Cambridge Ji Do Kwan Tae Kwon Do Academy Blog

Class Log Wed. Sept 23, 2009

2009-09-23T22:26:00.000-04:00

Angela taught. We did stretches, kicking combos, and all the forms. The air conditioner was not working so it was pretty sweaty. Great workout though.

Class Log Wed. Sept 16, 2009

2009-09-16T22:24:00.001-04:00

Eric taught. We did the usual stretches, kicking combos and then did all the forms. We did some kicks to target.

Class Log July 1, 2009

2009-07-01T21:34:00.002-04:00

Eric taught. We did stretches, kicks and crunches and pushups. During one-steps, we called Master Hariramani about the jumping whip kick one-step. It turns out you jump with the back leg, and do a whip kick with the front leg. We finished one steps and also all the forms.

Class log June 24th 2009

2009-06-24T21:43:00.002-04:00

Today Angela taught, and we did the usual stretches and kicks. We practiced our three steps and we did quite well. Next week we'll practice the one steps.

Class Log April 1, 2009 - upcoming test plans

2009-04-01T13:50:00.001-04:00

Eric taught today. We had two kicking combinations that were cool:
o Turning back kick, roundhouse, jumping half moon
o half moon,turning back kick, front whip (lots of stepping!)

We worked on all the forms. We talked to Master Hariramani about a potential test this upcoming summer. Maybe in June? We should work on our last form, Palgue Pal Jang, and also some of the jumping kicks.

Class Log Sept. 24, 2008

2008-09-24T23:26:00.000-04:00

Angela Taught. We went through the forms slowly, watching each other and critiquing.

Class Log Sept. 17, 2008

2008-09-17T23:27:00.000-04:00

Eric Taught. We went through all the forms and worked on kicks.

Class Log Sept. 10, 2008

2008-09-10T23:33:00.001-04:00

Angela Taught. We did stretches and worked on the new form.

Class Log Aug. 28, 2008

2008-08-28T23:35:00.001-04:00

Eric Taught. We worked on the new form, and also worked on jumping 360 for the new jumping kicks. We worked on doing turning side kicks to the target down the length of the room.

Class Log Aug. 21, 2008

2008-08-21T23:36:00.000-04:00

Katie Taught. We worked on kicking combinations, with "turning side kick, roundhouse, jumping half moon" and "crescent-side kick to the back - jumping side kick to the front", We also worked on the new form.

Class Log, Wed. May 28, 2008 - Master Hariramani's visit

2008-05-29T00:14:00.003-04:00

Today Master Hariramani taught. We started off with our stretches, punches (double punches), stretch kicks, and then did kicking combinations.
Kicking combinations we did that were ultra cool:

6 sidekicks and a jumping sidekick
sidekick, turning sidekick, roundhouse

We did basic movements. Things that we went over are double spearhands, palm strike (upward angle), side attack, and knifehand block.

We then moved to forms, we went over all the forms. General advice was to be careful with our stances and preparations. We went over Chil Jang slowly. Things to remember about Chil Jang

after the pull-upper punch and keehop, on the low hammer fist, the back hand (left) should be open palm
after the low-hammer fist, the outside knifehand attack should be in a forward stance.

We worked on our new form, Palgue Pal Jang, up until the side kick and elbow strike. The form means earth, and in this form, you feel like you are tilling the soil with your hands. We imagine someone grabbing our low block, quickly breaking away, and then a back fist to the head with reverse punch. After repeating on the other side, we are then firmly rooted to the earth in defensive arm movements in different stances. We are also introduced to a new combined attack (side punch/elbow attack).

We then moved to our jumping kicks, starting with the jumping back whip. The main advice for this was to work on bringing the knee up higher to get the kick higher off the ground.

Next we worked on sparring. Remember to yell before you start free fighting. Also, remember to stay fluid and try to keep things going. Prepare for the attack with your own counterattack. One way to work on this on our own is with the attack counter attack.

Finally we worked on the grappling. When someone grabs your belt with fist down (inside arm break) and fist up (use leverage and twist their pinky down into the outside arm break). When someone grabs you from behind, you need to twist their arms together.

Advice for the break, take your time with the turning side kick to aim it and focus. Time sure went by fast.

We also might have to look for a new space after this summer.

Class log, May 14th, 2008

2008-05-17T13:13:00.001-04:00

Katie Taught. We did kicking combinations, and worked on our turning side kicks. We also worked on our advanced kicks: backwheel, back whip, jumping backwheel.

Class Log, May 7, 2008

2008-05-07T23:06:00.001-04:00

Eric taught. We did kicking combinations and all the forms.

Class Log, April 31, 2008

2008-04-30T15:10:00.000-04:00

Eric taught. We did kicking combinations, all the forms, and attack-counter attack (pre-empted).

Class Log, Jan 23, 2008

2008-01-23T23:49:00.000-05:00

Katie Taught. We did stretches and warm-up kicks. We did 30 punches and did turning side kicks down the floor. We practiced a combo turning side-kick, roundhouse, crescent kick. We did some regular kicks (crescent and front whip) and jumping kicks to the target (jumping front whip, jumping crescent kick. We went through all the forms.

Next week we'll do our own practice, and look up the forms on the JDK website.

Class Log, Jan 16, 2008

2008-01-16T22:52:00.000-05:00

Eric Taught. We did 30 punches, stretches and kicks. We did a kicking combo turning back kick, roundhouse, and jumping side kick toward the back.We did some back whips to target and also back wheels. We went through all the forms.

Class Log, Jan 9, 2008

2008-01-09T22:54:00.000-05:00

Angela Taught. We did stretches and warm-up kicks. We did 30 middle punches. We did a turning back kick, round-house kick, and jumping side kick combo. We did some calisthenic arm exercises. We went through all the forms.

Class Log, Oct. 18th 2007

2007-10-18T22:00:00.000-04:00

Eric taught. We did the usual stretches and warm-upu kicks up the floor. We did a cool new combination kick up the floor: turning back kick, round house kick, jumping roundhouse towards the back. We worked on the back wheel, back whip, jumping half moon, and front whip. Next week we'll try to cover the newer kicks.

Class Log, Oct. 11th 2007

2007-10-11T22:00:00.000-04:00

Angela Taught. We did extra stretches on the floor for our back. We did some exercises for preparing kicks and loosening our shoulders. We did a few back wheels.

Class Log, Oct. 4th 2007

2007-10-04T22:00:00.000-04:00

Katie taught. We continued working on punches. We worked on all the forms. We practiced backwheels.

Class Log Thursday Sept. 27, 2007

2007-09-30T20:51:00.000-04:00

Eric Taught. We worked on punches, and also turning back kicks to target. We also worked on backwheels to target.

Video Links to our forms

2007-09-21T20:15:00.001-04:00

Master Hariramani has posted links to our forms here. http://www.jdkacademy.com/members/cmanual/index.php
Speaking of which, we had a question about palgue Chil Jang. We had asked if the half mountain was in back stance, and according to the book it was, but we had foggy memories. After looking at the manual and the video, and the PDF of the video, it appears that we ARE in back stance for the half mountain. So that's one mystery cleared up.

Class Log Sept. 20

2007-09-21T20:07:00.000-04:00

Katie taught. We did stretches and kicks. We went over the details of the last form, mostly Palgue Chil Jang, and we also did some back wheel kicks. We worked on Single Middle Punches 30 Count.

Class Log Sept. 13

2007-09-13T21:08:00.000-04:00

Angela Taught. We went over the middle forms (Sa Jang to Oh Jang). We worked mainly on stances and preparations. We worked on Single Middle Punches 30 Count.

Class Log Sept. 6

2007-09-08T13:21:00.000-04:00

Eric Taught. We did the usual stretches and kicks. We worked on basic movements in the forms, focusing on stances and preparations.

Class Log July 19, 2007

2007-07-20T00:13:00.001-04:00

Angela Taught. We did kicking combinations:
roundhouse kick, turning sidekick, knifehand strike
jumping side kick, front kick, turning sidekick
We worked on backwheel kicks.
We worked on attack-counter attacks.

Class Log July 5th, 2007

2007-07-06T03:08:00.000-04:00

Angela Taught. We worked on kicking combinations (turning back kick, half moon, side kick) and (turning back kick, roundhouse and sidekick). We worked on our turning kicks (back wheel, back whip) and also our front whips and half moons. We also worked on our new kicks (jumping back wheel, jumping back whip).

We've been focusing on getting the mechanics down so that the kicks are accurate and controllable. With the back wheel and jumping back wheel, we are still working on just getting comfortable dipping and lifting our knee up earlier. With the front whip, pulling your shoulder forward with the kick before flicking it across makes a big impact. With the jumping turn kicks, we are still getting used to the feeling of jumping and kicking.

For my back whips, I need to work on not walking and concentrate on spinning on center, instead of walking forward.
Eric's back whips look great! The spinning breakdowns that we've been doing before these kicks have really improved the control and power. We'll plan on doing back wheels every class.

Class Log June 29, 2007

2007-06-29T02:31:00.001-04:00

It's been a while since we've updated the class log. This week Eric taught. We worked on our kicks, jumping and spinning kicks.

For the front whip, we found that turning the shoulder of the kicking leg forward helped the front whip kicks be stronger. The commitment of having the body towards the front makes it easier to whip the hips.

The second take-away was breaking down the spinning kicks so that we are comfortable with our bodies dipped. We are still working on our spins.

Running jumping sidekicks were kicks we hadn't done in a while. We're picking it up and working on our timing and jumping high before the kick. The left legs are still harder to lead with than the right leg.

Class Log March 15, 2007

2007-03-20T15:59:00.000-04:00

We worked on turning back kicks down the floor, we also worked on attack counter attacks. We worked on jumping in preparation for the new jump kicks. We worked on our old advanced kicks: jumping half moon, front whip, crescent kick. We worked on the new form.

Class Log March 8th, 2007

2007-03-09T15:33:00.000-05:00

Katie Taught. We worked on attack counter attacks:
* side-kick attack to round-house/double knifehand attack
* roundhouse attack to jumping-side-kick/elbow strike
* jumping-side-kick to step to side+(front kick/front whip/reverse punch)
We went over the form, and are all remembering the steps.

Class Log March 1, 2007

2007-03-06T18:50:00.000-05:00

We worked at the MIT A center, and worked mainly on jumping back wheels and jumping back whips. We did turning back sidekicks to target up and down the floor. We worked some one attack-counterattack (discussed the use of elbow attack as a counter attack), and also refreshed ourselves on some self-defense techniques (such as when you are grabbed from behind or someone grabs your belt).

Class Log Feb. 22nd, 2007

2007-02-24T23:15:00.000-05:00

Angela taught. We worked on the back wheel and back whip kicks. We worked on jumping.

Class Log Feb. 15th, 2007

2007-02-15T19:29:00.000-05:00

Katie taught. Stretches. We worked on back wheel kicks, jumping for jumping back wheels, jumping back whips. We worked on Palgue Chil Jang. We discussed some of the strategies for attack counter attacks.

Katie discovered a good thing about jumping back kicks. If we make sure to get a lot of height (jump straight up and down as much as we can), our balance is a lot better. So jumping like a frog is a good idea.

Class Log Feb. 8th, 2007

2007-02-08T19:36:00.000-05:00

Angela Taught. Counting in Korean. We worked on kicking combinations, and also targeting turning back kicks up and down the floor. We ran around the room and did some exercises to jump-start our heart rates. We worked on the new form.

Class Log Feb. 1st, 2007

2007-02-01T19:38:00.000-05:00

Eric taught. We worked on back wheels, did a series of turning back kicks down the floor. We ran around the room and jumped over obstacles to increase our heart rate. We worked on attack counter-attacks for twist-kick, side-kick and round-house attack. We worked on jumping 360 for the jumping back wheel and jumping back whips.

Class Log Jan. 25th, 2007

2007-01-25T19:40:00.000-05:00

Angela Taught. We worked on extra stretching before the back wheels to increase flexibility. Some of us were sore from various other activities (Katie has been practiciing for a stair challenge at work, Eric was back from skiing the weekend before). We worked on targeting to turning back kicks. We worked on combination kicks down the floor. We worked on jumping 360 for the jumping back wheels and jumping back whips.

Class Log Jan. 18th, 2007

2007-01-19T01:45:00.000-05:00

Today Eric taught. Worked on 30 punches.
For kicking combos, today we did
o side kick, turning side kick, round house down the center of the room
o crescent kick, swan-side-kick, turning-back knifehand, front whip kick down the center of the room
We worked on jumping 360 degrees to work on our new jumping kicks. We did around 10 or so on each side.
We worked on Palgue Chil Jang. Getting faster at remembering all the moves. Need to work on the last few steps after the half mountain pose.
Worked on back wheel and back whip kicks to target.
We worked on turning-side kicks to targets while moving across the room. Determined to target/distance yourself first then kick.
We worked on the distances in attack-counter-attack with
o side kick attack to round house, then
o sidekick attack to twist kick.
Next class, we'll count in Korean.

Class Log Jan 11, 2006

2007-01-11T21:31:00.000-05:00

Congratulations to everyone for doing well on the 3rd Gup Exam. We all broke our boards within the first 2 tries and those four broken boards make good trophies. We'll be working hard on that triple board turning-back sidekick break for the next exam.
Today Angela taught. We worked on stretching out our sore muscles and doing flexibility stretches against the wall. We went over the new form a few times, just practicing the steps. We did some practice jumping in preparation for doing jumping-backwheels and jumping-backwhips. We practiced 360 degree jumps, keeping our stance a little narrower than regular fighting stance.
We discussed things we learned during the exam:
o upper knifehand block
o mountain pose
o half-mountain pose
Also remember the free fighting techniques we learned: using combinations, not getting interrupted, and starting thinking about using multiple opponents against each other.

Class Log Nov. 21, 2006

2006-11-22T17:10:00.000-05:00

Katie Led class. We practiced in a classroom at MIT. We went over pre-emptive and regular Attack-CounterAttacks. one of the main things we worked on was the timing for the Attack counter attacks, and we all got more comfortable with performing them. We worked on Back wheel kicks.

Class Log Nov. 16th, 2006

2006-11-16T17:11:00.000-05:00

Angela Led class. We did the 25 punches, and then did kicking combinations across the room. The kicking combination this week was roundhouse-turning back kick-front whip. We worked on all of the one steps and 3 steps. We went over 1/2 of the regular attack-counterattacks. We worked on getting up our endurance by having a period of sustained running-jumping sidekicks for 3.5 minutes (the time we need to free-fight on).

Class Log Nov. 9th, 2006

2006-11-09T17:12:00.000-05:00

Katie Taught, class was held at MIT due to Green Street having an event. We worked on all the Forms, and all of the kicks. We worked on the 25 punches. We also worked on some stretching exercises, some medicine ball, and getting up our heart-rates with jump rope.

Class Log Nov. 2, 2006

2006-11-03T23:18:00.000-05:00

Eric Taught. We did combination kicks (side kick, turning side kick, front kick) across the floor. We worked on all of the one steps (its been a long time). We also worked on Back Wheel Kicks.

Class Log Oct. 26, 2006

2006-10-26T23:44:00.000-04:00

Eric taught. Today we practiced all the forms in random order and backwheel kicks. we also did stretches against the wall, and used kicking combinations across the floor (front kick, turning side kick, roundhouse kick).

Class Log Oct. 19, 2006

2006-10-19T23:45:00.000-04:00

Angela Taught. we worked on all the forms and the new kicks.

Class Log Oct. 12, 2006

2006-10-12T23:47:00.000-04:00

Katie Taught. We went through forms and attack counter-attack. We also practiced Running-Jumping Side Kicks.

Class Log Oct. 5, 2006

2006-10-05T23:49:00.000-04:00

Angela Taught. We worked on all the kicks and attack-counter attack.

Class Log Sept. 28, 2006

2006-09-28T23:51:00.000-04:00

Eric Taught. We went through the forms, the side kick, back wheel kick, and rehearsed some attack counter-attack.

Class Log Sept 21st, 2006

2006-09-22T14:22:00.000-04:00

Angela led the class. Everyone is in better shape physically, so we had a good workout. We practiced a number of different kick combinations up and down the floor (we came up with the combinations randomly, e.g. side kick - roundhouse - half-moon, over and over again). We also practiced side-kicks with Angela's new kicking board. Then we went through all of the forms. And finally we worked on attack/counter-attack combinations.

Check out the comment on the Sept 7th entry from our old friend and classmate Vince. Nice to hear from you Vince!

Class Log Sept 14th, 2006

2006-09-22T14:17:00.000-04:00

Katie led the class. We worked on Palgue Yuk Jang and some of the advanced kicks.

Class Log Sept 7th, 2006

2006-09-08T15:08:00.000-04:00

We went over kicking preparations for side kick, front kick and round house kick. Worked on back wheel kick and back whip kick. Katie is recoveringd from injury to her shoulder. Eric is recovering from injury to his right side. Angela is recovering from an ankle sprain. None of these injuries were tkd inflicted.

Class log August 31, 2006

2006-08-31T15:15:00.000-04:00

Eric was the only one present. He worked on turning back kicks, and all the forms.

Class Log July 27, 2006

2006-07-27T15:07:00.000-04:00

We went over the kicks, all of the forms (Chil Jang to Il Jang), and practiced the first 2 one-steps.

Class Log July 13, 2006

2006-07-23T03:12:00.000-04:00

I have finally uploaded our Kicking Practice movies. We show our back whips, jumping roundhouses, jumping crescents, and twist kicks.

Class Log. July 20, 2006

2006-07-20T15:05:00.000-04:00

We did kicking combinations moving down the floor (e.g.sidekick-roundhouse-halfmoon). We went through all the forms.

Class Log, July 6th 2006

2006-07-07T13:01:00.000-04:00

Katie taught. We practiced kicking to the target, Jumping Front Whip, Jumping Half Moon, Back Whip Kick. Then we practiced Palgue Yuk Jang, and refreshed ourselves on the moves of Palgue Chil Jang.

Class Log, June 29th, 2006

2006-06-30T17:54:00.000-04:00

Eric taught. We practiced turning-back side kick, and side-kicks moving across the room to a target. We then practiced the first three attack counterattacks, regular and pre-empted. Getting down the timing is pretty key.

Class Log, June 22nd, 2006

2006-06-23T17:56:00.000-04:00

Angela taught. We worked on all of the new kicks, jumping roundhouse, jumping front whip, twist kick, back whip, and Palgue Chil Jang. We'll need to do a lot more work onthe jumping front whip, but the twist kick is coming along. The Back whip and Jumping half moon need some work, but are pretty good for all three of us.

Class Log, June 14th

2006-06-20T21:29:00.000-04:00

eric led class,
we worked on the new kicks (jumping halfmoon, twist kick),
discussed some of the attack counter-attacks from the last week,
and went through Palgue Chil Jang.

next week we will bring a video camera to record our new kicks.

Class Log June 8, 2006

2006-06-10T23:30:00.000-04:00

We practiced all the new kicks and the attack counter attacks. We practiced the Jumping half-moon, jumping front whip kick, back whip kick, and twist kick.

Attack-Counter attacks :: We really only block the side kicks, twist kick (scissors block), round house kick, and reverse middle puches. For the whip, jumping side kick, and wheel kicks we are really supposed to avoid them. Also, we should practice both pre-empting and regular versions of the attack-counter attacks. The person who attacks may not always finish their attack, particularly when pre-empting.

Class log June 1, 2006

2006-06-07T23:48:00.000-04:00

Katie Taught. Went over Palgue Yuk Jang. Went over the five new kicks, the new basic movements, and the new one-steps.
Question: What is the turnaround for Spinning Knifehand Attack?
ANSWER:: Just a regular step in with the back leg and turn, nothing fancy.
Question: In the counter attacks, do we block at all, or do we really just avoid the attacks on each side? see next week for answer.

Class log May 25th 2006

2006-06-07T23:46:00.000-04:00

Angela taught. We went over Palgwe Chil Jang, and called Master Hariramani. The question we asked was whether there was a step after the reverse middle punches (step 9 and step 15). The answer is no.
The other question we had as on which hand was in front in the X blocks in step 5, 20, and 21? Is it right over left or left over right?

Went over the new kicks: jumping half-moon kick, front whip kick, back whip kick, twist kick.

Class Log, May 11th

2006-05-13T13:38:00.000-04:00

Katie taught class today. We discussed last week's performance and were pretty proud of ourselves. Next time we'll aim to be a bit crisper in our execution.
We went over the new kicks (mainly the Twist Kick, Jumping hook kick, jumping front whip). We started going over Palgwe Chil Jang, and we're all going to study the moves form at home over next week.

Green Street Community Concert 5/5/06

2006-05-11T15:44:00.000-04:00

The performance went well the other night. We pulled off everything as planned, with no real mistakes. The audience ooohed and ahhed over the arm break, elbow smash and kicks. Burke was in the audience and said that Palgue Yuk Jung was perfectly in sync and looked great! I think everyone was really impressed.

We got to watch the other martial arts class-Kodokan? I can't recall the exact names of other styles they practice, I know one was Okinawan. It was very interesting to see another style of martial arts, especially so different from ours. It seemed more strict and focused more on arm movements, sparring and weapons training. We noticed there was not a lot of kicking either. I would say that our art form is definitely the more peaceful one!

It was definitely fun to perform and to see the other artists from Green Street. We definitely have a lot of ideas on what we want to do next year!

Master class recap

2006-04-11T15:19:00.000-04:00

We had an awesome master class on April 8th - Sa Bum Nim came out from Texas to lead the class for what was nearly a full-day session.

Testing
Katie had a very successful 4th Gup Blue belt test, including a back-wheel break (sorry I missed that!).

Training
We covered a lot of ground in the training session, including starting to learn a new form (Palgue Chil Jang), working on some new 3rd Gup kicks, and working extensively on Palgue Yuk Jang.

May 5th presentation at GSS
We discussed the May 5th event at Green Street Studios and decided to present Palgue Yuk Jang as well as talk a bit about the class and the Ji Do Kwan philosophy.

It was good to have Mister Hariramani back, even if only for the weekend!

Green Street presentation on May 5th

2006-04-11T15:10:00.000-04:00

I spoke today with Rose from GSS - she was asking if we were still interested in doing a presentation. I told her yes :-)

Here are the details:

We will have 5 minutes for our presentation
There will be a rehearsal on Thursday, May 4th starting at 7:30
The May 5th presentation goes from 8-10 pm and there will be a reception afterwards

Class Log, March 30th

2006-03-30T22:56:00.000-05:00

Today we worked on all the forms, we also worked on the newer onesteps and backwheels.

Class Log, March 16th

2006-03-21T12:58:00.000-05:00

We practiced back wheel kicks, front whip kicks, running jumping side kicks.
We practiced forms 5 and 6.

Class Log Mar. 9, 2006

2006-03-10T00:33:00.000-05:00

We practiced and filmed the kicks. View the videos of our backwheel kicks
here.

Class log March 2nd, 2006

2006-03-03T22:54:00.000-05:00

We mainly practiced the Backwheel Kick and Back Whip Kick.
We worked on Palgwe Oh Jang a lot.
We talked about the test date, and it looks like it might be April 8th, but we're waiting for confirmation.

Class log Feb. 23, 2006

2006-02-24T16:46:00.000-05:00

We practiced all the forms, and the new kicks.
1)We don't remember the twist kick,
2) we are not sure if hte palm strike is open or closed handed.

We also discussed Jet's next trip out. Katie's knee is pretty banged up still, so we would like to move it further down, say either first 2 weekends of April. Angela will be gone the 3rd weekend in April for CHI.

Class Log Feb 9th

2006-02-10T13:44:00.000-05:00

We practiced kicks and forms. Katie worked on her backwheel, getting ready for the big break.

Class Log Feb. 2nd, 2006

2006-02-06T17:42:00.000-05:00

We did all 6 forms, and practiced the new kicks.

Class log Jan. 26, 2005

2006-01-27T23:18:00.000-05:00

We practiced:
Forms 1-6. Form 6 is a little bit shaky still.
Backwheel kicks.

Jan 19 2005 Class log

2006-01-19T22:19:00.000-05:00

Today we practiced Forms, Backwheel kicks, and went over the history of our Tae Kwon Do class.

Some questions we have:
o Upper Knifehand Block and Palm Strike in Palgwe Yuk Jang -- Is the Palm Strike open or clenched?

o For the Scissors Block in Basic Movements, which hand starts when which foot leads? What's the turn around?

o How should we proceed with Push Aways moving forward? What's the turn around?

Welcome to the Ji Do Kwan Tae Kwon Do academy blog!

2006-01-18T18:11:00.000-05:00

hello Everyone! This is a place for us to log our practices, status updates and questions about our Tae Kwon Do training.
First, if you haven't done so already, please register for an account to start posting on Blogger.
At our last practice, we practiced 20 punches, back wheel kicks, and forms.