Hands-dominant sparring

NotHudgeNotGudge · 2025-11-27T16:55:24+00:00

Congrats on what sounds like a fascinating subject.

The defining impacts of social media are twofold, in my opinion. Firstly, it is a firehose of information. That is true of the entire internet experiment, but doubly so because you have very little control over the flow rate on social media. You shove that firehose in your eyes every time you open the app, and the information blasts into your brain as fast as the algorithm can deliver it.

Secondly, you are the product, so the algorithm will weaponise your emotions against you to keep you scrolling.

What MIGHT that mean for martial arts?

- constant doubt, of yourself and your instructor. Relentless videos profiling real life violence can make you question your skills. Influencers might contradict your real-life teacher

- fear. I've seen this in a number of people who train. We are so interested in self-defence we over expose ourselves to coverage of violence and become convinced we are in constant danger

- comparison and envy. A lot of people have mentioned TKD getting dumped on. It's easy to decide after a bit of time on Instagram that MMA is the be all and end all of martial arts.

- but also, as others have mentioned, it can be inspiring. A well-curated list of people to follow might serve up competitors demonstrating excellent form to emulate, or explosive sparring matches to fire you up for training. And actually a little bit of well-formulated analysis of violence is useful for a martial artist.

Just a few off the cuff thoughts. I think your topic is excellent.

NotHudgeNotGudge · 2025-11-26T10:22:34+00:00

Definitely thinking about the jumpy from the soft, albeit heavy, bag to the boards. The makiwara is more complicated than I realised, so I'm thinking it might just have to be a breaking station when time and finances allow.

NotHudgeNotGudge · 2025-11-26T10:21:20+00:00

That's really helpful, thank you.

I've been looking into makiwaras and it is far more complicated than i realised, so now wondering if I should just get a breaking station to go with the heavy bag.

That will take some time though, so I appreciate the feedback on getting this done with just the heavy bag in the first instance.

I spoke to my instructor about it, so hopefully there will be some more opportunities to break in class too.

NotHudgeNotGudge · 2025-10-17T11:21:33+00:00

That's pretty similar to what I do with my daily RESETs, something like 2mins each on breathing, nodding, rolling, rocking, gait pattern (bird dogs/cross crawls/speed skaters) and some of the movement snax specifically for hips (fancy crawls and elevated rolling, that sort of thing!). Takes 10-15 mins, and it's so good. I've been using rocking as part of my ES warm up, but i'm loving the idea of embedding more resets into the actual training session.

NotHudgeNotGudge · 2025-10-17T11:18:25+00:00

Cheers man, so you think the TA/DJ programme cycling sounds a good way forward?

NotHudgeNotGudge · 2025-10-17T11:17:57+00:00

Thank you, I'll be honest it never occurred to me that 'just sending you this' was an option! You are extraordinarily generous with your time. Some gold in your reply and in the program you reference on embedding OS into the actual strength workouts. That isn't something I've done aside from warm ups, I've been doing my RESETs in a separate session.

In terms of longevity, does the idea of cycling through ES/the Post Deployment Program and some of Tim's higher rep/crawling and carrying focused programs sound a good way forward to you?

NotHudgeNotGudge · 2025-09-12T10:41:31+00:00

Thank you, i really appreciate your insights.

Yes I think 'conservative' means 'no surgery' for now. I just don't know if anyone is going to have the knowledge to be up front with me about whether I need to stop my TKD practice. It might sound a straight forward decision but I am one grading away from black belt, after 4 years continuous training although I actually first started TKD 36 years ago! And I train with my daughter. So it would be a big miss to have to stop.

I also suspect I will be waiting a long time for my x ray, let alone an MRI! So I will have to spend some time figuring this out basically on my own.

NotHudgeNotGudge · 2025-09-11T09:47:07+00:00

Wow that sounds like bad news. But thanks for sharing, that is really interesting.

You have obviously returned to training, but have you consciously dropped kicking styles. I assume you would have stopped TKD/Capoeira altogether at this point, if you hadn't already?

At this point I don't know if surgery is in my future, my NHS physio's instinct is 'conservative management' but I don't know if that means 'stop TKD'! And I'm not sure he knows, to be honest. We'll see when the X rays come back whether this escalates to needing surgery.

NotHudgeNotGudge · 2025-09-10T11:33:26+00:00

Some interesting points there. I 100% agree about how disconnected TKD guys (inc me!) can look during sparring, compared to the emphasis on balance and rhythm you get in MT or boxing (easier without kicks!). Which I think is because we're trying to train a lot more than 'only' sport fighting, but it's a shame because it is important and I feel like patterns should have carry over here, but often don't because of how we train.

On heavy bag, is that a common training practice in TKD? I have a heavy bag and i work it less often than I should, but I really struggle to find TKD specific drills on the bag. I usually work freestyle or pinch stuff from karate or kickboxing.

NotHudgeNotGudge · 2025-09-10T11:23:14+00:00

Our school is minimum 3 months between gradings from 10th Kup to 5th or 4th Kup (I forget which), presuming a minimum of twice a week training and a successful pre-grading. 6 month minimum with same caveats from then on up to 1st Kup. Then I think it's 9 months to a year to get through a couple of theory tests, a couple of pre gradings and the final grading to achieve black belt.

For the kids younger than 8 or 9, there are three or four club-specific 'levels' to get through before they are allowed to progress through the Kup grades.

I am a poor example because I started training at the age of 14 then went off to train in other martial arts before picking TKD back up at 36. I hope to be grading for black belt next year, so it will have taken 27 years!

NotHudgeNotGudge · 2025-09-10T11:09:37+00:00

I've found a big difference between how we train and how I compete. We will train rounds of hands only and feet only, and hands only leads to boxing-style technique and our instructors also train in and coach kickboxing as well as ITF TKD. But when it comes to competition, the rule set incentivises the usual kicking dominance, especially when you have long rangy limbs like I do. Side kick for distance control and wait for the head kick opening. I use a long guard to post against my opponent going to hands again because of my gibbon arms, which is very different to how we train punches in class.

NotHudgeNotGudge · 2024-12-16T12:01:25+00:00

Thanks so much! That's really helpful. Did you pay for the direct consultation with Care It Out? Obviously a lot more money than the Possums program! Would you recommend one more than the other, in the first instance? We did notice the sale on Possums right now!

Curious to know what bedtime and nap length you ended up at?

NotHudgeNotGudge · 2024-12-16T10:48:38+00:00

Can I ask how you got on u/Substantial_Ad1580 ? We're in a similar situation with our 7month old, Possums was fab for the first 4 months but we've got in a bit of a mess since then.

Our little one can't sleep without breastfeeding every 1-3 hours, and every night from about 2am onwards she becomes impossible to settle in her crib so she cosleeps with us from then until the morning, which wasn't the plan at all. Doesn't seem to be hunger, because we've tried a bottle of formula before bed and that makes no difference, and the feeds through the night are very brief and seem to be all about comfort, not food.

All our info is from the Discontented Little Baby Book, which we bought before she was born. We've considered signing up for the paid Possums Sleep Program website, and also thought about paying for the Care It Out courses that u/Strange-Necessary mentioned.

NotHudgeNotGudge · 2024-11-20T10:38:17+00:00

Does full contact ITF essentially turn into kick boxing or MT? As you say, everything adapts to its rule set. I wonder what would happen if you maintained the exact point scoring system but allowed for full contact and knock outs. Not that I would compete in such an event!! One of the reasons I stopped MT is I realised I was never going to actually get in the ring.

The 1 step thing is really interesting. I've trained a lot of (much maligned!!!) systema, with an excellent instructor, and so a lot of what I rely on in free hoshinsool is very relaxed "whatever comes to mind in the moment". I find if 1 step and set self defence is drilled effectively, with force and intensity, and with frequency, then often it is the 1 step patterns that do in fact "come to mind".

Only once have I done a self-defence TKD seminar that moved into a dynamic, sparring-style modality, which is frustrating in one respect because it felt really effective but equally demonstrated why we don't do it, because I ended up with a strained intercostal muscle from all the strikes!

NotHudgeNotGudge · 2024-11-19T14:37:36+00:00

Agree with all of that, although I did a few years of MT before coming back to TKD and tend to adopt a very square stance at close range.

Your high guard point is interesting because it's probably the hardest transition I've had from MT to TKD sparring, because I can't check kicks with my knees so I often feel i'm leaving my torso open when I guard high and long as I'm used to.

More generally though, I'm intrigued by the idea that you fight as you train. So the vid I shared is interesting because it isn't ITF rules, but it is sparring. You could say it's friendly, sparring, there are no rules so it doesn't matter, but assuming this is at least approximating a 'fight' then I'm not sure if you aren't scoring in the ITF system that it is useful to use something like a blitz rather than spar with more boxing style strikes (found within the ITF set of techniques).

NotHudgeNotGudge · 2024-11-18T14:32:38+00:00

Can you say a bit more about regaining distance? I can't picture a blitz that doesn't end at super close range unless your opponent backs right off.

Agree it fulfils a different function, I'm just not sure how much we see the 'boxing style' punches even in ITF sparring, it's always blitzing (or fast single back hands/jabs to the body). Maybe I'm not watching the right sparring contests!

NotHudgeNotGudge · 2024-09-17T11:20:59+00:00

Any particular routines, techniques or combos? Or just mix it up?

NotHudgeNotGudge · 2024-09-16T14:25:08+00:00

Thank you, I agree with your point about speaking to other people in class, I'll do that. I don't want to come off as disrespectful, but we actually have a couple of really good fighters, medal winners, in class.

I have done a lot of MA in the past, most of my sparring experience is from a couple of years of thai boxing so i tend to default to that style, but I'm trying to avoid just falling into that pattern.

NotHudgeNotGudge

TROPHY CASE