, even five-step techniques. In our school the curriculum is basically forms,free sparring, and one-steps. My question is what is Hoshinsool (sp?)in your perspective schools? I also want to know the difference between one-steps and two-steps, three-steps etc. etc. If you have a lot of info to share feel (too long for the digest)free to email me directly. Thanks in advance! Brian Woodard 3rd Kub TKD ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ From: Sarah Pride Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 17:21:41 -0500 Subject: the_dojang: Re: Learning forms early >>>I've noticed a lot of people out there writing about learning a form early. In my experience it's bad form ( pun intended ) to attempt to learn a form before your instructor shows it to you or allows someone else to. What's the concensus? Is it something that a lot of instructors feel comfortable with and allow, or do they just not say much about it? Does it have anything to do with a school's emphasis or de-emphasis on competition sparring?<<< In my experience (limited, I'll admit) of learning the first four Tae Geuk forms, I taught myself two of them early using a book I checked out from the library. However, I did not treat this book as a definitive guide. I merely used it to learn the steps, which then made it so I could "really" learn the form within a few tries in class. Learning forms early at my school does not mean we skip over learning them at the normal speed. It just means we have a better chance of perfecting them before we move on to the next form. :) With my latest form, Tae Geuk Sa Jang (yes, I can spell it right this time), I did not learn it before regular class time. Thus, it took me two regular class times before I knew the moves, and three before I could be absolutely confident that I did. So the advantages of learning the forms early are considerable. - -Sarah Pride- ------------------------------ From: Ray Terry Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 15:56:08 PDT Subject: the_dojang: . ------------------------------ End of The_Dojang-Digest V7 #497 ******************************** 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.org 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.