When to go back?

[skribs]

This post is more of a personal ramble. If you want to add your thoughts in, I'd appreciate it.

I feel like I've left a bit unfinished in Taekwondo. Last year, I moved across the country. New city, new job, new car, currently having a new house built. And new martial art - I started BJJ. I love BJJ. I also started Muay Thai/MMA class at our BJJ school. I find these to be more like vegetables - I know I'm better off for consuming them, but I'm not in love with them as much as I have been BJJ, TKD, and HKD. In TKD, I left as a 3rd Dan, but was fairly close to 4th. I feel like getting my 4th Dan (and following: Master and Referee licenses) is a missed opportunity.

My Dad wanted to do HKD (he's a blue belt there), but we did not at all connect with the HKD school nearby. He gave BJJ a try, and it was the opposite - he loved the people, but wasn't really into the art. So we checked out a few TKD schools (we're both 3rd Dan) and found one we like.

My plan was to get my blue belt in BJJ, and then mix TKD in 2-3 days per week, at least to finish out those three requirements above: 4th Dan, Master license, Referee license. For now, my plan is to do BJJ 6 days/week, and Muay Thai/MMA the 5 days it's offered. That hasn't really transpired. I average 3-4 days, and some weeks I only get 1 in. I don't know if mixing in TKD will help me be more regular in BJJ (easier to hit 4 days than 6).

And, as much as I've enjoyed a general lack of responsibility in BJJ (going from "main instructor" to "complete idiot"), I do miss being at the top of the food chain. I feel like BJJ could be the meat and potatoes of my training, Muay Thai could be my vegetables, and TKD my dessert.

In the school that I'm looking at, my Dad and I would instantly be the highest ranking students. The only higher ranks are the owner, his wife, and another Master they employ. It would be an opportunity for me to maintain my TKD skills and my teaching skills. The owner seemed eager to get some higher-ranking students in. I see parallels in where he is, with where my BJJ professor is. Our BJJ school is relatively new. In fact, I may be the highest ranking person who started BJJ at this school. (Everyone higher than me came in with BJJ experience from somewhere else). I've seen the positive impact that a new brown belt can have in BJJ, and I think that's roughly equivalent to 3rd Dan in TKD. I could have that impact here.

But...I don't know that I'm as comfortable in BJJ and MT as I would like to be before mixing TKD back in. I'm 3 stripes in, which is 60% of the goal towards blue. There are some things I do okay. There are some things that I'm just barely starting to grasp. And there are still some things that, even in drills, I'm completely lost on. I guess blue belts might feel similar (hence the "blue belt blues"). As to Muay Thai and MMA, I've been even less regular in those classes, and they've only been going on for a month or so. Those classes are also very sparse, as most people favor the BJJ. (We had the same problem with Hapkido).

Unrelated to martial arts, but sometime in the next 6-8 months I will be moving. Currently it's a 5-minute drive to BJJ and a 25-minute drive to the TKD school. It will be a 20-minute drive to TKD and 30-minute drive to BJJ after I move.

Right now, I'm 50/50 on whether I want to go back to TKD now, or if I want to wait, either for blue belt, or until I move. In the end, it probably won't make too much of a difference if I wait. At the rate I've progressed so far, it may just be another 6 months. Or I may plateau. Or he's being more generous with stripes than he would with the belt color. Or I lose regularity. It could be longer for a number of reasons. This was always the plan, so I don't feel like I'm delaying any further by continuing on the plan. But now that I've seen the TKD school and met the owner, I've got that itch to get back to the dojang.

Anyway, thanks for listening to the ramble. If you have some thoughts that could help push me one way or the other, I'd appreciate it.

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

I think you put in much more thought and planning into it then you need. It's art, not science. If you feel like you're not going to BJJ as much as you planned, for whatever reason, and could add in TKD, go for it. If, after that, you think it's going well, great! If not, you can then drop down TKD a bit, or if you're finding that you still love TKD and want to continue that and it's just BJJ you're having trouble sticking with-drop it down to 1-2 times a week and see how that feels. Save the MMA classes for when you want a break from those two, and I'm sure you will one week or another, and devote a period to just that.
The caveat is if you can afford all of that, but from what it sounds like, you can (since you were planning to do all 3 at the same time anyway). So just go for it, see what happens, and adjust along the way.

 

[skribs]

If you feel like you're not going to BJJ as much as you planned, for whatever reason, and could add in TKD, go for it.

There's been a number of reasons. Sometimes it's something unrelated (i.e. work, family). Sometimes it's allergies. Sometimes it's injuries, usually from BJJ and/or Muay Thai.

I essentially have 6 days/week that I can train, since neither school is open on Sundays. Right now, the goal is 6 days per week at the BJJ dojo. That's been the goal since New Years (last year it was 5). I hit 5 days/week really consistently. I don't believe I've done 5 days in one week yet this year, let alone 6.

If I add in TKD, then I'm going to go to 2 days of TKD and 4 days of BJJ+. Work or family events will eat into that, just as they did before. However, on a "good" week where I otherwise would have gone to 6 classes and this is down to 5, now I'm down to only 1 class of TKD or down to 3 classes of BJJ+.

The other things I don't think will affect me as much, and might even affect me less. One of the reasons I stay home from BJJ when allergies are going crazy is I don't want to be gross to roll with, but that's less of a concern in a relatively non-contact art. I feel injuries are much less likely to happen in the TKD school (combination of art-related and teacher-related factors), so I'm less likely to be taken out of training because of something happening.

Over the past few months I've probably averaged 2-3 days per week anyway, so I might be better off doing TKD.

 

[jks9199]

Dumb, but basic question:
You're plan seems to rest on your prior rank and progress being accepted fully. Are you sure that the school is going to do that? I know that not every TKD school is identical on that -- sometimes not even within the same organizations.

 

[skribs]

Dumb, but basic question:
You're plan seems to rest on your prior rank and progress being accepted fully. Are you sure that the school is going to do that? I know that not every TKD school is identical on that -- sometimes not even within the same organizations.

Yes. It's pretty much required in my organization that they do.

Also, this has already been discussed with him.

 

[MadMartigan]

My 2 cents.

It sounds like you've approached this as an all or nothing endeavor. No TKD until you're a BJJ blue belt... but now after a few months, perhaps your first love is creeping back to the forefront of your mind. As someone who obtained a BJJ blue belt on the side of my (primary) TKD training, my solicited advice is:

Start up TKD again.

I say this because the physical attributes you gain while practicing TKD are easy to keep, but hard to regain once lost. If you leave it on the shelf too long, you'll waste a lot of time getting your TKD 'legs' back under you before progressing again.

We are all guilty of doing this from time to time, but life does not have to be all one thing or another at a time. So you take a little longer to obtain your BJJ blue belt than an accelerated 6 days/schedule. As Forrest Griffin said (words to the effect of) 'If you keep showing up, eventually you stop sucking'.

It sounds like your endgame is TKD with a side of BJJ. If that's true, then what's the rush? It seems to me that your final goal (4th dan TKD with legit BJJ skills) would be best obtained by focusing on preparing for the 4th dan, and letting the BJJ skills happen at a more relaxed pace with 2-3 classes/week.

 

[skribs]

I did a couple classes this week. I feel what I'll learn the most about is forms. I do feel like my old Master went with quantity over quality with the forms, and there are more details already coming here. However, classes are only 40 minutes long, and there's not a whole lot of time for much. So far, we've done stretching, footwork, kicking, and forms in both classes.

They are already trying to get me to go full time as an instructor. The Master said he could open a few more classes if I do. However, I still want to be active in BJJ, so I told them "Monday and Friday work well for me." I'll make it to other days as needed, but I don't want to go back to the situation I was in before; working 15 hour days 5 days a week, plus a half day on Saturday, between my day job and TKD.

Only time I want to go back to doing 6 days a week of TKD is if I've quit my day job to open a school.

 

[skribs]

I talked with my BJJ professor this weekend. He had previously shown appreciation that I'm coming in to BJJ as a white belt without any preconceptions about how good I'll be, and without any ego about starting over and learning something new. But I told him, "It's nice being back on top of the class for a change." The highest students at this TKD school are 2nd degree black belts, so I'm coming in a step ahead already. I will have to learn his curriculum and his way of doing things, but it's very different than how much I have to learn in BJJ.

My professor said he's happy for me that I'm back in TKD. With the caveat that I still need to show up to BJJ class.

 

[Gwai Lo Dan]

The highest students at this TKD school are 2nd degree black belts, so I'm coming in a step ahead already. I will have to learn his curriculum and his way of doing things

Since you mentioned that they are asking you to teach, do you ever find yourslef biting your tongue, because you think another way would be better?

I try to phrase as "another way to do it is this" but it's hard. A person critiqued me last week for holding a pad at the midsection level when the KJN said my line would do a roundhouse kick. The red belt critiquing me said "that's a stomach kick, a roundhouse is to the head". What can I say....They only know 1 way and have 1 frame of reference.

 

[skribs]

Since you mentioned that they are asking you to teach, do you ever find yourslef biting your tongue, because you think another way would be better?

I try to phrase as "another way to do it is this" but it's hard. A person critiqued me last week for holding a pad at the midsection level when the KJN said my line would do a roundhouse kick. The red belt critiquing me said "that's a stomach kick, a roundhouse is to the head". What can I say....They only know 1 way and have 1 frame of reference.

In that specific case, I would have said, "roundhouse kicks can be any number of things", but I also would have looked around to see where everyone else is holding it. Of course, I am significantly more experienced than your average red belt. I don't know where your experience is, or if you would have had the same weight.

So far, the only teaching I've done has been their "Tiger 1" form, which is essentially a version of a Kibon (basic) form, just a bunch of down blocks and punches. When I've started teaching, I've given the caveat that I'm also new to this school, so if I teach them different from what the Master does, that I apologize and they should defer to him.

I personally want to do things his way for a while before I determine their efficacy. I know when I started teaching at my first school, I had a lot of internal misgivings about the way my Master did some things, and over time I learned a lot of why he did them. I still have misgivings about some things, but I have a more informed opinion after several years of seeing what worked and didn't work. There are some things that he did that I think are great for the early belts, but I want to outgrow in later belts. But it took time for me to accept them even in early belts.

I did bite my tongue after class, though. A red belt, probably around 12-14 years old, asked me, "Are you tired?" It was a 45-minute family class. The day before, I had done 1-hour classes of BJJ and Muay Thai back-to-back. When I was doing TKD at my old school, our classes were an hour. An hour of black belt class is different than an hour of family class, let alone 45 minutes. Even then, after 4 hours of teaching and an hour of black belt class, I was often just getting warmed up, because by 3rd degree, I was very used to the pace of the class.

I guess I could have said that it's hard for a 3rd dan to get tired from one class or something like that. But I didn't want to talk down on the 45 minute classes, or talk down on the TKD class from a BJJ/MT perspective.

 

[Gwai Lo Dan]

I did bite my tongue after class, though. A red belt, probably around 12-14 years old, asked me, "Are you tired?" It was a 45-minute family class.

What age bracket are you? If you are "older", the question could be arising from parents saying to their kids that they are too tired for (blank). Given that you may be a similar age or older, they may be figuring you must be tired too.

 

[skribs]

What age bracket are you? If you are "older", the question could be arising from parents saying to their kids that they are too tired for (blank). Given that you may be a similar age or older, they may be figuring you must be tired too.

I believe he's adopted. He looks like he's probably Asian, and she's white. I think she's relatively old compared to his age, probably late 40s or 50s.

I'm mid 30s.

 

[Gwai Lo Dan]

I believe he's adopted. He looks like he's probably Asian, and she's white. I think she's relatively old compared to his age, probably late 40s or 50s.

I'm mid 30s.

Yes, I think kids will think that mid 30's is old You must be tired

 

[skribs]

I signed up. He gave a special deal for me as a 3rd degree, a one-year lump-sum that's less than the price most people pay over 3 months of month-to-month payments. I know year sums are generally frowned upon, but when it saves more than 75%, I think it's the way to go.

His month-to-month price is also very competitive. I'm paying more for BJJ than I would have for TKD without the discount. The other KKW TKD school in the area is higher as well.

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

I know year sums are generally frowned upon, but when it saves more than 75%, I think it's the way to go.

I've never seen the issue, so long as it's not the only option. It makes a lot of sense (even without that discount), if you know you will be staying somewhere for a while to pay for a longer period, for the discount. Same way you might on car insurance.

The issue becomes when you are told you have to sign up for a long time as the only option, before you know if you would like to commit to the place.

 

[skribs]

I've never seen the issue, so long as it's not the only option. It makes a lot of sense (even without that discount), if you know you will be staying somewhere for a while to pay for a longer period, for the discount. Same way you might on car insurance.

The issue becomes when you are told you have to sign up for a long time as the only option, before you know if you would like to commit to the place.

Yeah, there's a lot of things that he does, that are the types of things that are on the red flag scale, so to speak. But it's the implementation that matters.

 

[Gwai Lo Dan]

I signed up. He gave a special deal for me as a 3rd degree, a one-year lump-sum that's less than the price most people pay over 3 months of month-to-month payments.

Are you saying you pay but are an instructor? If so, what is your ratio of training vs instructing?

 

[skribs]

Are you saying you pay but are an instructor? If so, what is your ratio of training vs instructing?

I've barely started there.