i was teaching joong-gun (itf pattern) in class and one of the parents asked me why we were performing the slip of your foot into low stance during the movement of palm pressing block. the floor of the hall was quite sticky and as everyone's foot was moving out unsmoothly the parent asked me if this was a technique for seeing in the dark. as i have quite a silly sense of humour i thought this was brilliant and i couldn't stop laughing about it as it reminded me of martial arts films from the 70's where mystical ninja abilities were gained through training. has anyone else had any similar mental parents or students who have seen too many old martial arts movies????

p.s i  apologise in advance to anyone who has gained nightvision through the pattern joong-gun.

lol. I havnt had anything like that happen to me but i can imagine what that parent said wud have been hilarious!

Only thing i cnt think of was we were doing patterns in an unorthadox way eg 1st 3 moves of each pattern you know to create a pattern or summot like that; and i messed up and went 'oh whatever' and now my instructor and classmates take the mickey and always say whatever at me haha!

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Courtesy, Integrity, Perseverance, Self Control, Indomitable Spirit.

We sometimes do froms with our eyes closed and I see stars on the inside of my eyelids. 
But sadly my night vision has developed like I hoped it would.

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Exwrestler turned Martial Artist

Nothing like this but lots of funny stuff.

Asked a kid, "where are your hands supposed to bewhen you do this technique?"

Answer "At the ends of our arms sir."

Well, I couldn't say he was wrong.

Speaking of night vision training, many, many years ago, my Instructor, Mr. Smith, would take us into the basement of our Dojang where there was a carpeted room with a hanging bag for warm-up before class.  He would have us play a game where he took one lone person out of the room, and positioned the rest of us throughout the room.  Then he would turn out the lights and the room became pitch-black!  The lone student would have to make their way to the opposite side of the room without being grabbed.

My Instructor, being a black man, was certainly not going to be visible in this dark room, but a friend of mine used to joke that we would see him if he smiled (very white teeth).  One night, the game had begun, and the room was dark as could be.  My instructor entered with the lone student to begin the challenge, and one of the little tots in the room said, "I can see you, Mr. Smith!"  My friend and I began to struggle to control our laughter.    As it turned out, Mr. Smith was wearing a wrist watch with a glow-in-the-dark dial.  It still makes me chuckle to think about it.

few years ago, i was doing partner stretch with kids class, and, of course, they think it's fun to rip their partner's leg off, so obviously, their limits were being pushed.  i was walking around, telling them to go little easier on their partner if they are pushing too hard, and when i got to these pair of black belts, who were around 13 yr old at the time, i heard something from the kid, who was holding his partner's leg up, whispering something to his partner - "go to your happy place!  go to your happy place!"  and the other kid yelled out "i'm there!  and it still hurts!"

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i'm delicious

doughboy wrote: few years ago, i was doing partner stretch with kids class, and, of course, they think it's fun to rip their partner's leg off, so obviously, their limits were being pushed.  i was walking around, telling them to go little easier on their partner if they are pushing too hard, and when i got to these pair of black belts, who were around 13 yr old at the time, i heard something from the kid, who was holding his partner's leg up, whispering something to his partner - "go to your happy place!  go to your happy place!"  and the other kid yelled out "i'm there!  and it still hurts!"

 that is funny! You had me rollin'

I was on a testing board for a belt test when I was in college. There was a kid (about 15 years old) who took TKD very seriously. Everything was "yes sir" or "no sir" inside or outside of class. He was a perfectionist & always tried to show that nothing bothered him. He thought TKD-ists never showed weakness. He was testing for 8th gup.

We were having the students do low blocks. His were very intense (like his life depended on it) with each count. As he did one, he had an odd look on his face, like he was either in pain or something happened that he couldn't control. But he kept going. As he continued to these intense low blocks, his cup came out from his cross-over dobok top & onto the floor!

He toldus if something was wrong after that.

i was judging patterns at one of the local tournaments in washington state back in 2000 or 2001, and this kid had broken his middle finger prior to the tournament.  his finger was all wrapped up and he quite couldn't make a full fist.  and for his pattern, he did taegeuk #5, which has the most number of middle blocks, and we couldn't stop giggling, because he kept giving us the bird. 

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i'm delicious

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Exwrestler turned Martial Artist