Anthony_Boyd----09/11/2000 8:32 AM----Post Number: 1


So, today I had the opportunity to discuss some things with my sabum. He let me know that my next goal in klife should be to develop endurance sufficien to do the following without stopping:

the kibun donjak for 30 minutes, ssang-su gumbub 1-12 twice each, shimsang gumbub twice and yedo 1-9 three times each


What do you think about that? At this time I can do these 22 forms once each without difficulty but finishing each one twice is quite hard to do without making mistakes. How are the rest of you making out? Have you been given this kind of guideline?

Anthony_Boyd----17/02/2001 1:38 AM----Post Number: 3


Any progress with the yoga, Ron?

I stuck with the stamina building and was pleased at the result. In the end we chose to do three reps of the sang-su series and five of the yedo series. I find that shimsang gumbub often gets the short shrift and is either done once or not at all. I guess I am to blame for that as I run the class. It's funny too because it's one of my favorites.

A question I have for the group at large is about how you find illness affects your stamina. I got sick two weeks ago and was down for about 4 days. I couldn't practice HDGD for a full week and I didn't feel up to HKD practice for two full weeks. I am astonished at how much endurance I have lost! I'm following my instructors' advice and eating a lot of restorative food (which I supplement heavily with pizza and subs) but I'm still feeling sluggish. Depressing. Does anyone else find the same thing happens to them? Slow to build, easy to lose?

Aaron----18/02/2001 12:02 AM----Post Number: 4

I came down with something about a month ago that took me out for a week (something going around in this area, I guess). I found this time (as well as before) that my stamina and strength were greatly reduced, even 1-2 weeks after I was "better". However I believe strongly as my experience has shown me that working out and sweating helps the healing process once the principle symptoms have dissipated.

Ron----18/02/2001 10:45 PM----Post Number: 5

I haven't tried the Breath of Fire yet. I'm hoping to use it sometime in May (?). I'm trying to save up PTO for a trip to Korea at that time. When does Korea go on vacation? I don't remember the exact month. I thought it was July or August. I haven't tracked down my Sabum, and I suspect that the Kwan Chang Nim (Kim Yun Jae) of the organization will be off touring, so I guess I'll present myself at the Yunmaeng's doorstep and beg audience. ( I do hope to visit Anthony and Clare while there.) I feel my technique and flow have improved, but the stamina thing will be trying. Guess I better start preparing now.

Anthony_Boyd----20/02/2001 4:13 AM----Post Number: 6


I've always wanted to be able to breathe fire... of course the gaseous breath attack from a night of eating kalbi and kimchi works well enough. I can't wait for the opportunity to share it with you... heh.

Korea's winter vacation for schools and universities runs through January and February. The summer vacation is July and August.

bhdean----21/02/2001 3:24 AM----Post Number: 7


Following yoiur requests for endurance training tips I would recommend lighter than usual weights for longer than usual training and heavier weights for shorter training. I screwed up my shoulders years ago from speed swimming and have to be careful how much stress I give them so I am careful about this.
If you normally use ga-gum I would suggest the mok-gum for the long series but also adding some weight to your ga-gum for a few patterns. Use the heavier weight in the middle or at the end of the longer series, but definitely not at the beginning. I am going to try wrapping foil around the end of my ga-gum to increase the weight.
My biggest difficulty is in motivation. I can work hard for only so long, alone. I would love to train with others but at my training time it is only me and the instructor. I compensate for this by training on the roof of my apartment. Right now the weather is great!

Anthony_Boyd----21/02/2001 8:18 PM----Post Number: 8


Oh how I miss doing that! What a great thing it is to have roof access at your apartment. Where I am now has no access.
It was a glorious thing to go up there in dead of a humid summer night (is there any other kind here?) and lose myself in forms and ki-gong while the locals, lying on their rooftops to escape the heat, would track me with laser pointers and wonder what the neighborhood was coming to.

I know what you mean about motivation. I am motivated to get up at 5am, commute 1 hour to Uijongbu and train but it is a hard thing to push myself in solo practice drills. I have one or two students (depending on day) with me in my classes so that's great but practice after class is a differeny story.

[col[b]Reuben----24/02/2001 8:47 PM----Post Number: 9


I also know what you mean by training alone. We have 2 classes a week here so I tend to spend my time outside training by myself when not at class. Unfortunately people tend to provide distraction by bothering me whenever I try training and seemingly only then. Also training tends to be much more enjoyable with others so I am tensed all week while waiting for it to be time to goto class. Being I am only a white belt I feel uncomfortable because I am unknowing if I am messing up or not. *Sigh* Such is life.

shawn_berserkr----26/02/2001 11:50 AM----Post Number: 10


Don't worry, Reuben... I know the feeling. Being at green belt level, I find it quite difficult to practice at home.
Especially after having found out a few times that I was reinforcing bad habits in my forms (after the fact). Having
very little hand/foot coordination, I still need a lot of supervision to maintain proper stance.

Aaron----26/02/2001 7:31 PM----Post Number: 11

I know what both of you are saying, and have contemplated the same thing as well. If you stop a minute to think about it though, all practice is of that form, that is, you will always mess up. =) That sounds horrible, but let me explain for a moment. On the first page of my Geom Dojang handbook (excluding the cover page!), the first training precept stated is: "Perfection is Attainable". What this means to me is not that anyone who diligently pracitces with their sword will attain perfection. What it does mean is that in order to attain perfection, we must continually strive to improve on ourselves and our sword tecnique in order to make steps towards our ultimate goal. Going back to training, when we start out, we know nothing. If training when we are making errors is unforgivable, then you can't ever learn how to do anything, right? So by our own precepts, nobody should then study Geom Do. But we do study this and other things in life, and it is good and necessary. Thus, making errors is ok in training, as long as you constantly seek to improve upon what you already have.

Training when you might be reinforcing bad habits also has the effect of reinforcing good habits, and on top of all of that, gets the motions of your body into muscle memory and improves your overall stamina and ability.

Going back to the original point, even dan holders (and I am sure they will all agree with me here) find new things to improve upon and understand better even on things they learned years ago, even sometimes considering what they were doing before hand as wrong.

Another important thing to remember, is that if you don't do something a lot, you won't do it consitently. Thus, you might have a misconception that only manifests itself occasionally in your form, and your instructor might be less likely to correct it, or even to notice it, since sometime you might do it a completely different way. Practicing with less than perfect form will make any correction the instructor makes MEANINGFUL. I am sure everyone has experienced at some time their instructor making a correction that either they didn't know what it meant, or thought they were already doing...

Cerainly, there are many other reasons, but these are a few to think about it. So don't take practicing of something improperly _inadvertently_ as a reason to not practice. As a caveat here, practicing things incorrectly on purpose is another story =).

And of course, I know you are not letting it stop you from practicing either, I just wanted to share my personal reflections on this matter with you and everyone here

shawn_berserkr----27/02/2001 11:42 AM----Post Number: 12


Thanks for the insight... I hadn't really looked into it that way...Unfortunately, other factors come into play
as far as my not practicing much at home... The size of my living room doesn't permit much beyond
the cutting motions from a single stance, and my front & back yard being under 5 feet of snow doesn't
permit outdoor practice. Maybe I could make snowmen and slash through them as a friend suggested.
Heh, heh.

bhdean----28/02/2001 9:00 PM----Post Number: 13


Just recently, I have decided to practice more of the basic cuts and motions. I have been training with a sabum who studied in the U.S. for eight years so I have lost a lot of my Korean terminology so please bear with me here.
At my dojang in Masan we started with up to two hundred simple straight, over-the-head strokes then about twenty quanjang beggi ( straight, oblique left, oblique right, horizontal then two diagonal strokes) From DaeDosSi we would practice another 20 or so strokes. The same was true for the stepping strokes and, most exhausting, from SoDoSae ( the almost kneeling position). Here in Seoul, I don't practice these basic cuts as much but it is certainly easy to do in restricted spaces. Anyone can use the practice in the basic cuts so you even learn something.
Anyway, that is my suggestion for training if you are worried about reinforcing errors in your patterns or even if your patterns are good.

Aaron----01/03/2001 1:08 AM----Post Number: 14

For the spacial concerns, I have approached it personally with different strategies at different times. One of the things I found worked the very best when I didn't have enough room was to meditatively go through my forms over and over and over again, either totally motionless, or twitching the muscles that would have been necessary.

Also, after you have swung the sword a few thousand times, it is fairly easy to do the same motion w/o the sword without messing up your grip spacing. For the cuts that need a high ceiling, you can do the same motion (of course, this isn't near as good as with the sword, as is obvious to all of us), but if you are in a low ceiling'ed place, and an itching to do some chon myung begi, it is an option. At work, I use my badge and its cloth necklace. I use my umbrella as practice for pal to ch'ak geom when I carry it (and consequently have a hard time resisting chon myung begi-ing innocent by standers!!!) =)

So when very very small space, there are options, certainly they have thier downsides, but if you are going into so do se withdrawl (which I am sure is the stance we all miss the most when we don't practice it), and you need to get after it... Personally, I think low ceiling is the most restrictive, because as was just pointed out, you can practice all basics in place, just can't practice the jumps, etc.

Yet another thing I have done to practice sword tecniques out of class, is practiced stances, for example, walking in cha yon se (admittedly, not the stance needing the most practice) in crowds, where you won't get too many funny looks for doing so. Last Friday, I found myself in a cardio kick boxing class and in one of the combinations we were throwing, lowering our stance with the back knee severly bent was part of it, so I just practiced punch, drop to sodose, punch, spring out of sodose then the kick...

Well, long story short, if you are creative, you can find 100 ways to practice in any situtation. The rest comes down to how much shame you have (because admittedly, emtpy hand sword practice will certainly get you more than just a few odd looks!). =

Anthony_Boyd----01/03/2001 3:55 AM----Post Number: 15


"Hmm? Me? Oh, swattin' at these damn fruit flies, ma'am."


For those in Korea with its really low sinks you can try practicing gima-sae while washing the dishes. It certainly eases the strain on your back - no hunching to reach the water.

Aaron----01/03/2001 6:15 PM----Post Number: 16

Good point Anthony,

In fact, you could do away with chairs all together.

But, wait...didn't they punish us with something like that in elementary school...Roman Chairs?