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CTI Model Concept Newsletter - December 2011
The Model Concept
The Model Concept is named after Lee H. Park's learning plan and is news and information for members of the CTI, American Martial Arts Sports and Education Association and the Moo Sul Kwan Martial Arts Institute.
Send in your comments, articles and photographs to info@startmartialarts.com .
Merry Chirstmas!
The Colorado Taekwondo Institute would like to wish everyone a wonderful holiday season!
Our CTI Christmas Party will be on December 10th following our Hanmandang! Come and have some fun!
Allison Lawrence Artwork, brown belt, age 9, Green Mountain Campus
Kelsey Smith Artwork, blue belt, age 17, Westminster Campus
Talent Show
Some members of the Golden Campus demonstrated at Maple Grove Elementary School.
Parent's Corner
Helping Your Child At Home
by Alice Meyung, 4th dan
Helping your child at home is essential to their marital arts success, but most parents find it difficult as they do not practice Taekwondo themselves.
Basics – Basic techniques are the backbone of “Moo Sul Kwan Taekwondo.” They are easy to practice at home. It is important that the student be able to recognize when they are correctly performing a technique; however; this can be extremely difficult for a young student, or a beginning student, since they cant watch themselves from a third person point of view. Ask your child’s instructor on what techniques would be best to concentrate on at home and have some fun helping them train.
Target Holding – An easy way to help a child advance in their kicks is to have them use a “real” target. You can practice with your child at home with a swimming noodle, a pillow, a square target, or even a simple piece of paper. The noodle, or square target can be held out to the side and tilted slightly down for a front kick, held straight out to the side for side kicks and back kicks, or held straight out the front for a roundhouse kick. (Ask the instructor for proper positions.) You can also draw out a target on a piece of paper and hold it out like a square target. After your child kicks it, you mark where they kicked and they can see how precise their kicking attempt was.
Most importantly, coming to watch your student in class will reveal to you how to help your child at home. You can see how well they are doing, what they struggle with and the many exciting things they learn in class. Private lessons are always beneficial. Ask your child’s instructor if you can sit in on the lesson in order to learn, understand, and recognize what your student needs improvement on and how to help them. The Belt DVDs are also a fantastic way for your child to practice at home. They can do their poomse along with the black belt in the video, and you can help them recognize when they make a mistake. Along with encouragement, these simple ways to get involved can help your child grow into an accomplished CTI martial artist.
Faking
by Freddy Sautel, 4th dan
A simple kihap, or a raised knee. A fake can startle the more experienced sparer, turning the table in favor of the statistically “weaker” sparer. Or a fake can give the edge in a match that has been equal on both sides.
There are countless ways to fake in a sparring match. Fake attacks can be used to misdirect a block, but only if it looks like a real attack to the opponent. This means that the kihap, and powerful body movements that would accompany a real strike are all present in a fake, even if the fake is extra low or high. A double roundhouse, one low the other high, or a high backfist reverse punch are simple examples of this kind of fake. This fake can move an opponent’s hands, exposing point-scoring areas, and freeze them in their spot.
Other fakes can be as simple as looking away, or down for a moment to disturb the opponent. This fake only works for the sparer with stronger eye contact. Small shoulder or kihap fakes can cause hesitations or stop an imminent attack. If a pace has been set in the match, a small pause or change in pace can be just as effective to fake out the opponent.
Faking can be a tricky art to train, but can turn the tide in a losing match, or give an edge against a stronger opponent.
Don't Hold Yourself Back! by Doug Sandusky, 2nd dan
Doubting yourself can only hold you back. You will never know how high you can go until you put aside all fear and doubt and give it your best shot. It’s somewhat of a motto at CTI that all we expect is for students to pay attention and give 100%. This is all about attitude. All you can possibly expect of yourself is what you get when you give 100%, and if you truly give that, then the result is the best possible result under the circumstances.
No matter what happens in the end, if every (best) effort was truly put forth, then you never need to feel guilty about the result. Once this is realized, and believed, then the process becomes more important than the objective and the sky becomes the limit. When merely shooting for the objective, chances of going beyond are slim. But when 100% is given to the process, the original objective is likely to be passed by like a truck stop on the highway, on the way to greater accomplishments than ever imagined.
Articles from the Archives - Poomse, by Erik Albrechtson
Chung-Mu
Poomse is one of the biggest aspects in a CTI student’s training. On each promotion test, poomse is considered to be about 50% of the student’s testing grade. Thus, it is important that each student develop each poomse to their top potential. The only way this can be done is by practicing.
In order to make ach of our poomses into “diamonds”, we need to place some pressure on ourselves. Each poomse needs 500 repetitions to be developed properly. For 1st dan black belt, each CTI must know 19 poomses. At 500 repetitions each, that’s a minimum of 9,500 poomse to get them all down.
Here’s a list of four common things to work on while performing one of those many poomses during practice:
STANCES – there are seven different poomse stances. Developing each stance and the transition between them is very difficult. The best way to master each stance in each poomse is to move slowly and take your time and perform each stance precisely.
EYES – Maintaining an objective focus is extremely important when practicing poomse. Eyes are crucial for balance and focus. In class, when doing poomse in a group keep your eyes forward.
BLOCKS – Blocks are important basic building block of poomse. Without blocks, we would not have the means to stop an incoming attack. A block needs to be performed with greater speed and power than any incoming attacks.
STRIKES – Each poomse contains nearly as many strikes as blocks. Each strike needs to be performed with power and speed, but they also need to be very precise. Each target (solar plexus, philtrum, etc.) is very small. Therefore, each strike needs to be accurately performed to achieve its maximum efficiency.
