TaeKwonDo
I attend taekwondo twice a week, originally to do some light exercise, since i wasn't doing anything before. The instructors teach classes as a whole, so it's not much of a one on one thing. There's 3 main parts to taekwondo. The kicking, the pumsay, and self-defence. The kicking is about learning kicks, such as roundhouse kick, front kick, back kick, and can get complicated like the reverse spinning kick, also called a capoeira in other martial arts. The pumsay is more about a traditional taekwondo performance. It's like Taichi. Self-defence is basic defence against more general actions, instead of taekwondo kicks.
Last lesson we put on sparring gear for the first time and practiced spacing. Since we always do no-contact or kick only pads, we are not used to actually kicking someone. First things we did were just lightly kicking, then dodging. The protective gear really doesn't do much. I think the person I was partnered up with was a black belt, so maybe that was the problem rather than the protective gear, but still, it hurt quite a bit. Especially because he's kicking just under the ribs, you get winded really easily. After a while I got used to it.
I had trouble with the countering. What the instructor told us to was counter a roundhouse kick with a back kick, but I can't do back kicks. The hard thing about it is you spin, bring your leg under you and kick, but you can't see what you're doing. You're meant to spot first, meaning you turn just your head around.
Maybe controlled spinning is the hard part, since I can kick reverse spinning kick fine, but that doesn't require too much control. You just spin and let your leg fly, pretty much.
After doing something as practical as that, I realize that actual sparring is much more complicated than it seems. Just practicing kicks by yourself really won't get you anywhere. Actually, at my level, practicing kicks and making them fast and strong might be good, but as you go higher up the ranks, it's not about whose kicks are stronger or faster, but rather counters and throwing the opponent off. At least that's how I'm guessing it is. At higher levels, everyone probably knows all the kicks and have mastered them. Therefore having faster or stronger kicks doesn't really matter, since the opponent will be able to block it. So then it becomes a match of who can actually get hits in. So, counters, fakes, and generally throwing the opponent off.
I'd like to be able to get that level, so I'll probably keep going with taekwondo.
Last lesson we put on sparring gear for the first time and practiced spacing. Since we always do no-contact or kick only pads, we are not used to actually kicking someone. First things we did were just lightly kicking, then dodging. The protective gear really doesn't do much. I think the person I was partnered up with was a black belt, so maybe that was the problem rather than the protective gear, but still, it hurt quite a bit. Especially because he's kicking just under the ribs, you get winded really easily. After a while I got used to it.
I had trouble with the countering. What the instructor told us to was counter a roundhouse kick with a back kick, but I can't do back kicks. The hard thing about it is you spin, bring your leg under you and kick, but you can't see what you're doing. You're meant to spot first, meaning you turn just your head around.
Maybe controlled spinning is the hard part, since I can kick reverse spinning kick fine, but that doesn't require too much control. You just spin and let your leg fly, pretty much.
After doing something as practical as that, I realize that actual sparring is much more complicated than it seems. Just practicing kicks by yourself really won't get you anywhere. Actually, at my level, practicing kicks and making them fast and strong might be good, but as you go higher up the ranks, it's not about whose kicks are stronger or faster, but rather counters and throwing the opponent off. At least that's how I'm guessing it is. At higher levels, everyone probably knows all the kicks and have mastered them. Therefore having faster or stronger kicks doesn't really matter, since the opponent will be able to block it. So then it becomes a match of who can actually get hits in. So, counters, fakes, and generally throwing the opponent off.
I'd like to be able to get that level, so I'll probably keep going with taekwondo.
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