Since I like to always babble about the latest tko practice I decided to make an official category. I doubt I’ll have the time to go back and retroactively label all training posts with “training diary”. However, from this point forward they’ll be searchable. This is more for me than those of you who actually read this cry for help–part because it gets hard to keep coming up with new post titles, and part because the training posts are usually kinda boring unless you were at practice with me.
- Injury update
Not much to report other than the hip still bothers me. Funny thing but I’m better off standing and moving and it’s much worse when I sit for any length of time. I often criticize certain practices within karate and kung-fu (e.g. Kotekitai, makiwara, iron palm, etc.) as being unsafe. Yet, I’m notorious and stubborn when it comes to training injured. I guess that makes me a hypocrite! 
Regardless, if you’re interested in this topic, Jon over at Martial Views has another good post that you should look at.
- Form #8 Pal Jang
My instructor went through it with me last night. Still pretty rough and there was no way I could keep pace with her. I have it down insofar as it was taught to her by our founder so that’s all I really care about. We do it exactly like this example but for one small distinction: The first kick is a jumping front kick into inside middle block/front stance. Kukkiwon does it with a mid-section kick (right leg) into a jumping front kick (left leg). Oh well, they are not the ones testing me!
- Koryo, the black belt form
This one’s a few months away at least. Still, my instructor has seen it done at least half a dozen different ways! (great!) Not huge distinctions but enough to pretty much make my resources useless. Sometimes I think that some of these schools tweak these forms just enough that you have to pay for their lessons. Probably being cynical but doggone it already!
- School history
Not worth a single post and I can’t remember if I blogged about it before or not. Gordon over at Blue Wave TKO put me onto the Kukkiwon site. This, after responding to a post I made in the Convocation of Martial Arts Forum (see “Questions for Karate Stylists). Consequently, I sent him a short email after he asked if my school was Chung Do Kwan (blue wave school) style.
Sort of…
Our school is what Tedeschi would call “integrated”. We are a combination of tradition, sport, and self-defense. Our founder was part of a traditional Korean-style Chung Do Kwan dojang. That school fell apart and reformed under the U.S. Chung Do Kwan Association. Eventually, several high belts from both schools started their own schools under USCDK. Then, after a few years, they all got fed up with USCDK and formed their own association, complete with their own masters and standards. As Sabum would often tell us: “No one owns taekwondo.”
So, I’ve been told our lineage is traceable to Chung Do Kwan. However, since that style was the first “style”, all taekwondo schools could probably make that claim!
Anyhow, in the process of reforming the masters replaced the palgwe forms with the more “modern” taegueks. Some of the schools within our accrediting body are more modern than others and have adopted WTF-style training. Then there are a few–mine in particular–that refuse to let go of the Chung Do Kwan influence. So, for example, when we do the taeguek forms, fundamentals, etc., we do them in a very traditional way (i.e., very deep stances). In fact, my instructor’s boyfriend practices Shotokan Karate and she tells me that our stances are as deep, if not deeper than Shotokan.
I don’t know about all that. However, I do know that I just finished watching her black belt test on DVD. You can definitely see the difference in how we do our forms compared to the other schools’ black belts within our accrediting body. And even the “association” proper refuses to let go of it’s traditional heritage. When you start learning 2nd dan material they have you start to learn the palgwes on top of the taeguek upper dan black belt forms.
I’ll close with a Bruce Lee quote. I think I’m starting to understand what he meant when he said this:
Before I studied the art, a punch to me was just like a punch, a kick just like a kick. After I learned the art, a punch was no longer a punch, a kick no longer a kick. Now that I’ve understood the art, a punch is just like a punch, a kick just like a kick.
~BCP
[tags]martial arts, taekwondo[/tags]
