dim3 Forum

As per Durandalski's suggestion, I am making this thread for users here to talk about the Martial Arts.

Ready, bow to me, bow to each other. FIGHT!

Durandalski, what is you rank and how many belts are you away from black belt?
Are you an advanced belt? For our school, green belts and above are considered advanced.

Cool. I've been doing martial arts for ages (Black Belt waiting just ended, just got my full 1st dan)

Thats pretty neat! We are learning Tae Kwon Do also known as Tang So Do. I'm not quite sure weather the spelling for Tang So Do is correct.

The post with the belt system was deleted, so I will repeat it. There are 10 Kyu, counting down, and five belt colors. Every other kyu is a stripe of the next belt color which you add to your existing belt. 10th kyu is Orange, 8th is Blue, 6th is Yellow, 4th, is Green, 2nd is Brown. After the 1st kyu (brown with a black stripe) you move into black belts, which are call Dans and count up. The highest being tenth Dan, of which I think there are only one or two in the world. There are only two tests a year and a single serios mistake is failure, so it takes years to work your way up to even the first black belt. I sure hope I have time to continue training when I return to the States in a couple years. No way I could achive black belt before then.

I tested for Yellow belt, or sixth Kyu just a few weeks ago. It is the first belt that is considered 'advanced' and I will soon be moving up to a more difficult class accordingly, though since it's back to back with my current class I'm considering doing both in a row.
I've been doing Karate for some six years now, but I missed a few tests. I could be green belt by now if I hadn't. Things are complicated by the fact that kids under 14 take five tests to advance a belt color instead of two, they add a red stripe for each test instead. Because I started at 11 it took me a couple years to earn my Blue belt. Before that I did american freestyle karate for a year while in America, that got me started. It was much simpler and easier to advance in though. My friend reached black belt in just a couple years.
Here I've generally been at the top of my class in technique from the very beginning. I took Karate more seriosly than my classmates. Actually I'm the only one left out of twenty people who took the kid's class with me. That's no surprise, it's not something to be taken lightly. To excel at this level requires a lot of work and endurance, and the emphesis on sparring without pads doesn't go over well with everybody.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyokushin

The wikipedia article has some interesting facts about Kyokushin and lists the belt levels too. Now I'm curios about Tae Kwon Do, I've been told it's similar to karate. Though I take such things with a grain of salt.

PatrickA Wrote:Thats pretty neat! We are learning Tae Kwon Do also known as Tang So Do. I'm not quite sure weather the spelling for Tang So Do is correct.

Actually that's not quite accurate, Tang Soo Do is what we're *really* learning, but the school calls in Tae Kwon Do.

Durandalski, Tae Kwon Do is similar to Karate, but I don't know quite how similar it is though.

Our school is probably one of the best schools in Mississippi, and some of our students have actually received high praise from masters of the martial arts. Our instructors stress good form, good attitude, and good performance. Our main instructor usually teaches the beginners and the kids class, but the people in the adults class are usually taught by other regular black belts.

Tae Kwon Don is a martial art that is highly focused on kicking. We do plenty of punching and blocking, but our primary focus is kicks. Our class course of work is Stretching, Line Kicking, Kata's (Forms) or Defense Moves, and then Sparring. The standards of our school are VERY high, so if you do something wrong, you get alerted to it right away, and they keep drilling it into you until you get it right.

Our kicking is very fun. We all form up in a long line, or several shorter lines, and the instructor tells us which kick to do. Then, he yells KEEHAA or claps his hands and we all do the kick, and then yell KEEHAA. And we do this until we reach the end of the room, then we turn around, and do it all the way to the other side. The instructor then gives us another kick to do. After kicking, everyone lines up in a Horse Stance, and we do single, double and triple punches.

Sparring is cool because anyone can fight anyone no matter what the belt is, so whites belts fight black belts all the time. The black belts are easier on the white belts, but it's definitely harder then fighting the other belts.

One really cool mark of our school, is that at EVERY tournament we enter, out of 25 people in our school, at *least* 2 of them get grand championships, and the rest get lots of 1st and 2nd place trophies. :D


Here's some videos showing how we spar, WITH the exception that we NEVER hop all over the place, we lay low and then strike like tigers!

This poor guy gets all woozy from a kick to the head, the header says Tornado, but we learn this as a Jump Spinning Roundhouse. Hard kick! (Btw, the landing here is bad, but the execution is good):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkdzGLWIdOA

This really is how our black belts fight (minus hopping). The kicks and punches are fast and hard, and falling over is fairly common:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POCdo0TdCxU

There are some mean kicks, but only black belts do hits like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsfbPsvOY...re=related

Holy ****, he really messed up that other guy's face 58 seconds into the second clip.

Yes that's one thing that can happen. I was sparring a black belt, and he kicked me towards the face, and his toes got in my mouth! YuK! I've also been round-housed to the face. Lol. But that's just one of the fun aspects of martial arts! :D

I'm sure Patrick has many injury stories to share too. What say you Durandalski?

Saweet, looks a lot like Kyokushin in some ways, but we use more arm movement and fewer jump kicks. Your stance is also always arms up defending the body, there are blocks with your legs you can use for very low kicks thus leaving your arms free. Spin kicks are almost all of the heel or side kick variety and in the hands of an experienced person are very fast and deadly, only streight punches to the face are forbidden. Sparring in class lasts 3 to five minutes, no pads are used except occasionally shin pads. And usually there is no winner declared because everyone spars in pairs at the same time all over the gym. You can decide between yourself who is the winner, or win by a knockdown or KO. This type of sparring is fast, and brutal. It always results in bruises, and even cuts and abraisions. Because your hands are always high though, most attacks are blocked or deflected, some are simply absorbed. I got KO'd once by a roundhouse to the head, while I was stil innexperienced in sparring. Another time I got KO'd by a metal pole leaning against the wall, I kicked a punching bag so hard if knocked the pole down on my head. Ouch, but that doesn't count .
Last week I scored a Knockdown on a guy a level higher than me by sidekicking him in the stomach so he doubled over, then rapidly roundhouse kicking him in the head with the same leg. Actually since he's a friend of mine I was kinda sorry. :o

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LK-23qBlMpg
a compilation of knockouts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EI0umnMuqRY
and one particular match, bad camera though.

As you can see, fast and brutal. Ours look similar, but we're not going for knockouts usually so if you do hit someone you back off the power so as not to hurt them too much. Between friends no one tries for KO's, but if you spar someone you don't know it gets nasty. As you can see there's very little difference between Kyokushin kumite and a real fight on the streets. We've even done two on one fights, which are the worst. I like this approach because I never feel in danger, I know I can handle just about any situation.

I have been heel kicked straight in the cheek before. :[ I have also be side kicked in the chin. And once one of our best black belts kicked me straight in the nose with a roundhouse kick. Right after I had had surgery on it because it was broken. Last night we had our yearly Christmas party and had a lot of fun sparring. There is a blue belt that I am am 2 ranks above and he had to fight me twice which wasn't fair because I knew JUST how to fight him. He always starts with a round kick and then he brings up both fists as a back fist to the head. (you are supposed to only use one fist for back fist) So all I had to do was slap his kick away and slap his arms away and bring in that reverse punch like the US Marshals. :P
*wham* Break! Point! Fight! *wham* Break! Point! WInNER! :P poor guy, he detests fighting with me too. I can tell. Anyway we all had a lot of fun. Unfortunately the kids from the kids class accidentally spilled some sprite on the mats. I had to get them off. I hate soggy mats. :P

Alex and I are starting to learn Brazilian JuJitsu! We practice with a guy at the Tae Kwon Do school after class. He shows us a lot of really useful moves. :}