Columbus Martial Artworks

This past weekend, I traveled to Pittsburgh to take part in the Western PA Gup Clinic. I was accompanied by members of BTSD and CTSDA. It was a good day of training all around. There were many gems and tidbits I managed to collect.

One session in particular made a lasting impression on me. I think my hip flexors are still worn out. Mrs. Jorgensen had us dissect our front kick for 50 minutes. Straight. We started with out doing our normal front kick, full extension, toes pulled back. We then did iterations of removing certain parts until all we were left with was the hip twitch.

The five parts of the kick that she worked from were:

1. hip twitch
2. push from the kicking leg
3. knee strike/chamber
4. extension
5. toes pulled back

The iterations took aspects away starting at 5 (pulling back the toes) and proceeding to 1. Each iteration was 30 times with each leg. Once we got to one, we added everything back in, going from 1 to 5. By the end of 50 minutes, though my legs were dead, my front kick has never felt stronger or faster!

Mrs. Jorgensen said her inspiration sprang from a article by Dave Lowry. The title was something like "Learn by not doing". She mentioned that the technique of taking things away can be applied to any technique in TSD. I intend to start using it on other kicks and hand techniques immediately.

I also attended sessions on knife defense (Mr. Ilco), sword one-steps (Master Fattori), a bong demo form from 1987 (also courtesy of Master Fattori), form applications (taught by Ms. Cassello), and hapkido (Mr. Greco). All of these sessions were excellent.

During closing comments, Mr. Marker made a salient point: All of the people in Pittsburgh are extremely lucky to have such excellent instructors living in close proximity, constantly exchanging ideas and innovating with this art that we all hold dear.

Tang Soo!