The importance of passing on knowledge to colour belts.

As a Black belt or as a senior belt there are several reasons why it’s important to pass on the knowledge that you have accumulated over your own years of martial arts training to colour belts. In my opinion these are the main reasons.

• Teaching the next generation
• Different way of training and learning
• Duty to club
• A new path for your martial arts journey

Teaching the next generation
One of the best parts of being a martial artist is being able to share the experience with other people. You can share this knowledge in a few different ways such as teaching, assisting in classes or just partnering with another student to teach them a specific technique or pattern. Passing on your knowledge is a great way to open up other avenues for your own learning as well though.

Different way of training and leaning
Passing on your knowledge actually helps you with your own journey. While teaching techniques to other students is useful for the other student, it is also useful for your own learning. When you are teaching others you are having to focus on, what you are doing, how you are doing it and why you are doing it. It cements it in your own mind at the same time you are teaching someone else.
Lets for example take a look at if you were performing a Dollyo Chagi (turning kick); It’s not just, kicking with the top of your foot on a sidewards angle. We can break down what we are doing into 5 individual moves;

• Lift knee as high as you can, and on a slight angle out.
• Pivot your base foot on your toes and ball of the foot with a hip pivot.
• Extend the kicking leg, and hit your target.
• Retract the kicking leg at the knee first, and pivot hips back original position.
• Place kicking foot one ground.

While you are talking about these components with a student you may also talk about the following;

• Lift your knee high as the higher you lift your knee the higher your kick will be.
• Pivoting your base foot, allows your hips to open, and reduces the risk of knee damage.
• Pivoting your hips when kicking helps with the power of your kick.
• Retracting your foot first allows you to do a second kick if required faster.
• Placing your foot down where you want it, sets you up for the next move or kick.

When we go through the steps and talk about other details with someone else, we actually improve our own techniques and become better martial artists. So with your teaching, its not just about the other person, you are actually still training and learning, just in a different way.

Duty to club
Doing your duty to your club I feel is very important. It’s a way of thanking your club for the time, effort and resources that they have used to help get you to where you are now. Most students will hopefully find that their martial arts training has helped in other areas of their life as well. Dloing your duty is also helping your club become better as while you’re helping one student, it frees up your head instructor time to help other students on a more in depth level or allows them time to run the club better.
Doing your duty to your club also shows that you care about your club and the students in it and this will help you in becoming a better teacher. It will give you a stake in the achievements of the other students so when they achieve, it feels like you achieve as well.

A new path for your martial arts journey
As mentioned above, teaching others allows you to analyse your own techniques and improve them.  It also brings new components to your training, a new angle of focus and patience is needed as different people learn at different speed and in different ways. Being able to change and adapt to this and to different situation helps you with your own martial arts journey. Teaching others also helps with your own self-confidence and abilities. Being able to stand in front of a group of people takes a lot of guts and can be nerve wracking but you need to have faith in what you have learnt and achieved and know that you wouldn’t be asked to do it, if your head instructor didn’t think you were able to do it.

Ben Tuckfield

Ben holds the rank of 3rd Dan in Taekwondo and is part of the leadership and instruction teams at Zone Martial Arts servicing the Sutherland Shire area from the Taren Point

location.

The 3 A's of Effective Self Defence

Those who know me and my approach to martial arts will know that self defence is a huge part of why I practise martial arts and why I teach it. Violence is an ever growing concern in this day and age and no one is immune to it. Not the older person, innocently answering a knock on the door. Not the young woman out for a run in the afternoon. Not the young guy hanging out with his mates at the skate park. Not the young child walking home from school. It’s depressing and scary to think that we will all either be on the receiving end of violence or directly know someone who has been. I truly wish that was an exaggeration but it seems to be more like an alarming fact.

The prevalence of violence in our society is one of the reasons I believe martial arts are for everyone. Attackers prey on people they believe are weak and vulnerable and the simple practise of doing martial arts can mean a difference in how you carry yourself. You may walk a little taller and more confidently and this may subconsciously show a potential attacker that you are not an easy target. This isn’t a guarantee though so the practise of martial arts and self defence is becoming a more critical skill. There are some things you can do though to reduce the chance of being attacked or at least give you a fighting chance if it comes down to you and an attacker.

One of the things my instructors taught me and has stuck with me is the concept of The Three A’s. They taught me that it was the key to effective self defence.

AWARENESS

AVOIDANCE

ACTION

Awareness

At all times be aware of what is going on around you. Look over your shoulder and glance at what is happening behind you and to either side of you regularly. Don’t just spend the time engrossed by your mobile phone or looking only at the ground in front of you. You need to make sure you are aware of what is happening and what may potentially affect you. This goes for listening to music as well. I see a lot of people who walk around with headphones in their ears and not looking around. This means they not only won’t see what is coming towards them but they won’t hear it either. Awareness is the first step.

Avoidance

We all know of some cool shortcuts to get from point A to point B. Maybe it’s an alley that means I don’t have to go the long way around the block. Maybe it’s a park you can cut through to get home quicker. Where I live there are a number of pedestrian paths that wind around behind houses. They are lovely to go for a walk on but are not well lit and not well travelled. No matter which of the above applies, effective self defence means avoiding these sorts of areas. It might take you a bit longer, but use the path which is well lit. Use the footpath that has cars passing who may be able to stop and help you if you need it.

Avoidance is also about avoiding situations that might be dangerous. You may get invited to a party with people you don’t know or go into a room with a known bully. If you can, avoid these situations. It’s doesn’t make you a coward, it makes you smart.

Action

However if all else fails, fall back onto action and the first action if you can, is to run away. Escape whenever possible – don’t try to be a hero. Always try to escape to populated and well-lit areas and don’t be afraid to ask for help.

If you need to defend yourself though it is only self defence if the force you use is reasonable and proportionate to the attack. This means, if someone gives you a small shove and you respond by breaking their arm and punch them unconscious, you have not responded in a reasonable or proportionate way to the attack. If someone comes at you with a knife saying they are going to kill you, then breaking their arm and knocking them out is more reasonable and proportionate to the attack.

There is a lot more involved with self defence and every scenario is different. Martial arts can teach you to not only be physically capable of defending yourself but mentally capable as well. A strong mind can be just as effective in self defence as the most perfectly timed punch.

Mark Underwood

Mark is a 4th Dan Master in both Taekwondo and Haidong Gumdo (Korean swords). He has also trained in other styles of martial arts. He is currently the owner and head instructor for Zone Martial Arts in Sydney, Australia.

Foundations of Traditional Taekwondo – Self Defence

This is the fourth entry in my series on the foundations of Taekwondo training. I listed them as basic techniques, poomsae, sparring, self-defence and breaking. These are what I believe are part of traditional Taekwondo training. I thought I should go into some more detail on each of them. This entry focuses on self defence.

I have one main rule when it comes to self defence,

“the only bad move in self defence is no move at all”.

Now self-defence is a little bit more than that. We do want to go through some fundamentals of self defence if we ever need to get out of trouble but doing something is always better than doing nothing. The techniques often labelled self defence in Taekwondo is often purely up to the instructor that teaches them and not every move will work for every person. Some of the moves taught in self-defence in a Taekwondo school might not even be traditional Taekwondo moves like grabs, grappling, throws, take downs, sweeps etc. That’s ok though even in traditional Taekwondo. Anything that can be used in self defence is a good thing.

These new techniques and additions to the core curriculum has been done since the beginning of Taekwondo. Unfortunately many things that historically were part of Taekwondo is rapidly disappearing in today’s race for Sport dominance. Taekwondo is a striking style for sure but we need a backup plan when we go to the ground so basic grappling skills are needed or we will have a serious flaw in our arsenal of combat techniques. This hole in our training was traditionally covered with self defence training as the training incorporated all the missing pieces of the puzzle. Today students often say that throws are not part of Taekwondo. That is wrong as throwing, although basic, has always been a part of traditional Taekwondo. The founders saw that their martial art was divided up in three areas or pillars, basics, forms and sparring and this left a great hole in their preparation for self defense, so they fixed this by including self defence training in their syllabus. Some even learnt other martial arts to supplement their skills.

Some self defence techniques include (but are not limited to):

• Escapes and release techniques from various grabs and holds.
• Joint locking techniques.
• Throws.
• Take downs and sweeps.
• Vital point attacks

As you can see these techniques coupled with the kicks, strikes, punches and blocks of main stream Taekwondo makes for a rounded combat art. What is not covered in typical basics training, typical forms training or typical sparring practise is covered in self defence practise. Self-defence might seem impractical or unrealistic if the main focus for the club is sports Taekwondo but when viewed together with the other foundations of Taekwondo you get to see that it is all contributes to combat efficiency.

Self-defence can even be broken down further into two camps: One is movie self-defence that is often used in demonstration for show and is in no way in line with any kind of reality and the other being what this post is about, a collection of techniques to round up your skills so you can face any attacker at any distance.


Mark Underwood

Mark is a 4th Dan Master in both Taekwondo and Haidong Gumdo (Korean swords). He has also trained in other styles of martial arts. He is currently the owner and head instructor for Zone Martial Arts in Sydney, Australia.