I've been lurking around here for a few weeks now and thought I would post something I think is an interesting point about the TKD Dojang where I train. The amount of time spent sparring, doing forms etc.. in the classes has been discussed many times over. At my school it is a VERY disciplined, traditional atmosphere. No talking or playing around are allowed, children or adults. We are taught basic stances,punches and kicks with intense detail. Over and Over. When doing forms it's the same way, head positon, hands, feet, even how your fingers are postioned in a clinched fist. They really imphasize minute details. The curious point I'd like to make is, we don't spar very much, maybe 3 or 4 times a MONTH, and they don't go to but 2 or 3 tournaments a year. Our head instructer and owner doesn't even like tournaments. BUT, here's the interesting point, when our kids and Adults compete at these few tournaments they WIN just about EVERYTHING! They do very well even at the national level. IMHO, this is a good example of it's not how much you train but how well. What is your opinion about this?
Kinda the same thing with our school. We came out of nowhere and did awesome at all of our tournaments. Whenever people come and visit our dojo, their surprized as to how much we stress details. (we defenitely have the reputation of having some of the best horse stances around) I never even knew about how hard we trained until I trained elsewhere. A crazy sensei and a good work ethic defenitely pay off, although the ultimate goal should not be to win the most trophies...
Great post, and I can definitely relate. My current Capoeira school is small. We have only about 8 core students in one location, and maybe 15-20 core students in our Santa Monica location. What I've noticed about my mestre (even though he loves the Regional game) is that he teaches fundamentals down to the last detail. Everything from hand placement, to kicking and blocking techniques. I truly admire him for teaching "true" self defense & attack tactics that one almost never sees when watching a roda.
my school is the way... we are VERY i mean VERY disciplined... at my school we have i believe 2-3 days a week of sparring and when we go tournaments we win! like the last tournament our school attended we kicked ass in sparring,board breaking, and forms... and when we reiview all the basic techniques we go into intense detail and he make sures everyone is doing it right. forms are the same way when being taught.. very disciplined and has to be right. so i know where your coming from lol.
Rhineville, I really liked your statement about, that you didn't know how hard you trained until you went to another school. That says a lot. I know at our school we invite other instructors to come teach a class once every couple of months to show us how things are done differently in other schools. Some are harder, most are easier than at our school. Good comment!
I like the idea of other instructors coming in. Our school does that quite often and different people of diff backgrounds do the warm up. I find when the Muay Thai guy does the warm up it is a killer in a cardiovascular sense and when the TKD guy does the warm up it is a killer in a totally diff way, far more stretching and yoga type approach which is very demanding. You never really know how good/bad your school is until you try something else.
once u reach a decent level of skill u do not need to do lots of sparring to be a good fighter. 3 to 4 times a month is more than enough.
Interesting comfort zone approach. No doubt that is why Ernesto Hoost (sp?) doesn't bother sparring much?
there is no comfort zone here, all i'm saying once u reach a level of high proficency in sparring then u'r sparring will also benefoit from other forms of training such as speed, accuracy in delivery of technique, hand eye coordination, power, etc that are also improved by other methods such as heavy bag training, kata, focus mits, drills, and just plain old kicking into the air 500 times. lets face it roundhouse kicking a heavy bag one hundred times a day will improve u'r power more that one hour of sparring. sparring is still necesary and is an important part of training, its just not the only part of training. personally i like to spar more than anything else but i realize that other part of training are important as well.
