h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

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Hi,

I'm Bassman and I as TIMELORD put it, have just popped in to roll out the red carpet,

So a red belt in Tae Kwon Do, I'm a brown belt in Tang Soo Do, although I don't train any more for reasons of health unfortunately. Pop across and see if you can find Anastasia, I used to train with her and she's now a Black Belt. She'll always be happy to chat about Martial Arts.

Don't worry about being a I'm sure you'll go on to make loads of cash in the future from people who were unkind to you in school

Looking forward to hearing from you....



Bassman

Thanks! *jumps up and down on the red carpet, just to see how smushy it is, and is duly impressed*

So there are more martial artists here! What kind of art is Tang Soo Do (wrestling, mostly kicking, mostly hand movements, etc)? I think taekwondo has become more and more popular, at least in the US, because one can move up pretty quickly. It kind of cheapens the art, but oh well... not everyone's into martial arts seriously.

Heh heh... I have no problems with being a , I have found many people who are relatively accepting of relative intelligence... teachers especially. Which is good, I do like my teachers. And if you were wondering (were you? huh? huh?), my glasses are reasonably rectangular. (I am casually thinking of getting contacts. I can't wear glasses while sparring, and it might be nice to see the people who are hitting me.)

Eva

I broke two pairs of glasses sparring. One fell off and a lens broke, the other pair got squashed in my head guard by a roundhouse kick from a 3rd Dan. They broke across the nose piece, I had to drive home with them held together by a Band Aid - now that's y.

Tang Soo Do has it's origins in the Southern Peninsular of South Korea, as does Tae Kwon Do. Tae Kwon Do has gone in a slightly different direction and become a sport, where Tang Soo Do has kept faithful to it's origins and remains an Art. You'd probably be quite at home in a Tang Soo Do class.



Bassman

I break my glasses in the funniest places... I broke them once in Quebec when I was on a class trip there in fifth grade. My sister broke hers in Florida... and she lost one pair of them off of a boat in Lake Michigan. (The glasses were in the lake, not the boat... the boat was on. Le bateau est sur l'eau. It's late at night, that's my excuse!) So we have great familiarity with glasses and such. My current pair has been around for a while... I had the lenses replaced about a year and a half ago after I lost one sledding down a hill. Yep, contacts might work...

Sparring is glasses-intensive... I've never been allowed to wear them sparring - the instructor said that they might break, and that if they didn't break they might injure the foot of anyone who kicked me in the head. (We do wear foot protectors, but they only cover about three inches of the foot, and most people who spar competitively outside of the USTU [U.S. Taekwondo Union] tear them off from the shin guards to meet competition rules.) My vision (which started going when I was in third grade - both of my parents are myopic too) is good enough that I can see people sparring me, but it's still nice to see perfectly while sparring. Contacts would be nice, indeed.

Tang Soo Do sounds cool... are you selling me? I do the same thing for taekwondo... The balance between art and sport is hard to make, and as a selling point, most studios tend to lean towards sport. I have a friend whose studio teaches everything from letha yoga to taekwondo to Filipino stickfighting (he was actually set to go to London for the world stickfighting championships, but his grandmothers were scared because of September 11 and didn't want him to go, so he stayed home), and it does concentrate on the mental/spiritual element of the martial arts. I would very much like to go to a studio where more emphasis is placed on the mental aspect of the art, but I also have a fixation on getting my black belt (it's got shiny gold lettering!), and it all depends on where my mother is willing to drive me... although I'm 15 months to being able to drive alone! woohoo!

Try checking out the World Tang Soo Do Association web site, type WTSDA into your browser, that should do the trick - have a look see who's close.

I wouldn't want to convert you, as I feel that would be showing your Instructor disrespect, I am fortunate in that I have tried a few different Martial Arts.

Aikido is really fab, using an opponent's force against himself, that's cool.

I also did JuiJutso for a while until I got trashed by one of the senior belts. I got thrown onto my recently operated upon knee - ouch He didn't take into account that I had a TSD brown belt on, not a JuiJutso one, and was therefor a lot less competant than he thought I was. I learned some goor hard nasty effective techniques, like kneeling on the back of your opponent's neck when he's face down, or on the side of his head - nasty stuff.



Bassman

We study a little hapkido at our school, on the odd occasion - mostly grabs and releases, but the master does summer camps where he does hapkido demonstrations that are a lot like wrestling - grappling and using arm, wrist, and finger locks to force flips and so on. It's a lot of fun.

The master likes to tell a story at summer camp about when he was a green belt, very cocky, and fighting a red belt. He was very confident during the fight, and the red belt kicked him hard... he flew off the ground and into the wall, luckily between the two-by-fours spaced apart in the wall. The dojang was in a large building with many businesses, right next to a pottery shop. His butt flew into the pottery shop and knocked vases off of shelves. I like his stories much.

I think I'm into taekwondo for the experience, entirely to learn... I do intend to get into other martial arts as well, I'm just not in a good situation to start shifting around.

According to the WTSDA website, there's no Tang Soo Do studios in Wisconsin... awww. Well, I won't be here forever.

Eva

oh, and the studio's website is http://www.atkd.com

Hello again, I checked out the site - looks quite well put together.



Bassman

Yeah... PageMill.

(Sorry for the delayed response, I was off in London. Loved it.)

What did you get up to?



Bassman

Aiya... lots of touristy things. St. Paul's, Westminster Abbey (we rented a flat within walking distance), Hampton Court, Harrods, Greenwich (stood on the Prime Meridian! but didn't stand in the line to stand on the Prime Meridian), and a lot of walking. We took the train out to Dover for a day. (After riding British rail systems, I have no idea why any complaints about them might be valid. The US can't even keep one going.) The underground was great but the zone system confused me... lucky me, I wasn't the one buying the tickets. (Again, better than I've seen in the US. And I very much appreciated the presence of the Cadbury's vending machines in the stations.) On the last night we saw 'A Complete History of America - Abridged' by the Reduced Shakespeare Company. Hilarious.

So... it was fun!

Don't let your good experiences lull you into a false sence of security.... Our rail system can be shocking at times



Bassman

The last train trip I took left Denver, Colorado, at three A.M., twelve hours late. We slept on the benches of the train station briefly...

Bassman

To change the subject completely... how does one become a champion of green tea mud wrestling? Is that green tea wrestling in mud, or wrestling in green tea mud?

Wrestling in Green Tea Mud. I'll have to go to the Pandora fan club and post you a link to the match. As it happens, all the "moves" I used were ones that I'd done in Karate - apart from wearing the kilt.



Man (Pandora stole my Bass playing skills as retribution)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/classic/F66142?thread=179131&skip=360&show=20 Go from post 371 I think Man

lol... thanks

I'm back to being me again - it wasn't easy being "Just" Man....



Bassman