LVTKD Pictures

Master Bosse and the other high-ranking officals at the nationals

Students lined up at the opening ceremonies (Patricia, LVTKD student, on the far right)

Students lined up at the opening ceremonies

LVTKD gold and silver medalist performing Ge-Baek

Master Bosse as a center referee

Gino DeArmas (red fighter) gold and silver medalist sparring

Patricia DeArmas sparring (on the right)

Gino DeArmas  (on the left) sparring

Gino DeArmas (on the right) sparring

At http://www.itf-usa.org/ on the front page, you can find pictures of the LVTKD students along with Master Bosse at the ITF-USA National Championships that were in San Jose, California in August! There is even a special thanks to Master Bosse written above the link that allows you to view the pictures. There are more than I added to this post!

Also, former LVTKD student Patricia DeArmas has an article published in Totally Tae Kwon Do magazine in the October issue. It is viewable in the October issue, titled “What The Mind Believes the Body Achieves.”

As well, congratulations to the Taekwon-Do students testing this weekend for black belt! Have fun!

2nd dans and farewells

Above: Me testing for my 2nd dan

Today, I am proud to say that I tested and was awarded my 2nd dan (degree) black belt by Master Bosse! It was a fun test, though my patterns were not as good as they normally are.

But I am sad to say that today we had to say farewell to the Mt. Charleston Do-Jang garage. Today was the last class there- now LVTKD Mt. Charleston Classes (the ones at Mt. Charleston ONLY) will be taking place at the Mt. Charleston Elementary School. Temporarily they will be outside, but hopefully classes will soon be allowed inside the building. Being at the school is a good thing, but it was sad when Master Bosse, my dad, and I took up our padded floor, flags, pictures and kicking walls, and left our old do-jang as we had left it: a plain, concrete-floored garage.

Make sure that you now go to classes at the school- and if you don’t know where it is, just call (702)-456-4505 to reach Master Bosse.

Just because it is at a school does not mean that Taekwon-Do is only for children- it is supposed to double as a sort of rec center, meaning that anyone of any age can take Taekwon-Do classes there. Like I have said before, tell you friends to join Taekwon-Do, especially the ones that can go to Mt. Charleston, as Master Bosse needs to have a good amount of people there to keep the class going!

Moving students

Old pictures from my LVTKD journey.

Hello, LVTKD readers.
I am posting to let everyone know that my family and I are moving out of Nevada. This means that me and the rest of my family that take Taekwon-Do will have to stop being students of Master Bosse at the Las Vegas Taekwon-Do Club. This doesn’t mean that we will stop taking Taekwon-Do- we have found a place to practice where we are moving. But the years here that we have had with Master Bosse- for me, almost four and a half years, are unforgettable. They were fun, educational, and amazing, and Taekwon-Do has been the best thing we have done since moving to Nevada. It has improved us as individuals so much, and has become my favorite thing to do. I would give up being able to speak if I had to choose between talking and no TKD or TKD and no talking. It will be sad to leave LVTKD behind, but as General Choi Hong-Hi said, anywhere under heaven is do-jang, and this can include anywhere in the world, including where my family and I are moving to. I could go on forever about Taekwon-Do and the affect it has had on our lives, but I need to ask the other posters to post things here since I will no longer be able to.

Please, students of LVTKD, post on this blog when I am gone. Post anything TKD-related– even pictures or videos, you don’t have to write anything if you don’t have time. But please- keep this blog updated and promote the Las Vegas Taekwon-Do Club, in my opinion the best Taekwon-Do school in all of Las Vegas.

As for Taekwon-Do at Mt. Charleston- start recommending Taekwon-Do to your friends and family! Without my family there, the class will only include a few students- the 15 we used to have has been lowering in numbers, and without us there will only be three students left! Feel free to reccomend Taekwon-Do to your friends at Mt. Charleston or nearby. Send the link http://www.lvtkd.com through email or texting. Give Taekwon-Do as a gift- pay for the first month of TKD for a friend or family member instead of buying them the newest fighting video game or Kung-Fu movie. Taekwon-Do is great for anyone who is willing to learn it.
Taekwon,
Patricia

Not nervous anymore

Above: someone doing a Taekwon-Do pattern

Mysterious- I don’t get nervous anymore. Since performing a play a few months ago, I haven’t been nervous. I wasn’t nervous when acting, didn’t get nervous when going to the past end-of-the-month tournaments since May; I seem to have lost my ability to be nervous in competition! How did this happen? I guess I just get so into what I am doing, the nervousness doesn’t come. It is kind of hard to explain. It is a bit easier with acting, and slightly harder with Taekwon-Do. But I can do what I want when in the pressure of the moment without being nervous. I wish I could tell other people how to do this. I guess that you just need to think of what you are doing- for example, your pattern,- and only think of that. It stops the nervousness from coming. If you stop thinking of being nervous, the nervous feeling dissapears. Has anyone else had this happen? Though I can’t say that when thinking of doing certain things I don’t get nervous, but when I actually get out there to do what I want, the nervousness goes away.

No red and black belt class!

There is no red and black belt class on the 10th this week!
Don’t come to class- Master Bosse won’t be there!

Taekwon-Do Belt levels

In every sort of ITF Taekwon-Do, the belt levels are the same, though sometimes the ‘stripes’ are called ‘tags’ depending on the school. Above are all the belt levels up to 1st dan (or degree) black belt- after that there are degrees of black belt up until 9th dan/degree.

The snap at the end of your technique

Above: A Taekwon-Do uniform

A while ago, Master Bosse got a call on the phone. It was a man asking for a Taekwon-Do uniform. “But, can you give me one of those uniforms with all the snap in it?” he asked, and Master Bosse replied, “sorry, but you have to provide the snap yourself!”

Taekwon-Do uniforms, (or ‘doboks’) don’t come with snap already in them- you have to get the snap at the end of your technique yourself. Of course, uniforms help you hear the snap when you are able to get your tecnnique to snap, but they don’t make the snap happen; you can’t just do a weak punch and it will have a nice snap at the end of your technique, you have to have a powerful punch with an explosion at the point of impact. To make this little explosion, you slightly pull your tecnique back in to simulate a rebound. Taekwon-Do is a unique martial art because it emphasizes rebound on your technique instead of just doing the technique and leaving the technique still. When you block, make it a strike. When you block a kick, strike the part of your opponents’ foot that you blocked, and do the same thing for other kinds and blocks blocking other attacking parts of the body of your opponent. The block will hurt your opponent instead of his or her attack hurting you.

You can practice getting snap at the end of your technique just walking around; do various kinds techniques that are more difficult to have an explosion at the end of.

If you don’t know how to get snap on your tecniques yet, begin by practicing with front kicks and punches; these are easier to get an explosion at the end of. You can also talk to your instructor about snap if you don’t do Taekwon-Do here at the Las Vegas Taekwon-Do Club.

What is Model Sparring?

What is Model Sparring? Model Sparring is sort of like Reverse Attacks- there are two sides, an attacker and a defender, and the attacker will step back into a fighting stance (or possibly a walking stance) and kihap, and the defender will kihap in jumbi, in a parallel ready stance. Then the attacker will make an attacking movement or several attacking movements, and the defender will defend him or herself. The Model Sparring sets can include quick exchanges of however many movements desired, and one of the two wins. But within the Model Sparring, there must also be slow motion movements, and these movements should repeat a technique that just happen. The fighters in the Model Sparring fight are allowed to fall down. The whole set-up is pre-arranged.

You are required to make up Model Sparring for your 2nd dan black belt test at our Taekwon-Do school, and I am very excited to make up mine! Master Bosse suggests to create six very clean Model Sparring sets, and have one where the attacker makes one move, the defender makes one move, and so on with one-technique exchanges until one of them wins (which has to be me) and then one where it is an exchange of two techniques until one of them wins.

And yes, in that Korean Taekwon-Do Team demonstration, the step-sparring in the beginning seems to be Model Sparring, from what I read about it in the Encyclopedia of Taekwon-Do.

Effective Taekwon-Do Sparring

Hello, everyone! I recently read a book called Effective Taekwon-Do Sparring by Master Jim Hogan and James Home, a book that talks about techniques, stances, set ups and more to use to improve your sparring, specifically in competition. Even though this book is meant for ITF, this book can be applied to other martial arts and to other Taekwon-Do styles, as long as the competition rules aren’t too different from the ITF Taekwon-Do’s sparring match rules. Although I don’t always agree with the sparring stance offered in this book, as it doesn’t seem to go with the way I spar, the combinations, set ups, and technique ideas are well worth the read, and I think that testing out the sparring stance in different situations is probably worth it, too, and it might fit different fighters quite well. I reccommend this book to any serious ITF student, or any serious martial arts students who spar simmilar to the International Taekwon-Do Federation practitioners. The set ups and combinations in this book are very smart, and trying them out in competition is a great idea, as well as certain foot positions and body positions are great to consider! We especially like The Blitz- a certain way that you step and punch that works really well if you use it at the correct time. Slide your front foot in while falling forward, stepping two times into a middle section reverse punch on the last step. This book is great because other ITF books don’t talk much about what to do in sparring, including General Choi Hong-Hi’s Encyclopedia of Taekwon-Do. The book says that it is a good book for beginner to intermediate sparring levels, but I think that advanced fighters will value this book as well. In the book, there are a few of Master Bosse’s sparring tricks, but it also includes some things that most people don’t think of using.
Effective Taekwon-Do Sparring should be read by Taekwon-Do students everywhere!

United States ITF Nationals

The United States Taekwon-Do National Championships will take place in San Jose, California August 13-14, 2010! When you are a junior, if you win 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place you qualify for the USA team to go to New Zealand for the World Championships, and when you are a senior you have to win 1st to qualify for the USA team! And San Jose isn’t too far from Las Vegas! Ages 14 and up can compete for a place on Team USA, and if you are younger you can still compete, you just can’t qualify for the World Championships! If you don’t want to compete for a place on Team USA, that’s okay, when you sign up just fill out a form saying that you do not want to.
Visit HERE and scroll to August, 2010 to download more information about the tournament!