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From ten years ago, here is a very grainy shot of a man I admire very much, Bill Rogers. ("Mr. Roberts" in The Tae Kwon Do Memoirs. He is now a fifth degree black belt in tae kwon do. Technically, this makes him a master, but following the tradition of our school, he does not wear the red stripe of master, nor is he addressed as anything more grand than "Mr. Rogers" (This in spite of the fact that he has an earned doctorate and has served on the National Council for the Humanities.) In this picture, he has just fully extended on a side kick and is retracting his foot. |
| Here is Bill Rogers again, executing a jump side kick, about a split second before full extension. In spite of being six feet, two inches tall, he is quite aerial in this shot. |
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| My own youth (31) finally encountered in-depth instruction during this period of my life (1991). Following Berry's example, I visited my friend the heavy bag every other day. In this series of shots, I am executing a back kick, meaning I kicked from the back leg and turned "backward" to take full advantage of the hip's inertia. The back kick has the disadvantage of a slight awkwardness and a moment's blindness from the target, but it offers much greater power than a forward-thrown side kick. You can see that I (dressed in a padded vest for training purposes)strike the bag in this shot. |
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This is the kick at absolute full extension, and you see that I am starting to crumple in my posture, which is not perfectly correct form. Maintaining proper posture is a skill I am now working on. |
| In this final shot, you see that I have lost correct posture rather badly. I would not show this picture of myself making such a huge blunder in correct form, except--goodness gracious me!---look at that bag. It's flying away. I suppose if I could always kick with that much impact, it wouldn't matter what I did with my posture after hitting the target. |
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It amazes my friends to find out that I hate sparring. Quite frankly, I do not want to hit my martial arts friends, and I do not want to get hit. When I was younger, I was more aggressive because I never thought I could hurt anybody, But now that I know differently, I just don't like sparring. However, here is a series of clips from one fight, just to show that I can sometimes fight by the right principles if I have to. In the first picture, I have my back to the camera. I pick up the left leg as though I am about to short side kick into my opponent. |
| I use the momentum to actually slide closer, hopefully gaining a few inches of terrain that he does not adjust to. Then I drop the feinting leg and start the turn. |
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As far as I am concerned, I just want to keep a male opponent out from a striking zone. I almost never fight "to win." As you see here, I covered some distance unexpectedly, and so my opponent is simply ducking rather than trying to come in further into my "zone." For a person who does not really want to hit her opponent, this is ideal, and I consider the technique a success at this point. |
| As you see in this final shot, I am able to get the back kick off smoothly. I would consider the feint+back kick combo to be a success against this opponent, but a more aggressive partner might have stepped around it. As I prepare for fifth degree over the next five years, I will have to develop more assertiveness in my fighting skills until I am able to control an opponent beyond just making him back up. |
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And here is more of the same: throwing a quick jump kick to keep the guy out so we don't really have to fight. |
