Rely. In law enforcement, you learn that the nice little old lady on the corner can become a ruthless murderess under the right circumstance. Some people can fool you, sometimes without their consciously trying. You also learn that you cannot reasonably talk with an unreasonable person, such as a drunk, the mentally ill, or simply a person who has rejected reason in favor of emotions. When faced with people whom I think should be reasonable, such as a lawyer or doctor, but who is actually unreasonable, I always think about the nearly 1000 murder/suicides in Jonestown, Guyana in 1978. In the dead followers of Jim Jones were doctors, lawyers, professors, etc., supposedly reasonable people who were actually terminally stupid. There is little you can do when dealing with unreasonable people, you just have to protect yourself, and avoid them.

One morning, while in the Navy, my boss told me the Executive Officer (XO, second in command of the aircraft carrier) wanted him to reprimand me. He said he did not know why, so I demanded to talk to the XO. The XO told me he had a complaint from a sailor who had accused me of unprofessional conduct. He said the complainant’s name could not be revealed to prevent retaliation. I asked if he had any evidence of my ever retaliating against anyone; he said that did not matter. I asked what I was accused of. He said he could not say since it would reveal the identity of the complainant. I said, “So, let me make sure I understand this. I am being reprimanded and told to correct a behavior, but I am not being told what the behavior is I am to correct and I am not being allowed to question the accuser.” He said that this was true and dismissed me. Luckily the XO was transferred a few months later and the new XO was a great leader.

When it comes to dealing with people, everything is a compromise. As in a marriage, where no matter how much love there is between the two people, it takes a lot of compromise to make the marriage work, finding a marital arts instructor that you can live with takes time and it takes a lot of compromise to make the deal work. Some marriages just do not work out, so you move on and try again. When an instructor does not work out, you learn from the situation, move on, and try another one. Hopefully, you learned something from the previous bad situation and know what to look for in a new instructor.

Students and instructors who have grown up in modern Taekwondo tend to view it as a sport and they view themselves as sportsmen/women and coaches. There are still some vain Taekwondo people, but most view Taekwondo as an enjoyable hobby. Students and instructors who have grown up in traditional karate tend to view it as a “do,” a way of life that takes dedication to the bushido, the way of the warrior. Many take it too literally and think of themselves as true warriors and some consider themselves little “kings” in the kingdom of karate.

Hang in there. Maybe this school and instructor are the ones for you and the marriage will last.

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Rely. The warrior attitude is something Americans seem to have lost. Warriors are not killers, they are just ordinary people who are willing to fight for what is right. If the fight means they may die in the effort, then so be it. Americans seem to think that everything in life should be peaceful and uneventful. No matter what happens, if it doesn’t happen to them directly, they just ignore it and continue with their lives as if nothing had happened. Then when something does happen to them, they blame others, expect others to fix it, and then they continue as before, oblivious to reality. The public does not know much about warriors, since true warriors do not seek recognition; they just do their duty and fade back into obscurity (except for John McCain). The posers and pretenders flaunt their supposed warrior status so this influences the public opinion of warriors. Warriors need to step out of the darkness and reeducate the public.

Corpsman is an undervalued rating in the Navy. Many in the Navy consider corpsman as just another rating; however, Marines have the highest respect for corpsman. Even though corpsmen are not combatants, in every war, they have received many of the highest combat awards for bravery. The first thing the toughest, bravest Marine yells for when he is wounded and in the line of fire is, Corpsman!

All new sailors think it the greatest thing in the Navy is to be a chief and enjoy all the benefits of being a chief. For those who hang in until they make chief, after they do make chief, the benefits do not seems so much better than those of a first class. After they make chief, they find there are more responsibilities than there are benefits and they suddenly feel lost and overwhelmed by the sudden great responsibility placed upon them. The same is true in making black belt. By the time you finally get it, it is not that distant, lofty goal anymore; you begin to see it as just the next belt level but one that has responsibilities not expected of lower belts. Since you are new at dealing with the responsibilities, you find yourself feeling like a beginner again and feeling humble and lost. Just as you saw with chiefs, where some were E-7s, some tried but came up short, and a few were real chiefs, some black belts think the black belt makes them, while others know that they must live up to the level of black belt for it to have any true meaning.

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Rely. Just about any type of physical exercise will aid you in Taekwondo but the primary things you need to work on are:

Explosive strength, main in the legs. To kick, jump-kick, and move quickly you must have explosive strength in the legs. To perform Taekwondo, we do not need to lift a heavy weight slowly, we need to be able to instantly jump or kick with no preparation. Weight lifting, running up stairs, and plyometric jumping can help build explosive strength.

Short burst endurance. Running for for hours is good for long-term endurance, but when we spar, we attack in short bursts followed by periods of relative inactivity. We do not need to be able to fight for long periods of time, but we do need to be able to fight in a series of frenzied attacks and be able to recover between attacks quickly. Run wind sprints (repeatedly sprint for 100 yards and then walk back) or jump rope in rapid bursts to build short burst endurance.

Flexibility. To move more quickly and more correctly, we must be flexible. To increase flexibility try yoga or perform you own daily stretching routines.

Relaxation. One the things that eats your energy, slows your reaction time, and make you move awkwardly is tension. Learn to relax when sparring or performing patterns and your performance quality will increase.

Perfect motion and technique. Work toward perfection of movement. Try to perform each technique perfectly, Don’t worry so much about kicking higher, quicker, or more powerfully, concentrate on kicking with perfect form and everything else will follow. Hold to something for balance and perform numerous, slow motion, kicks using perfect technique. Train you body to move perfectly without conscious input from you.

Upper body strength. Women have less upper body strength than men, and as I am sure you have noticed, most women have very little upper body strength. Therefore, if you build your upper body strength, you will have an immediate edge over most other women. You will have powerful blocks and your punches will be more difficult for your opponents to block. To increase upper body strength, perform proper, full-motion pushups and pull-ups and use weightlifting.

Abdomen strength. The abdomen is the center of strength. To be able to lift the legs for kicks or to block or punch with power, the abdomen must be strong. Also, a strong abdomen can absorb strikes with no damage. Bicycles (lie on back and move legs in a full-motion bicycling motion while bringing each elbow to the opposite knee) has been proven to be the best abdominal exercise.

Practice, practice, practice. In school, no matter now smart you are, just going to class will not get you the good grades; you have to do hours and hours of homework. The same is true in Taekwondo school. Class is when you learn new things and perform them before the instructor so he or she can correct your technique; home is where you practice and perfect the techniques.

For cross-training, I always recommend the YWCA/YMCA. It is relatively inexpensive, has all the equipment you need, offers all types of classes, and has hours to fit any schedule.

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Rely. I know how it is to live in places where you have little choice as to what martial to study since only one style is available. I trained in many karate styles over my years in the Navy because they were the only martial arts available where I was stationed. Some had techniques and philosophies that I agreed with, some did not. Either way, while I trained at the schools, I did things as they did them and learned from it.

Switching styles is similar to moving into a new house. At the new house you bump into things, moving around the house seems awkward, and sometimes you wish you were back in the old house. However, after a while you get settled in and the new house turns out to be just as good, if not better, than the old house.

In your situation, whether Taekwondo is better or worse than another martial art doesn’t really matter since Taekwondo is your only choice. Even if you do not particularly care for Taekwondo, something is better than nothing.

When training during class and in patterns, proper performance of Taekwondo techniques is usually strictly enforced. The way Taekwondo is practiced depends on the association, school, and individual instructor. Some instructors teach strictly Taekwondo while others teach a base in Taekwondo with variations depending on what works for the individual student.

While sparring, you may use any type of block, punch, or kick you choose as long as it is within the rules. However, this sometimes makes it more difficult for you to excel in Taekwondo. For example, I fight with open hands and use many open hand blocks. However, when I punch, my hand instantly changes into a tight fist. I have training this way for years so I am able to stay loose and relaxed while moving but I can instantly tighten everything for a powerful attack. This causes problems since when I perform patterns I am constantly criticized for relaxing my fists during a transition and then tightening them for the technique.

Sometimes a karate background may be advantageous. Taekwondo uses hand attacks but you may find that TKD fighters are surprised by your quick, powerful karate hand attacks.

We get students all the time who have studied karate in the past. Some want to learn Taekwondo so they work hard to suppress their karate habits, some have a difficult time giving up their karate habits, and some say they want to learn Taekwondo but they refuse to give up their karate habits; these are the ones who usually drop out of class. When I joined my current school and association, I had been in Taekwondo for over 25 years and was set in my ways. I had to change the way I did a lot of things to conform to the new school. Some of the changes were easy, some were difficult, some took a long time, some came without my really being aware of it, and some came even with me fighting the change. I am now fully indoctrinated into the program but I still have my previous experience to rely upon. Instructors who have been in the program since birth do everything the same and do not see any reason to change. I am always tossing in new things and forcing students and instructors to question the status quo and to think on their own.

Give Taekwondo a shot; if it does not work out you can always leave and look for something else. Anything you learn is useful.

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Rely. As to preparing for a tournament, train the same as usual, just harder and more of it. Spar as much as possible using tournament rules so you will not make any mistakes at the tournament. Try to spar people with whom you do not normally spar. Try visiting and sparring at other schools within your association so you will get to know how your possible opponents fight.

For pattern competition, practice performing the pattern exactly as you want to perform it in the tournament. In competition, you will perform as you have practiced. While training, if you just go through the motions of the pattern, then, without extreme concentration, this is the way you will perform the pattern at the tournament. When you finish performing a pattern properly, you should be winded. You are acting out a fighting sequence so you should be performing the pattern as if you were fighting for your life and putting everything into it.

When preparing for a big test at school, if you have studied long and hard and know the material, then all the questions will seem easy. The same is true for a tournament, if you train hard and prepare for it, it will be easy. You may not win, but it will only be because the opponent was better at that moment, not because you were not doing your best.

The basics for winning at a tournament are:

• Don’t do anything to draw warnings and get disqualified.

• Stay with basic kicks and punches. Don’t try get fancy, you are not sparring to impress, you are sparring to get points.

• Attack! Attack! Attack! You don’t score points for blocking your opponent’s attacks, so don’t worry about them. If you attack continuously, the opponent will not have an opportunity to attack you. The opponent may score a point with a technique here and there, but you will be racking up points everywhere. Depending on your conditioning, you may not be able to attack continuously, so, while resting, then you may block and counterattack.\

• The head is difficult to hit so concentrate on body targets.

• Stay away from punchers and kick from long range; crowd kickers and punch from short range.

• Single attacks seldom score, so use combinations with a mixture of kicks and punches.

• Relax and stay loose; if you are tense you cannot act or react quickly but you will tire quickly.

• Put on your fighting persona, get serious, and kiai a lot. You are not there to harm the opponent but you are there to beat the opponent.

Good luck in your competition. It is always fun to pit your skills against others.

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Rely. If you enjoy Taekwondo and want to make it an occupation, learn all you can about it and practice it until you become a subject matter expert at it. TKDTutor.com can assist you in learning about Taekwondo but only you can practice it. TKDTutor.com tries to offer everything you need to know about Taekwondo, but it cannot make you a better martial artist—that can only come from within you.

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Rely. It appears that you are a stable young man who knows which aspects of his life are important. Learning all you can in school and college in preparation for later life is the first priority. When you are successful at doing something you enjoy as an occupation, your will have time and money to do all the other things you want to do in life as avocations.

As you have observed, breaking is a training tool that provides feedback on proper technique; punch improperly and it hurts. However, breaking is not, and never has been, a requirement of a good fighter or a good martial artist; it is merely a training tool. Breaking has become a form of entertainment and a way to impress the uninformed public. Being an expert in a particular skill does make you a great martial artist. Being an expert at driving does not make you a great golfer; you must also be an expert at chipping and putting, and understanding and playing the game of golf. Without good fighting skills, the best breaker in the world will get beat by a good fighter with no breaking skills. Breaking does not make you a better fighter, a better forms competitor, a better martial artist, or a better person; it is merely a training tool that provides feedback on the use of proper technique.

To market their product and increase sales, some manufactures create a problem for their products to solve. An example is having non-white teeth. Yellowing teeth may be a problem for some but it is not a problem for enough people to make teeth whiteners profitable. Therefore, manufactures of teeth whiteners created a new problem, non-white teeth. According to them, teeth now should not just be a natural whitish color, they must be bright white; an unnatural color that may only be obtained by using their products.

Breaking was a solution in need of a problem. Breaking, and training for breaking, is painful and may be harmful, so why do it? It is not needed for self-defense, and it is not needed to become a great martial artist. So why do something that does little to make you a martial artist when it may cause an injury that will hamper all your training and may cause problems that will plague you in every aspect of your life until you die. Power breaking is done to impress viewers and to attract new students, since people are attracted to the exotic. Trained martial artists see it for what it is—entertainment.

Doing anything to the excess causes undesired side-effects. Body building is good for all people; excessive body building is not good for anyone. Washing your hands is good; compulsive hand washing is not good. Breaking is good, excessive power breaking is bad.

At one point in his life, Mas Oyama toughened his hands until they were breaking tools, but longer useful as hands. In his later years, he expressed regret for this training, since it caused him hand pain and limited hand movement throughout his later years.

There is no secret ointment or method for hand toughening; the only way is by forging. Different arts have different ways of forging, but they all use the same method, repetitious striking of increasingly harder materials. This method works; hands become striking tools. However, a side-effect forging is that the hands become less useful as hands.

You must prioritize your life. Some things are a waste of time and money, while other things are essential. If you live on a hill in the desert southwest, paying for flood insurance for your house is a waste of money since a flood is not likely to happen. However, fire insurance is necessary since bush fires are a constant threat. Most people will never face a self-defense situation during their lives. Therefore, toughening your hands until you can punch trough a brick wall is useless and a waste of time and money. However, martial art training for good physical and mental health and for enjoyment is a good investment, with the useful side-effect that if a self-defense situation does occur, you will be prepared for it.

Stay with basic, useful karate training and it will be useful to you in all aspects of your life.

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Rely. First, I’m sorry about your attack. The odds against it happening again are very slim but it is always good to be prepared.

As for self-defense, Taekwondo will help but, in itself, it is not necessarily the best for self-defense situations. Taekwondo is primarily concerned with sparring, which is controlled mutual combat; there are rules and referees and the goal is to win the match without harming the opponent. Sparring is similar to fighting, since fighting is also is mutual combat, but fighting may or may not have rules and referees, and the goal of fighting is to cause harm to the opponent until he or she quits fighting or is unable to continue fighting. In both sparring and fighting, you have a choice: you can stay or leave. However, in a self-defense situation you cannot leave, there are no rules or referees, and the goal is defend yourself against serious injury or death and to make the attacker stop attacking. In a self-defense situation, you do not face an opponent and then move around and spar or fight. In a self-defense situation, you must react unexpectedly, instantly, and with powerful and effective techniques. Some martial art styles concentrate on self-defense. Taekwondo has some self-defense techniques but that is not its main concern, however, some Taekwondo instructors teach specific self-defense techniques.

As for weight loss, any popular diet will give you fairly quick results, but for the long term, you already know the answer. It is simple, eat healthy foods in the proper proportions, and perform some type of moderate exercise daily.

Doing any type of physical exercise daily will help get you fit. There are hundreds of exercise plans and methods. Finding one that you will do everyday is the problem. It takes experimentation to find the one that is right for you. I always recommend the YMCA/YWCA. It is inexpensive and has all the equipment and programs in one location. When you have knee problems, running in place, jumping, and kicking, while standing in waist deep water in the pool is always good. You get all the benefits of the exercise while the water offers resistance and cushions the joints.

How long it takes to get black belt depends on the organization and school/instructor. Some require as little as two years, while others require many more. Some black belt tests are done in groups and only last 30 minutes or less, while other tests are performed individually and may take hours or days to complete. The more difficult a black belt is to achieve, the more it will mean to you when you earn it, and for the rest of your life

Start small and gradually do more as your confidence and fitness improve. If you try too much at the start, you will get discouraged and quit. For most people, weight control, fitness, and good health are a lifetime struggle; it is never easy and it never ends.

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Rely. The movements in Kung Fu forms are graceful, just as the movements in ballroom dancing, synchronized swimming, or ice skating are graceful. However, graceful does not translate to useful. If any of this was effective, you would think at least ONE Kung Fu “master” would be a world champion boxer, ultimate fighter, football or basketball player, etc. As demonstrated in so many combative sports and other physical endeavors, basic hard, linear, focused, controlled, and powerful movements are much more effective than soft, circular, “beautiful” movements. As a performance art, Kung Fu is beautiful, as a combative art, it is more hype than substance. No Kung Fu master of any time in history could stop Mike Tyson or Chick Liddel with Kung Fu techniques.

Extreme flexibility is genetic, not trained. A normal person can train and increase flexibility, but extreme flexibility requires extremely elastic ligaments. During the Cold War, communist countries tested children, found the ones with special genetic abilities, and then forced trained the children to exploit these abilities in the Olympics. In Kung Fu, Yoga, and such, thousands of children are force trained at a young age, and then the ones with extreme flexibility ability, or some other special ability, are selected and trained to become “masters.” My question is: what happens to the ones who have average genetic composition? What are they trained to do, or are they just discarded?

Start young and indoctrinate, that is the mantra of Kung Fu and other such cults. Does any of this bring the terms brainwashing and child abuse to mind? Just because you have some noble purpose in mind, it does not negate the wrongfulness of what you are doing. Adults can choose whether to harm themselves or not, children have no choice.

Each of the stunts performed in the video is claimed to require hours of training each day in the skill. If you add up all the required hours, they total more than 24 hours. Therefore, it is obvious that no one person can master all the skills. However, if one child is forced to perform a particular skill for hours a day for years, that one child can become a “master” in that skill. Then this “master” performs his particular skill and the martial art’s promoters imply that all the masters can perform all the skills equally well. Just as in any other sport, the team as a whole may be able to do every skill required in the sport, but each individual team member cannot excel in all aspects of the sport.

If you must feed, clothe, and house yourself and your family, how are you able to train so many hours a day? In ancient times, it took a lot of time and effort just to survive, so the average villager did not have the time to train in a fighting art. For a person to train the required hours, someone or some group had to pay for the training. Sometimes, the group paid the family for the child or the family gave up the child for the good of the family, or to please the group they had been indoctrinated to support.

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Rely.

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