Through my experience and studies I have decided to start writing on the subject of practical self defense. I find this writing necessary due to the main streaming of the martial arts, the popularity of mixed martial arts and loss of the proper understanding of self defense and it’s purpose.
In terms of self defense and martial arts there are three main types of attacks or fights. This is just a simplified view but most can be fit into one of the three categories. Also one category may move into another if given the opportunity.
The Ambush: is the first type of attack. It where the subject is ‘jumped’ or as stated ambushed by the attacker(s). The level of awareness of the subject to their situation is obviously low or next to none. The ambush can be averted mostly by the use of awareness! Awareness of ones’ surroundings and to those in them and the knowledge of an attackers rituals and how they set up an attack are pivotal in avoiding an ambush attack.
The Confrontation/Three-Second Fight; is as written where one is confronted or an attacker is setting the subject up. This type of fight is usually controlled by an interview stance/fence and ended usually either through verbal diffusion, posturing, pre-emptive strike(s), or escape/flight. If a physical confrontation is not ended within the first few seconds then it usually ends up in the third type of fight, the match fight.
The Match fight; is when two or more either decide to fight or things have continued from an ambush or a three second fight. A match fight relies more on size, shape, conditioning, skill, speed, power, and physical abilities more than the other two types of fights. This is the area where most martial artists train as self defense but yet is the least “self defense” related area.
Awareness is the key in all three types of fights /attacks to avoiding them and/or to a large degree controlling these situations. In up coming blogs I shall be covering various subjects for good self defense practices such as awareness, mind-set and other such topics.
Going through some old boxes and lockers I came upon an old tape of footage from a Championship held back in the mid 90′s. This was the G.T.F. North American Championships held by Master Wing Hon Fu in Aylmer Quebec. In this video are highlights of the students from my school which was then called TaeKwon-Do Elite. Though a member of the GTF, we used to have school teams to compete in many GTF, ITF, WTF and open Tae Kwon do tournaments and championships whereby they did very well. Since this time many of the students have gone on to earn their Black Belts and all have grown to follow their chosen paths.
As a white belt many years ago, our instructor related this story to us. He explained it much like this:
There was once two pearl farmers in Korea. They both lived in the same small village on the coast of Korea. The first farmer was a meager farmer with only but a limited number of strings from which hung his oysters with developing pearls in them. The total number of potential pearls amounted between 100-200. The second farmer had hundreds of strings of oysters amounting to a potential of thousands of pearls. Now after a time the pearls were ready to be harvested. The first farmer harvested all the oysters he owned and collected 100 or so pearls of quality to sell at market. The second farmer though he had such a large potential of pearls only harvested a very small number of his oysters resulting in 50 pearls. After the harvest they both went off to market and sold their bounty. The first farmer with his money paid off any outstanding debts he had and with the rest of his money he was able to live the rest of his life not extravagantly but comfortably until he passed a number of years later. The second farmer, with the little amount of money he made, lived out the rest of his days very poorly never bothering to ever harvest anymore pearls but rather save them for the future (which never came).
Which farmer was richer?
The first farmer, though with technically fewer pearls, used his potential and benefited fully from it. The second farmer though potentially much richer, did not use anywhere close to his potential and suffered greatly from this choice!
If we look at the word pearl and substitute it with the word talent, it is much like many in martial arts. Some have so much potential talent but never really use it. Others have very little potential talent yet use every little bit of talent they have! The choice is yours! Use every bit of your talents no matter how great or how small. It is what you do with what you have which truly counts!.
Rinat Myrzabekov (Reno) was a member of our school in around 97/98. He became a good friend and like a little brother to me. Originating from Kazakstan when he first came to train out of our gym he was already very accomplished at Tae Kwon-Do and Boxing. Below is a video of the final match in the light-weight division at the Global Taekwon-Do Federation’s (GTF) North American Championships. Here he went on to capture the gold medal. I have personally cross trained in a number of martial arts besides my extensive trained in Taekwon-Do. I have also taught for a number of years this open mindeness and diverse training. When Rinat came to our school he was introduced to his type of training and immediately picked up on grappling and started to heavily train on his new found ground game. This training along with the growing popularity of mixed martial arts (mma) opened opportunities for him to pursue his fighting career whereby he moved down to the United States to fight.
Here is the Gold Medal match for the Light-Weight Division at the G.T.F. North American Championships.
I have known GM Richard Parris for many years. He was an international competitor of many Taekwon0do tournaments and championships and an accomplished instructor for many years.
Here in this video Master L. Miller one of my senior students demonstrates the flying arm-bar with another senior student Mr. L. Robinson.
Our school is located at the North Oshawa Clubhouse, 1139 Mary St. North in Oshawa.
For more information please check out the links on this blog or email us at whitesmartialarts@yahoo.ca
Here is another video with various students of our kids/youth class “Just Kickin’ It!”
Are classes are located at the North Oshawa Community Clubhouse, 1139 Mary St. N in Oshawa.
For more information about our classes please contact us at: whitesmartialarts@yahoo.ca
Here is a video from our school featuring clips of the kids/youths class.
Are classes are located at the North Oshawa Community Clubhouse, 1139 Mary St. N in Oshawa.
For more information about our classes please contact us at: whitesmartialarts@yahoo.ca
On October 2nd 2010, Master Roy Sullivan and the Ki Do Kwan School of Tae Kwon-Do hosted a tournament in Toronto, Ontario. Many Masters who have helped spread Chang Hon Tae Kwon-Do throughout Canada and the States were out in full force giving their support to this event.The Guest of Honour being world renowned Tae Kwon-Do Pioneer GM Park Jong Soo. The tournament was supported by numerous schools from Ontario, Quebec and even some from the United States. Of note was the Spectacular Demonstration put on by the Ki Do Kwan Demo team.
Here is a Video account of the event.
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