My brother

[Manny]

I would like to tell you a story. When my brother Jorge was boy he was caught by Bruce Lee, in fact he had a Bruce Poster above his bed in his side of the bedroom and I had a Chuck Norris (he was my hero) above my bed in my side of the bedroom.

I saw my little brother progress till he get his blue belt then don't know why but I suspect a hard blow to his nose he left the dojang, any how there were sometimes we train together and I really liked.

Today talking with him about the one steps we practiced last night he show me a cuople of one steps I have forget for years and even he did some pieces of palgwes!!!! he did some moves form palgwe 3 and 4 ohh boyyy, my brother still recall some TKD moves!! So I prompltly asked him to join my class but he refuses it, don't know why but he can do some work out and retake TKD however maybe he is not as crazy as I do by martial arts.

It was good to see he has some flashes of TKD still.

Manny

 

[ralphmcpherson]

My wife and I were talking to a neighbour the other night and she said she did tkd as a teenager, which was about 25 years ago. She said she remembered bits and pieces and then started to do palgwe 4 and could almost do the whole thing. I couldnt believe that after that much time that the a form was still locked away inside her memory. Maybe the martial arts never really leave you even if you leave them.

 

[IcemanSK]

I started TKD with my best friend at 14. He was a natural athlete and I struggled through every class. Many people thought he'd do it forever, and I give up. He quit after 6 months & I'm still at it more than 28 years later. In fact, he & his son were my students for awhile in the early 90's.

I talk to many people (as do a lot of us) who tell me stories of being in love with MA once upon a time, but, for many reasons, they stopped. Funny common theme that I've heard is people laughing about a Korean instructor they had who corrected stances with a stick or shinai. That story I've heard at least 5 times from folks in different parts of the country at different times. They loves the discipline and the adreneline rush of training, but they didn't/couldn't stick with it.

I don't get it. But there are a lot of things people do theit whole lives that I don't understand, either.

 

[girlbug2]

Maybe the martial arts never really leave you even if you leave them.

I sure hope that's true. My kid took 2 years of karate and then got burned out; I hope he will retain some of it, and go back to it again when he is grown.

 

[terryl965]

You never ever forget everything, nice to hear stories like this.

 

[StudentCarl]

Notice too that it's not just the physical that's retained--it's the character building discipline and focus. Taekwondo changes you.

 

[Master Dan]

You never ever forget everything, nice to hear stories like this.

A group of us over 40/50 men started getting together for our Oposum Lodge work out, ( you have to be a fan of the Red Green Show) We would do all 16 Gup forms 8 Palgwe 8 Taeguk doing each possibly 3 times as needed it would take an hour non stop.

We got together mainly for our age group then sauna but we noticed after a few weeks our cognative learning skills improved and general memory like where did I leave the keys where did I park my car? We all noticed sigificant mental improvments but PoomSe can be that one thing to connect to others or yourself.

 

[sfs982000]

I studied Shotokan as a kid and I'm currently studying Tae Kwon Do and it's funny to see how alot of my stances in my forms are done the "Shotokan" way, which my instructor loves to point out LOL. I still remember bits and pieces of alot of the Heian forms and alot of the other drills that we did back then. Good times, good times.

 

[Manny]

Notice too that it's not just the physical that's retained--it's the character building discipline and focus. Taekwondo changes you.

I think the character and discipline was what put in my in track again, in fact in those years that I was off tkd I did sucessfully another MA (for me) that was pistol shooting where I aplied principles of self defense using a handgun, silly but I even used some zen principles to improve my shooting.

It's funny because none of my family has MA background, my dad is an avid hunter and shooter.

Manny

 

[Manny]

I studied Shotokan as a kid and I'm currently studying Tae Kwon Do and it's funny to see how alot of my stances in my forms are done the "Shotokan" way, which my instructor loves to point out LOL. I still remember bits and pieces of alot of the Heian forms and alot of the other drills that we did back then. Good times, good times.

Yeap, muscle memory, I have a fellow student who is a 2dan black belt in karate shotokan with 20 years of experience on it, now this fellow is a 1st dan in TKD and when he does the taeguks he dod them in a shotokan way!! you know low and wide stances, chambering of kicks very diferent from the TKD standards, etc, etc, in fact I told him he has a very karateish way of doing korean poomsae jajajaja.

Manny

 

[sfs982000]

Yeap, muscle memory, I have a fellow student who is a 2dan black belt in karate shotokan with 20 years of experience on it, now this fellow is a 1st dan in TKD and when he does the taeguks he dod them in a shotokan way!! you know low and wide stances, chambering of kicks very diferent from the TKD standards, etc, etc, in fact I told him he has a very karateish way of doing korean poomsae jajajaja.

Manny

Oh yeah the muscle memory is tough to shake off, I know that it really affects me in how I chamber and execute certain movements. It was just so used to doing it the "Shotokan" way and it feels much more natural to me, especially when doing roundhouse kicks. I still do alot of kicks the "karate" way when sparring cause it seems like I can get them off a lot quicker than the "Tae Kwon Do" way. Now poomsae is a different story, I really have to concentrate on the chambering of my techniques so they come out correctly.

 

[ralphmcpherson]

Yeap, muscle memory, I have a fellow student who is a 2dan black belt in karate shotokan with 20 years of experience on it, now this fellow is a 1st dan in TKD and when he does the taeguks he dod them in a shotokan way!! you know low and wide stances, chambering of kicks very diferent from the TKD standards, etc, etc, in fact I told him he has a very karateish way of doing korean poomsae jajajaja.

Manny

Sounds like his forms would have looked like the palgwes with their long and wide stances.

 

[Manny]

Oh yeah the muscle memory is tough to shake off, I know that it really affects me in how I chamber and execute certain movements. It was just so used to doing it the "Shotokan" way and it feels much more natural to me, especially when doing roundhouse kicks. I still do alot of kicks the "karate" way when sparring cause it seems like I can get them off a lot quicker than the "Tae Kwon Do" way. Now poomsae is a different story, I really have to concentrate on the chambering of my techniques so they come out correctly.

When I was learning kenpo karate ,y stances was tkd stances, kenpo uses a fighting stance ala Bill Wallace and my stance was teh tipical tkd fighting stance, even doing the kenpo katas my moves were tkd, muscle memory is dificult to take off.

Manny

 

[RobinTKD]

It's such a shame when that happens, it makes me feel like they're missing out massively on something great. My brother did judo with me for 2 years before he joined the army, his intention was to practice with the army but he never did and started playing rugby union instead (another brilliant sport ), that was about 10-12 years ago now, but he remembers a lot of the locks and throws, i told him he should start up again and then we can spar and see whose better at which martial art!

 

[britt_boo]

i started off learning karate from my dad who was a first degree when i was 5. i loved it alot, my brother was also learning from my dad, but i was aconstant fight to make him kick high or show effort in his stances. we both showed natural ability but my big bro hated it. i later stopped at yellow so that i could do stuff like ballet,tap, soccer, qymnastic etc. i soon ran out of things that i wanted to try til 2009 when i was 13, my mom asked me what did i want to do i told her i i want to try a different martial art.so i did research, watched videos,and then i stumbled across a video from the athen olympics,thats how i found takwondo, i begged my parents ,they said sure super long story short im now a brown belt at omac and going for my second win at the jr olympics, i fell head over heels in love with this art. and i can only wish that those who stopped will eventually fine there way back.