Returning to Taekwondo After 40 Years

 I was reminded by my TKD master of the pressure of competition, and that as you compete more and more you are able to deal better with the pressure.   While this is true, there are hacks that may help you from choking under pressure.   Don't just practice under optimal environments.   Practice, under pressure, and various pressures before competition.  1.     Why wait - if you can create a pressured situation in which is expose yourself to stress before the competition, then do it.   This may include - asking for your teachers or students to review your form and asking for criticisms.   You may want to do a form next to someone else that is doing a different form.  Don't limit your audience, practice your form in public before friends, family, or even strangers.   Asking someone to blow an Air Horn while you are doing the form.     2.  Practice the forum with closed eyes (utilizing all safe precautions - don't walk off a cliff).   Basically know your form so you can do it

  Grateful to have competed in the Annual Kukkiwon USA Cup 2024. By the grace of God, I was able to win two 1st place gold medals in board breaking and forms (Color Belt Division). A fun and exhilarating experience!

  I only competed in Poomsea at the tournament and won my 2nd place medal due to the small number of competitors.   But I learned some lessons from participating, and they are: 1.  When you get up to do your form focus on the first movements.  Once I got started my body knew the rest of the form (muscles memory).   2. Hold the last movement until they say to return to the ready position.    3. Slow down, I was finished with the form way too quickly.   I need to focus on each individual strike.  4. Try harder to increase the height of the kicks, they don't give points for extremely low kicks. 

My first tournament since 1981.  Last month my TDK school was encouraging those with a green belt and above to sign up for a tournament last month.  However since this event was on Sunday (and I'm a Christian), I looked for another tournament that I could do on a Saturday.   I found the AAU NJ Championship which is being held on May 11th, in Teaneck, New Jersey.  I signed up for two events;  1.  WT Forms 2.  Olympic Sparring.   I've been receiving lists of those that have signed up and so far I have not seen anyone with; my sex, my rank (intermediate ranks, Green, Purple) my age (Ultra, 43 and above), and my particular events.  So I have no idea if I will be competing with anyone or if they will put me with the closest age groups.   My emotions are all over the place.  I'm excited one minute, and nervous the next.   I hope I will look back and say I made the right call.  

I was looking through some old news papers, and found the advertisement for my 1 week Free Tae Kwon Do class - back in 1977-78 (I was 15 year old). I believe that classes back then costed $30.00 per month which allowed you to attend as many classes as you want (and I did).   My first school was part of the United Tae Kwon Do Federation which is part of the large International Tae kwon Do Federation.  My rank in the UTF was a greenbelt as of June 6th, 1979.   I was part of this school until the owner sold the school to another martial arts owner that taught multiple martial art disciplines including Tae Kwon Do.   This owner name was Jami Betha Epstein, and claimed the rank of 3rd degree black belt, and a national heavy-weight champion.  Here is an ad that was place in the paper during a grace period when the two were merging.  At that time I did not know what Tae Kwon Do Style Karate was - but I found out three years later in Sept 1980, which I was a Bo-Dan (black belt candidate) .  I

 On March 20th, 2024 I took my Purple Belt Test.   Here are some pictures:                                                              Here I broke 4 boards with a spinning back kick.  Took 4 tries.  I felt very much ready for this test, and while I saw improvement, I feel as if my improvement wasn't as significate as it could have been.  This is my lessons learnt:  1.  I was dedicated to doing particular stretches (sitting leg stretch, touch toes, butterfly stretch), but I need to expand my number of stretches.  Want to add one legged swat stretch, lunge stretch, front and side splits).   2. I need to spend more time working on my 1 step sparring.   My kicks were rushed and not very good.  Want to work on quality of the movements, while doing them quick.   In addition, while not part of testing, I want to improve my performance of the Tornado Kick, and doing get away, and counter sticking.  One thing I don't want to stop is my slow 3 second breakdown of my side kick.  This ha