I am confused about the function of the moves 32, 34, 35 and 36 which are called either " scoop blocks" or walking Stance Forearm Circular Block. One technique to do it is to bend down on the back leg like you are blocking a kick and redirecting the kick. Another technique is I have seen is to scoop it with the blocking hand.Is the function of this move to block a low kick or to block a punch? Do you need to bend down on the back leg to perform it correctly?

There are three main styles of TKD: traditional ITF, modern ITF, and Olympic WTF. The traditional ITF and modern ITF styles use the Changhon pattern set (which includes Toy-gye), while the WTF uses a different pattern set. There are other TKD pattern sets but the ITF and WTF ones are the most prevalent.

As to your question about Toi-gye:

Scooping block. A deflecting block is where the blocking palm move in a “U” shape motion, downward and then upward, under the attacking arm or leg, lifting  it up until the attacking fist moves over your head or the attacking leg moves so high it unbalances the attacker.

Circular block. A deflecting block is where the blocking arm moves in a circular path and pushes the attacking arm or leg to the side so the attack misses your  body.

Traditional ITF circular block method. Gen. Choi , in his 1965 first edition book Taekwon-do, The Art of Self-Defense, states that the Toi-gye  movement as using a middle section circular block, which he describes as an inner forearm block that first moves in a circular path and ends with fist at shoulder height. There is no springing of the knees, only a snap of the hips.

Modern ITF circular block method. At some point, with Choi’s blessing, the ITF came up with the knee spring/sine wave concept. Choi’s Encyclopedia of Taekwondo, shows the Toi-gye movement being used with knee spring. In the knee spring, each movement is preceded by an exaggerated bending of the knees and then springing upward into the technique, which, when the user is moving along a line, causes the body to move up and down in a sine wave movement. They also exaggerate the circular movement of the block. The two movements make the block impractical against a middle section punch and make it more of a block against a low section kick.

My opinion is that that the knee spring/sine wave concept is useless. In the old days, we specifically trained students that, when moving across the floor in stances, the belt knot should move along a straight line and not up and down as it does in the sine wave. It’s wasted movement and slows response time. It an attacker attacks at the start of you downward movement, you will be slower in responding to the attack. When you see modern ITF fighters in the ring, they do not use it, so why teach it

I'm a 40 year old, high purple belt. I have only been training for 4 months, but I take it very seriously, and attend class three times a week. I have developed a bad case of Tennis Elbow, a severe pain on the outside of the elbow, high on the forearm. The only way to treat Tennis Elbow is to rest it for 6-8 weeks but there is no way I can stop training for that long.

When doing punching drills, (with no targets) or doing forms, my passion gets the best of me and I give it all I have, in terms of intensity. My theory is that I'm over extending my arms while punching hard or fast. When I throw a punch, I extend until my arm stops. In other words, I lock my arm at the end of the punch. When I'm punching hard, I think that the momentum is hyper extending my elbow just a bit. If I try to leave a slight bend in my arm and not extend all the way, I punch slower and with less power.

Have you heard or seen this before? Am I punching incorrectly? Should I leave a slight bend in my arm when throwing a punch?

When you punch or kick, the limb should extend but does not lock out. Watch people who fight for a living, such as boxers or MMA fighters, they do not lock out their elbows when punching. Not all punches make contact with the intended target. Hitting the wrong target, one that does not give way, may injury a straight arm. A miss, where arm the locks out as fist suddenly stops forward motion, also may injury the elbow.

Have you ever been walking down a city street, stepping off curbs as you look at the sights, and stepped off a curb that was just a little higher than normal? Your stepping leg extends a little more and the knee locks just as the foot hits the ground with a thud that sends shock waves throughout your body and even jolts the brain a little. When the elbow or knee locks out, there is no way for the body to absorb the shock of a strike. Instead of the ligaments, muscles, etc. absorbing the shock gradually, the joints get slammed together and the shock reverberates throughout  the entire body.

When you fully extend the arm or leg in an attack, it is easy for the knee or elbow to move a little more than it may safely handle and it may hyperextend, causing an immediate major injury or cumulative minor injuries that will manifest later as a major injury.

When a punch at the end of a fully extended arm comes to a sharp stop, it is because it cannot go any further, and, as it stops, it pulls the elbow and shoulder joints apart. When a punch is focused to stop before full extension, everything comes to a smooth stop. When a punch is focused, it may be stopped short of the surface, on the surface, or beyond the surface. Either way, if the punch does make contact with the target, the arm and body are able to absorb the reactive force. If the arm is fully extended, it cannot be adjusted to focus the stopping point and, if it makes hard contact, the elbow may be injured.

As you train, you train your body to make movements to accomplish your purpose. If you lock your punches when you train, your body makes adjustments to try to accommodate for the movement. If you try to punch hard with a locked out elbow, the body will may changes to its movements in an effort to protect itself, usually by limiting the force it applies to the punch. When you change the way you punch and do not lock the elbow, the body keeps using the movements you have trained it to do in the past, and the punch feels awkward and less powerful, which may be true. Once you have  trained for a period while punching correctly, the body will adjust itself to the new movements and the punches will be just as, if not more, powerful than before, and you will not be stressing your joints.

In a punch, you arm is used to accelerate the fist to a high speed so it will strike harder. A locked elbow makes your arm similar to a straight stick. Attach two leather cords to the end of a long stick and try to whip the stick out fast enough to make the cords snap, which means they are breaking the sound barrier, about 700 mph. It’s impossible to move the stiff stick that fast. Now attach the cords to the end of a piece of rope the same length as the stick, AKA a whip, and try to make the cords snap. It is easy to make them snap since the limp rope allows the tip to move much faster than the grip end. When punching, a relaxed arm that stays limp until impact will increase the speed of the fist much more than a tensed arm.

When you are younger, you can do things the wrong way and the body can adapt and make accommodations for using poor technique. As you age, the body cannot absorb as much punishment and it heals more slowly. Therefore, as you age, your must strive for perfect technique. Once you have achieved it, the skill never goes away, such as the skill bicycle riding never goes away. As you age, you find that, although your reflexes are not a quick as the used to be, your technique is still perfect and it allows you to beat younger opponents who are relying upon their youth to overcome their imperfections.

I once had a “tennis elbow” injury I received during police baton training that would not heal. A doctor prescribed Voltaren (diclofenac) and the injury healed in a few days.

I was once in a situation where a guy walked up behind me, wrapped one of his arms around my throat, and used the other to apply a simultaneous hammerlock on my arm opposite of his choking arm. In other words, I was receiving a rear-naked-choke/hammerlock combo. To be fair, I was not being choked out; the guy was just restraining me (also, a one arm choke has slightly less power), but I was still petrified with fear.

Ever since then, I have been experiencing fear and shame over my inability to do anything about the situation. I was hoping you could share with me some different techniques possible to break free of this situation.

Please note:

- I am aware that once the lock is in place, it’s near-impossible to break free “fair-and-honorably”.

- I also know that the best method is obviously not to let the attack happen, but that didn’t apply to this situation.

- Other sources have recommended tactics to me such as biting, shin stomping, back-head-butting, and using a sharp object to stab the person’s arm. While I do not enjoy the idea of fighting dirty (especially since I hate fighting at all), I have no objection to such measures when necessary. (Frankly, the biting and sharp object seem like the most likely to work.)

Even if you just tell me to do the same thing that I mentioned above, that will be fine because now I know a professional is recommending it. If this is the case, are there any other “somewhat questionable” methods I could use? The more options, the better.

Anytime something similar to this happens to us, we rehash the incident over and over, thinking about what we should have done. In this situation, since you are okay, you must have done the right thing. However, in a different situation, doing nothing may not work.

In any situation, you have to rely on your gut feeling as to what is occurring and what your response should be. The correct response will vary depending on whether the attack is just to scare you, to intimidate you, to harm you, or to kidnap or kill you. If you think the attack is to harm you in any way, then your response should be quick and nasty. You never know how much harm the attacker intends to cause, and neither does the attacker. No matter how little harm the attacker originally intended, the amount of harm done may increase dramatically, either unintentionally, accidently, or intentionally.

When grabbed, I like to use throws. Throws can be deadly, especially if you concentrate on ensuring the attacker’s head hits the ground. To throw a person, you must grab them and get them off balance. If they grab you, half the problem is solved, and, since most attackers are not aware of their balance and are not thinking about being thrown, you have the advantage. Judo training is highly useful in teaching how to use throws in self-defense.

In a mugger’s choke, two-man attack teams walk up behind a person or a couple. One suddenly grabs a person in a rear naked choke, pushes the person’s opposite elbow forward so the person cannot jab it backward, and then quickly starts pulling the person backward so the person is leaning backward and off balance. From behind, the other attacker quickly goes though the person’s pockets, taking anything valuable. Then, the first attacker drops the person on his or her butt and runs. It is all done very quickly and smoothly from behind. The victim is not injured and he or she never sees the attacker. Many times the person’s partner or bystanders do not even see the attack happen, yet alone see the attackers.

Your case of being held in a rear naked choke and hammerlock is similar to the mugger’s choke. Some defenses to use are to turn your head into the crook of the choking arm and pull down on the forearm to release pressure, bite the arm, and stomp the attacker’s toes or kick the shins. A backward head butt is possible, but if the assailant's head is too close, the butt may be ineffective. If you are falling backward, launch yourself backward explosively with your legs to knock the assailant off balance. You may land atop the assailant and injure him or her. If not, you are at least prepared for the fall and the assailant will be caught unprepared. If you are falling forward, pull forward, and tuck and roll, dragging the attacker with you.

Another defense is suddenly drop your body straight downward while thrusting the leg that is opposite to the choking arm straight backward while turning your body downward and toward the opposite direction. The object of the movements is to throw the person over your shoulder opposite to the choking arm and to fall atop the person.

When you are fighting for your life, bite off anything within range, concentrate both your hands on pulling back and breaking one finger at a time, and gouge eyes. Punches, releases, locks, etc. may not work, but even the strongest attacker will ease up when in excruciating pain.

Keep training and keep thinking about what you might do in attack situations. If you have thought about a self-defense situation before it occurs, you will react quicker when it does occur. The good thing about martial arts training is that it is there if it is needed, but if it is never needed, you will still benefit from the other aspects of the training, such as better health, better fitness, better coordination, and having fun.

I’m having currently having all kinds of difficulties. I’m overwhelmed, stressed, and tired. I took a week off training, but I can’t seem to figure out where to start. I have no flexibility what so ever. I want to be able to kick high with speed and power, but I don’t even have the hip strength to hold up my leg. My back is always slouched and it’s hard for me to keep it straight during a stretch. I can’t bend over very far, and I have super tight hamstrings/calves. My martial arts classes seem to put too much emphasis on learning forms. All of these negatives have stressed me out; so I stopped all of my martial arts training. 

I’m not a personal trainer but here is what has been found to work: daily, numerous repetitions of whatever you are trying to master using a perfect technique each time.

1. For flexibility, stretch every day separate from class. From you instructor, yoga books and websites, or flexibility books and websites, find some core stretches. Warm-up first and then do the stretches. It takes some time, but things will begin to loosen. Overall, I was more flexible than my instructor, but he could perform higher, quicker, and more precise kicks than I could. Why? Because he performed, the kicking motions perfectly all day in slow motion while teaching.

2. For leg and hip strength, use squats and pylometic jumping. To be stronger and better at anything, you must do it a lot. To be a stronger kicker, do many perfect kicks against a bag every day. Don’t worry about the height of the kick. Concentrate on perfection. Only kick as high as you can while performing a perfect kick. Height will come naturally has a product of the repetition.

3. Control comes from the body not from the arm or leg. To stop a punch at a precise point, you do not try to stop the arm’s movement or “pull” the punch; you stop the shoulder’s movement. The punch is always at full power and full extension. The shoulder then controls the point at which the arm reaches full extension. Likewise, the hip controls the leg. Practice striking target three ways: stopping just short of the target, just tapping the target, and full penetration of the target. These three methods will cover every circumstance where a punch of kick is needed; ranging from friendly sparring to lethal self-defense.

4.     Forms train your muscles to perform the motions of a perfect technique. The repetition creates muscle memory so you perform the techniques instinctively. When you first learned to drive, you had to think about what to do to stop the car and you usually over braked. Now your body instantly and instinctively applies the amount of brake required according to the situation. Tiger Woods plays golf daily (when not with mistresses), but during a game there is little driving. Therefore, he spends hours a day just driving, until the motion becomes instinctive. Forms are more a mental exercise than a physical one. They teach you to be able to perform precisely while under stress.

5. I don’t like weightlifting, it is boring and seems like work. I like various versions of sit-ups, pushups, bar dips, pull-ups and chin-ups, etc. where I am working against my own body weight. Experiment and find what you like to do and what strength exercises work for you, and then do them regularly. While strength is related to muscle size, size is not the controlling factor. As you have probably experienced, many relatively small people have tremendous power that does not come from size, but from speed and technique.

6. Eat healthy foods in reasonable amounts and perform moderate exercise daily, and body fat will not be a problem. Your body will stabilize at whatever is its norm and you will be able to maintain that level for life.

7. You have to have a wide variety of techniques and be able to perform them properly, but the only way to get better at sparing is to spar with as many different opponents as possible as often as possible. It’s called experience.

Hope these tips will be useful to you. Don’t give up. Perseverance is one of the tenets of Taekwondo for a reason.

I’m interested in TKD I am thinking about taekwondo for me. I am interested in self defense first and competition second. As you know, people say a lot of things about taekwondo. I don't know what to believe. My questions are:

1. Is it true that ITF forms are the hardest and most acrobatic of all the TKD styles.

2. Is TKD only for truly athletic people; I'm not that athletic?

3. Does the WTF style have as many hand techniques as the ITF?

4. Is the WTF any good for self-defense?

Good to hear you are interested in the martial arts; they are fun to do, help keep you healthily, may be useful in self-defense situations, and you can train and compete in them at any age until any age. As to your questions:

1. I have always trained in the ITF pattern Chang-hon set. Some patterns are difficult for some to master because of the number of complex movements in them, but anyone can learn and perform them. They do not have showy, useless acrobatic movements.

2. TKD is practiced by people of ages and abilities. The goal of most TKD school is for students to perform at the best of their abilities. Other students may be better than you, but if you are always doing your best, then you will be rewarded for it.

3. Both the ITF and WTF have and use hand techniques. However, when sparring or competing, WTF practitioners use mostly foot techniques. When it come to a self-defense situation when you have no time to think and must act on instinct and training, if you have not trained to use your hands, you will not use your hands effectively and it may result in your attacker hurting you. Hands should always be your primary defensive and offensive weapons.

4. When it come to a self-defense situation, having any martial art training is better than having no training. While most schools teach some self-defense techniques, only a few specialize in self-defense training. Sparring is not the same as self-defense training. 

Find a martial art think you will enjoy, find a good school and good instructor, train hard and do your best, and you will never regret it.

I run a martial arts school. I recently failed a 15-year-old testing for black belt and it has not gone down well with one of his parents. I have split my syllabus into senior and junior grades but have always maintained that the standard should be the same just that some of the more dangerous techniques are missing from the junior stuff.

To date no junior has ever achieved a black belt under me. The only reason I gave them a "grade" to aim for is because so many other local schools have junior black belts.

As a result of his failing the mother looked at another local school which has numerous black belts under the age of 16. She told me this is because the school has a better instructor than me and that he makes black belts in under 2 years (her child has been training with me for 8 years) As a result, I started searching the net and came across your article on the black belt. I just wanted to say that it is the most refreshing article I have ever read on the subject. I believe that as a society we are letting our children down by wrapping them in cotton wool and making everyone a "A+" student whether they are capable or not.

For this reason, I am writing this email to ask you permission to change the article slightly for my students and put it on our club notice board. I think it should be published in every martial arts journal.

You may use the article for your students. It is good to hear from a traditionalist who is still in the fight. Strict standards are tough for a school to maintain in today's society, and still be profitable. Students must learn that the things they will treasure the most are those things that were the most difficult for them to achieve.

Reply from Brett

High standards for attaining the rank of black belt are admirable, however, it sounds like the questioner holds out the promise of awarding a black belt to juniors, when there is no intention of ever awarding one to a junior.  If this is the case, is the questioner being truthful when enrolling junior students?

TKDTutor Reply to Brett:

Good point Brett! It is disingenuous to dangle a carrot in front of students to give them hope, while having no intention of ever letting them get to the carrot. A better tactic may be to have some belt that is the equivalent of a junior black belt without it being a black belt. Then, when a student reaches the age of 18, he or she could test for black belt. The student could also be made eligible for accelerated testing to a higher black belt level, so his or her belt level would be more commensurate with his or her skill level and experience.

I am looking for the origin of punching a TKD student when they receive their red belt.

I have never heard of punching a student when he or she first gets awarded a red belt. It may be a local or regional tradition. It may be related to the Navy tradition of “tacking on the crow.” When a sailor makes petty officer, he or she puts the new rank patch on the left sleeve of the uniform. The patch has a white eagle on it, which is called a “crow. Fellow petty officers then “tack on the crow” by punching the patch on the sailors shoulder. The tradition may have evolved from fellow petty officers adding a stitch when a sailor sewed on the rank patch. The punches may be taps or hard punches. Either way, after many people hit on the same spot, the shoulder may swell and hurt, and even be injured. Nowadays, “tacking on the crow” is considered hazing and sailors may be punished for participating in it.

Please don’t write about things you don’t understand as if you were an expert, your article on pressure points was written by someone of amateur status who was projecting their own inadequacies, by saying these things are impossible to do, Well maybe for you!

Thank you for insightful, informative, and constructive comments. They helped me understand your system so clearly.

In your email, you say I do not know what I am talking about in my article on pressure points. First, I do not claim to be an expert on anything; I am merely an intelligent, educated, skeptic who uses logic, reason, facts, and science to refute unsubstantiated claims. To make your assertions, you must think that you are an expert, or at least you must think you know more about the subject than I know.

When it relates to extraordinary claims, it is not the responsibility of the skeptic to prove that the claims make by every charlatan in the world are invalid, it up to the claimants to prove their claims are valid. For example, there are thousands of people in the world who claim to speak with the dead. It is not up to the rest of the world to prove each of them is a fraud; it is up to each of them to prove that they are indeed able to speak with the dead.

Your opinion is that I am an amateur whose inadequacies prevent me from performing, or even understanding, the techniques used by pressure point slappers. I assume that you think this because you think you are above amateur status in the subject, and that you think you are adequate enough to understand these techniques and possibly even successfully perform them upon non-believers. If this is the case, rather making insults, why not send me facts and rational arguments that support your contention that these techniques are possible?

Note: The writer did not respond.

Is there a way to harden your nails and/or fingers, for example for use in an eye strike?

Since eyes are soft tissue, fingers will have no problem penetrating them. If you miss and hit bone, you will not cause serious injury to the person no matter how tough your fingers are. If you miss, the attempt will probably enrage the attacker so much that you will have a tougher time defeating him than you would have had without the attempt. When it comes to attacks to the head, the safest bet is always elbow attacks. Elbows can inflict lots of damage without being damaged themselves. If it becomes necessary and the opportunity arises, thumb eye gouges are always an option.

As far as strengthening the fingers, the traditional method is to drive the fingers repeatedly into a bucket of dried beans, gradually working your way up to using a bucket of sand. Another way is to drive the fingers repeatedly, but softly, into a makawara board; after a few months, you will be able to drive them in with great force.

There are problems with any type of body part forging. First, toughening hampers the body part’s normal operation. You may be able to punch through a brick wall, but you will have to spend the rest of your life using a pencil to peck at computer keys since your fingers will be too stiff to use them. Second, since most people will never incur a self-defense situation in the lives, toughening is a waste of time since the problems it causes far outweigh any potential benefits. Lastly, toughening is not necessary. People normal hands and no martial arts training are fully capable of killing with their bare hands.

Mas Oyama, the great Kyokushin karate master, who toured the world breaking wood and stone in demonstrations, and who often attempted to knockout a bull with a punch, had hands that looked similar to paws. In his later years, he expressed regret for the damage he had done to his hands.

I wrote you few months earlier asking for your guidance about rank certification. Your kind reply was a great inspiration to me. Through your web site, I was able to get in touch with the General Secretary of ITF-USA and ultimately found a great instructor with which to train. I am now certified with ITF-USA and a proud co-owner of a martial art school of approximately 60 students. I truly appreciate your advice during my time of crisis.

Good to hear from you again and that you are doing well.

After my first few years in the Navy, I was just doing my job in the electronics field and teaching TKD at night; content, but not progressing. One day, while chatting with a TKD student who was the Navy law enforcement field, he mentioned that, with my interests and skills, I could probably achieve more if I changed to the law enforcement field. This casual remark got me thinking and changed the course of my life. I changed to the law enforcement field, started college, and went on to retire as the highest enlisted rank with 2 master’s degrees and numerous Navy commendations. Sometimes you never know how much something you say or do may affect, good or bad, the life of another person. It is good to hear that something I said had a positive effect on your life.

Always remember that every little thing you say or do may have a good or bad affect on the lives of others, even when you are not aware of it.

I wish you well in your school and in life.

I have been practicing the martial arts for many years and have taught and worked at my instructor’s school the program director for many years. I had a disagreement with my Instructor regarding his treatment of me and was asked to leave the school permanently. Following the incident, my fellow black belt students advised me to open a school of my own for children. However, my instructor never issued a rank certificates. How to I go about getting certified as a black belt instructor?

This is not a trivial matter. Students devote much of their lives to their martial arts, masters, schools, and organizations. Some organizations and masters only think about themselves and their business and will forget all you have done for them when they do not need you anymore. It is not a good feeling to be rejected by those you have looked up to and given of so much of your time to make them successful.

As I write about in TKDTutor, rank certification not governed by any local, state, or federal agency so it is virtually meaningless anywhere other than inside the organization that issues it. Some organizations recognize rank certifications of other organizations; some do not. This makes it difficult for a person to leave an organization or school and join another one without having to work up through the ranks again. When you train with an organization or instructor that does not issue any type of certification, this makes it even more difficult.

Some of your options are:

- See if the instructor will issue a rank/instructor certificate or a letter of certification on school letterhead; anything official that may be accepted by other organizations.

- Check with the organization that certified the instructor to see if they will issue you a certificate.

- There are many organizations that may be found on the Internet that issue rank certificates using information you send them. Since there are no legal requirements that govern rank certification, the validity of any rank certification is in the eyes of the beholder.

Since there are no laws governing the martial arts, anyone can open a school or club and teach without any type of rank or instructor certification. You can create your own certificates and issue them.

YMCA's, YWCA's, community centers, junior colleges, etc. are good places to start teaching classes and then work up from there.

Customers walk in the door of a martial art school for various reasons, but they usually sign up as students, and stay as students, because they have some affinity with the instructor, not with the school or organization. If you are good with kids, parents will recognize it and want their kids to study with you.

It may be complicated and take some time, but you can be a successful instructor and even own and operate a school. Do not get discouraged. Look at it as a challenge that must be overcome, just as you did when you first started training.

I was reading your article on ethics of tae kwon do and was wondering if you think entering a competition is ethical because we are using our abilities to fight to win with no good cause at the end of it since we are using violence to win trophies not to stop violence. Are we adding violence in the world by fighting in these competitions? Also, you say that it’s unethical to throw the 1st punch so what do we do in a competition?

Martial art sparring competitions are mutually agreed contests of fighting abilities. In a competition, you are not required to compete; if you do not want to fight, then you do not have to enter the competition or, even if you are entered, you do not have to enter the ring against an opponent you do not want to fight.

There are those who think dodge ball is a violent game and, as such, it should be banned from school playgrounds. Violence is in the eye of the beholder. Some things are commonly considered violent, while the violent nature of some things is highly debatable. Some think full-contact sparring is violent and that no or light-contact sparring is not violent.

You presume there is no good result from a competition. What about the honing of your fighting skills. You cannot effectively fight violence unless you have the skills needed, the ability to use those skills, and the willingness to use those skills regardless of the consequences. Competition fighting is as close to actual fighting as you may get without actually being in a fight.

No person or county has ever defeated violence without using violent means. Talking about peace and non-violence and loving your enemies may be make good philosophical conversation, but when facing a violent opponent, if you are not able to effectively block the violence and counter it with violence, you will die. When facing a person who wants to kill you, tell him you love him and give him a hug, and see if it works.

Violence is only bad when it is used in bad ways. There is always the philosophical argument about what is good and what is bad, and how the determination about what is good or bad depends upon the viewpoint, cultural upbringing, religion, etc. of the person making the determination. However, the distinction between good and bad violence is easy to determine—bad violence is that which is a threat to the person or the person’s family, home, livelihood, country, etc.

Being capable of violence is not the same as being violent. With proper training, a sniper who can kill anyone with no remorse while on the battlefield can be a caring husband and father who never get angry with others while at home. Unethical, uncontrolled violence is always bad. Ethical, controlled, violence used in a judicious manner can be a good thing.

As stated above, a competition is a mutually agreed upon contest. Therefore, the “no first strike” concept does not apply. Even if a person thinks the concept does apply, the person only needs to let the opponent attack first, avoid or block the attack, and then counterattack.

I recently sparred in a tournament and got punched in the chest. I would like to know if such attacks are dangerous.

The condition, commotio cordis, or chaotic heart, first documented in 1876, may result when a person is struck on the chest. In rare cases, light blows to the chest that hit directly over the heart directly can cause it to misfire and stop. Cases have been reported where the blow was caused by a baseball, a cricket ball, a football, a snowball, contact in martial arts, and even as a result of dog jumping onto a child’s chest. Although rare, there have been hundreds of reported cases of death over many decades. Survivors owe their lives to prompt use of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) or the availability and use of a defibrillator to restart the heart. A chest blow may be fatal if aimed directly over the heart and timed to a vulnerable 15 millisecond window during a heartbeat. Research suggests that the blow causes a "spike" in blood pressure that stretches the heart muscle and causes a chemical chain reaction that causes the heart to contract far too early, stopping it mid-cycle. The impact short-circuits electrical impulses that keep the heart beating without causing any physical injury. Hard blows can bruise muscles or cartilage or even bruise or break ribs. Since you had no problem from your chest blow, you should be okay.

I was walking with my girlfriend, when all of the sudden her ex boyfriend came toward me cursing and yelling, and threatening to fight me. I had been training in the martial arts for years but my adrenaline kicked in and my mind was so cloudy that I could not think straight, it was as if I had totally forgotten my training. I felt scared and shaken at the time, but later I was angry because I didn’t think to use my skills. Is there any way for me to learn to control the adrenaline rush that makes me feel so anxious, scared, and nervous?

Experience and training is the answer. The way anyone learns to deal with stressful situations is to have to deal with them on a regular basis. After the first, second, third, and more times that a police officer, fire fighter, EMT, public speaker, doctor, lawyer, etc. has to deal with stressful situations, it seems to them that they will never get used to the dealing with them. However, their ability to deal with them will gradually get better and may even get to be routine—but the fear and anxiety never goes away. If it does, you will become complacent and probably do or not do something that may cause you or someone else to die. Fear is what keeps most people out of trouble. For ordinary people, facing down a threatening person will not occur very often, so they do not get much experience at it, but training for it, such as in the martial arts, will help.

In your case, it appears that a fight did not occur. That may have been because of your martial arts training. Even though you may have felt afraid, your demeanor was probably displaying confidence and the ability to handle the situation. Unless he was hardened criminal, the other guy was probably having to deal with the same bodily reactions that your were. He was counting you cowering in the face of his threats. When you did not, he just kept the verbal threats going for a while and then left. He probably sensed that you would be able to defeat him and it was not in his best interest to pursue the confrontation any further.

When angered, most people do not think, they just act on instinct. After the fact, they are not sure what they did or did not do or why they did or did not do it. When you have a lot of experience with stressful situations, you are able to maintain some rational thought during them, which helps you control them. When you train for these situations, you are training your mind and body to do the right thing instinctively.

I was searching for an insight on the mental aspects of my game, I am a semi pro squash player and have been playing for most of my life, I have read your article on physical or mental regarding Taekwondo, and felt like I could definitely relate to the fighter who is physically better with better technique but loosing to inferior opponents. I did love the article and find it very interesting but the real question I wish to ask is how do you go about increasing your mental abilities? I wish to be able to beat all the inferior opponents but I do not know how to go about increasing my concentration. A push in the right direction would send me over the moon. 

One tip I have on concentration is, “Concentrate on the goal, not the method used to reach the goal.” For example, it you are making putt in golf, concentrate on the hole and the ball going into the hole, not on making the putt itself. Don’t concentrate on the putting method since that will cause you to think about too many factors and cause you to tense your body. The putting itself should happen unconsciously due to your previous intense putting practice. It’s similar to driving a car and having a child run in front of the car. You do not think about braking or how much to brake, you just keep staring at the child and your foot applies the brakes reflexively due to all your experience in braking. Off-road motorcyclists know not to look at obstacles; if they do, they know they will probably hit them. They look where they want to go and let their training take over obstacle avoidance. If you run off the edge of the road with your car, experts tell you to keep looking down the road and let your driving experience steer you back into your lane. If you look where the car is going at the moment (off the road) and concentrate on that, then that is the direction you will probably go.

Therefore, while playing squash, relax and concentrate on where you want the ball to go, not on the methods used to get it there. If you have trained enough, your body will use the right method without your conscious thought.

Counter Reply: Thanks for the tips on concentrating on the goal, but I think I am taking your advice too literally as I can get the ball to go where I want it too every time, that's not the problem, for example if two very good Taekwondo warriors were fighting, one was dominating completely but then would just slack off due to concentrating less and lose the fight due to this lack of concentration, which is pretty much what you described in your physical vs. mental aspects or have I completely got the wrong end of the stick?

For example from my past, I will be 2-0 up and winning easily and all of a sudden, I feel I am not doing anything differently I will loose 3-2. or the other day I was 12-2 down (its up to 15) got back to 13-12 but then still lost even though I should of easily beaten the guy.

I think what I am asking is how do I train to keep my focus/ intense concentration or keep concentrating on the goal because I don't feel I am doing anything different but obviously I am.

Reply: While stationed in Iceland, I was at the gym and a friend pointed out the guy who was the base racquetball champion. He was old, obese, slow, and waddled like a duck when he walked. I found it difficult to believe he could even play. Then one day I saw him playing. While his opponent ran all over the court, he pretty much just stood in one spot. He would hit the ball, waddle over to a new spot, and, if the opponent was able to return the ball, it miraculously came to spot he was standing. He had such knowledge of rebound angles, the possible return options available to the opponent, the skill level of his opponent, etc. that he could instantly compute the odds of where the ball would be at any time, and then go to that spot. He beat youth and physical skill using wisdom.

I once fought a blind black belt in a Judo tournament. I started off feeling sorry for him and not wanting to take advantage of him, but soon found that he could read my mind and anticipate my every move. Sometimes he would call out something like “That left foot sweep will not work!” He was not really reading my mind, but, since in Judo you move around while gripping the opponent’s gi, he was able to feel sight movements I made that told him where my center of balance was located, which foot I intended to move, and thus which technique I was thinking about using. Skeet shooters do not aim at the target. They compute target angle and velocity, wind speed and direction, weather conditions, etc. and then aim to where the target will be when the pellets reach it. Baseball outfielders do not always race to get to catch a ball before it hits the ground, many times they compute all the factors involved with the ball’s trajectory, and then position themselves to wait for the ball to land in their gloves.

My Taekwondo instructor is national sparring champion. When students asked me how to spar against him, I always told them to keep their guard up and not bother to block. If they kept their guard up, it might stop an attack, whereas, if they blocked a perceived attack, they would probably be wrong in their assessment, leave an opening, and then get hit by an unexpected attack. He was a master of deception. By using minute muscle movements, a twist of the head, a shift in his eyes, a slight shift in balance, etc., he could make you react to a perceived attack and then hit you with a totally unexpected attack. As a result, just as did the racquetball player, he did not have to expend much energy during a match.

In any sport, if you can learn to spot and properly interpret unconscious movements made by the opponent that telegraph his intentions, you can be one step ahead of his actions. If you train yourself to make deceptive, minute movements that cause the opponent to make the wrong reactions, you may cause make him be one step behind your actions. When training, instead of trying to beat your opponent, practice reading his intentions and deceiving him about your intentions. You will probably lose a lot of these friendly matches for a while, but you will gradually gain skills that will help you win tournament matches.

If everyone could find the answer to winning, there would no losers. One thing about winning is that it relies on so many unpredictable factors. When you lose, you always wonder what you did wrong. When the opponent loses, he always wonders what he did wrong. Sometimes, the side that wins is not determined by which side did something right or which side did something wrong. Sometimes, the winning side is determined by fate.

Counter Reply: Yea its true about the top racquetball and squash players don't move off the T, and your technique about concentrating on deception instead of trying to win the point maybe be the thing I should try to concentrate on, after writing to you I feel that I start to panic during matches of importance as I tend to win most friendlies I play, and freeze during tournaments.

Also I agree with your final paragraph about winning and loosing, not everyone can be a winner but to be fair I don't mind losing unless I play badly, I don't mind being beaten by a better player but losing to a worse player drives me up the wall.

Thank you again, I will try to concentrate on the deception and see how that goes.

I'm a brown belt in Kuk Sool Won and a Black belt in WTF TKD. I probably would have stuck with KSW if my school never left my city, but unfortunately it did and I began training in TKD. I was at first skeptical about training in WTF TKD due to the hogu and the lack of punches but once I began training I developed a respect as well as "I already started might as well finish" attitude. I noticed that TKD mainly WTF TKD has developed a bad reputation due to the rules of sparring. My question is how can TKD become a respected martial arts and do you think that it is possible for TKD to develop a Kickboxing curriculum similar to how Karate and Wushu has adopted? Basically ITF but with WTF full contact sparring and of course without the hogu. I think Olympic sparring is killing the reputation of TKD and I think it is possible that WTF TKD will be kicked out of the Olympics as a whole, the electronic hogu is not solving the problem. If TKD does not make appearances in events like K-1 WTF will continue to be a joke to non TKD styles. What are your thoughts and how can TKD be fixed?

A principle in psychiatry is that for a person to start healing he must first realize he is ill. For example, an alcoholic must realize he has a problem with alcohol before any healing can be achieved. The leaders of the Korean controlled WTF do not see any problem with the direction they have taken TKD. They have control of TKD in the Olympics, they have control of the schools that teach their version of TKD (and thus control of TKD students), and they are getting rich in the process. In their view, they have no problem that needs fixing.

Traditional TKD is a martial art, not an exhibition fighting sport, as is the MMA or sport TKD. As a martial art, it is concerned with the martial (physical, self-defense, fighting, etc.) and also with the art (mental, emotional, spiritual, metaphysical, etc.). A martial art seeks to develop a student into an all-around good person. Martial art training is a way of life. It is preparing yourself for handling something you hope never occurs. Whereas, fighting sports, including sport TKD, are only concerned with the martial. They only seek to develop good fighters who can win in supervised sporting events while playing by the rules set forth by the sport itself. The rules of each sport are meant to highlight and reward the techniques of the sport itself, to penalize the techniques of any other sport, and to provide the best entertainment to the paid viewers; this is how they survive and make their money. If traditional TKD tries to emulate these fighting sports, it will become a fighting sport and lose its standing as a martial art, as has sport TKD.

I have a shiba inu dog. The shiba is an ancient Japanese breed known in Japan for its toughness and being a keen hunter, aloof, powerful, independent, protective, and dominant. The breed was considered being just one-step above feral. When I got my shiba 14 years ago, the breed had not been in the U.S. long and it still had these attributes, he was peaceable, but not afraid of anything. Now that the breed has become popular in the United States, breeders have changed the breed to make it more marketable. There are now new colors and new standards, and the temperament has been mellowed to that of a common housedog. This is what has happened to TKD. As it became more popular, the leaders saw an opportunity to gain control of its promulgation and to make themselves rich and powerful in the process. To do this, they changed it into a more marketable, watered-down sport.

To find true TKD, you have to go back to its roots and find instructors who teach it out of love for the martial art and not for money, power, and adulation. As for changing sport TKD, that is a waste of time. It would be similar to trying to change party politicians into public officials who serve the will of the people instead of themselves their parties, and their benefactors. Instead of trying to change something that does not want to be changed, such as sport TKD, it is better to start grassroots movement to resurrect and promote TDK as a martial art.

I have been practicing ITF style TKD for about 11 yrs and have become confused with the difference in a couple of kicks. Can you describe the difference between a traditional Hooking kicking, crescent kick and vertical kick, as they all look the same in the encyclopedia of Tae kwon do I have written by Gen. Choi Hong Hi.

The hook kick is a similar to a side thrust kick except the foot and hip move laterally through the target instead of straight into it. In the side thrust kick, the leg chambers, and the heel is thrust directly into the target as the hip rolls over the axis of the leg to add power. In the hook kick, the initial aim is toward the side of the target. As the foot nears that point, the knee bends and pulls the heel back toward the buttocks, which pulls the heel sideways into the target. Simultaneously, the hip pulls the entire leg in the same direction. At the end of the movement, the knee will end up pointing toward the other side of the target. The hip, knee, and foot are all pulled sideways through the target.

In crescent kick, the foot may move from the inside toward the outside or from the outside toward the inside. The kick has two variations: straight leg and snap. In both variations, the foot moves in a circular motion, initially moving from the inside toward the outside or from the outside toward the inside. The hips also move in circular rotation, which means they start moving with the leg and foot, and then must rotate and start moving in the opposite direction as the leg begins circling. At the height of the intended target, the foot and hips start moving horizontally, into and through the target. Then the foot and hips complete their circular and downward movement and the foot returns to the floor. A graph of the motion from the front would resemble the bottom half of an oval; rounded on the sides and flat across the top with the target in the center of the horizontal top line.

In the straight leg version, the kicking leg is kept straight throughout the kick and most all the power comes from hip rotation.

In the snapping version, the leg is bent, and, while most all of the power still comes from hip rotation, a snap kick adds more power. All the motions are the same as with the straight leg version except that instead of a straight leg, knee is bent as in a front kick chamber. As the knee starts moving horizontally through the plane of the target, the leg snaps the foot into and through the target in sort of a front kick where the foot moves sideways instead of straight forward. The straight leg version is similar to a hook punch; it can move around a guard, but it is easy to block and is difficult to control. The snap version is similar to a hooking jab punch; it can move inside a guard, is more difficult to block, and can be controlled as precisely as a punch.

I was never taught a vertical kick and there does not seem to any consensus of opinion as to what it is. Some describe it as sort of a karate side snap kick, some describe it as similar to the rising kick (actually a warm-up exercise instead of a kick) except it is performed to side, and some describe it as a side kick performed straight up (useless except for demonstrations and it requires extreme flexibility).

I wrote to you previously about how your article on servitude hit the nail on the head with regard to my child's martial arts school. With the pressure to learn to teach (it will speed you through your belt ranks is the main reason they give) and the hours they wanted/expected out of them, I felt it important to explore this further. My one son had been focusing on getting his "teaching" rank in order to get into the instructor class, which promised more intense work outs, quicker advancement through the belt ranks, and the promise of personal training for full contact fighting (which is only done with instructors--kind of like the dangling carrot). After making it into the instructor class he discovered that it wasn't what he'd been led to believe, and more and more was asked of him. In fact, he was putting in over 16 hours a week teaching and attending instructor classes, with next to no time focusing on his own belt material. His grades in school suffered and we told the "master" that he would no longer be teaching. The "master" and "grandmaster" were obviously not pleased with this decision, but we told them his schoolwork was more important (jr. in high school). There has certainly been some repercussions as a result of this--he is no longer the "golden child" they used as the shining example of their school, and there is a less "friendly" atmosphere as a result.

After checking labor laws with regard to volunteerism in commercial businesses I found that it is illegal for any "for profit" business to use volunteers for any purpose that keeps them in business. In other words, if the school can't run classes without volunteer instructors/assistants/trainees, then they are in blatant violation of labor codes. I took it a step further and contacted the Department of Labor and spoke to a representative about this. As I explained to him the use of students as instructors (complete control over the running of classes), students as private instructors (one on one instruction with students--the school charges about $30 for each private lesson and the instructor is not paid) and students as teacher assistants, he said this most definitely is a violation of a couple of labor codes. The violation is compounded by the fact that many of these instructors and assistants are minors and further violates child labor laws. I asked if anyone from the Department of Labor had ever checked into this practice (in martial arts schools) and he wasn't aware of it. However, he was definitely interested in investigating this.

I've done some checking into how many martial arts schools are run, and a great many do exactly the same thing! In fact, I've found several websites that go so far as to speak of how students are given the opportunity to "give back" and "learn more" by volunteering as teacher assistants and instructors--they go so far as to say this would look great on a college application. More often than naught, giving back isn't for some non-profit business aspect of the martial arts school, but for the school itself and the owners.

Just wanted to let you know that your article really got me thinking--the martial arts school that my sons have attended all these years and I've recommended to so many isn't what I thought. It is a cult that really has no interest in making my sons black belts unless they "give back and give back and give more." I see things through a whole new light now, and see how much they expect and are given by so many of the students in hopes of attaining that black belt. In fact, a teen was recently awarded another belt rank (same level as my son's) even though he tested with a torn ACL and couldn't compare in physical ability as my son at his testing. It is now very obvious that there are exceptions made when it comes to belt advancement when the student in question gives countless hours to teaching. He knows the forms, but can't perform them at the level expected of all others, but hey, he works hard teaching for us. He can tell you how to do it, but don't ask him to demonstrate.

I'd be interested in your opinion about the violation of labor codes as you believe they apply to martial arts schools.

There are two issues here: the volunteerism issue, and an idiot instructor.

If done correctly, an instructor program can be useful to the student and the school, and be legal. The school I attend has an instructor program. Students wanting to become instructors may assist instructors in classes as often as they want to, and they are needed. This allows the students to see if instructing is what they really want to do, and allows the head instructor to see if the students have instructor potential.

Minor students who proceed in the instructor program may test locally to become trainee instructors. After a few years of experience and meeting national requirements, they may test nationally to become junior certified instructors. Once they are at least age 16, they may be hired as employees or they may teach occasionally in return for free tuition. Minor trainees are always under the direct supervision of an adult instructor. The head instructor talks to all parents regularly and minor students with disciplinary or school problems are counseled and, if they do not improve, they are either suspended until they improve, or they are dropped from training or the instructor program.

Adult students, age 18 and over, who proceed in the instructor program may test locally to become certified instructors. After a few years of experience and meeting national requirements, they may test nationally to become senior certified instructors. They may be hired as employees or they may teach occasionally in return for free tuition.

Some students, whether in an instructor program or not, become obsessed with the martial arts to the point that other parts of their lives suffer. I have had students and readers who have questioned whether to pursue the martial arts, or an education. I tell them first to achieve the highest level of education they may attain, while keeping the martial arts as a sport or hobby, and then, if still interested in a martial arts career, they will be better prepared to pursue it. Very few are able to make a living in the martial arts; look at how many successful martial art schools there are in your city compared to any other types of businesses.

My primary problem with any instructor program is the same one I have with the rank structure. Minors should not be afforded the same benefits as adults. A minor student or instructor of any rank should always be subordinate to an adult of any rank. A minor instructor should never instruct students that are older than the instructor.

Any businesses, including martial arts schools, that violate labor laws, should be pursued by the agencies responsible for enforcement of the laws. Martial art schools have little to no local, state, or federal governing regulations except those that apply to any type of businesses. They do not have to be licensed as martial art schools, there are no governmental organizations charged with overseeing their operation, and there are no nationally recognized professional organizations that govern their ethics.

Regrettably, there are idiots, frauds, and even crooks in every profession, be they doctors, lawyers, professors, or even Presidents. Your son’s grandmaster and master (nuts seldom fall far from the tree) appear to be couple of the idiots in the martial arts profession.

Sir, I wanted to point out two facts in reference to your article “Horizontal vs. Vertical Fist”. You said,  “Therefore, boxers are always seeking ways to prevent hand injuries, and they train to develop the most powerful punches. They pay trainers thousands of dollars to find and train them in the best punching techniques. This being the case, why don’t boxers use the “safer” “more powerful” vertical punches, since they are permitted within the rules of boxing.”    

If you look into the history of boxing you will find that in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s most (not all) bare-knuckle fighters used a vertical punch. John Lawrence Sullivan, the last heavyweight champion of bare-knuckle boxing under the London Prize Ring rules used a vertical fist.    

In addition, I would ask you to read Donald Walkers 1840 text "Defensive Exercises", the illustrations clearly show and the words describe a vertical fist. You can read a scanned copy on-line at: http://www.angelfire.com/alt/wma/Walker/You can find a list of other manuals from the 1700 to the 1900's based on bare knuckle boxing that show a vertical fist being used:http://stickgrappler.tripod.com/wma/onlineboxman.html    
In modern times, many people who study and actually have had full contact fist fights use a vertical fist, Bruce Lee was one of them. I am another. I personally think there are tot many variables to say which provides more power, but I know from my actual street fights that you are less likely (only less likely) to hurt your wrist and hand with a vertical punch. I have seen many a knuckles broken on the human forehead. I have seen many wrists buckle under the force of a punch hitting a body    

Why did they use a vertical punch?  Because punching with a vertical fist provides for two things – fewer places in the arm for energy to “get lost” (like a bent elbow or wrist), and more protection for the arm as a whole and the fist. More kinetic energy is realized as force, and is distributed evenly across the fist. (This is what they say)    

The reason why modern boxers don’t use a vertical fist to punch?  Because the benefits of punching with a vertical fist are neutralized when wearing gloves. The hand is already protected. Blows can be thrown with more power because they have the increased energy of momentum behind them, as well as the weight of the gloves themselves. Gloves can weigh anywhere from 8 to 20 ounces, which is significant when adding power to a punch. Additionally, because boxers needn’t worry about breaking their fists, they can afford to throw with increased power.    

Second, you said.  “I have never seen or heard of any professional boxer or fighter who uses any soft martial art techniques in the ring.”    Both Judo and Jujitsu are “soft” style martial arts and both are used in MMA. I personally don't think any martial arts technique is "soft", but that is a matter of definition.

Thank you for your well thought out reply to my article. I have to decipher most emails to figure out what the writer is even talking about.

While there are certainly a few vertical punch proponents around today, they are far outnumbered by the horizontal punchers. Just because something is old or different does not make it the best thing to do. I once had a poll on my TKDTutor web site that asked which type of punching, vertical or horizontal, readers used, and the horizontal punchers won 90% to 10% (but then most of the web site viewers were probably Taekwondo practitioners).

The article already describes the vertical punch as it was used in the early years of boxing, but I added links to the two references you provided.

As explained in the article, horizontal punching is natural to humans. If told to hold their arms up in front of their bodies, most people will hold their arms up with their hands in a horizontal position; this is the natural position. It takes conscious thought and physical effort to rotate the hands and hold them in a vertical position.

Animals, as well as humans, may be taught to perform unnatural actions, such as elephants standing on their front legs, dogs “shaking hands,” or martial artists using unnatural body positions. If a person trains enough in any style of fighting, he or she will become proficient in fighting in that style, but that does not mean that style of fighting is the most effective or the most efficient. A good high school wrestler could win a fight with any average person, but that does not mean high school wrestling is an effective and efficient fighting system. I wouldn’t want to get punched by a tennis pro who has used his arm to swing a tennis racket for hours a day for years. In TKDTutor, I criticize many of the techniques taught in Taekwondo as being archaic and useless other than for their historical value.

Anecdotal evidence of the effectiveness of vertical punching does not mean that it is indeed effective. For every story about how it works, a story may be found about how it does not work. I don’t know of any reputable scientific study that has looked into the differences in effectiveness between the two punching methods. Barring that, all that is left is to use science, logic, and reasoning to judge their effectiveness. Knuckles will break if the fist is not closed tightly and its hits an non peneratable object with too much force, no matter whether the fist is held vertical or horizontal. While punching, either vertical or horizontal, if the wrist is not locked, it may buckle even when the striking force of the punch is relatively light.

I’m confuse by your saying that the vertical fist has more power since it provides fewer places in the arm for energy to “get lost”, while you also say that, due to the use of gloves, boxers needn’t worry about breaking their fists so they can afford to throw horizontal fist punches with more power than vertical punchers. First, you say the vertical punch has more power than the horizontal punch, and then you say that boxers can punch more powerfully with than horizontal punch than with the vertical punch. Whether the fist is vertical or horizontal has little to do with the possibility of injury to the fist, as long as the fist is held tight with the thumb tightly folded outside the fist.

Any power advantage gained from the mass of gloves would be the same for both vertical and horizontal punchers. Boxing gloves are primarily revenue builders; hand wraps do more for protecting the hands from serious injury than do the gloves. Hand wraps help hold all the fragile hand bones in place and pad the knuckles. Without gloves, there would be very little increase in hand injuries. Boxing gloves lessen the chances for cuts to opponents’ heads, which lessens the amount of blood flow in a match, which makes boxing more palatable to the public, which increases revenue for all involved. Gloves, by lessening outward injuries to heads, allow fighters to fight more often, which increases revenue. With the advent of gloves, boxing became a mainline, highly profitable, spectator sport. However, gloves allow a boxer to receive more punches to the head before becoming incapacitated, which means his or her brain gets rattled more times in a fight than it would in a bare-fisted fight. This means that many long–time boxers develop brain injuries latter in life, i.e. punch drunk.

Soft martial art techniques include using deflecting soft blocks rather than using hard blocks that stop an attack. I never see MMA fighters using deflecting blocks. I rarely see them block at all, like boxers, they usually bob and weave and slip attacks, or get hit. Soft martial art techniques include stepping to the side to avoid an attack and then using soft attacks such as wristlocks, wrist and arm leverage throws, or pressure point attacks, as used in Aikido. I never see MMA fighters using these techniques. MMA is basically just punches to the head, kicks to the thighs, knees to the head or body, and a few arm and leg locks or chokes and strangles that lead to submissions.

You are right that Jujutsu may be considered a soft style due to its use of locks, bars, chokes, and pins, so I modified my statement in the article to include Jujitsu. However, MMA style fighting was created to highlight the Brazilian version of Jujitsu and the rules are biased toward the use of Brazilian Jujitsu techniques, just as Taekwondo tournaments are biased toward Taekwondo techniques.

Kano created Judo as a sport and it is still a sport. It has roots in Jujitsu, but, while certain aspects of it may be used in self-defense or fighting, it is still a sport. Just because a MMA fighter has trained in Judo and sometimes takes an opponent to the mat, it does make the throwing technique a Judo technique.

I agree with your statement that all martial arts are basically hard. While Judo (the gentle way) is a soft art, since it uses no punches, kicks, or blocks, there is nothing soft about being thrown to the mat and having an opponent of equal weight land on you.

I enjoyed discussing the subject with you.

Reader Counter Reply:

As for the Vertical vs. Horizontal fist debate, I suppose we will have to agree to disagree. However, I just can't let it go without clarifying some of my ambiguous comments. I don’t want my main point to get lost in all the verbiage. My only point was this. You implied that because boxers don't use a vertical punch it stands to reason that it is no better than a horizontal punch. That sounds reasonable to me since punching is a boxer’s profession. I was pointing out that in fact when boxers fought bare knuckles most boxers did use a vertical punch. It was only after gloves were added to the sport that horizontal punching became the norm. To show this I included links to boxing manuals from that time. Following your reasoning in the article, I would assume that there was a reason for that? Can you tell me why they punched vertical before gloves and horizontal after? Is it because those old guys who just did not figure it out? My belief is that it was to protect the bare hand and wrist (based on my experience, with bare knuckle fights) what do you think the reason is? I'm not saying it is good because it is old, but punching bare knuckled was their profession, why would they do it vertically? Lastly I just want to clarify; I conceded that personally I do not think it is possible to say which is more powerful. There are too many variables in a given situation. I was only giving the "standard" explanation that Bruce Lee, and others give. That is that less energy is lost through the elbow with a vertical punch. (Again, I won't say that because it depends on to many angles, movements, positions bla, bla, bla...)

My Reply: Why did early boxers use vertical punches instead of horizontal punches? One reason was because they were taught to punch that way. People naturally punch with a horizontal fist; they have to be taught to punch vertically.

Who taught the early boxers the vertical punch? They were taught by trainers who were taught to use the vertical punch by their instructors. Just as in the martial arts today, students perform and believe as they are told to by their instructors? In addition, just as today, there were charlatans, frauds, and pseudo-masters around in the 1800’s. People who wanted to feel important, so they proclaimed themselves experts at a new way of doing something that did not need changing, and, and according to them, a way that was better than the traditional way of doing things.

Another reason the used vertical punches was because early boxing was a gentleman’s sport to be performed in a gentlemanly manner. If you did not box in the prescribed manner, you were ostracized, so all boxers fought in the prescribed manner. In addition to vertical punching, early boxers stood upright with their heads held high, they rarely blocked or used bobbing and weaving, they used very little footwork, they trained very little, they smoked a lot, and they partied and got drunk before fights. If the vertical punch as their great innovation, it was certainly the only one.

Even if every boxer in the world used vertical punches in the 1800’s, it still does not mean much. You and I were taught that there were nine planets, Pluto being the smallest. That was the consensus of the experts in astronomy for decades. Now we are told that there are only eight planets, and that, while Pluto exists, it not really a planet. So, is Pluto is still a planet because science books of years past say it is, or do we accept the science of today. If you look around the world today, people are doing all sorts of stupid things and believing all kinds of weird, illogical, and unreasonable things, just because everyone else is doing it or because some “expert” said it was the right thing to believe. People either want to fit in or be different; there is little original thought. Most people are sheep and regrettably, there are few shepherds to protect them from wolves or themselves.

When people try to rationalize their beliefs, they tend to pick and choose what they feel supports their beliefs and reject anything that does not support their beliefs. Police investigators search for and present facts, no matter if they help the prosecution, or the defense. When analyzing any martial art’s way of doing things, we should look at all the facts, ones that prove the martial art’s contentions as well as those that disprove them, and then draw conclusions based upon the gathered facts and current science, not just believe what some proponent of the martial art says.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder; people perceive the same thing in different ways, which is why eyewitness testimony is so unreliable. People also tend see what they want to see. Ancient two-dimensional images on temple, vases, etc. (depicted in a flat “South Park” style) of two warriors facing each other with their arms up may be perceived as two friends about to hug, two dancers, two happy soldiers, or two opponents ready to fight. Since some of the images appear to be have vertical fists, some vertical punches see these images as proof that vertical punching had ancient roots, not that it was simply the way the artist depicted hands. Some modern sculptors find it difficult to sculpt realistic looking hands, so they hide the hands of their statues behind something. Some future civilization may unearth these sculptures and conclude that people of our time did not have hands, or had deformed hands that we always hid.

When it applies to the martial arts, I always say, “If it works for you, then use it.” I once had a student who performed a round/roundhouse kick without ever turning his support foot. While I usually train people to rotate the support foot to add power to the kick, since he could bend a punching bag in half with the kick, I did not bother to correct his technique; it was obvious he did not need to rotate his foot. While the benefits of horizontal punching far outnumber and benefits of vertical punching, I would not try to convert a vertical puncher who was effective at vertical punching. While I primarily teach new students how to use their natural horizontal punch more effectively and efficiently, after they become proficient at horizontal punching, I will also show them the vertical punch, since there may be an occasion to use it.

The medical profession has precept known as Primum non nocere, Latin for "First, not to harm." As a martial arts instructor, I also use the precept “First, do not harm” when teaching new students. A student who naive to fighting who walks in the school door already instinctively knows how to punch horizontally. If he turns around and immediately walk out the door and is attacked, he will at least know now to instinctively punch and defend himself. If he stays until the end of class, and then is attacked after walking out the door, I don’t want to have taught him something that might cause him more harm than may have occurred without my instruction. If I taught him to ignore his instincts and force himself to punch vertically, and he was attacked as he walked out the door, he would not yet be effective at vertical punching and would probably use some hybrid punch that would be ineffective, meaning that my instruction had done him harm. I don’t think students should be taught vertical punching as a primary weapon; it should only be taught as a specialty weapon, such as the knife hand or hammer fist, to be used in special circumstances.

How can a cinder block be made easier to break for a demonstration?　 I have heard of different ways, but much is basically "cooking" / "drying" the cinder block in an oven.　 If this is true, what temperature is used and usually for how long? Thank you for any help you can give me in this topic.

Bricks and cinder blocks are relatively easy to break since, as with most martial arts breaking, they are broken by exploiting their weakness, not their strengths. The strength of bricks and blocks come from their compression strength when stacked. They are not intended to be supported at the ends while having force applied to the midpoint of the span. Bricks and blocks gain strength from their aggregate, not from their base material. Bricks contain sand, cinder blocks contain cinder (smaller in size than sand), and concrete may contain anything from sand, to gravel, to rebar.

I don’t know of anything to use to weaken a cinder block except for maybe drying it. However, blocks are dried at the time they are made so there is very little moisture in them. The drying of a block relies more on the drying time than on the drying temperature. To dry a block, use a relatively low heat oven, maybe 130 degrees, and cook the block for hours or even days. Any gain in ease of breaking is probably more in the mind of the breaker than it is based in fact. If the breaker thinks the block will be easier to break, it will be.

I believe that colored belt ranks should not be given out in "Mixed Martial Art systems" that are flourishing and growing today. My system is a highbred system as many out there but we have a kata system that has a lot of traditional roots in it. Some of these mixed Martial Art systems that are cropping up have absolutely no foundation of tradition in them, they are a mix of various Martial Arts systems with no philosophy. I know some MMA teachers out there might disagree with me but I personally feel MMA is not an art..its a blend of combat fighting systems and the colored belt ranks represent "an art based upon some tradition" and should stay out of MMA systems...your opinion?

I used to watch MMA on TV but it became boring. There are few martial artists but it is mostly standing street brawling or ground and pound with some grappling. They called it mixed martial arts, but the only art used is ground jiujutsu; not much of a mix when you only have one art. Since the Gracie clan was apart of the creation of original UFC, there was never much emphasis on standing; the rules were tailored to ground fighting.

I agree that MMA is not a martial art in that it has no art, just the martial. There is no “way;” there is only fighting. From what I have seen, supposed black belts in karate and Taekwondo, have completely forgotten their previous training. There are no techniques or individual styles, they just swing and see if it hits something. I’m also not for them using a belt ranking system, but since most all “martial arts” around today use them, I guess it really does not matter. Today, anything that is related to fighting is called a martial art. No one remembers that in the original martial arts, fighting was there, but it was secondary to the development of character, integrity, etc. Traditional martial artist were trained killers, but they were good people. Now the martial arts are just sports pursued for fitness or just for something else to try. The rank system now is similar to public schools; if you come to class regularly and try, you will be promoted to the next grade (don’t want to harm the student’s self-esteem). About the only traditional hardcore martial art schools around now are classical karate schools and they are few and far between; hardcore TKD schools are even harder to find. Nowadays, people do not want to make martial arts training a way of life, they just want to try it for a while, get a “black belt,” and then move on to the next fad.

The term “martial arts” has become a generic term for anything remotely related to fighting, and the value of rank system has deteriorated until it is similar to service stripes on navy enlisted uniforms, where, if you stay out of trouble, you automatically get one every four years. Since traditional martial arts have lost control of the term “martial arts,” they need to adopt a new term that separates them from the morass of “modern” styles and highlights their uniqueness.

I was quite interested in your article about volunteers being used as teachers/service providers, etc. in martial arts schools. My two children attend a school that relies on "volunteer" teachers to run the school. The school claims that you are not "required" to teach, but it encourages it in order to "really learn" the martial art. They institute a teacher training program at the age of 13 for anyone above a certain belt rank. You have to put in approximately 400 hours if you start the training in your early belt ranks as you are not a full teacher until you reach the blue belt rank (which is a little more than half way through the belt system). For some that can be about 5 years. My sons were "encouraged" to be part of the trainee program and we have allowed them to do so. However, we now see how the school "uses" them for just about everything--from cleaning the school, participating in demonstrations to promote the school, assisting in teaching of classes, having "private" students (usually 4-6 year olds in lower belt ranks). All this amounts to less time for their own belt material as they spend so much of it "voluntarily assisting."  

The "carrot dangling from the stick" that encourages the students to participate in this "volunteerism" is that if you assist for 6 hours a week you get 6 hours of special training from the Grandmaster and the Master. You can't attend these special 3 hour sessions (twice at week) unless you've put in your time to get to a full instructor (in essence, you give and we give back). The carrot for my oldest child is the chance to be trained for full contact fighting (which is not part of the normal training). As it turns out, they won't train him because he is not old enough.

I was wondering if you could tell me if there has been any government intervention with regarding to this type of practice being a violation of the FLSA (Fair Labor Standards) or Child Labor Laws. The law specifically speaks to commercial businesses being prohibited from using volunteers as employees. If one reviews the "trainee" section of the Act, these schools are still violating the law. Do you know of anything that has established precedent with regard to the legality of this use of students?

I understand your problem. Becoming an instructor is always promoted as the next step for a worthy student, while in effect; it is just a way to get free labor. Most students never pursue a teaching career in the martial arts as adults, so, even though there are some life lessons to be learned from the experience, it is a usually waste of time for most students. Students stay with a martial art because they enjoy the training. However, once they start teaching, they rarely get to train in the art and the fun stops. It is best to train, have fun, and perfect your skills while young, and then, if still interested, pursue teaching once you are an adult.

Thanks for the information about the FLSA (Fair Labor Standards Act), I have not considered it before, but, due to your email, I will do some research and add my findings to the website. I am now busy trying to complete the TaskMaster martial art school management software application, but I will add this task to my to-do list.

Why do we rotate the wrist at the end of middle inner forearm block? I know it helps with power but how/why?

A block may be used to deflect or stop an attack, and, when used to stop an attack, the block may also be used as a counterattack. A defecting block simply pushes and redirects the attack away from its intended target. To stop an attack, the block gets between the attack and the target and takes the blow instead of a letting the blow strike its target. To use a block as a counterattack, the block must not only deflect or stop the attack; it must also damage the attacking body part.

When using the inner forearm block, you are actually turning the body to avoid the attack and using the block as an additional measure to prevent the attack from reaching its target. The block may simply deflect the attack with a push, or it may use the power in the upper arm and shoulder to intercept and stop the attack. When stopping the attack, the forearm must absorb all the energy of the attack, which means it is being struck by the attack. This can hurt and may do damage to the forearm, especially if the block is against a shin during a roundhouse kick attack.

When something small and light is struck by something larger and more massive, the smaller object usually receives the most damage. To counter this, the smaller object must be moving a greater velocity than the larger object. The problem with the inner forearm block is that the upper arm and shoulder move relatively slowly. To increase the velocity and thus increase the striking force of the forearm, we must quickly rotate and snap the forearm into the attacking object. The striking side of the forearm is now moving a much greater velocity than without the rotation. The snap also help us to focus the power of the block into a single point in space instead of applying the force equally throughout the block’s movement. Now, instead of being struck, the forearm is doing the striking.

Have you ever saw two people accidently bump heads while playing? It causes pain in both people, but usually one is in tremendous pain while the other is simply rubbing a sore spot. The difference is in which head did the striking and which was struck. Usually, the two heads do not strike each other equally, one is moving faster and than the other so it is the one that strikes the other head. The striking head usually receives less damage. When executing the inner forearm block, if you snap rotate the forearm, tense the entire body at impact, and rotate the mass of the body into the strike, the attacking limb will receive the most damage.

I started my martial arts training in old-school Okinawan karate where we practiced blocking where you and your opponent did identical full-power blocks against each others arms. In the beginning, you went home with both sides of your forearms red and bruised, but after a few weeks, they toughened and became weapons. Because of this early training, during years in Taekwondo I have been criticized by instructors for blocking too hard and hurting opponents. I always questioned how I could be hurting them since I was not attacking. My attacks were always precise and focused, so they did no damage. When my opponents attacked, I blocked to prevent the attacks from striking. If it hurt the attackers,  it was because they were using a powerful attack. It they wanted to avoid the pain, all they had to do was not attack, or use weaker attacks. My hard blocks made opponents reconsider their attacks. I have always told students that you can win a fight without ever attacking the opponent if you use powerful, hard blocks.

I am a 3rd Degree black belt in Taekwondo and regularly break both wood and concrete. I have a few questions that I wonder if you or another might know the answer to?

Question 1. When stacking concrete slabs with spacers, how much force does it take to break the first and, is the same force required for each succeeding slab in the stack?

Question 2. Also, I keep hearing people speak of striking and then immediately retracting the striking hand (foot) to limit its contact time and ability to reabsorb the energy.  This seems counter-intuitive to me since when you power break stacks of concrete you make a deliberate effort to involve not only your whole body mass, but also to drive all the force through your target (and only stop after all has broken). Can you explain these two seemingly different approaches to contact time?

Question 3. With this in mind, might we suggest that the concrete is broken both from the shock-wave of energy and from the ensuing mass that follows - or is there no such thing as kinetic energy being transferred without continual contact time on the target?

First, breaking concrete is not the same as striking an opponent. Breaking is a training tool (or at least that was its original intention; now it is just entertainment); just as lifting weights is a training tool. As training tools, they add to your striking power, but there is little correlation between any training tool and the actual action that they train, which in this case is striking another human. Lifting weights will add to your strength and mass, which will increase your striking force, but it does not training your actual striking technique. Breaking trains certain aspects of striking technique, for example, in punching, it trains you in maintaining proper hand shape, locking your wrist straight, and transferring the force of your mass into the target. However, breaking only trains you to break inanimate objects, which is not the same as hurting or injuring an animate object.

Answer to Question 1: Assuming all the concrete slabs are identical in size, consistency, and density, and there are spacers between the slabs (which means you are actually breaking each slab separately) then the same amount of force will be required to break each slab. This means that, in the breaking motion, you must maintain the amount of force needed to break the first slab as you hit each succeeding slab. When you are no longer able to maintain this force at a slab, it will not break.

Answer to Question 2: As stated above, breaking inanimate object is not the same striking a human body. You are not trying to injure boards, you are trying to break them; since boards do not feel pain, merely striking them accomplishes nothing. A strike that does not crack or weaken the board accomplishes nothing, other than teaching the striker a valuable session. Breaking boards, or slabs, requires you to bend them until their structural integrity fails and they break; striking a person can cause pain and devastating injury without breaking anything.  

If you break a stack of eleven 2-inch thick slabs with quarter-inch high spacers between them (a total of about 24 inches high), it means you were able to maintain the amount of force required to break one slab over a 24-inch distance. It does not mean you were able to generate the amount of force required to break one 22-inch thick slab. If you could generate this much force, it would only need to be maintained for less than a one-inch distance.

Breaking eleven slabs with spacers between them means there were eleven separate impacts, each requiring a equal unit of impact force. Breaking one 22-inch slabs require one impact requiring approximately 11 times the impact force required in each impact of the stacked break. Since humans are one piece, not separate parts with spacers, striking a person with the stacked force impact would result in some injury and then push the person backward; while striking the person with the second impact force would cause massive injury but little backward movement.

As the old saying states, “boards don’t fight back.” You can take the time and effort required to punch through a board and you can throw your entire body into the technique since the board will not be avoiding, blocking, or counterattacking. If the break fails, you have time to regroup and prepare yourself for the next attempt. When the target fights back, such as when striking a human opponent, if you use the same striking technique you use to break boards when you attack the opponent, if the first attack fails, you will leave yourself vulnerable to counterattacks and may never get a opportunity to attack again.

If your watch boxing, you hear the commentators talking about how a fighter is losing the fight because he keeps “going for the knockout.” The fighter is concentrating on making powerful, follow-through, mass-committing punches, which take too much time and energy, usually miss the target, and leave the fighter vulnerable; while the opponent is using short, quick, snappy punches that hit their targets and cause pain and cumulative injury, which usually leads to the fighter winning the fight.

Take the example of a side kick to the opponent’s midsection. If you try to kick through the person, there will be an initial impact force that does some damage, but any additional force is used to merely push the person backward, which causes little to no additional damage. If the kick is a snap kick that penetrates only a few inches, delivers its initial massive force, and then retracts before it has an opportunity to absorb the rebounding force from the target, then the target will receive the maximum force of kick, you will conserve energy, you will be able to regain your guard position quickly in case the kick misses it target and you are counterattacked, and you will be able to attack quickly again.

As a fighter, sometimes, you want an attack to push the opponent backward. For example, you may want to push the opponent into a range that permits you follow-up with a more powerful attack. However, pushing attacks should be avoided since they use up precious time and energy and may leave you vulnerable.

Answer to Question 3: This question has been covered by the above discussions.

I hope this has helped you understand the difference between breaking and striking a person.

I have been training in ITF Taekwondo for 4 years now and I'm a red belt but I'm struggling to keep going on as I don't know if taekwondo is for me. My instructor is really good but I have been getting told for all the time I have been there that I am too tense and need to relax. Also I'm not a fan of free sparring but I understand it is part of the training. Should I maybe move onto try something else or should I try and fight through?

Being tense and not relaxing is problem for many martial artists; actually, it is a problem in all sports. Ever noticed how you are able to kick and punch for 30 minutes during class exercises and not get winded, but after 3 minutes of sparring you are wasted, even though you used only a few kicks and punches. The controlling factor is whether you are relaxed or tense. The best fighters seem unconcerned while fighting; they actually seem bored. Instead of tensing and concentrating on the opponent, they just relax and let their trained reflexestake over.

You do not think about applying the brakes when a child runs in front of your car, it just happens. You have performed the braking motion so many times that your body has developed “muscle memory” and it responds unconsciously. To be relaxed while performing the martial arts, you have to have performed the motions thousands of times. An old saying in karate is that “to know a pattern, you must perform it a thousand times.” It is not that you gain some great insight from performing it this many times, it just that the movements become as natural as breathing.

When sparring, the moment the referee says “fight,” many students stiffen and move around similar to robots. Again, repetition helps; the more you spar, the easier it gets. When attacking, the entire body should be relaxed throughout the movement of the attack, then the entire body tenses for the split second of impact to transfer energy into the target, and then the entire body relaxes again as the attacking limb retracts.

One thing I have found that works is to practice on a punching bag. Play some good exercise music and start moving around while concentrating on keeping the entire body loose and relaxed similar to a rag doll. Exaggerate your movements and try to stay super relaxed. Then, periodically, throw a punch or kick, while still trying to remain relaxed. When doing this sort of training, it best to be alone, since you will look silly in your movements.

Breathing is also important in staying relaxed. As you know, once you get winded, you tense and become defensive instead of attacking. To breathe properly, breathe deeply, slowly, and rhythmically, in through the nose, out through the mouth, using the diaphragm. One way to judge your breathing is to watch your abdomen. When breathing correctly, when you inhale, the abdomen should swell outward as the diaphragm drops and draws air into the lungs; the chest will expand atomically to accommodate the extra volume of air. As you exhale, the abdomen should pull inward as the diaphragm rises to expel air from the lungs. When told to take a deep breath, most people suck in their abdomen and expand their chest, the opposite of the way the system works. The intercostals muscles between the ribs were not designed to be the controlling factor in breathing, they merely assist.

Many people hate their jobs and want to change, but once they have been with a company for a few years and have built up seniority, like the boss, and feel a part of the company and its people, they are hesitant to leave. The same is true for a martial art, the longer you train in an art, the more difficult it is to change to a different art. For most arts, no matter your previous rank in another art, you must start at white belt level with them, so the higher a person’s rank, the more the person is reluctant to change arts. You are at a point in your training where you need to commit; either stay with TKD or try another art. It may be good to try some trial classes in some other arts to see if one better suits you. To get better at TKD, you must commit to it and train daily; not necessarily in class, you may also train at home. The trick is to train everyday; it does not have to be a lot, ten minutes here and there will add up. I work at my computer all day every day. Most days I don’t feel like a long work out, so I have developed a routine where, every time get up to urinate, which is often at my age, on the way back to the desk I do at least ten minutes of sparring on the bag. It relaxes me and, over the span of a day, it adds up to a lot of training.

Another secret is that, when not performing a skill, think about performing the skill; how you would move around, the proper movements involved in performing a kick, etc. Performing a skill is best but research has shown that thinking about performing a skill increases the skill level more than not thinking about the skill or not performing the skill.

I am a martial arts instructor. Recently I was looking for a place that offered a master's degree in martial science and I came across your website. I found it very interesting and informative but also somewhat offensive.

The section on your site about accredited colleges was a big eye opener. I never knew anything about the difference between regionally accredited and distance learning. But thanks to you now I do and it was just in time because I am a former student of the American College of Martial Science. Although your website painted a somewhat different picture than what I went through there. Instead of dishing out large sums of money and handing in a couple of certificates and a resume, I was required to do similar things that a regular college would require. For instance, I had to send in a copy of my high school diploma, high school transcripts, college transcripts, an admissions form, and even a financial aid form. In addition, as the prerequisite you were required to have already taken English and Math college courses. The credits were $80 and you had to take certain classes to receive your degree, like Korean History. However, after I had received my associates from them they began to change into your description. The website would change almost every week and the prices and courses dropped but I still thought I had an accredited degree until I went to your site and began reading. I don't think he was trying to rip people off I think he was just trying to offer something that wasn't available he really is a nice guy that loves martial arts. I thank you very much you saved me before I wasted more time looking for a school like this.   

Now I did have one problem with your site and I'm sure you know what it is since I told you I went to American College of Martial Science. Yes, the pseudo-master part was the only thing I found offensive. Not so much towards myself but to people who have never learned martial arts and are going by your website.   

For instance, if I go by your description of a pseudo-master I definitely fit the bill. I love to talk about my old training days, I've been inducted into several hall of fame's, I've got the unaccredited degree, I'm in dozens of organizations, I have pictures with just about all the people you see in black belt, and I'm a fifth degree black belt in numerous styles.  

But on the other hand depending on what style I'm teaching I wear a simple uniform with one or two patches. I'm recognize by my peers in all of my organizations. I can jog the mile in seven minutes even though I'm overweight and have medical problem. But if you were to ask any of my students who, are mostly adults they would tell you I'm in really good shape and that I need to slow down because I'm pushing myself too hard. Something that may be really different from your average pseudo-master is that I don't own a actual building to teach from and majority of my students I teach for free and give them everything from the boards they break to some of the equipment they wear. And last but not least you can find all of my instructors with the exception of three because they have closed down there schools and stopped teaching.  

So I would like to know based on the information I've given you do you consider me a pseudo-master or my mentor and former instructor XXX and if so why. Because I need to be able to explain to my students who read your website why you consider me to be this "pseudo-master.”  

Good to hear you got out of the fraudulent martial arts degree program before you lost too much money. I think the ACMS is now defunct.

I recently did some checking up on a reader's “master;" she had some questions about the validity of his claims and credentials. He had a PhD in the martial arts and his rank was issued by an “international” organization.  The organization's web site only listed a phone number and a post office box number for an address. I did I reverse lookup on the phone number and used Google Maps to trace the organization to an apartment in a tiny town (500 population) in Ohio. Using Google Maps street view, I could see the town was just crossroads with old buildings and no major business. Apparently, the “master” operated this international organization, and it’s accompanying Hall of Fame, from a computer in his apartment. The "master" had a PhD from the same university as the reader’s instructor. I found that the “university” that issued the degrees was operated by this same “master” from his apartment.

Snakes give birth to snakes, just as pseudo-masters give birth to other pseudo-masters. A snake may tell you he or she is not really a snake, but that does not change the fact that his parents were snakes so he is snake whether he likes it or not. Master rank issued by a pseudo-master makes the recipient a pseudo-master, not matter the good intentions of the recipient.

Here is a link to an example of a martial arts “soke” that belongs to a multitude of organizations, groups, hall of fame, etc. Does he really think true martial artists believe in or are impressed by all this bull? All is it shows is that this is a nobody with an inferiority complex who thinks he is important because he has certificates from a bunch of phony organizations. The way I see it, if a person has rank issued by a well-established, well-known, well-respected organization, why would he need to pay to get more rank from a multitude of other shady organizations.

I’m not a believer in black belts in multiple arts, unless the arts are not related, such as Taekwondo and Judo. Taekwondo does not use any of the techniques that Judo uses, and vice versa. It is similar to playing baseball and basketball; both are team sports that use a ball but they little else in common; therefore, one may play both sports and not get the two mixed up.

Taekwondo and Judo are so different that in a Taekwondo class, throws never enter the dual practitioner’s mind, and, in Judo class, he never even accidentally kicks or punches the opponent. In a street attack, the dual practitioner would instinctively use Taekwondo techniques against a striking attack, but would revert to Judo if grabbed. However, if a person is a practicing black belt in, say, Taekwondo and Aikido, there is a problem. Taekwondo stresses linear, powerful, hand and foot strikes, and hard blocks, whereas Aikido stresses circular deflection and avoidance techniques,  and uses soft blocks, locks, and few strikes. When he trains in the individual arts, the dual practitioner may be able to keep the two arts separate, but during a surprise street attack, which art will he use instinctively?

After training to be forceful in one class, and then training to be yielding in another class, which art would the practitioner use instinctively? He would probably use some ineffective combination of the two. In addition, how does a person be an expert in, and fundamentally believe in, differing approaches to the same thing. If one believes linear, hard techniques are best, how may the person also profess to believe that circular, soft techniques are best? It’s similar to a person saying he believes in and practices both Christianity and Buddhism.

Since there is so much to learn in their professions, doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc. specialize in one field of their profession. Whereas, martial artists seem to be able to become masters in numerous fields (styles) of their profession. Either they are highly intelligent, super athletes, or it must be relatively simple to get master certifications. With the advent of the Internet, master certifications are easier to get than a driver’s license.

I watched So You Think You Can Dance on television this summer. The winner was a street dancer with no formal dance training who did astonishing acrobatic tricks and normally danced in the Popping style. Each week, along with all the publicity appearances, he had to learn new two new dance styles he had never done before that included long, highly choreographed sequences, as well as a long group dance routine where everyone had to be synchronized in their movements. With his abilities, in a couple of weeks of training, he could perfectly perform all the techniques and forms required in any martial art. Does this mean he should be awarded a black belt in these arts? That is what happens in many cases of multiple ranks; the assumption being that if you a “master” in one art you deserve to be a master in another art, without going through the decades of dedicated training and service to the art. Steve Lopez is a multiple Olympic gold medal winner in Taekwondo, and yet he not considered a master, while some ordinary person in a strip mall has master certifications in multiple arts. Humility is certainly not a character trait practiced by many martial artists.

Some people do what they do and are very good at doing it, but they do it without fanfare; whereas, others constantly feel the need to be “recognized” by some new group or organization. I am a retired Navy master chief so I have talked with many military warriors. Most of the greatest warriors are unknown to the public; they just did their duty as a warrior because it was the right thing to do, not for any fanfare; they don't think they deserve any special notice. However, there are others, such as Senator McCain, who milk “doing their duty” for every drop of recognition they can get. If you do not know what they have done, they will tell you—over and over and over.

As to your specific question as to whether I consider you a pseudo-master, I don’t have enough information to make that call. As you stated in your email, you do exhibit some of the characteristics I describe as those I think are indicative of a pseudo-master, but that does not necessarily mean I would consider you one. I also exhibit some of those characteristics but I am not a pseudo-master, but then I am not a master nor do I claim to be a master.

Since there are no universally accepts standards in the martial arts, defining what constitutes a master or a pseudo-master is difficult, and finding definitions that would please even a simple majority of martial artists would probably be impossible, but I attempted to create a definition. If your question is, “how many of my indicators of a pseudo-master does it take before a person could be classified a pseudo-master,” there is no set number, it the totality of the person's experiences, training, beliefs, and what he says and does and the consistencies or inconsistencies between what he says and what he does that help determine the final call.

While in the Navy, I would have sailors as me if I thought they needed a haircut; I always answered “yes.” The sailors would say, “But you didn’t even look at my hair.” I would answer, “A good sailor gets a haircut when he needs one, and he knows when he needs one; he doesn’t need verification. So if you are asking me if you need a haircut, it must mean that someone has told you to get a haircut and you are trying to find a master chief to disagree with them so you can avoid getting one. So I don’t have to look at your hair to know that you must need a haircut; if you didn’t need a haircut, you would not be asking me.” When people ask me if I think they are right in what they are doing, it usually means they have some doubt as to whether what they are doing is right wrong and are seeking verification. That doubt may or may not be justified, but their need for verification should give them cause to reconsider what they are doing.

If you love your martial art and you enjoy teaching others to love it, then you should be happy with that. I put martial art information online for free and I design martial art school management software and provide it to small school instructors for free. I do it because the martial arts are my passion; I have made my living in other ways. From your email, it seems that you are the same way, you teach the martial arts because it is your passion, not as a vocation.

Since you have accomplished so much in the martial arts, why do you want a degree in the martial arts, especially since it is useless in real world? After he quit college to create Microsoft, Bill Gates did not go back to college to get a degree; he too was already at the top of his game and didn’t need it. It would be more advantageous for you to get a degree from an accredited college or university in a major that will help you achieve even greater things in life.

When a reader asks me about the validity of his or her martial art or instructor, I tell him or her that if his or her instructor:

- Teaches what they want to learn.

- Is a good teacher.

- as a teaching style that suits their learning style.

- Has a personality that suits their personality.

- Belongs to an organization whose benefits are reasonable considering the cost.

- Has a reasonable tuition considering what is offered.

- Is upfront about the art he or she teaches, such as:

- I only teach what I know, which may or may not be very much.

Here is what my martial art is—its purpose, its philosophy, and what it attempts to achieve. Other arts may differ with min in their purpose or philosophy but this does not mean my art is better or worse than theirs, it just means we have differing ways of achieving the same purpose. However, there are frauds and rip-offs of which you should be aware.

Here is what my martial art is—its purpose, its philosophy, and what it attempts to achieve. Other arts may differ with min in their purpose or philosophy but this does not mean my art is better or worse than theirs, it just means we have differing ways of achieving the same purpose. However, there are frauds and rip-offs of which you should be aware.

There are martial art technicians and martial art teachers. Although some may be both, it is not required that they be both. Some of the greatest coaches in world cannot do what they are able to teach others to do and some of the greatest athletes cannot teach anyone what they do.

There is no “world” rank sanctioning body, so anyone can issue and certify rank, and there are no laws governing the issuance of martial art rank. Therefore, although your rank will be honored in this school and in any other school in our organization, if you go to a school in another organization, the rank you receive here may or may not be accepted, or it may even be even considered worthless.

The techniques you learn here may or may not work for you in an actual self-defense situation.

Here is what belonging to this school will cost you: tuition; required equipment costs; required uniform and patch costs; total cost (not just entry fees) to attend required seminars, camps, or tournaments; cost to belong to the organization, cost for rank tests, etc.

Here is the school contract and what its terms really mean.

If your goal is to compete at the World or Olympic level, our organization is or is not recognized by these governing organizations.

and, as long as he or she are aware of:

- what the martial arts really are and what they may accomplish;

- what is fact and fiction in the martial arts;

- how the ranking process works;

- that, as in other things, there are phonies, charlatans, and crooks in the martial arts;

- that there are people who, due to intelligence, education, or physiological problems, actually believe the drivel they are teaching;

- and, they are happy with their instructors and their martial arts, then they should just enjoy their training and what it offers, regardless of what others say, myself included.

I consider my mission in the martial arts is to educate others about the martial arts and point out illogic, flawed reasoning, inconsistencies, incomplete truths, and untruths, where I see them so they may make the right martial art choices for themselves. With some facts and a little digging, they should be able to determine for themselves who is really a creditable master and who is a pseudo-master.

I really liked my martial arts school but I've start college in another city. I really wanted to get my black belt from that school but it is now too far away. There is no martial art school in my style in my new city. Some of my friends tell me I need to focus on my college.  Others tell me I should try another martial art style. I don't want to lose what I've learned. What do you suggest?

Your formal education comes first. Until it is completed, the martial arts should just be a sideline that you use to relax and have fun, just as with other sports or hobbies. Few people make much money in the martial arts; it is more an avocation than it is a vocation. Once you have the education and an established career, then you can pursue the martial arts again.

Black belt is a goal all martial art students want to achieve, but, as with other goals, the pursuit of the goal is more meaningful than actually reaching the goal. While in pursuit of a goal, the goal seems to be a great thing to achieve, but once you reach it, you usually find that it is just a another step in life. I had a career in the Navy. In the Navy, new recruits look up to chief petty officers and wish they could be one and have all the benefits of the rank. However, one doesn't suddenly become a chief; it is along arduous path to become a chief. Along the path, you have to achieve each rank leading up to chief, so, by the time you make chief, it is really just one rank up from where you were. There is still some glory and satisfaction in the promotion, but it not what you thought it would be when you first thought about it years before in boot camp.

Having a black belt is personally satisfying but it is pretty much useless on a resume unless you want to be a school owner. How difficult can it be to get a black belt? Everyone has seen even young children wearing black belts. Your first concern should be to prepare for, and achieve, what will be the career that will sustain you and your family for a lifetime; then you can pursue sidelines.

What do you do about the martial arts while in school? You can drop formal training and train on your own until you get the degree or you may cross-train by trying a different style of martial art until you finish school. The university probably has someone teaching some type of martial art on campus.

How would like to spend two years of college having the same teacher, in every class, every day. You probably would think you were not getting a proper education. The same is true in the martial arts; a martial arts instructor can only teach what he or she knows. If you have many different instructors, you can learn what each knows.

Make getting the degree your priority, then, with whatever time is left; you can devote some of it to the martial arts.

Are you familiar with or have you heard of a martial arts organization known as XXX? They are the home of the "XXX Hall of Fame", do you know the requirements or criteria for getting inducted, and is this hall of fame legit? This information is not available on their web site, and they will only give out the information via direct phone contact. They also claim to be able to award dan promotions pending a review of their "upgrade review board”, can they do this? I thought promotions in dan were only done through the organizations that originally issued them (aka...Kukkiwon, WTF, ITF, ATA etc...) Do dan promotions given by the XXX now compromise the validity of instructors promoted through the XXX? Do you know of a way that I can check to see if an instructor was promoted through their review board but do it anonymously?

It is always good to be skeptical, especially when related to the martial arts and all the martial art “masters.”

1. Never heard of the XXX, but then a new one appears or disappears every day on the Internet.

2. There are as many “hall of fames” as there are organizations. The only “halls of fame” that might be considered legitimate are the independent ones, such as those maintained by martial art magazines. In addition, one should not have to pay to be inducted into a hall of fame.

3. Anyone can award rank. There are no local, national or international laws governing it. If people are dumb enough to send their money, they can get certified by any group.

4. A snake gives birth to baby snakes that grow up and give birth to more baby snakes. A snake may tell you he or she is not really a snake, but that does not change the fact that he or she is a snake. If you have rank issued by a well-established, well-known, and well-respected organization, why would you want your rank “recognized” by some other dippy organization.

5. These organizations are usually operated from someone’s home computer. There is no national office. You can see if the person in question is listed on the Alliance web site as a board member or one of their “doctors.” The reason for secrecy is because there is something about you that you do not want anyone to know about, usually because it will compromise your status in some way. Those who conceal where and how they got their rank must be ashamed of it.

The design and construction of the XXX web site is very simple for this to be a major national and international organization. The site looks as if it was done on a home computer. The web sites of major organizations, such as the WTF, ITF, ATA, etc., are professionally done. Everything in the XXX operates through a box number, no physical address is ever given, even in the registration of their domain name.

As stated on their web site “Rank is a valuable tool of our trade. As you are aware there are many instructors that give themselves whatever rank or pay big money to mail order organizations to obtain a rank or belt of their choice. This happens daily!” Odd that they would start out by telling you to be careful of organizations such as theirs.

As stated on the web site “We agree it should not be this way. However, there is nothing like authenticity!! That's us, the XXX. We do not grant rank to anyone! Each candidate must meet certain requirements before we will authorize rank. Our International Advisory Board Members must all agree before ranks are bestowed.” Sounds as if Bill Clinton wrote this; they say they do not “grant” rank to anyone, they “bestow” it. Must be really difficult to get “bestowed” rank (ha!) since “all” board members must agree, There must be a lot of board members since any 5th degree and above ranks they “bestow” are automatically made board members.

As stated on the web site “All 5th degrees and higher automatically placed on our National Review Board. 8th degrees and higher are automatically placed on our International Review Board. Be aware: The information you provide regarding your background and training will be researched and verified.” Therefore, this means that they bestow high rank on applicants and then automatically make the applicants board members that can bestow rank on others. From what I can find on the site, they charge a $30 application fee. How much research and verification is going to take place for $30?

The XXX President, ZZZ and other board members call themselves doctors, but there doctorates are awarded by the “University of YYY,” a “recognition program” operated by ZZZ . ZZZ also operates the “VVV" another rip-off organization. One of the XXX ’s international board members is Jack Stern. Do an Internet search to read about him; he is a convicted fraud.

I used reverse phone number lookup on the organization's phone number and found it was registered to XXX. A Google Maps search found the address is in a run-down apartment complex in a town with population about 500, in the middle of nowhere.

Read more topics in the fraud section of TKDTuor.com for more information on fraudulent organizations, pseudo-masters, and sokes. Keep up your skepticism, it will serve your well.

Counter Reply:

You gave me quite a bit of good information last week. For that I would like to say thank you. I was hoping to pick your brain one more time, as my own searches have come up empty. I have been learning Taekwondo for the past few years with the same instructor, Master MMM. He has been a great instructor and has done a lot for the community and at risk kids. However, I am having trouble verifying some of the credentials on his bio. My initial searches led me to the organization called XXX...hence my first e-mail to you. Master MMM claims that he is the creator of a martial art called RRR (and we do belt in RRR  as well as Taekwondo), and that RRR  is recognized by the "Council of LLL". I cannot find a Council of LLL anywhere on the web nor can I find any martial arts council that both recognizes or grants sokeships and that Master MMM is listed. Are you as skeptical as I am about that claim and how do I verify it?

My Reply:

As you are discovering, martial styles and ranks are a conglomeration of some fact, lots of hype, and many outright lies. “Official” certifying organizations appear and disappear every day. You pay to get a high rank certificate or a PhD from one of these phony organizations, use those to get more rank from another one, use it to get a soke from another one, etc. Some people have good martial art techniques and/or are good teachers and they are satisfied with that. Others do not have the intelligence or skills to be successful at anything else in life, so they create their own arts to build their egos. Once they create the first lie, it seems to escalate, and they create more and more lies to support it. Most grow to believe their own lies. Some are genuinely idiots, and truly believe that all their phony certificates and made up resumes are real.

It is odd that people never seem to invent new martial art. They always take the “best” from other arts, give the collection a name, and presto, they have founded a “new” martial art. However, the martial arts are not the only places things similar to this occur. Yoga and its poses have been around for centuries, but “new” versions keep appearing. Birkram Yoga (hot yoga) is a series of 26 poses that are done in a 105-degree room. Although the poses are the same ones used in any other types of yoga, Bikram Choudury copyrighted the order in which the 26 poses are done and thus no one can teach them in this order without paying for training and a getting a franchise from him.

Championships are also a time a dozen. There are probably a hundred “national” and “international” tournaments all over the country every weekend. Take the organization I train with, Taekwondo America. At their tournaments, both regional and local, there are about 1000 competitors. Within a specific division, for example, 20-30 year old first degree black belt women, there may be 50 competitors. To get the tournament completed in a reasonable time, they break the division into groups of 10 to 12 competitors and send each group to a ring to compete. Within each group, trophies are awarded. So within that that division, there may be three or four 1st place trophies awarded. This is great for business, but it does not mean a 1st place trophy winner was the best in the division at the tournament. However, for the rest of their lives, the competitors will brag about their first place trophies in a national tournament.

Good luck in your quest to find the truth about your instructor. You appear to be a wise woman with a lot of healthy skepticism, but with all the interlocking phony organizations, it is nearly impossible to verify anything. If you probe too deeply, the instructor will just tell you to leave the school, and then he will just continue as he has before.

As I tell people, find a martial art that serves your purpose; find an instructor in the art that seems to be proficient, is not a kook, is a good teacher, and whose personality fit yours; find a school that is close by, reasonably priced, and does not have an organization that rips you off; and then just be content in your training. Your art and rank may be meaningless outside your school or town, but if it serves your purpose, you are happy. Just do not expect anyone else to respect the art or the rank.

I don’t agree completely with my instructor or his organization, but overall they serve my purpose more than any others in my area do, so I stay with them. Over the years, I grown to accept some of their philosophies and way of doing things, and they have grown to accept some of mine. However, if they ever appeared to be defrauding me or others, I would just leave.

Do you think competition is a good thing in martial arts?

Nowadays, the term martial art includes anything remotely related to fighting or self-defense. People participate in martial arts for various reasons, such as self-defense, physical fitness, training in a traditional martial art, to try the latest fad, competition, etc. Some martial arts specialize in competition, such as Olympic style Taekwondo and MMA.

If a martial art specializes in completion style fighting, then competition is good for the art and the competitors. Competition is not good for a martial art that specializes in self-defense since any type of competition would water-down the art. To be effective at self-defense, one must train in self-defense techniques and at acquiring a will to do what needs to be done, not matter how distasteful. As for traditional martial arts, competition poses a dilemma. Some arts view it as helpful; some view it as harmful; and some view it as a necessary evil.

If one enjoys competition, then I see no problem with it as long as the person does not confuse competition, including MMA, with reality. Too many people think just because they are good at competition, they will be effective when attacked on the street where there are no rules. When attacked on the street, one reacts instinctively as he or she has trained. If the person has trained to fight by the rules, he or she will react by the rules. I am traditionalist; I say that to be a warrior, you must train as a warrior.

At our most recent testing we had a first degree black belt testing for his second degree. He is a teenager (16 years old) and a good student, but he has had attitude problems in the past. At the testing , after he had already said he was not going to promote the student, our instructor took me and two other large, male, adult students aside and ask us to use very heavy contact with this student to attempt to make him loose control during sparring. I did as I was asked and thankfully, nobody was injured! The student did not lose control, but he sparred 8 rounds of heavy contact, and then when he didn’t fall apart, he sparred 3 rounds of two on one, also with heavy contact. Our current instructor is also 17 years old, is friends with this student at school, and has a problems with the instructor/student relationship. I’m not an angry dog, to be set upon whom ever my instructor wants to send a message to. When is heavy contact appropriate during testing and to what lengths is it appropriate to test a student’s self-control? (Jun 2008)

Instructors are a reflection of their instructors; they do as they have seen their instructor or fellow instructors do. As a general rule, bad instructors breed bad instructors and good instructors breed good instructors.

The organization I belong to has an instructor training program of sorts but the only thing that really insures any teaching standards is the required instructor certification seminar; but it is only held for a few hours every 3 years. As a result, for the most part, instructors are self-taught; they learn though experience.

Experience come from doing something for a long time. Therefore, the younger the person is, the less the experience and the less capability as an instructor.

Overall, the quality of martial art instructor training has been shaky for decades. When a school starts up, the owner teaches all day every day. After a few years of nonstop teaching, school owners want a break so they began cultivating instructors. Adult students already have their own professions, and for those who enjoy teaching, they usually do not have the time to commit to it. This means that many instructors tend to be teenagers. This is a problem since teenagers are immature and inexperienced.

Of course, there are always exceptions, but for the most part, teenagers make poor instructors, especially of adults. I discuss the problem of awarding black belts to children and having children instructors in more detail in TKDTutor.com. We say that children are not responsible enough to be held accountable for their own actions legally, and yet we allow them to teaching fighting arts to other children. In general, the practice has lowered the credibility and integrity of the martial arts.

As to the student and instructor in your question, if the student had behaved inappropriately in the past, he should not have been awarded a black belt to begin with, and he certainly should have not been allowed to test this time. Of course, this means that the school would lose revenue.

I am from the old school of martial arts training, which means I learned to punch and kick with full-power and full-extension, but while using precise control and focus. I punch and kick, very hard but I do not hit the opponent, however, if the opponent blocks, he may hurt himself. In tournaments, I have been warned many, many times about excessive force even though I do not hit the person. When the opponent blocks an attack, the impact makes a lot of noise and sometimes knocks him down so I am warned even though it is not my fault. The opponent does not have to block. If he does not block at all, he may lose the match, but he will not get hurt.

Sometimes my instructor wants me to work a student hard, usually when he is training for a high rank testing. This does not mean he wants me to use heavier contact; it means he wants me step up the frequency and power of the attacks. Even though the student does not get hurt, he does tend to get overwhelmed and frustrated, especially when grandpa is whipping his butt. Some break and turn their backs to the attacks and occasionally some lose control or get angry. This is what the instructor was looking for, not to see how the student handles pain but to see how he handles adversity.

There are some traditional martial arts that use full-contact. If a person wants to do this type of martial art, they can, but most people want to reap the benefits of a martial art without much risk of injury. Unless a student has trained in and is expecting heavy contact, it should not be used.

In Won Hyo, Joong Gun and Hwa Rang, what do each of the starting positions signify or represent? 

I have never read nor heard of any special significance being attributed to the hand positions used in these ready stances. Most of the Chang-hon patterns were adopted from karate, primarily Shotokan, and I have never read nor heard of any karate styles attributing any special significance to the hand positions.

Ready stances are just that, they are stances that position you to be prepared for an attack from any direction, usually while appearing non-combative. Not everything done in the martial arts has a special significance. Many things are done a certain way because they are the most effective way of doing it, because they have “always been done that way,” or because someone just wanted to do things differently from the way other martial arts do things.

Humans are a strange species. They seek to feel important, special, and needed. Some attempt to do this by making themselves “experts” at totally useless things, such as speaking Klingon or knowing useless trivia. Some try to attribute some mystical meaning to every martial art movement or attribute it to some animal movement, but most things are simply what they are; a punch is just fist strike and stance is just a way to stand.

Your instructors or your organization should be able to tell you if they attribute any special significance to the ready stances. If so, then it is “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”

I have seen some brick breaking where the fractioned uses a large number of bricks, but only breaks the bottom one (the technique used is usually something like a downward palm). People have given me explanations that it is "energy projection" but I don't really buy it. I personally do not have much experience with brick breaking, so could you offer a possible physical explanation for this phenomenon? The practitioner has demonstrated that he can break the same amount of bricks all the way through (meaning, breaking through all of them, not just the bottom one). I have noticed a trend in using large (but ultimately long and thin proportionally) bricks for breaking. I guess it does look pretty impressive, but breaking a short, fat brick is probably a lot more difficult than breaking a longer one of the same mass. I am new to breaking and could use some guidance.

Actually, since I am a student of traditional Taekwondo, I have more of a connection with karate than I do with modern Taekwondo. Given the path that modern Taekwondo has taken (commercialized sport), if I had it to do over again, I would have probably stayed in karate. There are no traditional Taekwondo schools in my city/county, so I train at a school that comes the closest.

I haven’t researched the physics behind selected breaking, but I am sure there is a scientific explanation. Like all other supposed mystical things in the martial arts, I am sure this one is also just a stunt. As you have noticed, long and/or thin is always easier to break than short and/or thick. Ever see the demo where assistants break 2x4 boards over various parts of the “masters” body. The boards a always long and impact at the center of the board’s length. You do not see them trying the same thing with a baseball bat length board.

Selective breaking demos always use brittle, manmade objects One reason is probably because pliable, natural objects, such as wood, have numerous unpredictable factors that affect their breakability, whereas, manmade materials are consistent throughout and thus their breakability is predictable. It is also possible that objects are specially selected for certain characteristics, are placed in a particular way, or are pretreated in some way.

Extreme breaking is for entertainment; it has little beneficial value. Power breakers train for breaking and wowing the audience; that is their forte. However, basic breaking does have its benefits. Breaking gives students self-confidence, when it is successful, and encourages them to improve, when it is unsuccessful. It teaches students to use perfect technique since imperfection, such as punching with a limp wrist, can be painful. Breaking gives students direct feedback as to their power and perfection of technique.

Students testing for rank in our organization must break. I have seen many students satisfactorily complete all the other requirements but not complete all the required breaks, and thus fail the test and have to try again at the next testing. One woman, testing for 1st degree black belt, tested seven times before completing all her breaks. When she finally passed the test, the crowd when wild. At subsequent tests, she had no problem with the breaking.

Breaking is easy; it is more a mental exercise than a physical one. If the brain can get the body to perform as required, the target will break. Hit the target dead center, especially when using plastic re-breakable boards. Do not make practice attempts, just set up everything properly, and perform the break. Relax, do not try to punch or kick more powerfully; when you do, it causes your timing and body position to change, and the speed of the technique will be decreased. As you move, fully chamber the technique and execute it quickly, firing all muscles in sequence toward the target. Use perfect form with full extension, rotate the hips for power, and push from the floor upward and into the technique. Impact the target with perfect hand or foot shape and position, while using a powerful kiai from your lower abdomen. Focus everything into a point in space that is just behind the target, not on the surface. Do not concentrate on the target; pretend it is not there. Just perform a perfect technique to a point in space and the then snap the technique back instantly and re-chamber it before returning to your fighting stance.

Some questions

Is your website a complete resource site for all the patterns (kata) that exist in Taekwondo? As you may have noticed, it is difficult to find much real information about the martial arts, or anything else, online without paying for it. Periodically, I surf the net looking for new information or ideas, but as I once saw in a cartoon, “I think I have reached the end of the Internet.” Most sites are school sites or retail sites that are promoting their businesses rather than offering information. What little they do offer is usually just the same basic things seen on any site. Books usually are just collections of photographs showing basic techniques with a few words printed in a large font on pages with wide, side margins. Most books and website take a single thought and then expound on it for pages and pages. It is similar to reading a high school term paper where there is a one-sentence original thought and then pages of fluff. I look through all kinds of resources looking things that may be related to the martial arts in some way and then present them in TKDTutor.com in a straight-forward manner with a skeptical-eye.  I have never found a site that offers as much as TKDTutor.com offers.

Is TKDTutor a complete resource for all TKD patterns? No, and there is probably no site that does. I list a lot of the various TKD pattern sets, but I specialize in the Chonji /Changhon pattern set. Even those patterns have been changed by different organizations. Everyone wants their 15 minutes of glory so they “reinvent” a pattern or a martial art and then claim it to be new and innovative. When in Rome do as the Romans do. Whatever art or organization you are specializing in at the time; concentrate on perfecting its patterns.

What is the significant difference between ITF VS. WTF?. I write more about this in various areas of TKDTUtor.com Basically, the difference is a power struggle between two politically motivated organizations; each claiming to be the true representative of TKD. The WTF is Korean controlled, uses a different pattern set, and has changed its version of TKD to a crowd-pleasing Olympic sport. In an effort to nationalize TKD and make it unique, they made it kicking art where the competitors look similar to river dancers, only moving their feet with their arms hanging at their sides. The ITF stays more with the traditional roots of TKD and is more international in that it is not controlled by one country, but it as it own power struggles and weird ideas.

How professional or reliable is the Action International Martial Arts Association, as created by found Hee Il Cho? I don’t know much about the AIMAA. One thing you will find is that many organizations exist only to make the founders rich, give them more power, and increase their egos. Students are merely sheep to fleece in every way possible. Students get little to no return for their time and money.

Do you recommend any resources for home-study of Taekwondo such as textbooks, books, DVDs, etc?. If in need, would you go to a doctor or lawyer who was home-trained? Home-training  is the same as what is commonly known as homework; it something you do in addition to your formal  training; not in place of formal training. You need a skilled, watchful eye observing you to point out problems before they become engrained. Ever notice all the weight benches, treadmills, etc, setting unused in basements and garages. All the owner’s originally thought they could train at home just as well as they could in a gym but they found that without the motivation of a paying a fee and having an instructor push them, and being around liked minded people, they quickly lost interest in home training. Use home training and resources to enhance your training and check facts, but use formal training to increase your skills.

During my last enrollment in a WTF dojang (2003 to 2005), we were asked to pay for Belt testing fees, separately from the monthly tuition. Is this common? Most every martial art class, club, or school will have testing fees in addition to tuition fees. The question should be how much is the testing fee. Some schools and organizations use the natural quest for rank and recognition as way to rip-off students by charging outrageous testing fees. You have to visit many schools to find one that best suits all your needs. Sometimes you just have to settle for a school that comes closest to suiting your needs. Independent classes taught in gyms, community centers, colleges, etc. usually have the least fees, but there are pro and cons to any choice. If a school owner is teaching full-time as a business, he or she has to make a reasonable profit. Some part-time instructors teach for free. Sometimes you get what you pay for, other times you do not.

Is the Sine-Wave theory a new science exclusive only to ITF Taekwondo or is it common in any other martial art? The sine-wave theory is mostly unique to the ITF. I discuss the bogus science used in the theory in more detail in TKDTutor.com. The sine-wave movement is unnatural and a waste of time and energy.

In TKDTutor.com, I write a lot about what constitutes a good martial art, instructor, school, and organization. It is good that you want to choose carefully before committing you time, energy, and money to one. It is difficult to change once you have committed many years to one. I wish you well in you quest.

I have to do a project for school and I was wondering if you could help me out? I need to design a speed, agility, and quickness program (off-season) for a full contact fighter who trains 6 days per week. I'm just designing the speed, agility, and quickness part. Not weight training, boxing, and the practices of his art of choice.

One method fighters practice is using their peripheral vision to detect attacks since peripheral allows one to detect movement quicker than does direct vision. Detecting movement this way requires no training, it’s just the way our eyes work. However, precisely reacting to the movement with the hands does take training.

An aspect of reaction speed is separating the movement of the hands from the foveal, or central, focus of the eyes. We tend to look at what we move our hands toward. If you have to re-center your vision after each movement, you react slower since you are doing two eye movements to react to an attack instead of one.

Although I haven’t tried it, one method used to train the hands to work with peripheral vision is to hang two strings parallel, a little more than shoulder width apart, and then hang wood, spring-action, clothes pins randomly along each string. You then walk between the strings with your eyes defocused straight ahead toward the far distance. As you walk between the strings, you try to unclip as many pins as you can from the stings without moving your eyes from the center focus.

I was wondering if you could help me by clarifying what exactly is the first and fourth move in Yul Gok, as written by Gen Choi Hong Hi? On every English written site on the internet, we are told to 'extend the arm'. Is this a checking block? or a measure? or something else, also after executing move 3, when you bring your legs together do you leave the arm extended or bring your hands back into a 'chunbi' type position? The translated encyclopedia of TKD written by General Choi does not specify what the move is either. Do you know where I could get an original copy of the description of pattern Yul Gok?

Good question. I like students who ask why rather than just doing something for no logical reason.

I have some original Taekwondo reference books. Here is what they say about Yul-Kok:

- Hi, Choi Hong. (1965). Taekwondo: The Art of Self-Defense. Seoul: Daeha Publication Company. The first edition of the Hi’s first book. Hi says to extend the arm but he gives no reason why to do so. During the transition from movement 3 to 4, Hi does not say to leave the punch extended but he also does not say to retract it. He says to transition by moving the left foot to the right foot with no return to chunbi.

- Rhee, Jhoon. (1971). Won-Hyo and Yul-Kok of Tae Kwon Do Hyung. Los Angeles, California: Ohara Publications. Rhee is known as the Father of American Taekwondo. Rhee says to extend the arm in a slow middle punch. During the transition from movement 3 to 4, Rhee shows the left punch kept extended as the feet are brought together with no return to chunbi

- Haun, B. S. (1975). Taekwondo, Singapore: Russ International. Haun says to extend the arm but he gives no reason why to do so. During the transition from movements 3 to 4, he shows the left punch remaining extended as the left foot moves beside the right foot with no return to chunbi.

- Too, Jimmy. (1975). The Techniques of Taekwondo. Singapore: Bushido Publishers. Too says to extend the arm but he gives no reason why to do so. During the transition from movement 3 to 4, Too does not say whether to leave the left punch extended or not and he does he show what the transition stance should be.

Patterns have many uses, they:

- Act as an reference to help preserve techniques.

- Help students learn to perform perfect stances.

- Help students move between stances while performing techniques.

- Teach focus.

- Present the artistic side of a martial art. For this reason, some movements serve no useful purpose other than to make the pattern look better, to highlight the precise performance of a technique, to help the student move more gracefully during movements, to help set up for the next movement so the movements will flow more artistically, to give a follow-up technique more power by the chambering the opposite hand, or sometimes a movement is used just because the author thought the movement was cool. I have never heard of any movement in a Taekwondo pattern being used to measure the opponent, and, even if a technique was used for this purpose, it would not be done in slow motion.

I just signed up for Tae Kwon Do training. Last belt promotion (yellow belt), I was told they now have new color belt system. There are white, yellow, yellow with orange stripe, orange, orange with green strip and so on. Every color belt now added a stripe which means more tests and more promotion fees. I am upset about this sudden change without any notice; moreover, I am feeling my master of Tae Kwon Do is money orientated. Promotion fees used to be $40 dollars and last month he decided to increase to $60 because of inflation. My perceptions are suggesting something is wrong in my Tae Kwon Do studio. I did not even know there is a fee for belt promotion test. I thought just a monthly fee of 80 dollars for 8 sessions per month.

There are three categories of martial art schools:

- Non-profit. These are operated in homes or in schools, colleges, churches, community centers, etc. where there are no overhead costs, such as rent, utilities, etc. The classes may be offered for free or for a nominal cost.

- Part-time for-profit. These may be held in the same places as listed under non-profit, or they may be operated as commercial business. The school owners charge enough to pay the school operating costs, and maybe enough to draw some profit.

- Full-time for-profit. These school owners operate their businesses full-time; therefore, they must charge enough to cover all business expenses with enough profit to furnish them with reasonable salaries to support themselves and their families.

How much a school charges for its services depends upon what services they offer, the quality of those services, and how much the public is willing to pay for those services in the area in which the school is located. If the school you attend is a full-time for profit school, $80 per month tuition and $60 for tests is not unreasonable. Schools that offer such things as saunas, weight rooms, lounges, etc. may charge much more; schools that are operated more as a hobby may charge less.

Adding belts to the rank structure to increases profits seems to be a common occurrence in the martial arts industry; but charging for belt stripes does seem excessive; I do not think this is an industry standard. If the services offered by your school and the costs for those services are in line with those of other schools in your area, then you have nothing to complain about. No matter, the amount of fees charged by a school, these fees should be disclosed to potential students and may be grounds for voiding a school contract.  With some searching, you can always find non-profit or part-time for-profit schools where the quality of instruction is just as good, if not better, than that found in full-time for-profit schools.

If you are displeased with the school and did not sign a contract, find another school. If you signed a contract, read it carefully to see what options you may have. You may choose to suck it up and take advantage of all the services until the contract ends, and then change schools. You could just train without testing; however, the way school curriculums and rank systems are set up, if you do not test for and advance in rank, you will not be taught new things and will just train in the same thing for the remainder of the contract. At worst, you can always cancel the contact and pay whatever amount you agree to pay for cancelation, and then find a new school.

Finding a martial art school is similar to finding a doctor, dentist, car mechanic, plumber, or any other type of service; you shop around for a school with for the best quality of service, with employees you like, and with a price you think is reasonable, and then you stay with the school until one of those things changes enough for you to want to change schools.

Martial art “masters” are nothing special; just as in other professions, they are business people who offer certain services that people may or may not be willing to pay to receive. You do not “worship” your teacher, doctor, or plumber because of his or her skills, you just respect them for what they do, rely on their expert opinion, and pay for the services they offer. There are crooked, fraudulent, and criminal teachers, doctors, plumbers, and martial art schools in the world; be aware of them and avoid them.

I went to a local karate school to train with the USA chief instructor of that organization. What I found was a very dirty dojo without any etiquette at all. In fact, after class they were all drinking beer and smoking inside the dojo! I thought the dojo/dojang was spiritual place where due honor and respect should be maintained?

How much reverence a martial art or one of its schools places upon its training area is a matter of choice. Traditionally, the dojang is a place of honor and is respected as such, but, with the Americanization of the martial arts, Taekwondo included, much of this reverence has been forgotten. However, there is also such a thing as common decency. No reputable yoga class, aerobics class, weight room, Pilate class, or any other type of physical training area permits alcohol drinking, smoking, etc. in or near the training area. Operating a strict dojang is always advantageous to a school, while operating a lax school is always detrimental. A good reputation is difficult to attain, and a bad first impression can never be recalled; looks as if this school lost out on both counts.

Nowadays, being courteous and decent is frowned upon as being old-fashioned; being a jerk is cool. History has shown that the prevalence of social courtesies, as well as the length of hair and hemlines, rises and falls within a society over time. The current deterioration of social graces will bottom out at some point, and common decency and courtesy will again prevail. All we can do is stand for what we know is right and good, and not be influenced by what others think or do, and then, either wait for better times, or do what we can to speed the process.

I came across your web site by accident and got to reading it and was "quite amused" by some of the things you had to write. Although I agree whole heartedly about "some" of the things you had to say about "certificate mills" as there are 100s out there who are quite fraudulent, most likely are not even black belts, live in a trailer etc. "I do not agree" that "all organizations" are money hungry paper mill organizations as you seem to imply!? To name a few: USA Karate Association, AIKIA /World Masters Association which is run by Jerry Beasley who he is a PHD who teaches Martial arts at Radford University in VA, he puts on Karate college every year. Joe Lewis, Bill Wallace, and Renzo Gracie are involved with and support that organization...say no more! These are organizations I belong to ..why.. well the founder of my style died, my teacher moved away and I no one to advance with. I was a well respected 3rd dan who was a top fighter around New England but earned higher grade in rank with the help of these organizations. And believe me it did not cost me to get rank..testing was free..and the first few times I failed and they worked with me to move forward. They also support my students and give them a good sense of credentials. 

This is what I believe and here are also the facts:  I believe that one should look for a teacher who received their Black belt from a Black belt teacher in person who received their Black belt in person from their teacher etc. I got my 1st/2nd/3rd dans from my teacher after 18 yrs of hard training and 10 years of regional competition. However, MOST and I mean 95% of most martial artists in this world got there 2nd- 10th dan grades though correspondence and video demonstrations..that is just a god damned fact of martial art real world life fact!!!  

Most well respected Taekwondo instructors in the northeast and I know MANY got there 4th/5th and 6th dans from other organizations or from a board of people that were not even involved with Taekwondo! I am not saying there is not fraud out there..there is fraud everywhere in everything from used cars to selling toilet paper. Sure there are fraudulent martial artists that pick up credentials from paper mills..I knew at least one in my life and they did not last long...most of them kind usually do not stay in business very long and move onto something else. Its just your "hard line" comments about paper mill organizations and that people need to come from "pure lineage" in person as you sort of imply has just about devaluated 95% of all martial artists in the world including most in Taekwondo!! Hell,  Bruce Lee was self proclaimed..Helio Gracie Self proclaimed and oh the creator of Taekwondo..yup self proclaimed! Unless a teacher comes from a Chinese KungFu Shaloin temple no body in this industry can "claim pure lineage" or that they got their ranks ESPECIALLY the higher ranks from people in their specific style organizations in person. Furthermore credentials are not all about paperwork..how does a person fare in tournaments, how they conduct themselves as a person and finally what does their students say about them..to me that is the biggest piece of credentials one can hold is what their students say. Anyway just food for thought:) In good spirit.

The Certificate Mills topic is about certificate mills. The point of the topic is to define certificate mills, explain how they work, and make people aware of them. The point of the topic is not to explain what a good organization is, or to list some of the good organizations, although I did list what distinguishes a legitimate rank issuing organization from a certificate mill. Organizations are covered in more detail in other topics. The topic states, “Some organizations exist only to issue rank certificates to those who send them money.” It does not say “all organizations.” Your estimate that 95% of the high ranks got their ranks from certificate mills is a much greater number than my “some” implies.\

I am confused! In the topic, I stated that a legitimate rank issuing organization was one that issues rank to students who have been:

- Trained by a certified instructor of the organization.

- Tested in person by a certified instructor, or a group of certified instructors, of the organization.

- Recommended for rank by a certified instructor, or a group of instructors, of the organization as having met or exceeded the organizations requirements for the rank

You state that my stated requirement that legitimate ranks must come from "pure lineage" and in person has just about devaluated 95% of all martial artists. And yet you also state that you believe that one should look for a teacher who received his or her black belt from a black belt teacher in person who received there black belt in person from their teacher, etc. Instead of differing, are you not agreeing with my statement?

There are over 1500 pages of information in TKDTutor.com written over the last ten years. Even I do not remember all that I wrote years ago about a particular subject; however, my basic philosophy has not changed over the years so I can say with reasonable certainty that I did not write certain things. I have not written that all ranks rank must come down from some pure linage. What I have said is that orange trees bear sweet oranges and that lemon trees bears sour lemons. If an instructor is legitimate, any rank he or she awards to students is also legitimate. If an instructor is illegitimate, then all rank issued by him or her is illegitimate. If a person’s rank is from a legitimate linage, the rank is legitimate; if it is from an illegitimate linage, it is illegitimate.

Practically every martial art style began with one person’s ideas. That person developed followers and the art either flourished or it died. Whether it lived or died, was as much a result of its marketing was it a result of its effectiveness as a martial art. Bruce Lee had no controlling organization over JKD. Now there are differing masters who claim linage and to be teaching true JKD. The ITF had a single organization controlled by General Hi. Now that he is dead, there are at least three ITF organizations, each claiming to be the official organization. Most martial arts and martial art organizations are self-serving dynasties. As I have stated in TKDTutor.com, if you have a martial art instructor that satisfies all your needs, then you do not need anything else. Within that instructor’s martial art, school, or organization, you have rank that is accepted by other members and you receive certain privileges within the school or organization according to that rank. If you are happy with the situation, that is all you need! However, this does not mean that another instructor, school, or organization will recognize your rank or accept the philosophy, concepts, beliefs, etc. espoused by your martial art or instructor.

Credentials are testimonials to the validity of something, usually in the form of some written accreditation. In the martial arts, there are no legal requirements for any type of accreditation; therefore, anyone may claim to be anything they want to claim. A person’s marital art credentials may be anything: real, fraudulent, or imaginary. A black belt’s martial art background and linage, character, personality, integrity, education, personal philosophy, physical skills, competitive experience, teaching abilities, likability,  etc. all add to or subtract from his or her creditability, but the person’s credentials are accreditations of these things from person’s or groups that are widely accepted as being legitimate sources for such accreditations. If ones instructor or organization meets all ones needs, that is all the credentials one requires. Just do not expect other to accept that accreditation.

Fighting is not string theory physics; it is very simple; it requires absolutely no training or education. Every person is born knowing how to fight; it is instinctive. A completely untrained person, who thinks he or she is fighting for his or her life, will take bites of flesh from the lips, ears, genitals, etc, claw off sheets of skin, jab eyes, yank out hair, break fingers, etc. and would probably defeat a trained fighter who was not fighting for his or her life, especially since most martial arts techniques do not train to face these types of attacks. No one has ever invented a new way of hand-to-hand fighting; people merely re-label and repackage age-old techniques. Fighting is instinctual; martial arts are merely attempts by people to codify and refine these instincts, make them more palatable to the masses, and permit humans to act on their fighting instincts in a relatively safe manner. We do not more “master” to “found” any more martial arts.

Martial arts are similar to companies. When as new company that offers a new product first opens, all its employees think the product is the greatest thing since sliced bread. As the company markets the product and develops base of customers, if it sells enough of the product, it may decide to go public and sell stock. A novice investor may think this is a great company and buy into its initial public offering. If the company prospers, the value of the investor’s stock will rise; however, if the company folds, the stock will be worthless. It is much the same with martial art instructors, schools, and organizations. If you buy into a new one with all your time, effort, and money, you may prosper if it survives, or you may lose everything if it folds, including the value of your rank. However, if you buy into a well-established company or martial art instructor, school, or organization, your chances of it still being around and relevant decades from now are greatly increased. People who follow some self-proclaimed master may prosper, but the odds are that it will turn out to be a waste of time, effort, and money.

There are good and bad martial arts, instructors, schools, and organizations. All long as people are aware of what constitutes a good or bad martial art, instructor, school, or organization, they may make informed choices as to which to associate themselves.

Counter reply from reader:

Thank you for some of your explanations back. I use to write columns for one of the Martial art completion organizations I use to compete in so I like dialog/debate and also like to set the record straight when I feel necessary. In writing to you the other night being late after a long day of work and training I might not have been "clear" on what I was trying to explain. I will recap in a more simple text:

What I was reading into your "certificate mill article" was that there are organizations out there that are a little less than credible, want your money, have no real background or credentials behind them etc. and people should be leery to get involved with these organizations...this "I whole heartedly agree with" and there should be something said about some of these organizations on the net! Maybe since you have a web sight you could expose some of these organizations (I would be glad to assist you). I do not claim to be an expert but I have studied "quite extensively" for the past several yrs the growing internet "shopping Mall" of organizations that have appeared online and feel I have done my part locally and regionally to inform people (Martial Art dojos/perspective students etc) about some of these organizations. I am as close to an expert if one exists as I feel the world is running rampant with black belt video exams, teachers who are less than qualified, and mixed martial art systems giving out colored ranks.

I have written columns about some of these subjects and at some point would like to put some stuff I have learned and researched online, maybe you would be interested in being that vehicle since you have already spoken some of the topics described...

However, where I disagree and want to give you some food for thought is you seem to imply that "legitimate credentials" of black belts/instructors got their dan grades "in person" from "an organization that they trained in.” Then you made a point about video exams being of less credibility.

I personally feel that "ALL black belts" to be "credible" should have trained with a "real school" (not from a video tape) and got their black belt "in person" from an instructor who got their black belt from a school they were in, in person, etc. I do believe in good lineage as far as one getting their black belt from teacher in person and so on etc. However where I disagree is that a lot of "higher dan ranks" and when I use 95% I am speaking "higher dan grades as a whole" (most would be in the higher grades 5th - 10th) where received through correspondence and sometime through video exam. I would say Most 5th/6th and even 7th dans and above in Taekwondo got there higher dan grades from correspondence or from a martial artist possibly from another style. For an example...a very dear good friend of mine a current 6th dan in Taekwondo, excellent teacher, great competitor, huge school 100 plus students, very well respected all around New England got his 1ST through 3rd dan grades in person from a higher ranking Taekwondo teacher(who knows where his original teacher got his dan grades from?). My friend since he lived several states from his original teacher received his 4th dan in Taekwondo from the president of the Vermont Martial Arts association who was an 8th degree black belt in Shoryn Rue Karate.

My friend in turn got that 5th dan crossed ranked by correspondence to one of the Taekwondo Associations I believe you mentioned in your recommended associations!? 

I myself got my 1ST - 3rd dans in person, my teacher moved and the founder of my system an internationally recognized Asian certified system "USA Karate Jitsu" died. So what was I suppose to do to move up in rank and give my students good credentials beyond my own start a new style? I loved my system..after 18 yrs I was not going anywhere else.

So I "extensively" researched organizations and feel I personally belong to one of the best in the business (AIKIA/World Martial art Masters Association). What I am saying Ron is if you look and research around the country you will find that "higher dan grades" including many in Taekwondo where not given "in person" or necessarily from an organization in "direct teaching lineage.” You have implied this in your paper mill column as a means to look for credentials. This statement could actually offend many in Taekwondo who are well respected teachers! Unless a black belt came from a Chinese Sholin temple(as their credentials are as pure as spring water) the rest of us in the world have credentials that are in the "gray area". Why because somewhere in our lines someone got their credentials through correspondence or someone was self proclaimed in the past 80 yrs. Does that mean we are all invalid and only Chinese Kung Fu is the only valid system out there? Of course not but for those of us not in a Sholin temple other gauges should be used by students looking for a school to learn in. Some of these gauges but not all including should be the teachers integrity, possible tournament record, who gave them their black belt and if there initial black belt "Shodan" was "in person" and who their teacher was etc. Also what possible organizations one belongs to and finally what a teachers students say about them. This is what I feel are the true gauges of determining credentials outside a Sholin Temple!

I am going to send you an additional email about some organizations I have extensively researched (one in particular I belong to and why I do) I have graded these organizations accordingly from "A - F.” It looks like you are doing a great thing Ron with your TKD tutor.

I commend you on that. If you would like further input to help educate people around this country about organizations/credentials feel free to use some of things I spoke of in this email and or I would be more than happy to add more opinions/food for thought for your consideration

My counter reply

As I understand what you are saying, you think it is wrong that lower rank black belts got their rank through submitted videos, but you think it is okay for higher rank black belts to get their rank through submitted videos. This is similar to saying that undergraduate students must attend college classes to get their degrees but that graduate students do not have to attend classes for their masters or doctorate degrees. (By the way, there is no accredited university in the United States that awards a PhD in the martial arts.) It seems martial art “masters” have a constant need to feed their egos. It is not enough to be a 9th degree in their art, they also need high rank from other arts, they need to be “founder” or a soke, or they need to be called professor or doctor (a designation awarded to them by some unaccredited "martial art organization" which means nothing in real world). A person with a degree from an accredited university has the degree and all that it entails; a person with a degree from an unaccredited university has a worthless piece of paper.

Let us assume that a black belt is an expert at his or her chosen martial art (since that is still the public perception) and that a black belt who teaches for profit is a professional black belt. People consult experts and professionals for assistance in things at which they have little knowledge, and they expect the experts to be licensed, certified, accredited, etc. by a board of accredited experts. If you went to a financial advisor for investment advice, would you rather he or she have a classroom attended MBA from an accredited university or an online degree from some unaccredited university? Would you want the lawyer defending you against murder charges to have a mail order law degree? Would you want your heart surgeon to have performed surgery before a certifying board or just to have submitted a video? Would you want the “master” to which you have committed so much of your time and money to have tested by video, or in front of their students and peers by a group of certified judges?

I recently attended my cousin’s Shito-ryu black belt testing. He was the only one testing; they only test one at a time. The whole school was there even though he was the only one testing. He had to perform all the forms required by each rank up to his rank, all the weapon forms required by each rank up to his rank, sanchin kata with the instructor using kicks and punches against his body to test his resolve, all the breaks required by each rank up to his rank, and he had to medium-contact spar all color belt ranks and all black belt ranks, including the instructor and a huge 8th degree. He was on the floor for three hours with only water and restroom breaks. When he finished, he looked as if he had been dragged through a briar patch by a mule: scratched, bleeding, dislocated nose, torn ear, red marks, blue welts, and exhausted. He earned his black belt, he knew it, and everyone there knew it. There is no substitute for in-person testing.

In-person, judges can see a testee’s, appearance, mannerisms, body structure, etc., and how they react to stress, failure, pain, etc. They can feel the strength of the testee’s handshake and test his or her muscle tone. They can smell the cleanliness of the testee and his or her uniform. They can hear the testee’s breathing, the depth of the kiais, the moans and groans, etc. In a video, judges only see what the testee gives them to see. Would you want to give your permission to a man to marry your daughter based upon a video of him, or from meeting him in-person.

Reader Point: All a good point and I whole-heartedly agree. A credible black belt and teacher should have gotten their initial dan rank from a teacher in person from years of hard work...ABSOLUTELY!!! It took me 11 yrs of hard work 5 days a week to get my 1ST degree black belt. I get offended when I see others get theirs in 3-4!

My response: In-person, the testee must be the actual person. The person performing in a video may be a friend of the actual testee.

Reader Point: It is highly unlikely that a martial artist testing through correspondence would ask another possibly higher ranking Martial Artist to test for them...what would that say about the other better Martial Artist? This may happen but I would think this scenario would be quite rare. Most respectable organizations as AIKIA have safe guards to such possibilities as in "proof of your driver’s license" with a picture and if it does not look like the guy on the video there would be an issue!

My response: In-person, the testee must test at the allotted time, whether he or she feels like testing or not. Many times, they have traveled many miles with little sleep before a testing or may be injured, sick, or recovering. They have to have the resolve to perform at their best no matter their circumstances. Video testees can pick the time to perform the requirements to insure it is the opportune time for them to perform at their best.

An in-person testing is an event that must be experienced by all. There is no substitute for “live” participation and viewing. This why people pay so much money to see bits and pieces of sporting events in-person when they could see the entire event for free on television, with close-ups and continuous replays of all the action.

Reader Point: Who made the rule that higher dan ranks have to test...it is most recognized in the industry that above 3rd dan, ranks are given for "time in grade”, years of teaching, knowledge, not physical ability!! This is why MOST get their higher dan grades though correspondence where as video being "one form" of the determination factor but not the only one. What about the 8th degree that is too old and feeble, maybe handicap to test....but he possesses great knowledge, has led a lifetime of teaching, was a great competitor in his day..should he be required to go through a test to get recognized? Do you really think most of the Grand Masters out there got here higher degrees from a hard-core physical test? Of course not!

May response: In-person testees get one attempt at a form; either it is good enough, or it fails. If breaks require additional attempts, they are witnessed by judges. Video testees can make numerous takes and select the best ones to submit.

In-person sparring is against opponents chosen by judges and whose abilities are known to the judges. Video sparring opponents can be anybody.

If a person does not have easy access to the required training or to testing locations or does not have the money to pay for a testing or to travel to a testing, that is too bad—life is not fair. However, that does not mean that the standards should be lowered to accommodate them. As you said, black belts are a dime a dozen nowadays. That is why I said that rank is only good within the school or organization that issued it. It is similar to military rank. While a captain in the navy is an O-6 with great authority and respect, a captain in the army is a mere O-3. When dealing with a navy captain, army personal show proper respect, but otherwise, the navy captain has little authority in the army, the lower ranked army captain has more authority. A navy captain would not be able to change services and become a colonel in the army; nor would he be awarded an honorary rank. To change services, he would have to start near the bottom and work his way up though the army ranks.

If any video tested black belts are offended by my opinion that martial art rank must be tested for in-person, in front of certified judges, then those black belts must have their own misgivings about the validity of their black belts; otherwise, my lowly opinion would not matter to them.

Reader Point: In your own style that got their higher dan grades in TKD, they might feel you are trying to validate yourself by cutting them down?

My response: I am offended that they were awarded something so easily that took others so long to achieve the hard way. When the standard for achieving a rank is lowered, the prestige of the belt is also lowered.

Reader Point: I agree I am offended also when others "learn via video" and test while the rest of us worked hard to achieve our rank, however for those of us who worked very hard since a rank was initially given in person (with me: I worked very hard as in fighting competitively for 9 yrs(regionally/nationally), taught for seven yrs, had my arm broken once and nose broken 8 times in tournaments and was a Third dan/teacher/competitor for 7 yrs "since I got my 3rd dan in person". Getting a higher rank through correspondence was more than deserved and that took another 2 yrs to get after 5 yrs of trying! There are many others who have that same story and or got there higher ranks based upon the industry standard of "TIME in GRADE"!

My response: A black belt is no longer a lofty, highly respected, and difficult to achieve rank that was awarded to a person with a warrior spirit who had the capability and willingness to perform as a warrior if required; it is now just another rank awarded for attendance, school loyalty, and a fee. At one time, if a person was attacked, they wished a black belt was near because they knew the black belt was a warrior and would defend them. Now a black belt may be a child or other person who does not have the mental, emotional, or physical ability or the will to perform as a warrior. At best, you could only hope the black belt would call 911.

I am busy all day every day programming martial art software, maintaining TKDTutor.com, training in TKD, teaching TKD, and answering emails, so I have to allot my time between it all. A few years ago, I wrote about problems with specific organizations, but people are loyal to their instructors and organizations and do not let logic, reason, and facts get in the way of their beliefs. As a result, I spent too much time answering their irate emails. Therefore, I stopped criticizing specific organizations and kept my writings generic, letting the readers make their own decisions.

If you want to publish your research and ideas on the web, it is easy. There are numerous online places that let you set up a free web site. You can also set up a free blog on Blogger.com and publish your thoughts there.

Counter reply from reader:

 I can see why you answered a lot of irate emails...laughs...overall I like a lot of what you write about organizations etc. I agree with the general context. We just disagree on a few points...hope you enjoyed the food for thought.

I respect your opinion but your point about martial artists "testing in person" vs. "correspondence" being "less credible" applies to a good portion of the industry out there "especially the higher dan grades" including a lot of well respected TKD teachers and Masters throughout the world and you could be offending them by saying such. Not everyone has the opportunity in life being too tough or whatever to get their higher dan grades in person..does that mean they are less credible

My reply:

On the subject of offending, the United States Tennis Association has many rules but the one they post on their tennis courts, at least around here, is “You shall not say or do anything that may offend anyone in any way” (my underlines). My response is, “Your sign offends me; therefore, in abeyance of you own rules, you should remove the sign.”

Life is tough! The Seals do not lower their standards to accept people who, due to fault of their own, are not able to meet their high standards. As a result, Seals are some of the most respected warriors in the world. When you lower rank testing standards, you get what we have today—people who wear black belts, not people who are black belts. Professional sports teams do not hire lesser qualified players or keep them around after they have past their prime because they have had a tough life.

Once a martial artist cannot perform at the level required for promotion, they should not get promoted. This does not mean they should lose their current rank or that that should drop out of the martial arts; it just means that they will have to stay at their current rank. As stated in the Peter Principle, they have reached the highest level of their competence, or incompetence as the case may be.

II take it that you support every high rank that broke away from their original schools/organizations, changed the a little something in the way they did techniques, and then founded it as a ‘new” martial art. In TKDTutor.com, I write about the marital art I founded, called ROCK. It has as much validity as many of the martial arts around today. I have specialized in Taekwondo in my martial arts training since, to be good at anything; you must concentrate your efforts upon it. Tiger Woods does not claim to be an expert at other sports, he is content being the best at golf. If he tried to excel at other sports, his golf skills would suffer. However, if you read TKDTutor.com, you will see I criticize the BS I find in TKD as much as I do the BS put out by other martial arts. General Hi did a lot to make TKD the most popular martial art in the western world, but even he had some dumb ideas in his later years, such as the “sine wave” movement.

You are right; I am a hard-liner. I believe you must have standards and that the best are those who those who exceed the standards. If you cannot meet the standards, then it is time move on to something else. I was once at a Captain’s Mast on a ship when a young sailor who was charged with incompetence told the captain that he did not mean to mess up, he loved the navy and was trying his best. The captain said, “I know you are son. We all know you are. It just that your best is not good enough for the navy.”

I believe in the “martial” part of the martial arts; that martial artists are trained warriors. What we have today are people who play the martial arts. As I have said in TKDTutor.com, making the martial arts into sports that can be played by the masses is fine; just change name so it is not confused with the real thing and tell the students that they are playing a sport that has little resemblance to real fighting. As I said Taekwondo America is more sport oriented and I am member of TA. However, when I teach, I am constantly pointing out what will score and what will stop and that the two should never be confused.

In TKDTutor.com I point out illogic, faulty reasoning, misrepresentations, half-truths, and outright lies that are found in the martial arts so students are not fooled by the BS and can

Reader counter reply

What about their tournament record..what about how others view them...what about what their students say about them? I also wanted to point out the difference to what I was trying to say about the world of "video".

Should one get their black belt from a "video training course AND followed by a video test"?

Well people can do what they want but I personally feel if one did just that and turned around and teaches they would not be a credible teacher on "ANY" dan level!

As far as getting recognized in a higher degree dan grade via video this is different...one is simply being recognized for what they have already accomplished for their time "in person" with others they have trained with for many years, their tournament record, teaching record as well as their ability etc. Whether you want to agree with me or not that is fine but most higher dan grades in the Martial Arts got there higher ranks though correspondence either from but not limited to a video exam, time in grade, a thesis, extensive correspondence, etc.. I have competed and traveled around this country quite extensively, have been doing martial arts for 30 plus years, have been writing columns for 12 years in regional tournament magazines. I have met and befriended a lot of people, especially a lot in TKD. People who get there 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th and 10th dans out there very rarely get them in person.

I want to say the big reason behind this is when people get there 2nd or 3rd dans they like to go "independent" from their original teacher...being independent and not "subordinate" to a Master in an organization are the waves and democracy of the future...we can accept this or become a part of the minority which won't be well respected by the rest!?

I also find that people in this industry who "criticize too much" the issue about credentials ( notice I only criticize the black belt home study courses and rank testing), these people are simply trying to give validity to their own rank for one reason or another.

I don't think this applies to you, you seem like you have a good thing going down south however you still seem to have a hard lined stance and I am not sure if its based upon ignorance in the industry, maybe you haven't traveled around the country and met 1000s of Martial Artist including many in your own style? I am very confident about my rank and what I have accomplished; I am well respected in my part of the country and know my ranks are well respected in many other parts of the world including Asian countries. I am not offended by your opinions I just find them amusing. However, others especially in your Art of TKD might get offended by some of the things you say.

As far as PhDs are concerned Martial Artist who claim to have PhDs specifically in Martial Arts I agree have over inflated egos, however as some in the case of Master Jerry Beasley of AIKIA/World Martial art Masters he has a PHD "in teaching" and is accredited at Radford University(an American accredited University) where he teaches Martial Arts history etc. as a class course.

He does have a PHD but not in Martial arts. Master Unin of the IBMA, same thing..he is a PHD "teacher". There are a few Great Masters who have PhDs its usually in teaching not in a specific subject.

AA friend of mine from another local school came over to my dojo to spar tonight with a couple of his students getting ready to compete. He is a 5th dan in TangSoDo..got all his 1St - 4TH dan grades but his 5th in person. I told him about some of this correspondence. This is what he said and he put it quite well. Ranks usually above 3rd dan are considered "honorary ranks" most are not given as a "result of a test" but based on "time in grade" or "personal accomplishments" in the Martial Arts. Take the older frail 8th or 9th dan who cannot perform a test. Some of us who beat ourselves up in our 20s cannot do it either...hell I should be in a wheel chair...laughs (Basically higher dan grades are a stripe on the black belt or honorary marks of ones "time in that grade")  And the initial black belt to be respectable should be earned the old fashioned way from many years of hard training in a school (not from a video correspondence course). However above an initial black belt higher ranks are based upon "time in grade", as in training, competing and teaching. And because A LOT of higher dan grades leave their nest as in move away from their home organization, a lot get their higher dan grades through correspondence with a possible video exam as only "part of the equation" of the evaluation to respectable organizations.  

It is most acceptable today in the industry as my friend put it to get your higher an grades through correspondence because people move and want their independence. In the growing industry of "Mixed Martial Arts" people do not want to stay in traditional organizations...kids today want the UFC not the old school of being "sub ordinate" to a Master until you are released at 60 yrs old and are a 9th dan or the Master dies.

Maybe in your state people like to stay put under someone else’s umbrella and someone else’s pocketbook I do not know but in the old USA people move around, people want their independence, want to train in other styles, share knowledge, teach and gain their own credentials.

I am a very strong advocate for hard work..I have done 31 yrs of it..I hate these McDojo schools out there that give rank especially some of these TKD schools around the country that give out black belts after 4 yrs of training two nights a week. That is not a black belt that is a joke!

I have been training in Martial Arts since I was 15 yrs old..I trained in a school that was close to the "true warrior spirit" as any.....we fought "no holds barred"  bare knuckle most of the time. It took me 11 yrs to get my black belt...probably why at 25 I was state champion brown belt!? I am 46 now. That’s a total of 31 yrs. What gets me is there are Grandmasters out there in TKD who have less time. These are higher ranked black belts in TKD out there that have half the time and training/experience and broken bones I have had. And there is a long list of higher ranked black belts out there that I use to beat on a consistent basis at full contact open Martial Art tournaments and they may have gotten their higher rank "in person"

Some think especially "traditional TKD Masters" feel that "competition" is the ultimate grounds for proving rank!? And if that is the case I ask who is more valid of a black belt..them for taking their highest dan grade test "in person" or me a 2nd dan at one time beating most of them? My final point and the point of my TSD friend is there are MANY forms of gauging person’s higher black belt rank..."in person" is NOT the ultimate gauge...final point made!

My Reply

Let me see if I understand your position correctly. You seem to think my opinion that all rank should be awarded upon successful testing in-person before a group of certified examiners is ignorant in that I do not have a understanding of today’s martial art industry. Yet, you apparently disagree with today’s industry standard of regularly promoting students to keep them in the school and bringing in the money that keeps the school open. You seem to think I am arrogant for thinking that all ranks should test, and yet you frown upon higher ranks of other arts, TKD in particular, who were promoted faster than you were promoted and who, in your opinion, are lesser skilled. It seems to be a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

I am currently in the Taekwondo America organization. I have expressed many criticisms about their rank testing and rank requirements, mainly about their being too lax, but then I have the same criticisms of many other martial art organizations. However, one thing I can say about TA is that, to achieve 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th degrees and any of the sub ranks within the degrees, the persons must test in-person before a board of examines at a national testing and must satisfactorily perform all the requirements. If you are unable to perform all the requirements, such as not breaking all the required number of boards with the required techniques, even if it is because of some medical or physical problem, then too bad, you do not get promoted. Degrees 7, 8, and 9 are awarded by a board without testing, but the person is well known by the board members because he or she actively participates in the organization and all its events, and, as you say, is promoted because of their years of work within the art and the organization. Many other organizations have as strict, if not stricter, requirements. Recently, in Raleigh, NC, a 7th degree TKD master (different organization) tested all day for his 8th degree. Many of my TKDTutor.com readers, some of them high rank school owners, from around the world also believe that all ranks should test in-person, and, rather than being offended or amused by my belief in such, they have expressed their appreciation to me for making people aware of it. Apparently, awarding 4th degree and above rank by correspondence is not the industry standard.

If you post your “grading” of organizations on the Internet, after waiting for a few months for search engines to pick up the posts, you will get email from irate people in the “industry” who do not agree with your grades, your method of grading, or your thinking you are in some way qualified to grade their organization, or any other any organization. One of the problems with the martial arts in general is that, unlike other professions, such as doctors (AMA) and lawyers (ABA), there is no “industry-wide standard” for anything, and probably never will be. Since there is no standard, there is no way to compare organizations to a standard. All one can do is point out how organizations differ and give his or her opinion as to whether the differences are good or bad for martial artists in general.

Reader counter reply

Oh the debate continues...laughs...You say: that I seem to think you are arrogant for thinking that all ranks should test, and yet I frown upon higher ranks of other arts, TKD in particular, who were promoted faster than you were promoted and who, in your opinion, are lesser skilled. It seems to be a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

I don't think you are arrogant but perhaps narrow minded and are not looking at the industry as a whole or have not traveled and met many Martial Artists around this world to see the reality out there perhaps!?

Am I painting the kettle Black...simply pointing out that unless we come from a Shaolin Temple lineage all of the ranks including mine are "in the gray area" and should be determined upon a number of factors since there is "no standard" in the industry. Whether we got them through correspondence as an "honor" for "many years of hard work" or from a test after a few yrs of hard work...which is more credible?

So here is the other question: Is the 4th dan who has "20 yrs of hard" work who defeated many 4th, 5th, and 6th degree certified ITF /TKD black belts in well respected NASCA/KRANE and IPPONE tournaments (who got his 4th dan through correspondence) have more of a valid rank because he beat them and has more experience or are their ranks more valid with less time, less experience and got their asses whipped? My answer is neither.

Rank in the industry today because we are all in the gray area is based upon a "number of factors" and "testing in person" is only "one possible gauge" although not the "ultimate gauge". And people who try to use that as the ultimate gauge are simply trying to validate their own rank because they have lacked most likely in one of the other areas that are used to make a gauge of a person’s validity.

As far as the industry as a whole....I disagree..maybe in TKD "tests in person" for the higher dans is looked upon as legitimacy(although I know many TKD teachers who got their higher ranks from people from other styles and through correspondence). Most grand masters out there today especially from other styles than TKD got there higher ranks though correspondence....sorry that is a fact. Here is another fact... Ed Parker the Father of American Kenpo Karate, ...he never tested his students. His ranks were given based upon "time in grade". Does that mean all of us Karate people who descended from him are invalid?

The founders of TKD were self proclaimed..they promoted themselves. Does that make all the TKD people invalid? TKD is also an art far from traditional although draws traditional roots but it is an art less than 6o yrs old. The headmaster of the WTF was caught for embezzling 6 million dollars. TKD most likely will no longer be in the Olympics as Karate and Judo and possibly Mixed Martial Arts will take over. TKD also breeds the most fraudulent and less qualified instructors out there...some of them are MCDojo schools as we call them. Does that mean TKD is "not a valid" art because of the scandal, corruption and the fact they will most likely loose "Olympic status"?

Of course not. MY POINT IS Just about every art/style and how someone got their rank can be picked apart. For us Martial Artists out there that do not come from a Shaolin Temple (you and me included) and have "lineage as pure as winter white snow" our Styles, organizations, how we got our higher dan grades, can all be "scrutinized" because we all exist in the gray area. Being in this area the validity of our ranks and styles are based on many factors and not limited to "testing in person" as being the "ultimate gauge.”  

As far as organizations are concerned the "ITF" I noticed has a validation of rank page....hmmm...interesting!? Since they do not ask for a passport or drivers license as AIKIA/World Martial art Master Association(who have a lot of former WTF instructors affiliated with).I wonder how easy it is to make up credentials and get ITF certified? I notice they take "Visa"...don't think we need to say any more!?

It’s been fun debating with you Ron..all in good spirit:) Some of the stuff you have written especially about organizations I really like..although we may not agree on specifics. I would certainly like permission to print variations of some of the things you have written to inform future students on areas we can agree upon. Is your material "copy righted" or can anyone print it and distribute it?

My Reply

As with any other subjective subject, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I come from a traditional background, one that thinks. “If it isn't broke, don’t fix it.” I and my ilk think that in-person testing is important, it worked for centuries and it still works. Others, including you, do not agree. However, I still do not think correspondence promotions have made things any better than the way they used to be when testing was all done before the master or panel of masters.

I do not necessarily follow the crowd. Just because there are a lot of people are doing something does not make what they are doing the best way to do something. A lot of doctors, lawyers, and educators thought Jim Jones was the savior of humankind, now they are all dead

Since most everything about martial art styles, their methods, and their ranks structures and testing procedures are subjective; there is no clear way to determine the validity of any of it. As I said before, if people are happy with the way their organizations are doing things; that is fine for them. But that does not mean it is fine for others. Just as you have your opinion of what makes a good organization, I have mine. I consider my job in TKDTutor.com to inform people of the options; they can then decide for themselves.

I try to evaluate everything using logic, reason, verifiable facts, and a cost-benefit analysis, not emotions. (My hero was Mr. Spock, the half-human half-Vulcan, not the baby doctor.) However, not everything may be viewed this way; some things are purely opinion, which is influenced by everything that a person has experienced during his or her life; and, since everyone has different life experiences, there are as many opinions as there are people. Facts are cold and hard, opinions can be hot and emotional.

Since there is no widely recognized standard for what constitutes legitimate rank, legitimately of rank is in the eyes of the holder of the rank. I have my opinion on the matter; you have yours. Apparently, we both desire the same thing, a uniform rank system, at least within the same martial art, so that potential students may evaluate and compare martial arts and martial art instructors and not get ripped off by frauds; however, this will never happen.

If you read through some of the topics in TKDTutor.com, you will find I expose all the dark secrets of Taekwondo, such as its recent beginnings, it being a version of Japanese Shotokan karate and not some ancient Korean art, the corruption in the WTF, the North Korean leanings of General Hi, TKD’s evolution from a fighting art into a sport, etc.; things from which Taekwondo practitioners of any organization may find something at which to get angry. I am an equal opportunity criticizer. I also express my opinion of such things as awarding black belts to children, having adults being subordinate to children of higher rank, the effectiveness of vertical punches, and the sanctification of Bruce Lee. Some agree with my opinions, some do not; and, on occasion, I have altered or changed my opinion based upon facts or a convincing argument, but not upon a consensus of opinion.

Feel free to use information from TKDTutor.com or from our discussion if you think it is useful. Our discussion has been enjoyable. If you run across something else in TTKDTutor.com with which you do not agree, let me know.

I am a brown belt at an independent Taekwondo academy. I am now finished learning my brown belt form I just need to know how to make my form look better.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Each organization, school, and has a particular way that want forms to be performed; while one may think a certain way of moving is beneficial, another may think the same way of moving is detrimental. However, there are some things that are common to any type of forms performance.

Always perform a form in manner you want to perform it in competition, do not just “go through the motions” when practicing. You are trying to develop muscle memory for the movements; you do this by repeatedly performing a movement in the proper manner until you body can perform the movement without conscious input from you. Tiger Woods does not think about swinging a golf club. He thinks about range, wind, terrain, etc. and then swings. His rigorous practice swings have made his swinging movement automatic.

In a form, you are fighting one or more imaginary opponents. Practice the form as if you were fighting real opponents. Each movement should be made with power, speed, and precision. You would not use a short, half-ass block in a real fight so do not do it in a form.

Behave as if you were fighting real opponents. In a real fight, you would not be expressionless and quiet. You would look fierce, glare, exhale loudly, and emit blood-curdling kiais.

Perform each movement and technique perfectly. Pretend that the judges are judging each stance and technique separately. View the form as a series of perfectly performed individual movements.

Relax! Stiff movement looks unnatural and it saps energy.

Perform each movement smoothly, but end it with power and focus. The sequence should be: relax, move smoothly, and end with speed, tension, focus, and power; and then relax and begin the next movement.

Judges cannot watch everything a once. Each one usually has some favorite thing they like to look for. Stances are always one of the things all judges will look at. Low, stable stances with perfect width, depth, and foot position will always impress judges.

Chambering depends on what the organization, school, or instructor wants to see. Some use short a chamber while some use a maximum chamber. For forms, I teach a maximum chamber. Basically, this means reaching in the opposite direction in a mirror image to the desired ending position. For example, if the ending position is a double fist middle guarding block to the left with the left fist held palm outward and the right fist held palm upward, you would reach to the right with the right arm fully extended with palm held downward and left arm across the chest with palm held upward.

Hesitate for a second at the end of each technique. Pretend you are posing for a photograph at the end of a technique. Do not move so quickly that judges cannot see your technique. For example, for a side thrust kick, fully extend the kick with perfect foot shape and hold it there for a second (just a second) before re-chambering the kick and going to the next movement.

Maintain an even pace. When under stress, people tend to speed up, especially after making a minor mistake. Set a rhythm for the form and maintain that rhythm, except when certain movements are supposed to be performed slowly or quickly.

When you finish a form, you should be exhausted; you gave it your all. If asked a question, you will have to catch your breath to be able to speak. If you are not exhausted, you just performed the movements, there was no fire, no determination, no power.

All competitors are performing the same pattern to the best of their abilities. To win, you must make your pattern standout from the crowd. Good stances, smooth, powerful, focused, perfect techniques, and a great acting performance that makes the spectators look in your direction will make you a winner.

Remember pattern movements will probably be useless in a real fight. Patterns are training devices. They teach you to control your emotions and perform perfectly under stress. You are teaching your muscles how to perform each technique perfectly while moving in different ways. When you spar, if you always try to perform perfect techniques, you will find your sparring will also improve. For example, a perfect side thrust kick will score more often than a sloppy one, and it will hurt the opponent more in a real fight

Why do all the punches in the Dan-gun pattern go to the high section?

Some movements in patterns were added for no reason other than, at the time the patterns were created, the creator thought it seemed to be a good thing to do. Although every movement in a pattern is the result of a conscious decision by the creator, that decision may have been based upon the most trivial of reasons, such as “I don’t have much time to spend on creating this pattern before dinner so I will just make all the punches high section punches.” Some people, in an attempt to prove their great wisdom, try to create complicated reasons for why things were done a certain way, when in fact; many things were done in a certain way for no other reason than it just seemed like a good thing to do at the time.

Some “experts” claim to have insight into things that even the creators of the things do not have. These experts claim that great artists, inventors, playwrights, etc. are so good at their work that they do things without even realizing it; and that it takes experts such as themselves to point out these things. When it comes to a pattern, if the creator has not stated a specific reason for a movement in the pattern or has not attributed some historic event to the movement, then the reason for the movement is open to interpretation by any number of experts.

Sometimes, the reason for a movement may reasonably be inferred from the previous movement or movements, such as, a knee strike to the head logically follows grabbing the head and pulling it downward. However, sometimes there is no particular reason for a movement. I do not know of General Choi ever stating a particular reason for only using high section punches in Dan-gun. If he did not state a reason, then there is probably not one.

I think I getting ripped off by my TKD instructor. The instructor does not like the WTF patterns so he has created his own patterns. He says he is a 8th degree black belt, but I have seen nothing to prove this. I think the school is going bankrupt and the instructor is just trying to hold on long enough to make ends meet. I was promoted to red belt but I don't think I deserve it. I did not receive a certificate for the promotion, nor was I required to do the patterns for that rank. However, I did pay the test fee. I did sign a contract that I am trying to break, so that I can study somewhere else. What should I do? I love training but I don't want to get ripped off.

Contracts can be a problem. Contracts benefit the school owner by guaranteeing a steady income for the length of the contact, no matter whether you come to class or not; this helps them to acquire business loans. There is nothing detrimental about the use of contracts for the school owner, if there was, they would not use them.

Supposedly, contracts help the student because they motivate them to come to class to get their money’s worth of training, and they lock in training costs for the length of the contract. However, any benefits contracts offer students are far overshadowed by the liabilities of contracts. Students must pay for the length of the contact as long as the contracted services are offered, even if the services are not used. Over the length of the contract, fees will not increase much normally so locking the cost of fees is not really any benefit. When you change schools or styles, many times you are required to start again at the white belt level. Most students commit much time and effort to training in their chosen art, they develop friendships with other students, and, for those who like their instructors; they develop a loyalty to the instructors. This means that by the time the first contract ends, students are reluctant to change schools or styles, so they tend to sign another contract. Therefore, contracts are always good for school owners and never good for students.

Bad instructors, fraudulent instructors, and rip-off schools and organizations are rampant in the martial arts. These things are bad enough, but when contracts are used to force students to pay for them, it is a travesty.

In your case, you have few choices:

- You can see if the instructor would release you from the contract. Maybe you could buy back the contract at a lesser cost

- You can try to find some loophole in the contract that would release you from it.

- You can file a complaint with the local Better Business Bureau or other agencies to put pressure on the instructor to release you from the contract.

- You can continue to pay and attend classes until the contract ends.

- You can continue to pay and not attend classes.

- You can stop paying and attending classes and see what the instructor does.

- He may just drop the issue

- He may sue in small claims court where you may still win.

- He may try to make detrimental entries about you with credit reporting agencies.

- You can sue the instructor in small claims court. You may win but contracts are generally binding.

As I said, contracts are never good for students, but they may not necessarily be bad. If students like their martial, organization, school, instructors, and fellow students, then contracts, while still not good for them are not necessarily bad for them, the contracts are neutral. These students would be just as happy without the contracts as they are with the contracts.

I have been teaching for free and use an organization that's growing and is also free; it uses Chang Hun patterns. I was thinking of getting evolved with the ITF.  An  ITF instructor offered to train me on my patterns to get up to ITF standards, but he lives very far away. To switch to the ITF I would have to start charging for lessons. My main reason for switching is that I do not want to cheat my students of any opportunities TKD may offer them. What is you opinion of this?

Martial art organizations are a confused mess, TKD organizations included. Due to egos and the desire for power, there are probably a hundred or more TKD organizations in the US. Most had humble beginnings with noble reasons for their creation, but as they grew in membership, the people in control began to see that there was more money to be made if you rip-off students with exorbitant organization, school, testing, and tournament fees. Since there is no central TKD organization (the ITF is even split into two warring factions), there is no one organization that is necessarily better than the others. Each has its pros and cons, but most want a lot of money from member schools so the organization’s officials may gain even more money and power.

Organizations do have a purpose; they furnish member schools with a central rank certification point and common rank requirements, offer a way for like-minded schools to hold tournaments, and possibly offer ways to help each school grow. Other than that, they are not needed for students who stay in one location for their martial arts career.

Membership in a widespread or worldwide organization is good for people who change geographic locations regularly. It makes it easier for them to find a school affiliated with the organization in different locations around the US and world. If a person hopes to compete in the Olympics some day, then they must be certified by the WTF. To compete in AAU events, they must be certified in the AAU. I live in Winston-Salem, NC and there are no ITF schools in the city or country; there are a few WTF schools. The most successful group of TKD schools in the area are all owned and operated by a Korean-American who has his own organization.

I train at a school that is affiliated with Taekwondo America, which also uses the traditional Changhun pattern set. Taekwondo America schools are mainly located around the southeast but there are a few schools all around the US. The organization is owned and operated by school owners, who elect one of their own to serve a term as the organization president. The organization itself has minimal costs so the school owners retain their own profits. Students pay no organization membership fees and they know that any money they pay for fees goes to the school owner. If they have a loyalty to the instructor, then they don’t begrudge the fees for they can see where their money is going. However, if a student moves to location where there is no Taekwondo America school, then the student may have to start over from the beginning in a different organization.

Choosing an organization to be affiliated with is a personal choice that requires taking all the circumstances into consideration. Students tend to be loyal to their first school and organization, so change can be difficult. Many organizations require any new member to start over at white belt; that’s what I had to do in Taekwondo America.

If you think your students will benefit from the ITF, then it may be good for you to affiliate with one of them, otherwise, I think you should stay where you are

I was curious if you knew of any TKD instructors who do not teach katas in their schools, but continue to teach everything else?

I do not know of any TKD school that does not teach kata. Patterns are an integral part of all the traditional martial arts; they train the mental and emotional side of the martial arts and help build character. Martial arts that are only concerned with the physical side of the martial arts tend to downplay or eliminate patterns from their curricula. Their practitioners, as in other purely physical endeavors, tend to practice them for a while, get bored, and move on to other physical endeavors. For those who train in traditional martial arts, the art becomes an integral part of their lives. One comparison between is Taebo and Taekwondo. Taebo teaches most of the movements of Taekwondo, but it is purely physical and is a fleeting fad. Once the novelty of Taebo wears off, students move on to the next fad of the moment. Since Taekwondo integrates physical, mental, and emotion aspects into its training, it becomes a way of life, and students tend to stay with it, in one form or another, for the rest of their lives.

I am a 49 year old male who has decided to study TKD. The main reason I chose TKD was because they also have a cardio class. I have had one knee operated on twice for torn ACL and meniscus damage but my doctor says I am okay to exercise, but he would prefer something with a lower impact.　My question is in regard to progress to higher ranks. I am doing cardio to improve my stamina but I have no flexibility. What should I do to improve it? Also, any suggestions on treating bruises? My forearms are tender for days after self-defense training.

I’m not a doctor but I have had a few students who had knee operations before starting TKD, and they had no problems performing any techniques (however they were younger). Usually when doctors speak about “low impact,” it is related to compression impact, such as the feet impacting the ground during running or jumping. In TKD, the impact is usually from the joints stopping suddenly after a kick or punch (there is probably a medical term for this). However, in TKD you are constantly on your feet while twisting and turning the body in all directions, which is what medical experts recommend for people as they get older.

As you are experiencing, bruises are the most common injury in TKD. I’m not familiar with any bruise treatments other than the old reliable R.I.C.E. (Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation) that is recommended for sprains. There are some Chinese herb treatments but their actual effectiveness if questionable. If it is a deep bruise, you need to wear an arm pad over the spot to protect it from more strikes on the same spot until the bruise heals. Over a relatively short time, the arms will adapt to being struck and the number and severity of bruises will be lessened.

Age certainly has a negative effect on flexibility, but genetics has an even bigger effect. Although anyone may increase their flexibility, extremely flexible people are born that way.

Stretching is actually the wrong term to describe exercises used to increase flexibility. Muscles and ligaments don’t really stretch. What you are actually doing is teaching them to relax them while they are under tension, If they relax, they do not contract to protect themselves when placed under extreme tension, which allows them to lengthen (or stretch) more easily.

I’m over 60 and more flexible overall than my 30 something instructor. However, he is flexible where it needed for performing TKD techniques. Although he is not flexible overall, he is able to perform beautiful, powerful kicks with ease due to his performing the kicks daily.

Sometimes very flexible people are prone to injury since their joints are not as stable as less flexible people (you can’t have it all, with the good comes some bad). Therefore, the ideal is to have a flexible, powerful, and stable body.

Yoga specializes in total body flexibility; just pick yoga poses that stretch the muscles you need to perform the techniques you want to use. One of the best exercises for kicks is to hold to something stable and perform slow motion kicks, concentrating on using perfect form. As the body learns to perform the motions, it will relax and the kicks will naturally begin to get higher. When training, most students try to kick higher, harder, and faster, and they neglect form. A perfectly performed kick to the knee is much more effective than a sloppy kick to the head.

I don’t know of any martial art book for those over 40 but I haven’t looked for one. For any age, the best training method to concentrate on performing techniques with perform form. People who concentrate on perfect form improve in all aspects of TKD. Those who concentrate on one thing, such as high kicking, may get better at it, but they do not improve overall. Concentrating on perfection will not yield quick results, but, after a few years, the perfectionist will be a much better martial artist in all aspects of TKD than anyone else in the class.

You are not getting any younger. Instead of trying to be what you could have been when younger, always try to be better than anyone else your age. Along the way you will find, that as a side effect you will be better than many of the younger students.

As I always say to younger opponents, if I beat you, shame on you for being beaten by an old man. If you beat me, shame on you for beating an old man. Either way, it is shame on you—not on me.

I have trained in various MA’s since early childhood but I am now returning to my roots. I dabbled in Kickboxing and other contact fighting in late teens and early twenty’s but as I have aged I’m looking for a more stable and refined art—thus my return to TKD. I’m embarrassed to say that when I was young my ego was what lead my training and NON-success of not attaining my 1st Dan. Now, many years latter, and much regret, the principle of mature discipline is leading my present training and goal setting. Could you recommend ways for me to improve my Taekwondo skills?

Whether you are attending class regularly, attending when you can, unable to attend class due to your location, or just training on your own, here are some secrets to achieving your best.

Whether you are attending class regularly, attending when you can, unable to attend class due to your location, or just training on your own, here are some secrets to achieving your best:

- Stretch daily. Stretching does not have to take a lot of time, just do it regularly. Stretch while concentrating on relaxing the muscles. Do not bounce. When one stretch stretches a particular muscle group, the next stretch of a different muscle group should contract the previously stretched muscle group. This alternating of stretching and contacting a muscle group will build your flexibility. Concentrate on stretches that compliment your kicking motions and twist the body to its maximum.

- Do some anaerobic activity daily. No need for long aerobic runs. We fight in intense spurts with shorts rests between the bursts, and rounds are relatively short. Therefore, you should train accordingly; use short bursts of intense movement. Instead of long runs, run wind sprints or run up stairs and walk down. Train for increasing the number of fast twitch muscles, not the slow twitch muscles.

- Do some strength training daily. No need for expensive equipment. Could just be sit-ups, pushups, triceps dips, and such. For weights, use low cost dumbbells; they are better anyway since you must keep them under control while moving them.

- Practice patterns using perfect technique with power and precision. Never just go through the motions of a pattern; always perform it just as you would in competition or testing. When training for a race, runners do not run in slow motion. Always train in the manner you will have to perform. Make grand movements. Just as a actor does on stage, perform so that the person in the last row of the balcony can see your movements, not the person in the first row.

- Concentrate on the basics. Always use perfect stances, perfect kicks, etc. Use full chamber and re-chamber. When sparring in class, if you concentrate on perfect technique, you may lose a lot for a while, but then as your fellow students only improve a little, you will begin improving a lot and will soon be the best fighter in the class. Sloppy fighters rely on youth and quickness to cover for their mistakes, but these can take you only so far. Crisp fighters will always be good fighters, even as they age.

- Cross train to prevent boredom. Cross training can help, if you pick sports that compliment your Taekwondo movements. For example, playing basketball will help your eye/hand/foot coordination and your overall body movement, while rock climbing will do little to help your Taekwondo.

- Use slow-kick training. Hold to a support and practice performing kicks in slow motion; concentrating on a full range of motion, pausing and holding at each step of the total motion. This will build muscle memory so that, when you spar, you will kick using the same motions without having to think about it. Adding leg weights may help build power.

- Think about Taekwondo. Research has shown that a person who thinks through the motions of a skill, such as shooting a basketball　free-throw, will perform the skill almost as well as one who physically practices the skill.

- When training, use hand-foot combinations. When doing bag work or sparring, always use combinations, using both hands and feet. If you practice just throwing a single attack, then that is the way you will fight. We fight as we have trained to fight.

- When moving, use angles. Practice moving in angles, not just forward or backward. When you always attack forward, it make it easy for opponents to anticipate you attack and react to it. When you move backward, you are running away from the fight, and it is difficult to stop and get back into the fight. If you move in angles, you are controlling the opponent’s movements, and your attacks cause then to make awkward responses.

- When blocking, always use a simultaneous attack. Practice firing an attack along with, or just after, any block. When the opponent is attacking, he is thinking about attacking, not blocking.

- Do not worry about blocks so much. Practice stepping inside or outside of attacks and using counterattacks. If you are inside, the opponent’s attack will fail, but, even if it does not, you will be inside his weapons and throwing multiple attacks. It is okay to give up a point moving in if you can score two or more points in the process.

- Attack. Practice continuous attacks. In point fighting, you cannot waste time feeling out the opponent. You do not score points by avoiding or blocking; you score points by attacking. In a real fight, you do not give the attacker time to think, you attack similar to a swarm of bees or pack of wolves.

- When breaking, do not try to break. When practicing breaking do not try to break using extra effort. If you do, your technique will suffer and you may also suffer. For example, for a side kick break, set up the boards, do not take practice kicks (practice should have occurred in the previous weeks), and perform a perfect side kick just as you did hundreds of times during training. Do not think about the boards even being there—the boards will break.

- When training, concentrate on relaxing. Tenseness slows action and reaction times, lessens quickness of techniques, reduces power, and drains energy. Think of yourself a marionette puppet hanging on strings, just dangling around waiting for someone to pull your strings.

- Training is cumulative. Not all your daily training has to be done in one session. Six 10-minute sessions during the day has the same effect as one 60-minute session. Actually, it may be better since the body can repair itself between sessions.

- Do not worry about sweating. Sweating does not mean you are getting a proper workout, it only means your body is hot and is trying to cool itself. Intense sweating saps your energy; you can work out longer before tiring if you only work at a damp sweat level.

- Use a training bag. A training bag is imperative. The bag should not be too hard or too heavy or it can lead to injuries. It should hang so it may move freely. I have used commercial bags, bought empty bags and stuffed them myself with cotton from old mattresses, and even used stuffed sea bags and feed sacks. Use bag gloves and hand wraps to protect the hands. When there is no place to hang a bag, WaveMaster bags work great.

If you do these things, you will get better in Taekwondo.

I recently read your article "Post 9/11 Taekwondo."  I think that my school is offering teaching like the "plastic pistol" you referred to. I do not want to train merely for sport, I have a desire to meet the need that lies in almost every man---to be a warrior, or at least be prepared to be a warrior when it really matters. So my question for you is, what would you suggest?

Even in Iraq, most people go about their normal lives without worrying about dealing with terrorists. The suicide bombings are mostly in Bagdad, not in every city in the country. For most people in the United States, having to deal with terrorists, or even with ordinary criminals, is only a rare possibility; there is more of chance of being killed in motor vehicle accident than every even seeing a terrorist. However, no matter the slight chance of ever having to face a terrorist threat, when it happens to you, it has a 100% chance of occurring.

Intensely training for something that is only a remote possibility is a waste of resources. Even people whose job is responding to disasters do not spend a lot of time training for remote possibilities. In earthquake prone Oakland, California, fire departments train more for fighting the yearly grass fires than they do for earthquake response.

If one trains in the martial arts for the purpose of fighting to the death, the person will soon tire of the training and will probably stop any type of martial art training. If one trains in a martial art for fun, then the person will probably train for a lifetime. Which is better?

It is relatively easy to fight for sport and then step things up for the real thing. However, it is difficult and dangerous for a person to train for deadly effect, and then try to tone things down to fight for sport. Under the right conditions, a normally calm person can become angry enough to kill. However, a normally angry person finds it difficult to calm down under any circumstances. A sport fighter has to take purposeful actions to be deadly, so a sport fighter is usually not accidentally deadly. However, a deadly fighter has to be constantly vigilant when sport fighting so as to not harm the opponent. In the heat of an intense fight, a sport fighter is not tempted to be deadly, whereas, the deadly fighter has to be constantly vigilant or he or she may revert to training and harm the opponent.

Being a warrior is more of an attitude or state of mind than it is training to be a deadly fighter. Anyone can be deadly when they choose to be. To be a warrior and still live a normal life, one only has to maintain a warrior attitude. This is easier to accomplish for people who have been raised to believe there are worse things than death in life, such as disgrace or dishonor. For others, they have to train to achieve and maintain a warrior attitude.

While training in a sport martial art, one must always think about the practical application of techniques and the attitude required to be able to use them in real situation. When teaching a technique or drill, I am always stressing its application to a real situation in an effort to keep students thinking about real fighting situations.\

When training in class, sparring, performing a pattern, or while driving home from work, always think about how you would use your skills in a real situation: what you would be feeling, what you would be saying, and the attitude you would have during the confrontation. Then, when, or if, the real thing occurs, you will be more prepared for it since you would have dealt with the situation many times in your mind.

In the Gae-baek pattern, the 7th and 25th movements use the hands held to the side in pushing motion. What is the practical application of this movement since it does not seem to fit in with the movements made before and after it?

Since schools and organizations that use the Chang-hon pattern set have many variations of the movements and how they are performed, it is difficult to interpret their intention of a movement. Your instructor should have more insight as to the school's interpretation of movements.

The movement in question a slow pressing block to the side using arc hands. As to its practical application, there is none. In a self-defense situation, one would never use a slow block since it would not be effective. Although, it may be used as a posture to show the attacker you are prepared and determined to defend.

Patterns are supposedly imaginary fights against multiple opponents. Therefore, sometimes blocks and attacks are performed toward different directions. This means that, while a sequence of movements may not seem rational when used against one opponent, the movements make sense when used against multiple opponents. Also, patterns have little practical application anyway.

As you know, attacks come fast and furious so there is little time to perform traditional blocking techniques. In a fight, you keep your guard up, go with the flow, maybe block if the opponent is using single technique attacks or the attacks are slow, and take advantage of any openings the attacker presents to attack and finish the fight.

It is practically impossible to fight more than one opponent, except in preplanned demonstrations. Think about the difficulty in sparring one opponent. Now think about having to also spar another opponent directly behind you who attacks simultaneity with the first opponent (real attackers will not take turns attacking). When concentrating on one opponent, you have no idea as to what is happening behind you. The best you can do try to maneuver so both opponents are in view, and then try to eliminate one opponent with a deadly attack so you only have one opponent to fight.

If one persons attacks, you have a choice as to whether to stop, injure, or kill the person. Which option you choose depends on the intent and actions of the attacker. If two persons attack, at the first opportunity you must eliminate one of the attackers. The one you choose may not have intended to seriously harm you, but that's too bad. One opponent must be eliminated quickly and it will usually be the weakest one.

Think about a pattern as a dance routine that is performed using power, perfect movements, and some artistic expression. Pattern practice will make you a better martial artist, not because of the sequence of movements used or their practical applications, but because of the balance, control, perfection of techniques, concentration, etc. that is learned, Good pattern performers are usually good at sparring, since the skills learned in pattern performance help when sparring. However, people who are good at sparring are not necessarily good pattern performers since the skills learned in sparring do not directly translate into better pattern performance.

My yellow belt grading is coming up and out of interest I am trying to find out more about the patter Chon Ji.  I am aware it represents, creation/heaven and earth.  However which part exactly represents Heaven and which the Earth - and why?

The pattern chonji represents heaven and earth. Why? Because the person who named it said it did. This seems to be rather straightforward but many times things that persist for many years take on unintended meanings.

I was once a design student at NC State University and had to listen to “experts” interpret the works of artists. When asked about his work, one artist said that he experimented with different arrangements and these colors and shapes seemed to work well together. However, the “experts” said the artist did not recognize his greatness; that the colors and shapes represented the endless struggle of humankind in a world of turmoil. The art “experts” justified their existence by saying their wisdom superseded even that the creator of the artwork.

Much is same in the martial arts. Over the years, martial art “experts” have applied all types of interpretations to things that the originators never intended. Over the years, even the originators start to attribute things to their works that they did not even consider at the time of origination.

In General Choi’s first book on Taekwondo, Taekwon-Do The Art of Self-Defense (1965), he said that, in the Orient, the term chonji was interpreted as the creation of the world and the beginning of human history so it seemed appropriate for the name of the initial pattern taught to beginners. He said the first eight low block/punch movements represented “heaven” and the next eight inner forearm block/punch movements represented “earth.” This was all he said about the pattern. In Jhoon Rhee's first book on patterns, Chon-ji of Tae Kwon Do Hyung (1970), the entire book was devoted to the chonji pattern and yet Rhee said nothing more about the meaning of the pattern. If there was in fact a greater meaning of the pattern, one would think that Rhee would have mentioned it in the book.

Chonji (Tianchi in Chinese) is a crater lake atop the volcanic Baekdu Mountain on the border between China ad North Korea in the Baekdudaegan and Changbai Mountains. It is located between the Jilin Province of northeastern China and the Ryanggang Province of North Korea. It is the highest crater lake in China or Korea and is allegedly home to the Lake Tianchi Monster. The term chonji literally means “heavenly pond.” The Chinese cognate, Tianchi, is used quite commonly for various bodies of water in China. If you were an educated Korean, chonji would seem to be an appropriate name for the beginning pattern of a series of patterns.

Nowadays, martial art “experts” in their great wisdom have added all kinds of significance to the patterns, including chonji. Since each of the two sections have four block-punch combinations, some say these represent the four elements of the heaven and earth; fire, water, earth, and spirit. Some say the high front “walking” stance in the first section represents heaven, while the lower back “L” stance of the second section represents earth.

My son is 8 yrs old and goes into a few TKD tournaments a year. He is currently a red belt with black stripe and I was wondering what do you suggest for combination drills so he is throwing more than just one and then let the other guy hit you with three more kicks. Last question at his age to prepare for a tournament does a child that age prepare the same methods as a older teenage or adult fighter would? IE: Exercise program, cardio etc.

Spar where When practicing techniques in class, most schools have students practice using one technique repeatedly, such as kicking a target with a round kick to a called count. This helps students perfect the technique, but it trains them to throw only one technique at a time. When training in a specific technique, it is best to include another hand or foot attack before and after the technique. All techniques are practiced in combination with another technique.

Each round has a different stipulation, such as:

- With any kick, the leg must kick at least twice before being returned to the floor.

- Each kick must be used in combination with another type of kick

- Every kick must be preceded with a hand attack, and vice versa.

- Any attack must continue with a combination of attacks until the referee stops the action (no one or two technique attacks).

- At the first movement of an attack by the opponent, instead of avoiding or blocking the attack, the student rushes in with a flurry of counterattacks.

One person holds a bag and move around while the other student continuously attacks the bag for one minute with a fast and furious hand and foot attacks.

Practice blocking with one side while simultaneously attacking with the other side, such as blocking a high round kick with an outer forearm block with one arm while simultaneously punching with the other arm.

Practice blocking and attacking with the same technique, such as blocking a kick with your leg and then the same leg firing a kick of its own, or blocking a punch with an outer forearm block that instantly changes into a punch.

Stress going with the flow of the action instead of looking for an opportunity to use a specific technique. Stress using the right technique to an opening instead of just throwing specific techniques at targets that are not open.

As to your tournament preparation question, I am not experienced enough with teaching children to answer that question properly. However, from what I have experienced, adult training methods may be used if they are adapted to take the child’s age, physical size and condition, attention span, etc. into consideration. Children are children, not merely little adults. They play hard and they can train hard as long as the trainer keeps in mind that they are children, not adults.

Regarding roundhouse kick middle section breaking. I have heard of two methods to perform this task. 1)　Break with the ball of your foot assuring that the board grain is vertical and facing at a downward angle; the other 2) the top of your foot with your foot held straight for the impact. Which is the preferred or prescribed method? What are the advantages and disadvantages? Where does the techniques derive respectively?

Round kicks may be performed two ways; striking the ball of the foot or striking with the instep (top) of the foot. The ball strike is more powerful and may impact with tremendous force with little chance of damage to the foot, and it gives more penetration. For example, the foot may extend behind a blocking arm and still hit its target. The instep strike has move range, is easier to use, and is a little faster, but it is easier to block and the instep has many fragile bones and is easily injured.

For breaking, the ball strike is best. For sparring, the instep strike is usually preferred.

Two questions (02/14/07)

How can I improve leg flexibility? I’ve heard that it's hard for a person like me (older than 25 years) to gain flexibility.

It is always more difficult to do physical things as you age; not impossible, just more difficult. Stretch every day. Do not bounce; perform a stretch and hold it for a minute or so. You are not actually stretching anything; you are not making anything thing longer, you are relaxing. When you perform a stretch, the muscles tighten. What you are trying to do is train the muscles to relax when you stretch; so do not concentrate on stretching but instead concentrate on relaxing. Stretch the entire body for overall speed and flexibility, but, to perform better kicks, concentrate on stretching the body and legs in positions that are used when performing the kicks. Use a yoga book or website to find stretches that will best benefit the areas you want to stretch.

How can I improve power in kicking & punches?

You get better at something by doing it many times. To get more power in kicks and punches, you must kick and punch every day, as many times as you can, using perfect technique. Cross training by lifting weights and such can help, but it is not a substitute for practice. Baseball players do not become better hitters by running or lifting weights, they get better by hitting hundreds of baseball every day.

Do pushups on the fists; some with fists held vertically, some with them held horizontally. Use a variety of hand positions. Instead of pushing up, thrust up so the fists leave the floor to build explosive strength. Punching power comes from the hips more than from the arms. This is explained more in the punching section of TKDTutor.com.

You can have flexible legs but not enough strength to lift the leg as high, fast, and powerfully as needed to be able to score. You can have tremendous strength in your legs but not have the flexibility you need to get a kick to a viable target effectively. If you want to be a good kicker, concentrate on things that will make you a better kicker. Perform many, many, many kicks everyday to a heavy bag while concentrating on using perfect form. Do not worry about speed and power. If you concentrate on perfect form.

I have these mixed arts gloves I use on my heavy bag, can I use them for sparring/competition?

Every organization/school/competition has its own rules for what type of sparring equipment is permitted. Some organizations require the equipment to be a certain color and marked with the organization’s official logo. The official story is that this insures everyone is using high quality equipment that has been officially tested for safety. Of course, the “official” equipment is expensive. In fact, the exact same equipment may be purchased on the Internet for much less money. Requiring the equipment to have the official logo is just another way for organizations to get more of your money.

Most official sparring equipment is made from molded foam. When I used to spar five nights a week, the best usage I could get from a set of hand and foot pads was one year. During the year, I used a lot of vinyl glue and colored plastic tape, and did a lot of suturing to reattach the finger loops that pulled loose, so sometimes I was not able to get a year of usage from the equipment. Sometimes equipment is inspected at tournaments and rejected if it is taped. Covered foam would cost a bit more but it would be more durable and last much longer. This would mean you would not have to replace the equipment every year, which would mean you would save money. However, this would also mean the organizations would lose money; therefore, for most organizations, only foam equipment is allowed.

I trained for 4 years in Hapkido. I relocated and have been in Taekwondo for 2 years. What I want to learn from the martial arts is how to defend myself in any real life situation. I learned the basic kicks, pressure points, falling, hand and kicking defense, and point sparring. I have learned distance, decent footwork, as well as throwing multiple hand and kick combinations. I friends that are black belts in many different martial arts, and we meet once a week to teach each other what we know. I think that after 6 years in martial arts I should be much better at stand up fighting. Many of my friends that are in kickboxing are much better than I am, and they have not been training nearly as long. I am pretty good at Taekwondo sparring but when I put boxing gloves on and spar against other martial arts it is different? I think they are better because Kickboxing teaches straight punches, high and low, kicks to the thigh, punches to head, and mixing it up. They also teach more basic blocks which in my opinion work much better. In Taekwondo and Hapkido, we CANNOT kick to the legs or punch to the head when sparring. I realize this is for safety reasons and against Olympic rules, but it is not against the rules in a real fight. I realize I can still do these things in a real fight, but if we do not train it, then what? I hate this about traditional schools!! I have talked to my instructors and they say do not do this, or do this differently, in a real fight, so why are we learning it then? Am I at the wrong schools? Should I try MMA? I have learned some basic jujitsu, judo throw etc., from my friends and I like it but I like stand up fighting and I feel like I am not getting it in Taekwondo? Does it take longer? Should I stick with it? Should I cross train, such as Taekwondo for a while to work on footwork and kicks, boxing to work on punches, and Jujitsu to work on ground fighting, or should I stick with one style?

Lots of questions but I think I can answer all them in one response. In choosing any martial art, you want to find one that best serves your purpose and fits your body type and personality. As an example of what I mean by body type, if you are big and powerful, then a soft, graceful style would probably not be a good choice for you. As an example of what I mean by personality, it you are a quiet, non-aggressive person, then full-contact fighting would probably not be a good choice for you.

As to your purpose, you state that you are looking for a martial art that concentrates on self-defense. All types of Taekwondo are sports oriented, and most traditional styles of karate concentrate on the budo, the way of life of the martial arts. These arts may be used for self-defense, but that is not their primary purpose. Some people think kickboxing is good for self-defense, because it uses full-contact, but it is still a sport and uses safety rules and equipment. One could still argue that, on the street, it is better than Taekwondo, but self-defense oriented martial arts would argue that it is a poor replacement. The same arguments may be made for the mixed martial arts. All these arts train against likeminded opponents; whereas, in self-defense situations, you will most likely be defending against people who untrained in any martial art, they are just evil, mean people who will risk their own lives just to hurt you.

If you only want to be highly effective at self-defense, then you should choose a self-defense oriented martial art, such a Krav Maga. However, a problem with these types of martial arts is that you do not get the enjoyment of physical competition against other people that you get in other martial arts. If is near impossible to find a martial art that has competitive sparring and also is self-defense oriented.

Cross training is an option, but cross training causes problems when in self-defense situations where you must make instantaneous decisions and actions. When you cross train ,and are in this type of situation, your brain takes too long to access the situation and take action. For example, let us say you are a businessman who travels frequently between the United States and Great Britain, and you drive a lot in each country. Everything about driving in the two counties is about the same except you drive on different sides of the car and the road. After awhile, you will probably be able to drive effectively in both countries, but when a child suddenly runs in front of the car, how will you brain react? Will it have the correct foot press the correct pedal, or will you swerve in the correct direction?

When you spar with kick boxers using their rules, you feel awkward. If they spar with you using Taekwondo rules, they will also feel awkward. Football and flag football are played basically the same, but they are different enough that players from one will feel awkward when playing the other.

Self-defense skills are a good thing to have, but for 95% of the people, they will never be needed. Most martial art masters who have trained their whole lives in their arts have never had to use their skills on the street. If this was their only goal in their training, then all the training would have been a waste of time. However, they trained in the martial arts for other reasons that made their lives better for it. There is still a possibility you may need to defend yourself. If this occurs, you may not have the best techniques for it, but you will have techniques that are effective.

You just have to decide what it is you want to do in the martial arts and then do. You can be a subject matter expert at one thing, or be generally knowledgeable about everything but an expert at nothing. Just make decision on a martial art, an instructor, and an organization that best suits your purposes and is available to you, and go for it.

I am just entering the world of Taekwondo and I have a few questions. I have been very interested in combat styles such as Muay Thai, Brazilian Jujitsu, and Judo. I want to join study Taekwondo to develop my standup game. I have some specific questions. 

WTF (Olympic, sport) Taekwondo. There are general differences between WTF Taekwondo, ITF Taekwondo, and traditional Taekwondo, which are discussed in detail in various topics inside TKDTutor.com. As for your specific questions:

1. I see a lot of Taekwondo students using a low guard when sparring, is this advised and why?

There is a low guard and then there is no guard. Olympic style sparring uses no guard; two opponents just dance around and throw continuous kicks at each other. Any type of martial art that is involved in competition is heavily influenced by the rules used in the competition. The art adapts itself to the rules so that there is more of a chance for victory while competing under the stated rules. If you want to sin, you must use techniques that the judges will give you points for using, and avoid techniques that do not earn you points.

Traditional karate fighters use a low guard in competition because someone in the past determined that that was the way it should be done. Since both competitors use a low guard, any disadvantage to using the guard is equal for both competitors. Olympic Taekwondo rules discourage the use of hand attacks and kicks that do not hit vital areas with power do not score, so Olympic style sparring has evolved into foot fencing with the arms hanging at the sides, similar to Irish river dancing.

As a general rule, for close range, use a high guard, and for long range, use a low guard. In close, hands are deadly so you need a high guard. In addition, in close, kicks are difficult to see coming and they are fired from a high chamber so a high guard protects the head. At long range, hands cannot reach you without the opponent closing the range so a high guard is not as crucial. At a long range, kicks are fired more from the floor than from a high chamber, so the kicks are rising from the floor and are easily stopped with a low guard.

As with everything else, the guard you should use is the one that works best for you under the circumstances. The guard that works best for me is a high, extended, open-handed guard. With the arms extended rather than close in, I can pick off attacks easier, and the hands are closer to their targets.

2. I am very close combat oriented (hockey player) and I throw knees and fists a lot. Do I get points when I punch the dot in a match?

What constitutes point depends on the rules of the competition. Your instructor will be able to tell you what is a permissible scoring area and scoring technique under your completion rules. I too am a close in fighter. Close in fighters like to use counterattacks. Learn to block and then attack, such as blocking with an arm and then letting the arm continue into an attack, and learn to simultaneously block and attack, such as blocking with one arm while the other arm simultaneously attacks. When the opponent initiates an attack, you immediately close in with an attack. I will chance getting hit with one point when I rush in if I can get two or more points in my counterattack. Use legs for blocking. From a high guard, when a kick fires, lift your forward knee to your elbow. Then the arm is blocking high, the leg is blocking low, and both the arm and leg are chambered for a counterattack. Opponents find that kicking your shin hurts them more than you.

3. I would like to combine TKD kicks with a strong upper body style, any suggestions?

Back in my earlier years, I used to visit schools of different styles and spar with them. When sparring karate fighters who used a low guard and mostly hand attacks, I overwhelmed them with Taekwondo’s powerful kicks. When sparring Taekwondo fighters or fighters in other styles that concentrated on kicking, I would stay on them as white stays on rice and overwhelm them with hand attacks. When blocking kickers, do not just block; instead, knock and pushing them around with your blocks. Instead of hard blocking a kick, block and push the kick to knock the attacker off balance. When they kick, you rush in and slam into them. Make them feel as though they are being pushed around by a bully. Make them afraid to kick and throw them off their game. When you do use hard blocks, make them attacks. Instead of blocking the kick, attack the leg. The opponent will quickly learn that kicking at you is painful for them, and their kicks will become more tentative.

4. Do you have any good stretching advice?

Do it every day. Do not bounce; perform a stretch and hold it for a minute or so. You are not actually stretching anything; you are not making anything thing longer, you are relaxing. When you perform a stretch, the muscles tighten. What you are trying to do is train the muscles to relax when you stretch; so do not concentrate on stretching but instead concentrate on relaxing. Stretch the entire body for overall speed and flexibility, but, to perform better kicks, concentrate on stretching the body and legs in positions that are used when performing the kicks. You can have flexible legs but not enough strength to lift the leg as high, fast, and powerfully as need to be able to score. You can have tremendous strength in your legs but not have the flexibility you need to get a kick to a viable target effectively. If you want to be a good kicker, concentrate on things that will make you a better kicker. Perform many, many, many kicks everyday to a heavy bag while concentrating on using perfect form. Do not worry about speed and power. If you concentrate on perfect form, speed and power will just happen.

Do you think putting a finger or thumb between the hammer and cylinder of a revolver (when ready to fire) would break ones finger if the trigger were pulled? I have heard of people having to cut their own throats to breath after choking on something. Where would one want to make the incision? I ask this because I almost choked on steak the other day and realized that I should probably find this out.. just in case.. (I've tried to look this up. It's one of those things that's very hard to find because of the wording).

Sometimes grabbing the cylinder of a revolver and applying pressure to spin it will prevent the gun from firing. Placing something between the hammer and the firing pin will prevent a revolver from firing; usually this something will be a body part, such as a finger or the web of skin between the thumb and index finger. The finger will not be broken, and you will probably not feel the pain due to the circumstances. The web of skin will probably be punctured and will hurt a lot, but it will not be incapacitating and it will heal later. Pain is better than dead.

Any account of someone cutting their throat to stop choking on something is something of which you should be skeptical. Cutting your throat to stop choking on an object is similar to cutting off your arm because your finger hurts. First, if the object is below the cut, then you now have two serious problems: you will still be choking on the object and now you will also be choking on blood from the cut. Emergency tracheotomies work better on television than in real life. 

If a person were choking, he or she probably could not even sign his or her name, so how could the person make a precise cut to his or her own throat. If you are choking, you cannot get oxygen into your body, so, even if you stay clam, you only have a few seconds to do anything before you pass out. Finding a sharp instrument, finding the correct place to cut, and then cutting to the right depth would be practically impossible, even for a surgeon, since they are trained to operate on others, not themselves.

When you are with someone who is choking, use the Heimlich Maneuver on him or her. If you are choking, you can do it to yourself by leaning over an object such as a chair.

I just started Taekwondo a few months ago. Due to schedule constraints, I find myself looking at the possibility of changing schools in order to be able to continue studying martial arts.  The school I would move to is not a TKD school.  It is a Karate school that teaches a blended art that is influenced by TKD, Okinawan Karate, Jujitsu, Judo and Boxing. It is a difficult decision since I have already developed a strong bond with my current dojang and instructor.

Changing martial art schools is similar to changing jobs or churches. It is a tough thing to do, especially when you are not changing because you are displeased with the school or the instructor, but out of necessity. Since you like your present instructor, he or she must be doing things in a way that pleases you; so now you know what to look for in a new school and instructor.

I am a traditionalist, so I favor traditional martial arts. I believe that, for a martial art to be a martial art, it must first be “martial” fighting system and then that it must maintain its “art” aspects. The term “martial arts” has become a generic term for any type of physical endeavor that involves punching, kicking, or grappling. Modern Taekwondo has evolved until it is now merely a sport. Sport Taekwondo is to traditional Taekwondo as flag football is to football; it claims to be similar to the real thing, but when a player faces the real thing, it is very painful.

Karate is following the same sport path as has Taekwondo, but there are still many traditional karate schools around. A school may teach more than one martial art, but a blended martial art is just that; it is nothing in particular, just a mixture of many things. A blended martial art claims to use the best of each art, but instead, it loses the true meaning of each art. Football, basketball, and baseball all have teams that throw a ball, but no one tries to take their best aspects and blend them into another game.

Good luck in finding a new school. Since you have not been in the martial arts very long, you will not have much of a problem fitting into any new art or school. Just choose the art, instructor, and organization carefully. If you stay in the martial arts for years, you will be committing a lot to time, effort, and money to the endeavor, so, if at some point you become displeased with your art or instructor, changing will be an even more difficult decision. Choosing a martial art and instructor, are similar to choosing a spouse—you had better make a good choice for you will be together a lot for many years.

My question concerns two particular breaking techniques; hammer fist downward strike and horizontal knife hand strike. First, let me say that I am probably the strongest person in our class, but to brag but to help explain what is happening. In my first test of breaking using a hammer fist, I was unsuccessful in three tries to break hit 3 - ¾" pine boards. I knocked the boards from the holder's hands onto the floor and ended up with a big bruise on my wrist. I am having the same problem when using the knife hand strike. Does this occur because the holders are allowing the boards to move with my strike resulting in my injuries, or is it a technique problem? 

As you have probably noticed, the size and strength of the breaker have little to do with successful breaks. Many times, small people perform spectacular breaks, while large people go away broken.

Any hammer fist and knife hand strikes, insure that the striking area (padded outside edge of palm) is foremost when you make contact with the board. This helps ensure that the pisiform and the end of the ulna (the two small ball shaped protrusions on the outside of the wrist) do not strike the board. This may be accomplished by using a very slight angling of the wrist, a change in the angle of the strike by adjusting the way the arm and body move during the strike, or by changing the angle that the boards are being held

- If the wrist bends during a strike, it may be injured. If one or both of the two wrist bones hit the board, it will hurt.

- Do not perform practice swings before a break. Just set up the boards and break them. All practicing should have been done in the months preceding the break. When you perform slow motion practice swings, especially ones that stop at the surface of the board, you are just setting yourself up for a slow strike that stops at the surface of the board.

- Toughening of the striking area though the use of repeated light strikes (forging) helps prevent pain. However, too much toughening may cause other problem

Successful breaking requires four things:

- Concentration

- Relaxation

- Speed

- Proper technique

Concentration means you must ignore everything around you, and the board, and then ensure the other three things are used. Instead of tensing your body in preparation for a tremendous output of power and the eventual impact, breathe deep and relax. Speed is relatively easy to fix, just strike faster, not more powerfully. Do not try to hit hard; if the other three things are also present, power will just happen. When you try to strike with more power, your technique usually suffer

Ensure proper technique is used throughout the motion of the break. Many people will make practice swings using perfect technique, and then when doing the break, they tense and try to hit hard, which slows the speed, and their technique lapses, they let the wrist bend or they change the angle of the strike.

Do not try to break the board, just strike at a point in space behind the board. The board will just be something you must go through to reach the target point. If you punch at the surface of the board, you will hit it, and probably stop there. It is a mental thing; if you see the board a barrier you must go through, you tend to concentrate on the board. Instead, concentrate on your relaxation, speed, technique, striking angle, and the target point in space just behind the board; the board itself is of no concern. It could just as well be a sheet of paper. One thing off-road motorcycle racers learn quickly is that, if you look at an obstacle in front of you, you will hit it. You have to look where you want to go to avoid the object, not at the object. Do not look at the board, instead, visualize your target as the point in space behind the board.

The only difference between a technique used in training and the one used in breaking is that, in breaking, a board is between you and your target. People tend to train one way in class and then when it comes to performing a break, they think all they have to do is hit harder. In training, a perfect strike will be a thing of beauty that will make spectators gasp. In breaking, a perfect strike will go though the boards like a hot knife through butter.

To prepare for an upcoming break, practice performing a perfect break with the technique you will be using at the testing. To break successfully, you do not need to train by actually breaking, especially when a testing is near. An injury before a testing will hinder your chances of a successful break at the testing. At the testing itself, you just go for it. After the testing, you have plenty time for any injuries to heal before the next testing.

Therefore, the secret to breaking boards is to ignore the boards and perform a perfect strike.

I read about a famous (now deceased) Ba-Gua-Chang practitioner named Wang Shu-Jin. I do not know if you have ever heard of him, but he seems to be one of Asia's "hardest hitters" if you will. This Shu-Jin seemed to have a superhuman resiliency to pain, and "using his chi" could effortlessly knock someone down with a small push. However, this man was a seemingly physical wreck. He was elderly, tall, obese, and weighed in around 300 pounds. In old age, he accepted fights from fighters in their prime and defeated them. It was also said that he killed people by bouncing them off of his enormous girth. He claimed that he was an unbeatable fighter because he had accumulated a lot of chi. In the book The Power of Internal Martial Arts by B. K. Frantzis, the author mentions briefly about his own encounter with the Wang, and bears testimony to his power. At one point the author mentions that Wang put a ball of "energy" in his body as a reprimand for arrogance. The author says how it took "months of acupuncture" to "clear out" the ball, if you will. The author, in his youth and a successful karate competitor, also mentions that he was defeated by and old lady in Shu-Jin's school." I came across the author's page the other day, and I was able to find an excerpt from his book, in which he details his encounter with Wang. http://www.energyarts.com/hires/library/masters/wang.html The picture of Wang gives the impression that he was very dense. He doesn't look terribly obese for a person who was 5'8" and 250-300 pounds. His fabled striking power could be due to his ability to skillfully use his mass. Either way, heavily built people are often very hard to injure with blows and can deliver more powerful strikes than a lighter person striking at the same speed (Hence, weight classes). Would a young champion really admit to being whipped by an old lady? Pain resistance can be trained, whether you believe it is chi or not. The movements of internal arts, whether it is chi or not, have shown to be beneficial for people young and old. A lifetime of exercise (and excellent genetics) would have enabled Wang to fight into his advanced years. Articles in English on Wang Shu Jin are scarce. However, I would assume articles about him in Chinese are plentiful. How legitimate are they? The excerpt tells of Wang's work ethic and diligence to practice. Whether it was his chi or not, he must of had a very good understanding of his fighting system. The excerpt says that Wang accepted many challenges from East and Southeast Asia. I take it that he spent his life fighting mainly Japanese and Chinese martial artists, who are usually of more slighter build. He probably had the weight advantage in most cases. Would he last against the heavyweight fighters of PRIDE and UFC today? Also, the fights he conducted were most likely against practitioners using strictly classical styles. I read your article on Bruce Lee, and have come to the conclusion that even if many of his "innovations" were actually the combined innovations and thoughts of others, his Hollywood status was enough to spark a reformation of martial arts (getting rid of impractical classical techniques). How would Wang fare against mixed martial artists? Various techniques of Judo, Taekwondo, Karate, and Jujitsu have all found there way into mixed martial arts, Why don't we see any kung-fu specialists? One would think that such a great fighting style would be exploited like crazy in modern rings. If the style is as strong as people say it is, why doesn't someone just go and make a fortune? From what I have read, most of the famous and "best" internal martial arts experts only teach to a select few. Internal martial arts probably have a lot of religious ties. But you would think that someone would eventually give in and use it... if it REALLY is what it's hyped up to be. Also, here is a short clip of Wang demonstrating tai-chi applications. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3331hHtPcbU I am not sure what to make of it, but it looks pretty similar to step sparring. Take note of the size difference between him and his partner. 

As you may have noticed when talking with older people, as people get older, the past gets bigger and better. People tend to remember things the way they want to remember them, the way that best serves their purpose in the present, and the way that best glorifies them at the moment. When anyone speaks about how great it was in the past, they usually maximized the good things and minimize, or forget, the bad things. History gets rewritten everyday to serve best the people in power at the moment, so there is practically nothing that may be taken as fact. Some things may be based on fact and the truth may lie within them, but it takes a discerning mind to find it. Tales of yesteryear are usually just that "tales" it is best to take them as grain of salt.

There is so much BS in world; it is mind-boggling. 24/7 television and the Internet have given kooks the platform and the visibility they need to spread their crazy ideas and persuade other kooks to join them  Sometimes I see or read about some of the things people believe and I wonder how anyone could be so gullible; then I read about something even dumber that people believe. A proper education helps to avoid being taken in by shams and scams, but it is not a guarantee. Plenty well-educated and smart people believe some really stupid stuff. You are on the right track in your logical analysis of this style and its master. Keep thinking this way and you will avoid being taken in by the scam artists of the world, be they car salesmen, politicians, telemarketers, fake doctors, authors trying to sale their books, or so called martial art masters.

I am being graded for orange belt. I would like to know what questions I will be asked to get my orange belt. 

I do not know your organization, school, or instructor so I do not have any idea what you may be asked at testing, but here are some generalized hints.

Most martial art instructors, or any other type of teachers, will insure they cover test questions in class. At some point during the curriculum, all or most of potential test questions will be answered in class. Sometimes, instructors will ask questions in class that will be on a test, and you will be required find the answers on your own.

Other students who have tested before this instructor are the best sources for possible questions that may be asked during a test.

Sometimes instructors will ask questions at a test to which they do not expect you to know the answers just to see how well you handle yourself under pressure in a stressful situation. If this happens, say calm and confident, and either state that you do not know the answer now but you will find the answer, or, if you know something about the subject, state that you do not know the answer but here is what I think the answer may be.

Remember the 7-P's: proper prior planning prevents piss poor performance.

Make all answers clear, precise, and concise; do not ramble.

One thing to remember in life is to always appear calm, confident, and in control, even when you are not. Always act as if you know what you are doing, even when you do not, because most people will not know the difference. If you act as if you are an expert, most people will think you are an expert. This will help you get over humps in life, but remember that at some point, you will have to prove that you are what you purport to be.

You will do well on your test.

Guestbook comment by Marcelo: Mostly good content, but fails when saying that WTF Taekwondo is purely a sport (it's called "sport taekwondo" many times throughout the site). It's pretty much the same martial art, only the patterns and competition rules change. WTF was chosen for the Olympics because WTF competition rules are generally considered to be safer for the practitioner. There's sport and competition in ITF as well. Also, it's funny how the site is biased towards ITF ("traditional") Taekwondo, but doesn't use Korean terminology (i.e. "outside crescent kick" instead of "bakkat chagi"). My WTF school is more traditional than that..."

It's pretty much the same martial art, only the patterns and competition rules change. This sounds like something my mom would say, If he was shorter, had darker hair and brown eyes, a smaller nose, and a bigger chin, he would look just like you. When compared to ITF Taekwondo, WTF Taekwondo uses different patterns, stresses kicking over everything else, uses little to no blocking or hand attacks, its kicks stress scoring over technique or power, its tournament rules make it a foot fencing competition, it uses uniforms of its own design, it has differing theories of power, such as it does not agree with the ITF theories of sine wave and knee spring, and it has its own version of how Taekwondo started, and yet you say the two are pretty much the same. They both are named Taekwondo and both have Korean roots, that is pretty much all they have in common.

WTF was chosen for the Olympics because WTF competition rules are generally considered to be safer for the practitioner. There was, and still is, a political battle between the WTF and the ITF over who should control Taekwondo in the Olympics. The rules of competition are not a factor, since rules can be easily changed. How is allowing full-power kicks to the head and knockouts safer than using controlled no or light-contact rules, especially when both types use the same type of safety equipment?

The site explains that it has a positive bias toward traditional Taekwondo, but not toward ITF Taekwondo. The site points out the pros and cons of both the WTF and the ITF, and has much criticism of both organizations and their theories. If you read the Read First topic, you will find I tell everyone upfront that I am biased toward traditional Taekwondo.

Site doesn't use Korean terminology. The site also explains its use of English terms. Koreans speak Korean; Americans speak English. There is no good reason to use Korean terminology other than it helps eliminate confusion during international competitions and it makes you sound "cool" and important when talking with non practitioners. Since very few Taekwondo practitioners will ever compete internationally, there is no need to use Korean terminology; it much more efficient to use the language of the practitioner's home country. Using or not using Korean terminology has little to do with whether a organization, school, or instructor is considered traditional or nontraditional.

There has always been criticism between the martial arts as to their effectiveness and the correctness of their theories. However, there seems to be an almost universal criticism of sport Taekwondo as being useless as a martial art. As with criticisms of many things, not all these criticisms are legitimate, but most are legitimate. A martial art is the art of hand-to-hand combat; which in modern terms means being able to effectively defend oneself in real life situations. Sport Taekwondo falls short in this respect. You will fight as you have trained to fight. If you train to stand with your arms at your sides and kick, that is the way you will react in self-defense situation and you will more than likely be defeated.

All these points are discussed in more detail in various topics within TKDTutor.com.

I watched the video clip Blotched Self-Defense Is Worse Than None At All and could not help but come to the conclusion that it is probably fake. Pause it at 48 Seconds, the point where the shot JUST goes off. Notice that the shooters arm is entirely free. The gun, as well, is free and no attempt is being made to grab the shooting arm or the wrist or even his hand or gun. With 3 people on him, each one of them (I would think) would have tried to grab the gun arm and stabilize it while pinning the man down. This video seems fake. I guess the men could just have been really stupid. Even the part where one guy had the shooter by the hair. Why didn't he just pull the guy’s head to the ground and hold him down with his friend? I have seen a lot of videos on cop shows like this one that are obviously faked. There’s no law saying they can't be faked.

It is good to be skeptical; skeptics are seldom fooled. However, sometimes the skepticism leads to vindication of the item in question instead of conviction. When analyzing this video, you should:

- Consider the source. This appears to be a clip from a news service. Although there are exceptions, most reporters verify their information.

- Consider any motivation for faking it. For it to be a fake, someone would have had to go to a lot of trouble for only a few seconds of video.

- Consider what an ordinary person might do under the same circumstances. In court, a jury is not supposed to consider what they might do, or what an expert might do under the same circumstance; they are to consider what an ordinary person might do under the same circumstance.

- Consider that he clip is shown in slow motion. The entire confrontation actually only took a few seconds and the aiming and firing of the weapon only took a split second. Although the law says that a spit second of aiming and firing is all the thought that is required for premeditated murder, it is not enough time for a victim to react, even if he is martial art master. Think about your last sparring match. After the match, you probably thought, “Why did I do that? I should have reacted to that attack differently.” Think about a clash during a match; how much thinking did you do during the clash? You probably did not consciously think during that couple of seconds, and you are a trained fighter who knew what he was getting into and was prepared for it. What can you expect an untrained fighter to do when suddenly thrown into a life or death struggle?

It is difficult enough for one person to do the right thing, now try to get four people to do the right thing at the right time. Even if you know what to do, such as grabbing an arm, one of the other people may pull the person away before you can grab it.

When fatally shot it in head, you do not grab your head or stagger backward, you just collapse to the floor—you are dead—there is no muscular tension in the body so it limply collapses, just as in the video.

Have you even been near a revolver when it is fired? Smoke and unburned gunpowder blast out the muzzle in a large cone shape that spreads to the sides, and they blast out the side of the weapon between the front of the cylinder and the back of the barrel. This blast can burn and temporarily or permanently blind as person close to the weapon as it fires. The sound a gunshot is deafening, especially in an enclosed space and near your ears. This is not the sound of a blank fired in television show or a movie with the sound reproduction limitations of the medium, it is the sharp, tremendously loud sound of a large amount of gunpowder exploding. The sound will cause your ears to shut down and your brain to freeze for a split second; then your ears will ring for hours. It is difficult to think in this type of situation.

- Consider the how the information is being presented. To be able to record 24 a day and be able to save the recordings economically, surveillance cameras have low resolution and record at a slow frames-per-second, therefore, their images are poor, and there are gaps in the action. Contrary to what you see on CSI type television shows, you cannot magnify a low-resolution image to see more details. For example, try to magnify a cell phone camera image as you would an image from a digital camera. The slow frames-per-second recoding rate means the video is jumpy and sometimes omits critical actions.

- Search for collaborative information. In this case, check out Malcolm Pearsall’s conviction at: http://www.mtpleasantdc.org/forum/download.php?id=89&sid=d7b4dd5125693daf7b3e7ac9c0ed9f41

If you slow motion or freeze a video of a sparring match, you will see a kick headed toward the opponent’s head and wonder why the opponent did not block the kick. In real time, things do not happen in slow motion. If you could stop time, everyone could make the right decision.

As trained fighters, we know that, in this situation, one person should have grabbed and controlled the gun by grabbing the cylinder and hammer and twisting it, while the others beat the crap out of the attacker, bashing his head into the floor, jabbing fingers into his eyes, ripping his ears off, and bashing his face with elbow strikes. The gun can kill, but not without the trigger being pulled. If the attacker is unconscious or dead, he will not be pulling any trigger.

If the robber wanted to kill, he would have shot everyone at the beginning and took their money, not just threatened them. It was the reactions of the men that got them killed. If they had just given the robber their money, they would all be alive. If you are going to resist, you had better know what you are doing; unless you know the attacker intends to kill you, which means you need to do any and everything you can to resist.

After scrutinizing this video, it appears to be legitimate. It shows how your life may end, or be forever altered, by a decision that has to be made in a split-second under extraordinary

Thank you for your advice on my previous questions. I have been reading about General Choi on your web site and I find him to have been a very inspiring person. I need advice on a few other things. (1) I am a yellow belt and my instructor says I have a perfect build and height for Taekwondo and that I do great kicks, but that I need to concentrate more on the basics. However, I get bored doing basics all the time. (2) One of the reasons I started Taekwondo was to learn discipline and control and to incorporate it into my everyday life. At college, I find it hard to sit down and do written work and homework; I want to be doing something practical all the time. I am a performing arts student and hope to go into doing fight choreography in films. How can I learn to be more patient? (3) My main concern with flexibility is that, when I watch high rank black belts doing patterns where they hold a kick leg in the air, I want to be able to do that. I apologize for any spelling mistakes; I am not that good a speller.

So many people go though their lives thinking that merely being alive and having babies is the purpose of life. Thankfully, there are people who think life is not a gift but an obligation. They do not simply exist, they try to make a positive impact on the world. Even through some people may not agree with General Choi’s politics or his views on Taekwondo, he achieved a lot during his lifetime, and he had a positive impact on the world. Here is some advice on your listed concerns.

1. It appears that you have a good Taekwondo instructor. While it appears you want to be a great Taekwondo performer, he wants you to be a great Taekwondo martial artist. If you rely on your athleticism to achieve greatness, you may achieve it, but as the athleticism fades, so will your greatness; then, at some point in your life, probably too early, you will become another “has been.” However, if you strive to become a great martial artist, your greatness will never fade; it will just evolve. As your physical abilities fade, your experience, knowledge, and lifelong training for perfection will take up the slack and you will still be able to maintain your greatness. In Genera Choi’s last years, his physical ability faded, but he was still sought for his wisdom and knowledge.

You do not reach greatness; it comes to you as you work to be the best you can be. The more you work and the closer you come to greatness, the less that reaching it means to you. It is not reaching the destination that means the most in life, it is how you live your life during the journey.

2. As I said in my answer to one of the questions in your last correspondence, you have to decide what you want to do: be a martial artist, or be something else. If you want to be a martial artist, it takes lots of practice; if you want to be a great martial artist, it takes lots and lots of long tedious practice. Tiger Woods still spends hours on the putting green practicing his putt. Great musicians still practice their scales. They realize the importance of practicing the basics,

If you want to do tricks, there are martial art schools that teach tricks. If you want to be a martial arts choreographer, you do not need to be a great martial artist. Choreography is nothing like combat, it more similar to dancing. There are schools that teach fighting choreography if that is what you want to do.

Patience is not something you can take a class to learn; you either have it or you do not have it. If you do not have it, no amount of wanting it or hounding by others will help you get it. You may improve it, but it is just not part of your personality. If you are an impatient person, you just learn to live with it, and others that want to get along with you will have to accept it. You will have to do things that do not require patience; otherwise, even if you do find success, you will not be able to enjoy it.

I too am an impatient person. I have to be doing something all the time; I consider the need for sleep to be a nuisance. I find that I am most impatient when doing something that I do not enjoy doing. When I enjoy doing something, hours pass without my realizing it. People wonder how and why I spend so much time on the web site; it is because I am creating and I enjoy it. I enjoy Taekwondo, so I train on perfecting the basics everyday.

3. When you reach black belt rank, you will probably be able to hold an extended kick that way. However, that is not the way General Choi envisioned Taekwondo kicks. Taekwondo was formed by a group of masters who were mostly ex or current military. It was created as a Korean way of hand-to-hand combat, not as a way of performing.

Flexibility and power are not necessarily complementary. I have seen highly flexible people who could not kick high, especially with any power, because they did not have the overall muscular strength required to lift the leg quickly and with power. I have seen very powerful kickers who did not have the flexibility to kick high. Sport Taekwondo fighters kick to head, not just because it gives them more points, but mainly because the rules make it easy for them to kick high. Mixed martial artists rarely use high kicks. When an opponent can punch, grab, and use takedowns, high kicks are dangerous. In the street, high kicks will get you killed. Quick, powerful, focused, and accurate kicks that may be fired without any warning are more important than high kicks.

Do not be so concerned with flexibility. When doing conventional stretching exercises, my instructor is not very flexible. I am more flexible than he is and I am 30 years older than he is. However, he can perform high, near perfect kicks (I cannot). His flexibility comes from years of trying to perform perfect kicks. He is only flexible where he needs to be flexible to perform proper kicks. His philosophy appears to be, “I am a professional Taekwondo instructor; that is what I do. Therefore, I do that which makes me a better at what I do. I do not have the time to do, nor do I see a need to do, things that do not make me better at what I do.”

As to your apology for your spelling errors, it appears your misspelling and poor grammar are a reflection of your impatience. Dictionaries and spell checkers make everyone a good speller, as long as they take the time to use them.

I agree with your thoughts about the belt system. It would be nice, however, if students would train with the goal of learning an art, not with the goal of owning a belt. A friend in my school once said to me at a belt ceremony “you realize that you are really not a better martial artist today than you were yesterday, right?”. Of course, his comment was meant as a joke, but there is a lot of real truth in that statement. Progress is slow and steady and takes years, and isn’t defined by large, sudden jumps in ability as the belt system might imply to some. Sometimes, I think that other students think, for example, that once they pass their green belt tests and attempt to pivot their base leg correctly that they have learned the sidekick and that it’s time to move on to other, bigger things! I am currently a green belt (and need to work on my sidekick for the next 10 years) and hope that I will always keep my rank in perspective. I hope I can always evaluate my technique honestly to measure my progress and not just look down at my belt. 

Thank you for your kind comments about my web site. I am glad it has been of service to you.

You are right! We have become a society that expects instantaneous gratification. People want the glory, but they either do not want to do want it takes to earn it, or they do not have the patience to wait for it. One recent reader was lamenting that, after 9 months in Taekwondo, he still cannot do full spits or trick kicks as some masters are able to do.

Ranks are steps that indicate progression along a stairway toward the top; they are not destinations in themselves. Basically, rank only indicates how long you have been on the journey; they just indicate how many steps you have taken on your climb toward the stop. After a certain amount of time climbing, you are expected to have reached a certain step in the climb, but reaching that step is nothing special other than it indicates you are still climbing.

Similar to ranks, birthdays are steps in one’s lifetime. I turned 61 recently. Suddenly I was a year older, even though I was only a day older than the day before. Reaching another birthday is not an accomplishment in itself; what is important is what you have done with your life while reaching that step. If life is a journey, then the end of that journey is—death. So the end of the journey is not something you want to reach, it is just something that you are forced to near as you climb. If you quit climbing, your journey will end, and, just as if you were on an escalator, the stairs themselves will carry you very quickly toward the final destination but the arrival will not be pleasant one. However, if you keep climbing, as you reach the end, you will have the joy having completed a meaningful climb.

Some think that taking a step is some great achievement. They stand on the step, look down on all those on the steps below them, and feel superior. Instead, they need to turn around see the long climb that still remains ahead of them, and keep climbing. Sometimes, people on the lower steps will grab you and try to hold you back, but thankfully, there are those on the higher steps who will reach down and help pull you up to the next step.

For the ones who see the light at the top of the stairs, they know that reaching the top is not the ultimate goal; it is the climb that is most important. As one nears the perceived top of the stairs, the top is no longer important; the last step is just another step. For the great ones, there is never a top of the stairs. As they look up the stairway, they see an endless string of steps leading into a bright light. As they draw their last breath, they are still struggling for the next step.

As I mentioned before, I turned 61 recently, and my best birthday present was sparring in class last night. First of all, it was great to be able to spar, then it was great being able to effectively spar students 20, 30, and 40 years younger than I am. I can do it not because of great athletic ability, but because of technique. I train everyday on the heavy bag perfecting technique and control. This allows me to be able to jump all over an opponent with quick strikes that come too fast to block and are so powerful they cannot be knocked away, and yet they are so controlled that they never do harm.

If you concentrate on perfecting techniques, you will not get instant gratification while sparring. In fact, you will probably get beat a lot because, even though your opponent’s attacks may be sloppy, they still score. However, the problem with sloppy techniques is that they stay sloppy. If you improve a sloppy technique, it only means that it will get sloppier. However, when a good technique improves, it becomes closer to perfection. If you persist at trying to perform perfect techniques, at some point your techniques will start to overwhelm sloppy techniques and you win every fight.

Watching an artisan at work is inspiring; seeing perfection at work brings tears to your eyes. I have watched my instructor spar many times so I know he is good, but one time I went with him to a rank testing in another city. Two 20-something black belts were testing, and they were good; they were whipping up on all the other testing students. The head instructor of the testing asked my instructor to spar them. It was a beautiful thing to behold. As he sparred each of them, he picked them apart with powerful, clean, perfectly focused techniques as a vulture would pick apart road kill. He did not hurt them, but they were completely demoralized; they knew they had a lot more to learn.

You have the right attitude. Keep climbing toward the light, and hopefully, you will—never reach the top.

I am 17 years old. Question 1: How can I improve my control when sparring? I keep hitting people when I don't mean to. Question 2: What is the best way to improve my flexibility? I have good flexibility and can kick very high, but I cannot do full splits and can only hold my leg out at a 90 degree angle. I see the fantastic kicks some martial artists do and I want to be that great. I have my first tournament coming up in June and I want to win.

Question 1: How can I improve my control when sparring?

In two words, practice and experience! To have good control, practice using good control. The first time you tried to touch your nose as a baby, you probably poked yourself in the eye. Now you can do it with the slightest touch, even in the dark or with your eyes closed.

Sport Taekwondo does not train for control as much as does traditional Taekwondo, so most sport students do not have much control. If you train for control, you may hit soft, or hit hard; whereas, if you only train to hit hard, you will have difficulty hitting soft.

To get better control, train everyday on a heavy bag striking with punches and kicks. Strike with full power and speed, but only touch the bag. Practice while moving and while using combinations. Stay relaxed as if you were a marionette being held up by strings and would collapse in a pile on the floor if the strings were released. As you move about your house, strike at various objects with focus and control (be careful however, I have broken various things, including my hands, while doing this in the past). Consider a perfect technique as one that is perfectly formed, is delivered with power and speed, and which stops at a precise point in space.

Plains Indians considered being touched with a coup stick during battle to be a fate worse than being bashed with a tomahawk. Opponents respect perfectly executed techniques that, although did not touch them, could have harmed them if you had so desired.

Question 2: What is the best way to improve my flexibility? 

First, you have to decide what you want to be good at doing, Taekwondo, or yoga. If you want to have good overall flexibility, then practice yoga stretches and postures. If you want to be good at doing Taekwondo, practice kicking and the movements involved in kicking. Only people who are born with super flexible joints are able to do full 180-degree spits, everyone else should only expect about 160 degrees as a maximum. To kick effectively, you must have some joint flexibility for speed, muscle tone for power, proper technique, and enough training so that all movements are committed to muscle memory. Which would you rather be able to do, kick straight up, which is useless, or kick straight out with enough power to punch a hole in a brick wall?

To practice kicking movements, hold on to something and perform slow, perfect kicks. Put your foot on some high object, hold the foot, leg, and body in perfect position, and then bend the support leg to stretch the muscles. Perform slow kicks with leg weights. Do not kick at sparring speed with leg weights; you are then training your body to kick with weights so it will be learning incorrect movements.

To get ready for the tournament, train daily. This does not mean doing the same thing everyday or spending hours training everyday. It just means that each day you should repeat numerous times all the things that make you good at Taekwondo. Punch and kick on a bag for a few minutes with focus, power, and control; do some weight training or other strength building exercises, jump to strengthen the legs, do sprints (not distance running) to build endurance for fighting in spurts, practice your forms in the same way you want to perform them in competition, and, when not training, think about the motions you should do to perform perfect techniques.

For a person to be good at anything takes time and lot of work. To be great at something physical, you have to be born with the right physical makeup, and then you build upon it. If you do not have the genetic makeup needed for physical greatness, you may still work to become the best that you can be.

To be great at anything, you must have the ability to become great at it. Do not except to become great at something just because you want to great at it. Find out what you are good at, and then work to become great at it. You may become great at Taekwondo, or, due to your physical makeup, you may never become great at Taekwondo, but could have been great at some other martial art, such as Judo.

Work hard at Taekwondo but keep your priorities straight. Work harder at what will make you successful in life more than you work at something that merely gives you pleasure.

I have been taking Taekwondo classes in a small town. My instructor has been rushing students through forms, one-steps, and sparring, causing a number of students to drop from the class. When I ask for help on learning a something, he ignores me. When teaching us one-step techniques, he demonstrates all types of variations which confuse us. One night, he became visibly frustrated when I could not accomplish a technique properly and grabbed me too hard so I gave him the finger; I later apologized. He considers slow learning students as being “a bit on the retarded side." I brought two friends to class one night, one of whom had years of martial arts experience. When the friend asked too many questions, the instructor accused me stirring things up, said he would refund my money, and that he did not want to see me or my friend again, Is there a way of verifying if this instructor is bona fide. Should handouts be part of the standard curriculum? What did I do wrong? 

In the business world, there is something called the “Peter Principle,” which basically says that a person usually always achieves the level of his or her incompetence. Therefore, in any organization where a person gets promoted to the next level due to doing well at the current level, there will be eventfully be a point when the person reaches a level at which he or she will no longer do well, the level of incompetence. The usual procedure is that the person will no longer be promoted, but, instead of being demoted back to level where the person was competent, the person remains at the current level and continues to be incompetent. This phenomenon also occurs in the martial arts.

When it occurs in the martial arts, sometimes the person becomes frustrated at not getting promoted, so the person invents his or her own martial art and promotes him or herself. The problem is that the person is usually incompetent even in his or her own martial art.

Another problem is that sometimes when a person is doing well at one job, he or she is promoted into another job at which they are incompetent at performing. For example, an excellent patrol police officer is promoted to detective where he is she is incompetent. As a detective, the person will continue to perform poorly, while, if the officer was put back into patrol, he or she would again excel.

In the martial arts, when a student shows a keen interest in the martial arts and is demonstrating excellent technical skills, the student is usually encouraged to become an instructor. Once in the instructor program, if the student keeps attending and paying, he or she will probably become an instructor. Therefore, there are many certified, but incompetent, instructors; and many more have no certification whatsoever.

Since there are no local, state, national, or international laws that regulate who may teach the martial arts, anyone can do it. There only way to know whether or not a person is a real instructor is in the quality of the instruction.

Quality instructor’s use a tell-show-do approach: they tell you how to do it, show you how to do, and then have you repeatedly practice doing it until you can do it. At a typical class at the school at which I teach, there are at least three doctors and two janitors, a teenage genius that knows everything and a downs syndrome man, the able bodied and one totally disabled veteran, and there are athletes and klutzes. They all leave class having learned something, having had a workout, having improved their Taekwondo skills, having more confidence in their abilities, and, most importantly, having had fun; and I am not near the quality instructor as is my instructor.

At every place I have ever taught, there have always been times when some black belt or student from another art or school would visit to check out things or give his or her opinion. It is to be expected, so most instructors do not mind. If they are confident in their art, their knowledge, and their abilities, then they enjoy a challenge.

Handouts are not required, but I have always received them where I have trained (I still have the handouts I received in my first karate class in the 1960’s) and I have always prepared handouts for my students. A martial art instructor’s job is to teach students about the art and how to perform it. Class time is when students learn techniques and practice them under the critical eye of the instructor; there is little time to learn much about the martial art itself. That is where handouts come in; they allow students to learn the intricacies of the martial art while they are not in class and they permit students to review at home what they learned in class.

There is a high turnover rate in martial arts classes. Out of a typical beginning class, half will be gone in few week or months, and only a very few will remain after a year. This means, to keep the classes fresh, instructors continually have to do things to bring in new students. When surveyed about what they like best about their martial art classes, most students say that it is the physical workout combined with a social atmosphere. The more people in a class (within reason) the more enjoyable the class. The fewer the students in a class, the more the class feels like work instead of fun.

In addition, some instructors teach better in large classes, some better in small classes, and some do well in both. My instructor has always done well at both, but I generally need 8 or more students for me to get motivated.

When teaching a new form, if students are picking up the movements quickly, I tend to teach them more of the movements. My instructor is always telling me only to cover a few techniques each night, no matter how fast the students seem to be learning the techniques. He stresses that when movements are taught a few at a time, they are better retained by the mind and body of the students. The point of teaching a form is not to just teach the form, it is to insure each student knows and understands the form and is able to perform the form. No matter the teaching style, if the student cannot perform the form properly, the instructor has failed.

As to whether the situation between you and your instructor was handled correctly, by either side, since I was not there, I cannot help much. It appears you may have overacted some, but from what you have told me, the instructor is either incompetence or a fraud. When an instructor takes money for his services, it means he is indebted to the students. While students should learn to get along with the instructor, but the instructor must get along with the students since they are the paying customers. At least your instructor is willing to refund your money. That does not help you much since you wanted to learn a martial art, but maybe you will be able to find another instructor sometime.

Note: I have had other correspondence with this person about the instructor in question. Due to the instructor's behavior, the person went through local law enforcement and found the instructor was a martial art fraud and a convicted pedophile.

How many versions the heel kick are there?

The basic kicks are (kicks may be used individually or in combination):

- Front

- Side

- Back

- Round

- Hook

- Heel

- Crescent (inner and outer)

- Axe

Kicks have the following variations (not all variations are available for each kick and variations may be used individually or in combination):

Kicking leg may be

- Leading (front)

- Trailing (rear) 

Body position may be:

- Standing

- Kneeling

- Lying

- Airborne

Kicks may fire:

- Directly from foot’s initial position

- From an added chamber position

Kicks may be performed with:

- Pushing motion

- Snapping motion

- Thrusting motion

- Stomping motion

- Added pivot of supporting foot

- Added hip roll of kicking leg

Additional motions may be (Motions may be forward, backward, or lateral; low or high; on floor or airborne):

- Step

- Skip

- Hop

- Jump

- Spin (with various degrees of spin)

- Front or back flip (with or without a twisting motion)

- Front or back roll

Striking areas may be:

- Ball of foot

- Top (instep) of foot

- Bottom (sole) of foot

- Bottom of heel

- Back of heel

- Outer knife or sword-edge of the sole

- Inner or outer sides of the ankle

Other striking areas may be:

- Shin

- Knee

Could you please tell me what is or what was the blue cottage?

General Choi Hong-hi is considered by some as the founder of Taekwondo. As a young man, he trained to be a calligrapher and he was supposedly given the penname Chang-hon or "blue cottage" by his calligraphy teacher and Taekkyon master, Han Il Dong. Later in life, after Choi himself became a martial arts master, he used Chang-hon as the name for the pattern set he developed for Taekwondo. I have not found any explanation as to why Choi’s calligraphy teacher selected Chang-hon as a penname for him.

How is the heel kick executed? Is it similar to motion of the straight leg outside crescent kick?

In answer to your last question, the heel kick motion is similar to the motion of the straight leg outside crescent kick.

For a lead (front) leg heel kick, lift the knee upward (at least hip high) and backward toward the opposite side as far back as it will go comfortably. As the knee lifts, the shin lifts with it and ends up parallel to the floor with the foot pointed toward the target and also parallel to the floor. This completes the chamber.

The kick then fires to a point about 12 inches to the outside of the same side of the target. To fire, the body, hip, and leg muscles push the knee (do not think about the foot or leg, think about pushing the knee toward the target) forward in a straight line (think of the leg as piston on its power stroke) and, as the foot approaches the point to the side of the target, the knee straightens and stays straight (but not locked) as the body, hip, and leg muscles and twisting of the body push/pull the leg sideways into the target with the back of the heel making contact. The foot, hip, and body remain in a straight line and move as a unit as the foot moves into and through the target. The knee stays straight until the knee is pulled back into the original chamber position. From the chamber position, the foot may be returned to the floor, or another heel kick or a different kick may be fired.

The heel kick is executed in the same manner as the hook kick, except for the motion of the straightening of the knee and the alignment of the foot, knee, and body as the foot moves into the target. In the hook kick, instead of the knee staying straight, the heel is pulled backward toward the butt while the upper leg, hip, and body keep pushing and pulling the heel into and through the target. In the heel kick, the knee stays straight; in the hook kick, the heel snaps backward as the knee whips it into the target.

Why don’t we fight the way we practice our forms?  Why learn all these traditional stances, chambering, reaching for blocks, etc.  when in the end we fight like a kick boxer...if we fight like them why don’t we train like them? I feel frustrated because I try so hard to remember to chamber and to reach correctly. Is this because the forms practiced in ITF Taekwondo can not really be directly applied in a self defense situation

This is a good question. I think every martial artist with an analytical mind has probably wondered the same thing.

The answer is simple—it is because Taekwondo a martial ART.

Warriors love to fight. When there is peace and no enemy around to fight, they found that, if they were careful, they could fight each other. This sitting around and training during peacetime led to the development of fighting systems. During times of war, you are using techniques, keeping what works, and rejecting what does not work, but you do not have time to think about putting it all together into a system.

Due to having to camouflage the meaning of their movements, or while to tying to find a way to safely train, they began using patterns as way to practice. Gradually, the practice of the patterns developed into an art form, almost a separate entity from the fighting system it represented. The fighting (martial) systems became known as arts, and then became know as martial arts.

Nowadays, most martial arts use patterns. They allow people who do not want to fight a way to practice and compete in their art, and they let people express their artistic side. I tell students that sparring is instinctive and physical, while pattern performance is thoughtful and emotional. When sparring you use your body, in pattern work you use your brain.

While watching sparring, the crowd cheers, much as they do at football games. While watching people perform patterns, the crowd is quiet, except at key points, much as they are at golf tournaments. When you spar and lose, it is usually because the opponent beat you. When you perform a pattern and lose, it usually because you beat yourself. Breaking is both a mental and physical endeavor, with a little physics thrown in. You may be beaten in a break if you are mental or physically weak, or if the breaking medium is unusually hard, but most breaks fail because of a weak mental component.

A person may be an expert at driving a car, and at riding a motorcycle. Although operating both vehicles involves many of the same skills, they each also require entirely different skills. For example, to make an emergency stop with a car, you only have to slam on the brake pedal with your foot, and, since most drivers primarily drive cars, this is practically instinctive. To make an emergency stop with a motorcycle, you must simultaneously squeeze the front brake lever with the hand and press down on the brake lever with the foot. This takes finesse, and since even avid motorcycle riders do not ride as much as they drive, many motorcycle riders do the wrong thing.

Sparring requires one set of skills, while pattern performance requires another set of skills. While performing each activity requires many of the same skills, they each also require very different skills. Practicing one will not detract from the other, except for the training time that may be subtracted from one to allow time to train for the other. In fact, since many of the skills complement each other, practicing one may enhance the other.

If you can do one hundred full-motion pushups using perfect technique, you can easily do a few hundred of the half-ass pushups most people do. If you can perform a perfect full-motion inner forearm block in a pattern, it is easy to perform the block while sparring since it requires less motion and less effort. However, the opposite is not the case. You may be able to perform a highly effective inner forearm block while sparring, but not have a clue how to perform the block in a pattern since, in the pattern, the block must be exaggerated and performed perfectly.

Pattern movements and one-step movements are used to build muscle memory so the nervous system learns to act and react with little to no conscious thought on your part. For example, you do not think about applying the brakes a stop sign. When the need arises, a trained body will automatically do what is required. Sparring a lot will accomplish much the same thing, but how many people are willing, or able, to spar as much as would be required to achieve the same benefit.

Since sparring and pattern performance require different skills, some people are good at one and not too good at the other, while some are good at both. In addition, some people may enjoy one, but not the other.

If you enjoy pattern training, that is good; if you do not, then pattern training will just be one of those things you must endue so you can keep doing what you really enjoy. Even if you do not enjoy pattern training, it will still help your sparring.

I do not particularly enjoy patterns, but there are times when I enjoy them more, and I can definitely see an improvement in my overall skills when I spend more time practicing them. Patterns are like the family dog; no matter how much you dislike it, if you keep it around and feed it, it will still come to your assistance when you need it.

Reader Reply. So there is no direct relation between fighting and patterns other than patterns help in execution of techniques (because of the over exaggeration of motion).  Basically, forms are a way of persevering the past. I guess they could also be seen as a form of moving mediation. Do you feel the mastery of forms are absolutely necessary in being able to spar and defend ones self? Could TKD exist without forms? 

My Reply. Forms training is not necessary for one to be able to spar or fight or defend ones self. For example, look at boxers, wrestlers, UFC fighters, street fighters, soldiers, etc. They are not concerned with forms at all.

Could Taekwondo exist without forms? Yes and no. Many students would be overjoyed if forms training disappeared and they could just spar all the time. If forms were not used, some other type of training methods could be used to replace it, so Taekwondo as a fighting system could exist without forms. However, Taekwondo is a martial art. Without the art provided by the forms, the martial art of Taekwondo would cease to exist.

Reader Reply. Sorry to bother you again but I find your replies very insightful. In soo bahk, they seem to spar like they do their forms. In Shotokan, they reach for their blocks and chamber their punches when they spar. Is this was how Taekwondo was originally designed to function? I can see how it can be easy for something to see a Taekwondo form and say it is useless for fighting and unrealistic. Reaching for blocks and chambering seems like it would take to long to apply in a real fight. Can you explain this to me? Should we reach for a block when we free spar?

My Reply. Forms, sparring, fighting, and self-defense and are all separate parts of the whole of a martial art.

I have one simple question. I practice martial arts at home and I learn from some online tutorials. My question is: how can I improve my punching speed ? P.S. If you know where I could find some good tutorials on the net, please tell me.

Not such a simple question. If the answer was simple, all boxers would have super fast punches.

Punching speed is directly related to the acceleration of the arm. To increase the acceleration, and thus the speed, of an object, you have to decrease the mass of the object and/or increase the force that is applied to the object. In the case of a punch, the object is an arm. It is not practical to try to decrease the mass of the arm, but it helps to avoid increasing its mass by unduly increasing the size of the arm muscles. The primary propelling force of the arm is the shoulder muscles, so, to increase the acceleration and speed of a punch, you want to increase the explosive power of the shoulder muscles. If you notice boxers, they have very large, well-defined shoulder muscles and relatively small arms. This gives them greater punching speed and the smaller arms are an asset when they have to hold them up for 30 minutes during a ten-round fight.

To increase the explosive power of your shoulder muscles, do lots of pushups and do all variations of them so you work all the muscles. While doing pushups, use perfect form and make a full range of motion, even if you can only do a few at a time. Over time, the number you can do will increase. For a few pushups in every set, explosively push off the floor so that the hands leave the floor. In good variation of the pushup is to do them on the fists, with the fists held in the position that your martial art uses, and then explosively push up off the floor in the same manner used in punching.

Then work long hours punching on a speed bag, shadow boxing, and jumping rope. Punch while wearing arm weights or while holding small weights. Practice punching, using perfect form and moving in slow motion while fighting against your own body’s resistance. Use isomeric exercises while sitting at your desk at work or at school.

I do not remember any specific web sites that show punching techniques. Free martial art information is difficult to find on the Internet. Everyone wants you pay for their expertise and the time, effort, and money spent putting the information on the web.

Return Reply. WOW, I must admit I didn't expect you to answer me this quickly :) You are really great. Thank you for your advice, I will do my best to follow it. Best regards from Bosnia and Herzegovina

Is this a jump spinning heel kick?

I have found that the best way to describe a technique is to define it in the order of the execution of the movements that make up the technique (moving from initial movement to the target impact). Thus, in a jump spin heel kick, you first jump, then spin, and then kick, while striking the target with the back of the heel.

To dissect the meaning of a technique’s description, you then work backward through the description (moving from final impact with the target backward to the initial movement). Thus, a jump spin heel kick means:

- Kick. A kick is a technique that involves swinging, thrusting, or snapping the foot at a target.

- Heel. The heel is the lower, rear section of the foot. In a heel kick, the knee is straight; therefore, the back area of the heel is the only area of the heel that is in position to strike.

- Spin. A spin is when the initial body movement is a rotation of the trailing side of the body in a backward direction.

- Jump. A jump in the martial arts is when the legs propel the body upward (sometimes with an angular motion to aid a spin) causing the feet to leave the floor. In a jump, the feet are neither lifted straight up nor backward and upward. Instead, the knees are jerked upward toward the shoulders, and the feet just come along for the ride. When you watch beginners, color or black belts with poor technique, or over-the-hill black belts perform a jump kick, they usually jump, land on the floor, and then kick. In a true jump kick, the kick fires and retracts, while both feet are off the floor.

Therefore, in a jump spin heel kick, the kick begins with a jump upward, the body then spins backward while leading leg swings backward and upward toward the target (with the knee straight and the back of the heel leading the way toward the target), and, as the heel impacts the target, the body maintains its rotation to add its mass (an thus more power) to the kick.

In the gif file you provided, the kick begins with a forward step, and then proceeds into a jump spin heel kick. This kick may have different names, depending on the style, instructor, or organization, but, in my method of technique description, it would be called a “step jump spin heel kick.”

The step is used as a fake. The opponent is led to think a rear leg front or round kick is coming, but then the motion changes into a jump spin heel kick. To fool the opponent, (and to aid the actual kicking movements) the rear knee jerks upward toward the opposite shoulder providing rotation and lift to the body (a simple stepping motion does not indicate a kick is coming and does not aid the actual kicking movements).

I am interested in starting my two children in Taekwondo classes. How much will the classes cost?

In general, the cost of martial art classes can range from inexpensive to expensive. Classes at a local YMCA/YWCA, community center, college, etc. can be relatively inexpensive since the instructor usually does not have to pay rent, utilities, etc. Classes at a commercial marital arts school can be relatively expensive, but, when compared to some of the other sports for children, such as football, Little League, soccer, etc., they may be a bargain since many schools have a family rate that permits the whole family to train.

Most people only think about the monthly cost for classes and the uniform cost when considering martial arts classes, but there are many added costs that martial art schools tend to minimize when talking to potential customers.

Here is a run down of potential costs for each student at a commercial school:.

- Monthly fee. $50-$150 Organization fee. In some schools, students are automatically enrolled in the certifying organization for free, but some organizations may charge $20-$50 a year for membership.

- Uniform. Sometimes free. Basic uniform $25-$35.

- Patches for uniform. Depends on the school but could total from $10 to $50.

- Sparring Equipment. Can range from $15 for a mouth protector and groin cup to hundreds of dollars for hand, foot, shin, elbow, head, and chest protectors. Hand and foot protectors will wear out every year or two and will need to be replaced for about $80.

- Promotions. Testing periods vary; many are every two months. Fee for test each could range from $25-$100 for color belts to possibly hundreds of dollars for black belts.

- Belts. Most times they are included in the testing fee, but could cost from $10-$30.

- Camps. May be one, two, or more a year. Attendance may or may not be required. Cost of camp may be $150-$300 dollars, not counting transportation costs..

- Seminars. May be one, two, or more a year. Attendance may or may not be required. Enter fee may be $20-$100 and then there are transportation and lodging costs.

- Tournaments. May be one, two, or more a year. Attendance may or may not be required. Entry fee may be $25-$50 and then there is transportation and lodging so a tournament may cost hundreds of dollars to attend.

- Children outings and parties. $20 and up for each child.

At a noncommercial school, the annual cost for each beginning student may be less then $500. At an average commercial school, the annual cost for each beginning student could easily exceed $2000.

Without glasses, I'm legally blind. I currently wear high impact lenses and frames with breakaway temples. I went to a tournament and was not allowed to compete in sparring because of my glasses; I was told that to be able to compete I need either safety goggles or a face shield. Which would you recommend; goggles or face shield or both?

This is question best answered by you, after consulting with your instructor to see what the eye protection requirements are in tournaments in which you will be competing, and with your eye doctor to see what is available to you and whether it meets the tournament requirements. Then you have to decide which available option works best for you

Tournaments safety rules are there to protect both competitors; when glasses break, the pieces can be a danger to both competitors. So, if you want to wear the glasses or glasses are the only way to help you vision, then, a face shield may be necessary.

Depending on the design, a face shield offers clear visibility in all directions but it does add extra weight to the head, which may slow head movement. Also, a glancing blow to the shield may shift the shield or suddenly jerk the neck.

Goggles may be fitted with corrective lenses, they will not break, they will not shift, and, depending on the design, they may or may not hamper the field of view.

Sometimes reduced vision may be an asset while sparring. With keen eyesight, fighters tend to fixate on certain things about an opponent. With reduced vision, a fighter tends to see the whole opponent and is able to detect even the slightest movement sooner than a keen vision fighter may be able to detect the same movement. Many good fighters purposely defocus their eyes or look past the opponent to take advantage of this phenomenon.

I just started Thai kickboxing and I am a Christian. Do you think their are any conflicts with being Christian and being a martial artist? I am having a big problem with bowing to the dojo itself since some of them are dedicated, and even have shrines dedicated, to the Buddhism. As a Christian, I cannot bow to anyone but God in worship to Him. I know that bowing to your instructor is respect, but my problem is with bowing to the dojo. I just do not bow to any "thing" other than showing respect to the instructor. Should I look for another class, since I'm pretty much not willing to bow to the dojo?

Religion is a spiritual belief. For a few martial arts, a martial art is also a spiritual belief. I believe that the martial arts are simply physical ways to manifest a warrior spirit, which has nothing to do with spirituality. It is merely the way a warrior lives and behaves in the combative society that humans have created. A religion may practice a martial art or a martial art may be connected to and/or worship a religion but that does not mean all martial arts have connection with a religion. Some, if not most, martial arts have no religious connection.

Physical things may be explained through the scientific method, but spiritual things cannot, and have not, been proved scientifically. Religious proof comes from anecdotal evidence, which does not really prove anything; it just people recounting what they believe they have experienced. People will believe what they want to believe not matter the logic, reason, or evidence to the contrary. The purpose for, and use of, bowing falls under the category of something that people will believe what they want to believe.

What is bowing? As a physical act, it is simply bending forward at the waist. Is the act of bending forward at the waist a sin if it is done for any other reason than to worship God? Which does the Bible condemn: the physical act of bowing or bowing in worship of another god?

In your Christian religious services, do you bow to God? Probably not! In Western Christian religious services, we do not use bowing; we usually prefer to kneel before God. In Western Christianity, bowing is considered archaic.

Eastern societies bow a lot; it is a sign of greeting, courtesy, and respect; it does not mean that you are acknowledging that the person or thing being bowed to is a god. Some societies use the French style le bisou double cheek kiss to greet and show respect. In the military, we salute. In Western societies, we mostly use the handshake. Therefore, the bow, salute, and handshake are equivalent. If you shake hands with the Dalai Lama, are you worshiping him or merely greeting him and showing respect to him as a human being. Instead of shaking hands, if you greet him with a bow as used in his county, are you worshiping him. Is a police officer that calls a child rapist “sir” showing respect for the rapist’s behavior or merely showing respect toward another human being?

If you donate money to a charitable group that then gives the money to Buddhist temple to use in feeding the poor, are you worshiping Buddha? If you are touring a Buddhist temple in Japan and you bow as you enter the temple as is the tradition of the country you are in, are you worshiping Buddha. The Bible in Matthew 22:21 (King James Version), “They say unto him, Caesar's. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's.” When bowing, you are merely rendering unto the person or entity the respect due that person or entity. If in you heart you know you are only bowing as a sign of respect, are you judged by God as bowing in worship of another god? Christians believe that God knows what is in your heart, so He must know your true intentions.

In Exodus 23:24 (New International Version) the bible says “Do not bow down before their gods or worship them or follow their practices. You must demolish them and break their sacred stones to pieces.” Does this mean that, when the martial art class requires you to bow, you are required by God to rip all their religious symbols off the wall and destroy them?

In the military, if the enemy forces you to renounce the United States, it is not treason. Treason requires intent to commit treason. If a terrorist tortures you to get you to bow to their god, and you do, without the worshiping, are you sinning? Does not God know what is in your heart? What if the terrorist physically forces you into a bowing position, is that bowing to another god?

Some martial arts use all kinds of gestures and movements in combination with, or instead of, bowing. Does performing their ritual movements constitute bowing in worship of another God? Is a military person who salutes, the flag of country that rejects our Christian God, sinning before God? If a citizen salutes the United States flag, is he or she worshiping America? Some say we have become a godless country. Does this mean that when you say the Pledge of Allegiance you are pledging your allegiance to a country that rejects God! Remember what happened to the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, just living in godless cities got them killed.

When you go to a school, college, or professional football game and cheer, recite the team motto, hold up the school sign, or dress in the school colors, are you bowing to, or worshiping, the school or team? The difference between what is respect and what is worship is in the eye of the beholder.

Most everything is subject to interpretation, the Bible included. That is why there are so many opposing religions that each bases its beliefs on the same Bible and thinks that its interpretation of the Bible is the correct one. I once had an investigator who working for me who was fundamentalist Christian. In a conversation, he mentioned that, since the Bible does not mention using a piano or organ in the worship of God, his church does not use them. I asked hum, “Why does your church use air conditioning to cool the church, church telephones to call sinners, or a church bus if they are not mentioned in the Bible?” I received no answer; he just walked away.

I have taught Taekwondo in Christian church buildings and used bowing with no complaints. There are Christian based martial art schools that practice Christian beliefs in their classes. You may find a religion or a martial art that teaches and believes just about anything.

Each person has to do what he or she thinks is right. If society does not agree with the person’s choice and his or her accompanying behavior, it may punish the person. For example, you may believe it is right to steal food from your neighbor if you are hungry, but society may punish you for your theft. If you think it is wrong to bow, then do not bow. The decision does not necessarily have to be related to a religious belief, it may be just because the whole concept is a burr under your saddle and it bothers you. The martial art school may punish you for your decision, but that is the way it is in life. You will either have to bow as a sign of common courtesy, not bow and accept the punishment, or go to another school that believes as your do or will accept your unwillingness to bow.

I have studied Taekwondo Chung Do Kwan for about 13 years.  We usually generate power by twisting the hips into the technique.  I recently began studying at an ITF school where the sine wave is also incorporated as part of generating power and is supposed to be a natural motion of the body.  I think the ITF's theory of the sign wave is a little over exaggerated when compared to natural movement.  From a traditional point of view does the sine wave add power or does it slow the body down and leave you more vulnerable to a counter attack?

I started Taekwondo in the 1960’s, studying from an ROK (Republic of Korea) Marine. The sine wave was never mentioned and I never saw it used. In fact, we were taught that, while moving, the belt knot should move in the direction of the movement but should not move up or down.

I purchased the first edition of General Choi Hong Hi’s book on Taekwondo in 1970 and it does not mention the sine wave. In face, none of the early books by Taekwondo masters, such as Richard Chun, Joon Ree, etc., ever mentioned a sine wave movement. Apparently Choi and his instructors came up with the sine wave, heel drop, and knee snap concepts on their own.

The World Taekwondo Federation does not use the sine wave and many, if not most, of the other Taekwondo associations around the world do not use it. The sine wave is not a natural movement, it adds unnecessary movements to any technique, and as such, it follows that it must slow a technique, and it does not add any effective power to a technique. Runners don’t bob up and down and we don’t bob up and down when we walk. Animals don’t bob either. For example, when a cat or dog is moving, its spine stays in straight, level line.

 In Taekwondo America schools, we teach students to punch and kick with speed and power using smooth techniques that flow with the natural movements of the body. When we see an opportunity to punch, the first movement is the fist moving toward the target, then the hips snap that side of the body into the punch, and the rear leg pushes against the floor to add maximum power to the punch. There is no extraneous up or down movement.

Some people, in an effort to be different, come up with all kinds of strange ideas, and, if their students follow the odd ideas without question, then the ideas get pasted on through the generations.

The sine wave theory appears to be just smoke and mirrors with no scientific or physiological basis. When evaluating any odd concept of attaining power, I find it best to look to the professionals who fight for a living, such as boxers or UFC fighters, or to street fighters who fight to stay alive. If the concept really worked, they would certainly use it.

If you train in a specific style, you have to do things their way; at least during class or when performing patterns. But when you spar, you don’t have to use the useless methods. The problem is that, when you train in a useless method, over time, it permeates your sparring and you suffer because of it.

 Keep up your skepticism. Fools are seldom skeptics and skeptics are seldom fooled.

Reply: First a few legal definitions:

- Defamation is the issuance of a false statement about another person or entity, which causes that person or entity to suffer harm.

- Slander is the making of non-fixed defamatory statements, such as spoken words.

- Libel is the making of fixed defamatory statements, such as words published in a magazine or newspaper, or on the Internet.

An absolute defense to an action for defamation is the “truth;” if the statements are true, there is no defamation.  Another defense is "opinion,” everyone has the right to state an opinion. As stated on the Read First page of the TKDTutor.com web site, the site expresses the opinion of TKDTutor, other opinions may differ.

Some organizations are rank “recognizing” organizations. Their claim is that they do not issue rank, they only recognize existing rank. However, a person receiving “recognition” from the organization receives a certificate with the claimed rank on it. Then the person adds this certificate to his or her resume as further proof of rank legitimacy.

Some organizations are rank “issuing” organizations. They issue certificates that certify a person’s rank within that organization. Since there are no laws governing rank certifications, the legitimacy of the rank depends upon the legitimacy of the organization within the martial arts community.

Rank issuing organizations have various requirements for the issuance of rank certificates. In my opinion, legitimate organizations are ones that, before they issue rank, require the person:

- be trained in person by a certified instructor of the organization,

- be tested in person by certified instructor, or group of instructors, of the organization,

- and be recommended for rank by a certified instructor of the organization after such testing.

Rank recognizing organizations have various methods to send proof of rank before they recognize rank, but all methods of proof are subject to fraud and there is no economical way to verify all claims of rank. All it takes is one fraudulent rank certificate to start the process. That one fraudulent rank certificate is used to obtain rank or recognition from one organization, and then that organization’s certificate is used to apply for a certificate from another organization, etc. Using modern technology, such as scanners, crooked web sites, and Photoshop, realistic certificates may be made or obtained for practically any thing. People print cash on color copiers that fools banks. Fake paintings fool art experts. If experts in fraud can be fooled by documents, then martial art organizations can certainly be fooled by phony rank certificates—if they even care.

In my opinion, most rank recognizing organizations do not care if the rank proof is legitimate, they only exist to make money, and you make money by issuing 25 cent certificates and charging tens or hundreds of dollars. They offer nothing beneficial to the applicant other than the initial recognition and sometimes further recognition by having recognition banquets, halls of fame listings, etc. Recognizing organizations also tend to recognize and promote each other. This allows each to use the other as a reference in an attempt to show their legitimacy.

Legitimate rank issuing organizations, have member schools, instructors, and students and only issue rank to their members. They have written requirements that are strictly adhered to so as to maintain the integrity and legitimacy of the organization. Without strictly enforced, high standards of professional conduct, management, and rank certification that is generally recognized by everyone in the martial arts community, an organization may easily only exist on a computer hard drive in someone’s farm house.

In my opinion a certificate mill is an entity that exists to issue rank certificates. If you send the money and some sort of proof of rank, you get the certificate.

An individual school or instructor, or group of school and instructors, may issue rank certificates. If they make no claims otherwise, such as claims of international status based upon a few students in another country, the legitimacy of that rank is determined by the students and their status in their martial arts community. If students are satisfied with the situation, then all is good. However, once the student leaves that school or group of schools, the legitimacy of the rank is determined by the standing of the school and instructor in the martial arts community in general. They may find their rank is practically worthless

I was a black belt for 25 years with one organization and, when I joined Taekwondo America, I had to start over again as a white belt and work my way up the ranks just as everyone else. To be respected by my fellow students and other students in the organization, that is the way it should have been.

Legitimacy is not all inclusive. One may operate a legitimate martial art school but operate a certificate mill on the side. One may have a legitimate martial art organization with strict rank control, but still be a rip-off because of excessive fees and charges.

From what I observed on your web site, your organization appears to issue rank based only on “proof” sent by applicants , a video of the person (doing what, I don’t know), and the claim that the organization has the ability to verify that proof before taking the money and issuing the rank certificate. As stated above, fake professional appearing certificates abound and a video can be of anyone, not necessarily the applicant. An organization concerned with its integrity in the martial arts community would not issue certificates based upon hearsay, it would only issue certificates based upon the completion of its own rank progression curriculum and the recommendation of its own certified instructors based on their personal observation of the person’s behavior and martial art skills. I wouldn’t want my organization to be issuing a rank certificate based on the proof sent by a convicted child molester or a convict.

All navy personnel recognize and salute a marine general but that does mean the navy will make the general an admiral, or even an honorary admiral, even if he or she can show proof of his or her marine rank. An initiated navy chief (E-7) will recognize and show respect to a marine gunnery sergeant (E-7) but the chief will never consider the sergeant an equal within the chief’s mess or call the sergeant a chief. In fact, chiefs do not consider an uninitiated navy E-7 to be a real chief. I recognize and respect a Judo black belt, but in Taekwondo class, the person is just another Taekwondo student, the Judo rank is meaningless.

Neither I, nor any one else for that matter, can meet everyone. We all make opinions on people, or organizations, without ever meeting the actual people. After all, we have an opinion of presidential candidates and elect one as President based upon those opinions without ever meeting the candidates. We can only base our opinions upon input from our five senses, mainly seeing and hearing. In my opinion, based on what I read on your web site and my above stated reasons, your organization would seem to qualify as a certificate mill. If your organization is not a certificate mill, then I apologize.

I did not mention your site as a specific attack upon you or your organization; I merely mentioned it as one example of what, in my opinion. was a certificate mill. If is not a mill, then when people visited your site they saw that my opinion was wrong.

II have changed the fraud section of the TKDTutor.com web site to let readers form their own opinions as to the legitimacy of instructors and organizations rather than expressing my own opinion on specific ones. As in elections, we will let the people decide.

Return email from the organization

Thank you for your email. I forwarded it to the Board member that had brought your page to my attention and below is his response.(Some identifying sentences are deleted)

The Board member in (deleted some identifying words)does not like seeing our organization listed with a bunch of others for "the people" to decide whether he is a legitimate martial artist or not. He is one of the best (martial art) teachers I have even seen or known and I know all our Board Members personally.

The fact that you are trying to educate people is wonderful. The fact that you do it in a manner that "leads" people to think or assume that organizations other than your own may be less legitimate is not so wonderful.

As a leader I always try to look out for my students and members of (the organization). Please remove "ALL" references and links to ;my organization and its web pages from your website. This includes the link on the "you decide" page. I thought this issue had already been resolved and had accepted your (the organization) from the reference listed there.

If you are ever in my area please feel free to stop by, meet me in person, and watch me teach my students. Please talk to them and ask them about our organization. Talk to the parents and look at my certifications. There are no frauds, forgeries, or exaggerated claims of rank or experience. I am sure you were also taught to never judge a book by its cover. (Deleted some identifying sentences)

I am always open to suggestions, constructive criticism, or use feedback in case you have any suggestions as to how I could change my web pages in order to avid any future misunderstandings. (Deleted some identifying sentences)

Attached email from the board member

This guy still has your organization on his site and he eludes to it being a fraud. Check out the "You Decide" section, he has the (the organization) listed with phonies like Ashida Kim. (seems they can have opinions about others but no one can have opinions about them) (Deleted some identifying sentences)

Don't mean to stir the pot (anytime someone says they don't mean to do something and then they do it anyway, it really means that they meant to do it), but this guy has a hard-on for the (the organization), or you, or both. He did change the initial area of concern from what I could tell. Maybe you should drive down here and kick his ass that may convince him that the(the organization) is a legitimate organization. Good luck, he seems to have a lot of time on his hands. (Deleted some identifying sentences)

My final reply

(It is always nice to get email from a "master" who believes in the martial art philosophy that violence is not the way to handle everything.)

I crafted a detailed answer to your email, but after I finished, I decided not to send it. It would probably just illicit more threats from you, your organization, or its members.

The ‘You Decide’ page had your organization’s link listed along with links to the American Taekwondo Association, the Taekwondo America organization (the one to which I am a member), and other organizations. You can’t get any more “fair and balanced” than that. Some readers may have decided they liked your organization better than they liked one of the other organizations. However, it appears your organization wants to avoid all public scrutiny.

As per your request, I have removed all links to your organization, and any mention thereof, from the site.

TKDTutor.com receives nearly one million visitors (individual visitors, not page hits) a year (about 2500 a day); visitors affiliated with all martial art styles or just interested in choosing a martial art. After reading the information on the site, many visitors ask for my opinion of a particular art, school, or organization.

Thanks for the invitation to visit your school, but I think I will avoid any further contact with your organization and, when asked, will advise others to do the same.

(My opinion can be proven wrong. When this happens, I change my opinion, apologize if necessary, and correct my written opinion. My opinion is influenced by facts, logic, and reason, not by threats and innuendos. In this case, my sarcasm in the questioned entry was not necessary, so I apologized and changed the section in question. The one word that so offended the organization and drew the threats was the word "mill" being used in context with their organization. My opinion of the organization being a mill (one that "recognizes" claimed rank for a fee) was not changed by the claimed legal threats, since they were baseless; however, there are some unstable people in the world and when they even hint at violence it is best to not deal with them. In the martial arts, we learn about escalation of force; to start with trying to reason with a person and, if that does not work, then we move to the next level, etc. Since this organization prefers to start with threats rather than facts, logic, and reason to defend their organization, I removed the link to the organization and severed communications with the organization. In this case, the bullies won.)

NOTE: This organization was since disappeared.

I am writing a paper about the martial arts, and found you on the internet. Since you are the tutor in this field, I would like to have your opinion. The topic is "Why is loyalty important?"

Loyalty gives the recipient peace of mind. When you have loyal followers, employees, friends, students, etc. you don’t have to worry about life as much. Martial art instructors, especially ones that teach as a business, are always concerned about keeping students so they may maintain a steady source of income and build a system of senior students and new instructors. Student loyalty helps insure instructors will succeed.

As for the students, when they have loyalty to their instructor, school, etc., they feel as though they belong. Loyalty helps people feel needed and important. They have the peace of mind knowing that, when they are in need, their loyalty to others will pay them back when the ones they have been loyal to come to their aid.

Some think loyalty is supporting a friend, an instructor, a martial art school, a martial art organization, etc. without making judgments about the person or group’s behavior. While it may not be proper to judge a person on what he or she says, it is proper to judge a person on his or her behavior; after all, that is what civil and criminal courts do everyday.

Nowadays, being judgmental is considered wrong. People tend to think that, if you are judgmental, then you are also prejudicial. However, behavior may be judged without prejudice for or against. No matter how harmful being judgmental may be, being nonjudgmental may be more harmful; it may even get you killed. For example, judging the behavior of a group of men on a street corner to be bad, possibly because of your prejudiced toward them, may cause you to avoid them and thus prevent possible harm to you.

Loyalty means having devotion, duty, or responsibility to support a person or group; however, loyalty must be tempered with judgment. Recently in Iraq a navy corpsman who was assigned to a group of marines witnessed, but did not prevent or report, a rape and murder carried out by the marines. The corpsman said he went along the cover-up out of a feeling of loyalty to the group; now he is in prison. Being loyal to a criminal is not virtuous, it is stupid.

Think of loyalty as a debt, similar to a car loan. The bank allows you own and use the car and, to show your appreciation, you repay the loan, along with some added interest to reward the bank for its assistance. In the case of a martial art instructor who has taught, guided, counseled, and helped you in your quest to become a martial artist, you want to show your appreciation by being loyal to the instructor. You want to repay the instructor with added interest by giving back more than you received. However, just as there is a point when the car loan is completely paid and the obligation ends, loyalty may also have an end date.

Once a person purposely does you wrong, your debt of loyalty ends. Everyone makes mistakes; however, when one purposefully does something wrong, it is not a mistake; it is an indicator of the person’s true character. It is possible for a person to completely erase a lifetime of good with one act of bad.

Sometimes the debt of loyalty is completely repaid. This occurs when you are giving back more than you are receiving or have received. If this is okay with you, it could continue indefinitely. However, once the loyalty is repaid, you may feel you want to move on to something else, such as a different instructor or martial art. Then you loyalty may shift to another person or group.

Loyalty is not static, it is fleeting. Depending upon many factors, it may be here today and gone tomorrow.

I noticed that at one time you trained and earned your first TKD black belt in the pre-songham ATA. I found this interesting because I recently earned my ATA black belt and love the philosophy and values of this organization. From what I have learned from your website, ATA philosophy and values seem to be very similar to Taekwondo America philosophy and values. Would you agree?

In the 1980’s a group of ATA instructor’s left the organization and formed the USTA (United States Taekwondo Alliance), which later became the ITA (International Taekwondo Alliance). In the 1990’s, a group of USTA instructor left the organization and formed TA (Taekwondo America). In the 2000’s, another group of instructors left the ITA and joined TA. This means that most of the TA senior instructors had their start in the original ITF based ATA. People always remember best that which they learned first, so there is still a lot of the old ATA values in the TA senior ranks.

While resting from an injury and observing class, I had time to note how different a TKD performs its patterns compared to my previous karate school. In my former karate class, we did kata until it was perfect. The TKD class just did not seem crisp and seemed sloppy. Have you ever seen this before?

One of the problems that I find with some of the Japanese arts are that you are told that you need to embrace Zen concepts, meditation, etc. to gain any level of success. As a Christian, I have always had a problem with that. What is it about Taekwondo that makes it so popular?

What is it about the art that attracted you to it and keeps you interested? Why do so many karate practitioners seem to hold themselves as more superior to Taekwondo? It is funny that one complaint that other marital artists have with Taekwondo is that the techniques are so basic. Yet, these same people would not mess with a boxer, who has even more basic techniques than Taekwondo.

You bring up a lot of interesting points, ones that I have also considered. Here are some things I have found through research and experience.

As with a religion, where people tend to believe that which they were raised to believe, most martial artist tend to believe in the art in which they have been raised. If they are not directly exposed to other arts, they do not know how well their art compares to the other arts. When one has previously trained in traditional karate, Taekwondo does appear sloppy. Karate tends to concentrate on perfection of movement, while Taekwondo tends to concentrate on quickness and scoring points. In traditional karate ippon sparring, one point wins, but the technique used must have been perfectly executed. In the Taekwondo, it is the perfection of the technique that is important, it is merely whether or not the technique scores.

Taekwondo has been westernized more than the other martial arts. Most karate and Chinese styles cling to their Eastern religious roots. Even if they do not stress the religious aspects, they so retain some of the religious practices. This tends to drive many students away. I have never experienced any religious practices in Taekwondo, even in the old days. Taekwondo training has always been concerned with the physical aspects of the martial art; not with any spiritual aspects. This has helped make it more acceptable to the public.

As you have noticed, no matter how hard a Taekwondo class trains, it is not as hard as a traditional karate class trains. Today, Taekwondo is a business. To keep customers happy and coming back, you have to give them what they want. What they want is the prestige of earning a black belt, but they want to earn it with as little time and effort as possible. No matter what people say, people have more money than they have ever had in the past, and, to get the money, they are working longer hours than in the past. So, they are willing to pay more to get something quicker and easier—Taekwondo lets them do it this way.

I have found that beliefs in ki, meditation, and other supernatural things are just that—beliefs. All these things exist without being religious beliefs. Professional athletes use these same techniques in one form or another without any religious connotations. People tend to attracted to the strange and different. They see a race car driver sitting alone and concentrating before a race as clearing his mind for the race, while the see the martial artist doing the same thing before a fight as meditating to concentrate his ki. The later seems more exotic than the former.

I too have read, heard, and even been taught that one does not understand a form until it has been performed 1000 times or that it takes a lifetime to understand a punch. If one says it took him a lifetime to understand a low block, the person is either slow or has alterative motives behind the statement, such as self aggrandizement. The later is usually the case. People become world champions at many sports while in their teens or twenties’ it did not take them a lifetime to perfect their sports or understand their intricacies.

Martial arts are just that—martial arts. They seek physical and mental perfection at some type of fighting skill, but none is particularly adept at self-defense. Any type of fight, be it in the ring are in the street, is a mutually consented test of fighting skills. If you do not consent to a fight, it means you are being attacked and you must defend yourself. In self-defense, you do not want to fight, your want to stop the other person from attacking and hurting you any way you can. You don’t spar or grapple or anything else in particular, you just take the attacker out in anyway you can. Martial arts training may help, but as any law enforcement officer will tell you, an ordinary person can take out a group of attackers. When fighting in self-defense, the aftermath is nasty. Parts of ears and noses are bitten off, eyes are gouged out, skin is clawed off, fingers are broken, hair is pulled out, etc. People do not stand apart and use the perfect kicks and punches they have trained in; they just fight like trapped animals.

Any martial art works under the rules of the martial art. Under the rules of another martial art, a martial art may not fare was well. In a karate tournament, a Taekwondo practitioner will be hampered, and vice versa. Baseball is not better or worse than basketball, it is just a different way of playing with a ball.

My karate instructor accused me of something I did not do that involved him dating a married student. He would not listen to reason and me feel ostracized, so I had to quit the classes. I love the martial arts so I have not started training in Taekwondo. I like this instructor but I am wary. Ever had something like this happen to you?

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.

I believe that knowledge is the truest form of power. This belief has driven my achievements since childhood. Becoming a black belt is a strange goal for me. The more I know about the art, the more I have to learn. Yet, the more I learn what it means to be a black belt, the less I know. Does this seem like a strange statement to you? Anyway, visiting your web site answered some questions, collected some thoughts, and settled some anxieties. I appreciate your views of how a “warrior” should be perceived, because it doesn't carry the “brute“ attitude as much as it carries the “duty“ attitude. As a Navy Corpsman, I was considered a “non-combatant”. I was never sent to Desert Shield/Desert Storm, but I served in a hospital that lost over 60% of its manpower. Was I a warrior? For every fight I can remember, there were hundreds that I backed down from. Does that make me less of a warrior? I am a medical professional who has accepted the standard of “first do no harm”. I am not against the warrior attitude because (like Colonel Jessup suggested) I WILL pick up a firearm and stand a post if you push be past my limit. I just may have a different set of values as the “warrior” types I have encountered (most of whom may have been merely “posing”).

The warrior spirit 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.

I'm looking for fitness advice as I'm training for my black belt. Being over forty, and entering my fifth year, I have improved my level of fitness but it is not comparable to others. I have not been an athlete, nor have I stuck with any exercise program or sport until I tried Taekwondo. So, needless to say, my level of fitness lags compared to others. What advice can you give?

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 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.

I live in a rural area where there are few martial arts school available. I found a Taekwondo school about a half hour away but I have studied karate and kung fu for most of my martial arts career and I am uncomfortable with the idea of switching to Taekwondo. Can you offer me some advice on how to get over my hang ups with studying Taekwondo?

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.

I am about to enter my first competition. I was wondering if there are any exercises that you would recommend doing to prepare for a competition or if there are any kicks that you would recommend?

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.

I’m interested in Taekwondo Aerobics as I work for a firm that requires similar programs for women and children. I’ve been a Taekwondo competition champion since 1995 and believe very strongly in Taekwondo as you do. I’ve tried other websites and had no success. Please inform me of how you can assist and grow this desire of Taekwondo in me.

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.

I am very enthusiastic about martial arts and it has become a hobby, a sport, and a -do, a way of life. But although martial arts have become a way of life for me, it is not my whole life. I am a teenager who is currently working diligently in school and putting a lot of effort and struggle into getting decent grades. I acknowledge that martial arts have become a big part of my life, but I also know that I am at an age when I must work hard for college applications. I put a lot of effort in my karate training, but as of now I seek martial arts as a way of keeping my physique and spirits up, not as a profession. Because of that, I am not willing to go to extremes to toughen up my hands. Is there a way to strengthen and make knuckles bigger without traumatizing them? If not, perhaps there a safer way of using Wolf's law?

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.

I was almost raped and after much research I would like to pursue self-defense classes. However, I have a sports injury which is not too bad but can act up sometimes. I am a little overweight and would like to get back into shape so I can begin taking classes. Also my goal is to eventually become a black belt. Approximately how long do you think it would take for me to achieve that goal given I would be taking classes once or twice a week?

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.

I found an interesting documentary on Shaolin Gung-Fu and monks: http://youtube.com/watch?v=jCtp44coLvA. I would like some opinions on the part concerning "ch" and the forms. Chinese forms are exceptionally beautiful, and especially full of grace and fluidity compared to the hard, linear thrusting of karate kata and Taekwondo patterns.

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 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.

I am currently the instructor at a TKD school. The school is in its second year in a great location but business is not picking up. I'm not sure why things are not working. I�m not the one that runs the office so I'm not sure about the communication with the parents. What suggestions can you give to me to help with this situation?

Here are some tips that may be of help to you:

- Do the usual, such as ads, demos, promos, signs, specials, etc., to make sure everyone knows about your school, but primarily rely on referrals. If your students are happy and enthusiastic about the school, they will tell their friends. If visitors feel special after they visit the school, they will come back and will tell their friends.

- Greet every person who comes in the door personally and enthusiastically all the time

- Know the names of every student and every parent and use them often before, during, and after class.

- Remember visitor names so you may greet them by name if they come back again.

- Ask students and parents how they are doing and remember what they say so you may ask follow-up questions the next time you see them. Always act as if you care, even if you don't.

- When regular students miss class, call to check up on them; not to scold them, but to show concern for their welfare. If a student is not attending regularly, talk with them to find out why.

- Run your school as a business, but treat the students as if they were part of your family.

- Make on the spot corrections to bad behavior and counsel the student in private immediately after class. Be tough, but do not overdo it; people respect authority as long as it used justly and fairly.

- Be a friend to people and do things to ensure people consider you a friend. People always want to help friends and be loyal to them. If you are just a teacher, if students have a disagreement or complaint of some kind with you, they will have no problem in dropping you and finding another teacher. However, if you are friend, students will not want to leave, even if they become discouraged for some reason. Ask students for their assistance in the school operation, such as solving a computer problem, answering a business question, etc.; just don't be a nuisance. People want to feel needed and, when they help in the school, they feel as though they are a part of the school and partially responsible for the success of the school.

- Treat every visitor as a potential customer. Do not pressure or pester them, but ensure they know who you are and that you value them as a person.

- Make each student feel special and needed. Although the instructor should not have an obvious favorite student, if asked, each student should think he or she is one of the instructor's favorite students.

- Have a set routine when dealing with potential customer phone calls or visits so you always get the pertinent information and answer all their questions. Tell people why you are the best choice, not why other schools are a bad choice. Even if an employee fist handles a call, ensure you follow-up personally.

- Make follow-up phone calls regularly and on time. Show concern but don't pressure. If people are undecided, ask if you may check back with them at a future date, make note of their answer, and call back on that date.

- Children students are where the money is since there are so many of them wanting to train, so you must concentrate your efforts on children and their parents. However, adult students are who holds the school together so you must maintain a loyal, happy base of adult students.

- When a people show interest in the school, answer their questions about cost etc. but push getting them into a trial class or classes so they may experience what you have to offer so they will want to join your school no matter the cost.

- Try to satisfy all types of students. Each class should be a strenuous workout for those who want an aerobic workout or want to lose weight, but don't overstress those who don't want to or can't workout very hard. For the martial art enthusiasts, each class should stress some aspect of the art. Students should learn something new, be it a technique or just knowledge, at every class. Sparring is where the competition and fun is, so spar every class.

- Surveys have shown that, no matter what their original reason for taking a class, the number one reason people stay in a martial art class is the social structure. They like to workout with friends, test and compare their abilities with friends, feel relaxed and carefree after a hard day at work, and have fun. When coming to class becomes a chore, they dropout.

- The owner must be directly involved with all aspects of the school. Employees may have the best of intentions, but they are not the owner. The owner must meet and greet all customers. The final signing may be handled by an employee, but the owner must handle everything else. People do not sign up with a school, they sign up with the instructor. They could care less about the business, if they like the instructor, then they will sign up. If they do not see the instructor in much, they will leave. Owners must juggle both teaching and management; if one slips, the school will falter. When owners are hungry, they school grows. When owners become complacent, the school shrinks.

Have you ever heard of something called "party levitation?" It is explained at http://www.lauralee.com/partylv3.htm. I was part of a group that tried it and it works. I have read some explanations about it being possible because of ki or the use of Diamagnetism and anti-gravity.

The finger levitation stunt has been a parlor trick used for centuries to prove a variety of things. All it really proves is that four average people can lift one average person. It was described by Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) in his famous Diary as being done by French schoolgirls upon a corpulent pastry chef, and it was an old trick even at that time.

According to the National Center for Health Statistics, the average male weights 190 pounds and the average female weights 163 pounds. Let us assume the person being lifted is a 200 pound male. Each of the lifters would only have to lift an average of 50 pounds, an easy weight to lift with two hands, even for a woman. Even though two fingers are used, the weight is not on just the two fingers, it is mostly on the hands. Males tend to be stronger than females, so they can lift more. This is why two females are not put on the same side. If a female on one side could not lift her entire share of the weight, the male could easily lift the extra weight.

The world is full of weird people and strange beliefs. When people cannot achieve in the real world, they tend to invent something at which they can achieve, such as inventing some outlandish theories and then making themselves experts on the subjects. When put to the test by impartial scientists using standard scientific testing procedures, all these people with outlandish theories and claims either refuse to be tested or, if they do test, they fail miserably.

These people always claim there is some conspiracy to suppress them by the government, corporations, or the scientific community. They find conspiracies everywhere.

If something does not conform to standard knowledge, it is probably wrong. Instead of reading about outlandish theories and their equally outlandish explanations, it is better to read about how these theories have been debunked.

When you read too much science fiction, you sometimes get science confused with science fiction. One trick used by frauds is to plant a seed of doubt about the truth, and then to hit hard with so many lies that they begin to sound true and the truth begins to appear false. Frauds are good at what they do; it similar to dealing with a car salesperson. No matter how good you think you are at car dealing, you only do it once every few years, they do it many times a day for years.

Houdini made it his life’s work to dunk false claims. Another person who has made a life’s works of debunking the bunk is James Randi. Check out his site at: http://www.randi.org/

Remember, use reason, logic, and scientific analysis when dealing with extraordinary claims, and always be skeptical.

I am confused about the whole WTF versus ITF conflict and the controversy within the ITF. Can you clarify it?

The world of Taekwondo is a convoluted mess, so I can understand your confusion. I do not claim to understand it all myself but here is a quick synopsis.

Korea originally had the ancient martial art of Taekkyon that eventually died out leaving no written record, so no one knows exactly what it entailed (was it an martial art, a folk dance, a sport, or a game?). During the Japanese occupation of Korea during the first half of the 1900s, many young Koreans went to, or were taken to, Japan, where they studied karate. After World War II and the emancipation of Korean from Japanese rule in 1945, some Koreans came back to Korea where they taught the karate they had learned in Japan. Over the years, the karate they taught became influenced by Korean traditions and remnants of what people thought was Taekkyon.

In 1955, the predominate masters met to decide what to call their new art. General Choi suggested the name Taekwondo and the name was adopted. Choi formed the ITF to govern Taekwondo and was its first president. Choi later claimed to have founded Taekwondo, not just name it (some dispute that he even initially proposed the name), which upset the other masters. Choi was born in what became North Korea (the sworn enemy of South Korea) after the Korean War, so he had connections and sympathies with North Korea, which greatly upset the South Koreans to the point that Choi and the ITF were forced out the country in the 1960’s. To this day, South Koreans believe there is a direct connection between the ITF and North Korea.

Since Choi’s death, there has been a struggle amongst various branches of the ITF as to which is the official ITF. When the founder of a large corporation dies, the founder’s choice for a successor is considered as a replacement, but it is the board of directors who decide who the new CEO will be. Sometimes they want to move the corporation in a different direction, so they choose a CEO that agrees with them. Such is what occurred with the ITF. As usual, the ones who favor Choi’s choice of a successor are the ones that will most benefit from that successor. Which organization will prevail is up to the courts and public opinion.

The WTF was formed to take over Taekwondo in South Korea after Choi and the ITF left. The ITF version of Taekwondo used many of the original karate techniques and patterns. The WTF wanted to eliminate karate’s influence and make Taekwondo a uniquely Korean martial art, so they changed the patterns and specialized in kicks, so much so that Taekwondo become known as the “kicking art, ” and changed Taekwondo from a martial art into a martial sport. The WTF was more successful in becoming a governing power in world Taekwondo than was the ITF, which culminated in the WTF gaining control of Taekwondo in the Olympics.

Choi wanted to unify the ITF and the WTF, but, to South Koreans, this would be equivalent to cooperating with the North Koreans, their sworn enemy. In addition, since the WTF already controls Taekwondo in the world, why would it want to relinquish any control to the weaker ITF organization when the WTF would not gain any benefit from the cooperation; only the ITF would benefit.

All these changes have split Taekwondo into two major factions; sport Taekwondo (controlled by WTF affiliated organizations) and traditional Taekwondo (controlled by ITF affiliated organizations). Each faction has its good and bad points. Similar to college affiliation where people tend to support and have close ties to the college they first attended, which type of Taekwondo you support depends mainly on which one you were first affiliated.

There are probably hundreds of Taekwondo organizations in the world, most small in size. Students happily train with these organizations for their entire lives. Some instructors do not belong to any organization and yet they teach good Taekwondo, produce quality black belts, and their students are very satisfied.

Organizations are not necessary for good Taekwondo. Organizations may say they exist to benefit the art and the students, but at some point, they all exist only to benefit themselves. When this happens, disgruntled