We hope that you have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday and are able to reflect upon the blessings in your life.  For those of you who are like me, I look forward to coming to the studio after Thanksgiving - I will need to work off the feasting.

For the college students returning home, we hope that you will have time to stop by and tell us how things are going.

As you may remember from last month, my company is supporting efforts in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region to recover from Hurricane Katrina.  Though news about the effects of the hurricane is fading, the areas impacted  remain heavily damaged with many people still unable to return home or to work.  As we enter this season of Thanksgiving, I would like to encourage you, as you can, to continue to remember the people in these devastated areas and perhaps find ways you can share some of your bounty with these displaced people.

Just a reminder to let us know if you or your child has made honor roll for the 1st quarter.  We want to recognize these students in the newsletter.  Please send an e-mail with the child's name, whether they got straight A's, and that they made honor roll to Craig Stoll at hamfair-tkd@cinci.rr.com.

As a reminder to all the sparring students, no sparring classes are held on the night of Junior Belt Testing.  Parents should expect the Junior Belt Test will be approximately 1 - 1.5 hours long.

In the March 2006 issue of The Physician and Sports Medicine, an article appeared on stretching titled "When and Whom to Stretch?"  The article discussed the principles of stretching every day and just prior to a performance or competition.  The article provides some fairly interesting scientific observations on the effects of stretching and is definitely worth reading.  The magazine was loaned to me by Wade who has agreed to leave the magazine in the studio for anyone interested in reading it.

The article establishes a few key points:

• Stretching every day will extend your range of motion

• The duration (number of times per week and number of weeks) of stretching required to extend range of motion varies among individuals

• Stretching just prior to an activity does not seem to reduce the likelihood of injury

The article goes on to say just before an activity "It [stretching] reduces force and power by about 2% to 5% with conflicting study results about its affect on running speed."  The article includes some real examples and whether stretching would be recommended or not in each example.  In one particular scenario, the article discusses a Taekwondo athlete who was unable to perform the requisite high kicks without first stretching.  In this case, the article argues that the stretching before the tournament should be performed, but that with continued regular stretching eventually the athlete may not need to stretch just before the tournament.  The article is very interesting and not very long. 

"When and Whom to Stretch?, The Physician and Sports Medicine, March 2005, 22 - 26.

One goal of this newsletter is to introduce other philosophies and training techniques that our students may find useful.  In the previous two newsletters, we have looked at forms and one steps.  In this month's letter, we are looking at breathing techniques. Breathing, besides being essential to living, is a very important aspect of Martial Arts.  In some styles, great attention is paid to proper breathing and in Martial Art books, the book will actually begin by introducing breathing and meditation techniques.  Each martial art instructor must choose which martial art elements to teach his/her students.  There are so many different styles and training philosophies, it is impossible to teach everything.  In Kung fu, the instructors will spend a significant amount of time teaching forms and forms with weapons; in Judo the focus is on throws; and in our school the focus is on competitive Taekwondo.

Aaron Hoopes in the article, "Breathing Training for Martial Artists" available online at USADOJO.com, introduces several breathing exercises and discusses how breathing exercises can improve your martial arts.  Mr. Hoopes introduces these five specific breathing techniques:

• Attention Breathing - The author describes this as simply paying attention to your breathing without attempting to change it.  Where most of the time we simply breathe without paying attention to the process, this step brings you to an awareness of your breathing.

• Abdominal Breathing - Abdominal breathing seems to be common to many styles of martial arts.  The author describes this breathing as trying to take air down into the lower part of your lungs.  This breathing works the abdominal muscles.  As a boy, I remember practicing for swimming and learning to breathe this way to expand lung capacity.

• Reverse Abdominal Breathing - Reverse abdominal breathing is better described in the article.  The simple description is that you expel air from the bottom of the lungs first.

• Nose Breathing

• Complete Breathing

From other martial arts styles that I have observed or taken part in, I can attest that there are many different breathing exercises and in many instances a particular instructor would contest that his/her techniques are the best.  While there are probably some breathing techniques that are better, I think the end results of regular breathing exercises are probably similar:  Better breath control, an ability to breathe more deeply, an enhanced ability to manage breathing in tournaments, competitions, and combative situations, etc.  I think this article is worth looking at, and I would encourage you to consider practicing the techniques - most of the techniques can be practiced while doing other activities, such as watching TV.

During the development of this article, I found another interesting site Stott Pilates.  The website includes an article on breathing in a section of the site devoted to warmups. 

This month's focus is on a simple escape from a two handed wrist grab.  The people likely to use a two handed wrist grab will either be very strong or are trying to establish control. However, unless your opponent is incredibly strong, the wrist grab is easy to escape from.  The steps for breaking this wrist grab are described below.  The steps also describes a basic counter strike.

Black belt promotions are only made twice a year.  In addition to promotions, students who have achieved the rank of black belt and are seeking to advance to higher ranks are required to credit test.  The students who were awarded a new black belt degree or credit tested are listed in the following tables.  A computer CD (Windows Media Player files) containing video of the concrete block breaks, the special demonstration One Steps, and the Belt Award Ceremony is available in the office to borrow. Feel free to copy any content on this CDROM for your personal use.

2nd Credit Test

2nd Dan Promotions

3rd Dan

Credit Test

3rd Dan Promotions

4th Dan Credit Test