PeteMills wrote:
Also,
What do you make of the Tai Chi Video tutorial we did with Chris Crudelli? That application is taken from a form?
Apologies if this goes off topic.
I thought the Chris Crudelli tutorial was interesting.
There are a few things in there that you could use to explain applications of TKD pattern techniques. I use the word "could" simply because different people prefer different explanations. Mr Smith and I used to often teach completely different applications for the same technique. For example Paul teaches the start of Won Hyo as an attack from behind and a throw, whereas I teach it as a defence and counter to a haymaker.
Sorry, where was I.
The takedown that Chris shows from knife thrust is one of the possible applications for the knifehand side strike in sitting stance at the end of Do San.
The second takedown includes a setup with a motion(at 2:53) that is similar (though not in slow motion) to the pressing blocks in Joong Gun and Kwang Gae.
The sequence at about 4mins is not dissimilar to the twin knifehand block and the fingertip thrust follow up.
The takedown at 5-5:20mins is one of the applications I teach for the turn and ridgehand in Chung Moo.
For me looking at realistic applications, it sometimes is just looking at the motions, bodyshapes and applications of what people in other martial arts are doing. A lot of people went down the jujitsu road when looking for "bunkai" applications as it seemed natural that the locking would compliment the
karate/TKD striking. For me I also looked at wing chun and although the art wasn't for me, the lap sau motion helped turn a lot of my TKD blocks into strikes. Also the chin na from tai chi and other forms of kung fu also had similar motions to TKD form sequences.
Also playing around with the striking tool can open up new possibilites, so a fingertip thrust can actually be a strike with the palm heel as the motion is the same. A punch in walking stance can be takedown if you grab your training partner by the shoulders and push one hand out like a punch and pull the other to your hip and watch how it effects your partner's balance. You can then play around with the footwork.
I was really into the workable applications of forms for years and really enjoyed researching and practising the applications for all the TKD forms I know. However I came to a conclusion that I knew lots of defences from certain attacks, but when it came to self defence stress drills there were ones that worked better and I reverted to.
I started to wonder why continually practise ones that didn't work for me. So it might be nice to find a takedown in a form, but to make it workable, I needed to practise it with a compliant partner to start off and then with a non-compliant partner to see if I can really do it or what my plan B is.
I hope everyone is taking my comments about "Aliveness" in the right way. I do agree with a lot of what Thornton says in the second clip. Do I necessarily agree with how he says it? No, I think he should focus more on what he does rather than what other people are or aren't doing as this can get people's backs up before he has even got to his point.
As I've stated before, I think that people should be thinking about what they are doing and why as sometimes it's easy to get caught up in "martialartsworld" (tm)
. By this I mean that you listen to what you're told in class and don't actually analyse whether you agree or not. I do a variety of "dead drills" however they are a stepping stone and they do end in either free sparring, free rolling or stress drills.
Take care
Steve
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