Anybody heard of the WRSA board for Tae Kwon Do?

pdg

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The closes school apart from this one is 1 hour and a half by car

Closest school in the same group? Because...

I had to stop Judo and Karate due to me moving to the UK

So you're in the UK...

I'm in the UK, out in the countryside.

Within an hour and a half drive I would be shocked if I couldn't find an absolute minimum of 200 martial art schools, a good proportion of which would be judo and karate (of various sub types).

Just in my local town I can point at 3 tkd, 1 judo, 2 karate, 2 kickboxing, 1 western boxing, 2 aikido, 2 MMA, 1 KM and 2 WC derivative schools - and that's without going back to Google to have another look. And that's less than a 20 minute drive to a not very big town. Going for an hour and a half gives me at least 10 fairly major towns and cities. Oh, and like a third of London if the traffic is relatively clear.

So yeah, y'know, not much choice about is there...
 

dvcochran

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Closest school in the same group? Because...



So you're in the UK...

I'm in the UK, out in the countryside.

Within an hour and a half drive I would be shocked if I couldn't find an absolute minimum of 200 martial art schools, a good proportion of which would be judo and karate (of various sub types).

Just in my local town I can point at 3 tkd, 1 judo, 2 karate, 2 kickboxing, 1 western boxing, 2 aikido, 2 MMA, 1 KM and 2 WC derivative schools - and that's without going back to Google to have another look. And that's less than a 20 minute drive to a not very big town. Going for an hour and a half gives me at least 10 fairly major towns and cities. Oh, and like a third of London if the traffic is relatively clear.

So yeah, y'know, not much choice about is there...
Things are just way denser over there. Our idea of "countryside" must be different. I just did a search for MA schools within 2 hours from me and goggle came up with only 18. Funny how different regions can be.
 

dvcochran

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I think some of you guys are being rude to Ivan.
You don't need years of experience to evaluate Black Belts.
The first place I look at when judging a black belt is how good is his balance, how precise are his punches, kicks, blocks, stances, and movements between stances.
The second place I look at when judging a black belt is how perfectly he can perform a white belt H form.
If he cares about his art, he will do his best to do all forms as perfectly as possible.
Thirdly even an untrained eye can see how well someone can spar.
This is strictly a personal reply. I like to think I am very knowledgeable and know I am a very experienced BB. Not bragging. That said, I have several breaks and plates (12), 5 on my noggin and the rest down my left leg/foot. So my balance is worse that terrible. Vertigo and aphasia just suck. If you were to walk in and see me doing a BB for that requires a lot of balance like Geumgang it would not be pretty. But I can teach a person how to do the form very well, and most importantly the why. Their form will be correct.
So does the make me a bad BB? You are looking purely at the outside. A big problem in a lot of today's society.
 

pdg

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Things are just way denser over there. Our idea of "countryside" must be different. I just did a search for MA schools within 2 hours from me and goggle came up with only 18. Funny how different regions can be.

It's a completely different scale, but it comes with a different attitude to distances I've found.

We live about 6-7 miles out of town, and if/when we sell stuff we always, without fail, get someone saying they're interested but don't like driving that far...

I'm very unusual in considering the 35 mile drive to the beach as not a problem for an evening outing - for most a drive that long makes it a full day trip at least.

Tip to tip, the UK mainland is 874 miles by the most common cycling route (land's end to john o'groats) and that's far from a straight line - great plains (or even duke's of hazzard) type countryside just won't physically fit.


So, with that in mind, if you can only find one MA school within an hour and a half you're not looking hard enough
 

CB Jones

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We live about 6-7 miles out of town, and if/when we sell stuff we always, without fail, get someone saying they're interested but don't like driving that far.

That’s more like the suburbs here.

For us its 30 miles just to go to the nearest grocery store.


But yeah people in the city and people out in the country have way different perspectives on traveling distances.
 

Gerry Seymour

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Things are just way denser over there. Our idea of "countryside" must be different. I just did a search for MA schools within 2 hours from me and goggle came up with only 18. Funny how different regions can be.
I expect I could find 18 within 45 minutes without trying hard here, though I live outside any city in a semi-rural area. If I went to 2 hours, I think the number would be well over 100: 3 smallish cities (Greenville, Spartanburg, Asheville), a few smaller cities, several towns, and the outskirts of both Charlotte and Columbia within that range.
 

Gerry Seymour

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This is strictly a personal reply. I like to think I am very knowledgeable and know I am a very experienced BB. Not bragging. That said, I have several breaks and plates (12), 5 on my noggin and the rest down my left leg/foot. So my balance is worse that terrible. Vertigo and aphasia just suck. If you were to walk in and see me doing a BB for that requires a lot of balance like Geumgang it would not be pretty. But I can teach a person how to do the form very well, and most importantly the why. Their form will be correct.
So does the make me a bad BB? You are looking purely at the outside. A big problem in a lot of today's society.
And as any of us age, range of motion tends to decrease, so form must change.
 

dvcochran

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I expect I could find 18 within 45 minutes without trying hard here, though I live outside any city in a semi-rural area. If I went to 2 hours, I think the number would be well over 100: 3 smallish cities (Greenville, Spartanburg, Asheville), a few smaller cities, several towns, and the outskirts of both Charlotte and Columbia within that range.
To be fair, there are some in our area that do not show up in a Google search so the number is higher here as well.
 

dvcochran

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It's a completely different scale, but it comes with a different attitude to distances I've found.

We live about 6-7 miles out of town, and if/when we sell stuff we always, without fail, get someone saying they're interested but don't like driving that far...

I'm very unusual in considering the 35 mile drive to the beach as not a problem for an evening outing - for most a drive that long makes it a full day trip at least.

Tip to tip, the UK mainland is 874 miles by the most common cycling route (land's end to john o'groats) and that's far from a straight line - great plains (or even duke's of hazzard) type countryside just won't physically fit.


So, with that in mind, if you can only find one MA school within an hour and a half you're not looking hard enough
Our county is just under 500 square miles which is slightly larger than average for Tennessee. There is only one MA school in our county. A lot of people make the 45 mile drive to Nashville to work daily. It is all about what you get used to.
 

Bruce7

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This is strictly a personal reply. I like to think I am very knowledgeable and know I am a very experienced BB. Not bragging. That said, I have several breaks and plates (12), 5 on my noggin and the rest down my left leg/foot. So my balance is worse that terrible. Vertigo and aphasia just suck. If you were to walk in and see me doing a BB for that requires a lot of balance like Geumgang it would not be pretty. But I can teach a person how to do the form very well, and most importantly the why. Their form will be correct.
So does the make me a bad BB? You are looking purely at the outside. A big problem in a lot of today's society.

I am sorry, I believe you are an excellent BB instructor. If you lived near I would go to your school and give you the respect you have earn. Your explanation of the side kick is an excellent example of your knowledge.
The most important thing is you can teach a person how to do a form very well, and as you said most importantly the why. I believe that any student you taught their form would be correct. I believe you have much to give as an instructor.

In my limited experience from 1973 to 1985, I have had only two BB instructors that taught me properly and their skills were amazing. One in MDK Taekwondo and the other in long fist. All the other Taekwondo schools I went to, the BB's were lacking in skill, in my opinion they did not know how to teach me properly. Not finding another good BB instructor was one of the many reasons I quit Martial Arts back in 1985.
 

kitkatninja

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...However, I noticed the board is WRSA (World Ring Sports Association) and their website looks a bit shady. I want to know if anybody has experience under this board and whether it is legit...

I live in the UK and I have heard of them (nothing bad)... While I don't have any experience of them, from what I can tell, they are are relatively new (within the last decade) and concentrate on competition... There are alot of different National Governing Bodies (NGB) in the UK, some are art/style specific, some are competition specific, some will set standards that all clubs and associations must adhere to, and others will be have a light touch approach/non-interferring approach (so each club/association set their own standard).
 

kitkatninja

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Our county is just under 500 square miles which is slightly larger than average for Tennessee. There is only one MA school in our county. A lot of people make the 45 mile drive to Nashville to work daily. It is all about what you get used to.

WoW!!! In our area within a 16 mile radius of where I live we have:

3 x Tang Soo Do (different associations)
5 (at least) x Shotokan (different associations)
2 (at least) x Ninjitsu (different associations)
1 x Laugar Kung Fu
5 (at least) x Kickboxing (different associations)
2 x Wing Chun clubs (same association)
5 (at least) x GKR karate clubs (same association)
2 x Kyokushin karate (not sure if same association or not, but under the same Governing body)
10 (at least) x other styles of karate; including Kempo, Wado, Hybrid systems, Shorin Ryu, etc
2 (at least) x Judo (different associations)
3 (at least) x Jujutsu/Jujitsu (different associations)
2 (at least) x aikido (different associations)
2 x JKD with kali
1 x Shorin Ryu
4 x Tae Kwon Do associations (each with multiple classes)

Some are for profit, some are run as non-profit associations.. We've got full contact, semi-contact, light-continous as well as non-contact martial arts groups...

And that's what I know off the top of my head...
 

dvcochran

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WoW!!! In our area within a 16 mile radius of where I live we have:

3 x Tang Soo Do (different associations)
5 (at least) x Shotokan (different associations)
2 (at least) x Ninjitsu (different associations)
1 x Laugar Kung Fu
5 (at least) x Kickboxing (different associations)
2 x Wing Chun clubs (same association)
5 (at least) x GKR karate clubs (same association)
2 x Kyokushin karate (not sure if same association or not, but under the same Governing body)
10 (at least) x other styles of karate; including Kempo, Wado, Hybrid systems, Shorin Ryu, etc
2 (at least) x Judo (different associations)
3 (at least) x Jujutsu/Jujitsu (different associations)
2 (at least) x aikido (different associations)
2 x JKD with kali
1 x Shorin Ryu
4 x Tae Kwon Do associations (each with multiple classes)

Some are for profit, some are run as non-profit associations.. We've got full contact, semi-contact, light-continous as well as non-contact martial arts groups...

And that's what I know off the top of my head...
That is fortunate. I can't think of an area in the U.S. that dense with MA schools. Maybe some New York or California cities. Atlanta, Georgia has a lot but not that many I do not believe.
 

kitkatninja

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That is fortunate. I can't think of an area in the U.S. that dense with MA schools. Maybe some New York or California cities. Atlanta, Georgia has a lot but not that many I do not believe.

We're not even a city, we're a town. Within 16 miles, there are 3 big towns... The closest city is 18 miles away.
It's great from a student point of view. However from a club point of view, it is hard to get people thru the door.
 

pdg

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We're not even a city, we're a town. Within 16 miles, there are 3 big towns... The closest city is 18 miles away.
It's great from a student point of view. However from a club point of view, it is hard to get people thru the door.

The difference between a city and a town in the UK is completely different to the US though.

I believe it's done on population size in the US?
 

kitkatninja

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The difference between a city and a town in the UK is completely different to the US though.

I believe it's done on population size in the US?

There's no real X=Y for city status in the UK... The UK's official criteria for what constitutes a city remain opaque, but those put in place in 1907 remain a good rule of thumb: home to at least 300,000 residents (it was upped from 200k), a distinct identity that is the centre of a wider area, and a good record of local government. Add to that the town has to apply for city status (it's not automatic), which in turn can be accepted or denied, so we can have towns that are bigger than some cities.

The population of my town is approx 80k, the town to the west of us has a population of approx 223k and the town to the north of us has an estimated population of 60k...

Just read the requirements for a city in the US... "Common population definitions for a city range between 1,500 and 50,000 people, with most U.S. states using a minimum between 1,500 and 5,000 inhabitants"

Wow!!! I am really surprised...
 

pdg

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The UK's official criteria for what constitutes a city remain opaque, but those put in place in 1907 remain a good rule of thumb: home to at least 300,000 residents (it was upped from 200k), a distinct identity that is the centre of a wider area, and a good record of local government. Add to that the town has to apply for city status (it's not automatic), which in turn can be accepted or denied, so we can have towns that are bigger than some cities

But that's the thing, none of those criteria automatically give a town city status, as you say it has to be applied for.

Even then, it must be nominated a city by royal decree.

I live 5 miles from a city, which according to 2006 figures has a population of 45,000.

15 miles away is a town of 52,000.
 

dvcochran

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There's no real X=Y for city status in the UK... The UK's official criteria for what constitutes a city remain opaque, but those put in place in 1907 remain a good rule of thumb: home to at least 300,000 residents (it was upped from 200k), a distinct identity that is the centre of a wider area, and a good record of local government. Add to that the town has to apply for city status (it's not automatic), which in turn can be accepted or denied, so we can have towns that are bigger than some cities.

The population of my town is approx 80k, the town to the west of us has a population of approx 223k and the town to the north of us has an estimated population of 60k...

Just read the requirements for a city in the US... "Common population definitions for a city range between 1,500 and 50,000 people, with most U.S. states using a minimum between 1,500 and 5,000 inhabitants"

Wow!!! I am really surprised...
Yes, it is more driven by what is the tax base in the U.S. How much industry/commercial, retail sales, etc... Warm bodies are usually driven by these factors as well.
 

WaterGal

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That is fortunate. I can't think of an area in the U.S. that dense with MA schools. Maybe some New York or California cities. Atlanta, Georgia has a lot but not that many I do not believe.

I think lots of big cities you're going to see that kind of density. In that radius around here (outer suburbs of a major US city), off the top of my head....

9 - KKW TKD schools
8 - TSD/"karate" schools (mostly one particular chain)
6 - MMA/BJJ/Kickboxing schools
2 - Tai Chi/kungfu schools
1 - Ninjutsu school
1 - Hapkido school

That's not even including programs at the rec center or the Y, which would add a bunch more, but I'd have to research that.
 

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