Colorado Taekwondo Institute

The Model Concept is  news and information for members of the Colorado Taekwondo Institute, the AMASEA, Moo Sul Kwan and our family members and friends. 

Please send in your great pictures and articles to info@startmartialarts.com

The CTI performed demonstrations for these schools this spring:

Green Mountain Elementary School, Carmody Middle School, Oberon Middle School, Notre Dame Catholic School, Compass Montessori School and Maple Grove Elementary School

To see what it takes to get involved in our dynamic CTI Demonstrations, talk to your instructor.

This is an incredible month in 2012! 

Camp MSK '12, June 9 - 14 at Snow Mountain Ranch  (Registration is full)  Six days of training in the great outdoors of Colorado.

Moo Sul Kwan Summer Expo XXVIII, June 22 - 24 at Granby Ranch.   Our 28th summer weekend involving students and instructors for across the country!  Special Guest Grandmaster Hildebrand, President of MSK and the AMASEA is coming to compliment our excellent MSK Summer Expo Teaching Staff!

How is Your Foundation?
Rex A. Splitt, 2nd Dan

A building is only as good as the foundation it sits on.  Just like a building’s foundation, your Tae Kwon Do techniques are only as good as your basics (your foundation). The basics we learn in Tae Kwon Do are the foundation (backbone) for everything we do.

Our basics consist of blocks, punches, strikes, and kicks.  The basics are put together in various sequences to form our poomes, one-step sparring, self-defense, etc.  If you feel you are having difficulty, look first at your basics, you may find the problem there.  Do you twist at the proper time on the punch?  Is your knee moving properly with your sidekick?  Do you pick your knee up to the outside on your roundhouse kick?  

Basics must be practiced over and over. Twice a week in class is not enough.  Walking drills are an excellent way to practice your basics and can be performed in a small space. In order to learn a technique well, it must be performed hundreds of times.  To perfect your basics, practice weekly at home, before and after class, or attend additional classes with your instructor’s permission.  Always remember to warm up properly before practicing to avoid injury.

What’s the key?  It is all about the basics…..basics, basics, basics!

This month we welcome  Master Bill Jones and his family!  They will be attending Camp MSK '12!  We also welcome Grandmaster Charles Hildebrand and wife Linda to Expo XXVIII!

Black belts Demonstrate
With punches, one steps and kicks
The band dazzles all.
                  - Konner Evans,purple belt, 8 years old

Students group pictures
Mr. Wallace jumps on someone
The large crowd goes wild
                  - Kameron Evans, blue belt, 10 years old

The push ups we do at CTI Taekwondo might be different from other types of push-ups.  Our toes are on the floor; our backs are level, our rears are level with our backs, and our eyes are looking forward.  We also want our push-ups to have our elbows rubbing our sides with first two knuckles, vertical fist, on the floor. 

We do these push ups so that it helps us with our punches.  Our punches come from the sides of our body’s with our fists up.  Taekwondo is a martial art known for kicking more than punching, but we still want to have good form for our punches. 

Some of us make personal charts and others make graphs. I make a chart of how many push-ups I do, and in just a few short weeks, the total of this chart is 200 push-ups!

As a result, we should be able to do 50, 60, or even 100 push-ups every class.  You just need to practice.  Perfect practice.  “Perfect practice makes perfect.”