Tomcat's Taekwondo

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Effectiveness of Taekwondo
2007-07-23 00:03:00
Quite a lot of people I speak to that train in different arts seem keen to question the effectiveness of Taekwondo as a self defense system. Now, Taekwondo is an "offensive" martial art, as opposed to Jujutsu which would be classed as "defensive". The basic premise being that the Taekwondo practitioner blocks and then counter attacks with a strike capable of incapacitating the aggressor, whereas in a defensive system, the attack is worked against the aggressor typically using using twisting, painful grab techniques. Some Taekwondo schools perhaps leave it out, but at my club Ho Sin Sul (self defense) is an active part of the curriculum. Ho Sin Sul is in many respects very similar to Hapkido, the most well known Korean self defense system and really the Korean equivalent to Japanese Jujitsu.Taekwondo itself is, by it's nature, geared towards fancy high spinning kicks. These are perhaps not the best techniques to use on the street as a foot at head height, if grabbed, puts you in a ...

A word of warning
2007-07-05 09:59:00
Yesterday I was standing outside the office, the door was open, when suddenly a gust of wind attempted to blow it shut and lock me out. The old "lightning" reflexes jumped into action and I swiftly and accurately thrust my right leg forward to halt the doors' progress. There was a twofold result.1. The door was successfully kept unlocked.2. I lacerated both sides of the ankle as it came under pressure from on one side the (metal - ouch) door, and on the other a rather sharp edged brick wall.Anyone who's been at Taekwondo for a while has probably found themselves operating light switches, opening doors etc with knife hand techniques, or worse with their feet. Anyone who hasn't and is reading this probably has their mouth open in the sheer stupidity this would appear to imply.I just hope when it's really important, the reflexes operate properly.
More About: Word , Warning

Still aching from Tuesday....
2007-06-29 10:40:00
Boy, that must have been some lesson Tuesday night. My legs are STILL aching from it today (Friday).

Taekwondo on a Tuesday
2007-06-27 00:05:00
Finally made it along to the Tuesday session in Croydon held by Master Mark Drury (4th Dan). Exhausting, but certainly a great lesson. I'm definately going to try and make the Tuesday session more often as it's very different to the lessons I normally go to in Mitcham. I'm not, however, drawing comparisons as to which sessions are better - too much respect for my instructors to want to start doing that! It does seem to me though that training with different instructors regularly can't be bad for your overall Taekwondo development as there is different emphasis on the various aspects to the training.Not busy next Tuesday and live in or around the Croydon area? Grab a pair of tracksuit bottoms and a t-shirt (plain) and just turn up - starts 8pm, runs for an hour and a half. Always good to see new people. The address is:Energie Fitness ClubStephenson House2 Cherry Orchard RoadEast CroydonSurreyTip: 1 minutes' walk from East Crydon train station. The class is for 14 year olds and up.

Er, argh!
2007-06-20 22:18:00
Somethings wrong - none of my old posts are coming up (must have done something stupid....). The pages are there at my hosting account. I can download them and right enough the blog entries are there but browsing directly to them with a web browser displays the correct URL, but presto I'm actually viewing the main blog page with the most recent post at the top.I'm foxed. Wondering whether posting a new entry will force it to behave itself....Hmph. No idea how, but rather than publishing to the correct directory via FTP, I was publishing to the blog.html file itself and Blogger had helpfully created a directory and was happily publishing into it. I'm pretty darn sure I didn't do that when I set it up.....

Tournament
2007-06-10 01:20:00
My club held a small tournament yesterday and invited the students from St Katherine's Taekwondo led by Master Sargent to attend. Unfortunately, while St Katherines did bring a large compliment of juniors, they didn't submit any adult fighters so all the Chung Yong adults had to fight members of their own club. I got Michael (he's recently moved up to 8th Kup) and he beat me 12-11 on points. Despite the obvious drawback of not winning, I really enjoyed the match and learned a few things about what I can do to improve on my tournament fighting.The St Katherines fighters were impressive to see - they have some very talented fighters there and I'm glad the two clubs are affiliated to each other.
More About: Tournament

Third pattern (Sam Jang) is complete!
2007-06-01 00:30:00
Just put the finishing touches to Sam Jang. This one is the "final" word on how they are all going to look. The main image no longer than 4 lines, so it should all fit height wise on most screens (at least 1024x768 and up). Will probably start on Pal Jang next as my stats tell me this is the next most popular one people search for. On the off chance someone other than me is reading this, check it out - the link is right above you in the "Taegeuk" menu.
More About: Pattern , Complete