Rayners Lane Taekwon-do Academy

not for all the splits and the birth of new organisations?

Today many martial arts schools are becoming independent, or merely affiliated to other larger groups to allow some recognition. And then there is evolution, some groups have changed techniques within the patterns or modified them. Some have stayed with tradition. I am sure Masters could debate the pros and cons of change and tradition until the end of time.

“If it is not broken why fix it?” Vs “If one doesn’t change, one gets left behind.”

What I am trying to point out here, is the evident dilution of the patterns gene pool. Different groups many have a slight difference (or big difference depending how they view it) in the performance of different patterns. What this book had tried to encompass is most people’s views. It is unbiased, it does not judge the rights and wrongs of each difference in start position, finish position, speed of technique, where to Kihap, sine wave, hip twist etc.

What it does do is try and show all Taekwon-Do styles a logical way of performing each technique. These books demonstrate, in printed form, extensive photographic sequences of all the Ch’ang Hon patterns. Use it as a guide, use it as a bible, use it how you wish. Right or wrong opinions collected together give you a better understanding of anything i.e. Politics, the best system of an attacking football team, how to get from A to B the quickest route etc. View this book with an open mind, please do not be blinkered.

Mr. Anslow has spent many an hour sourcing information and different opinions to enable him to produce these volumes. He has sought out Masters and students alike to get their views, and ask the questions of ‘why and how?’ in order to define the small differences and make them as accurate and applicable to all as possible. With all this knowledge, he has then burnt much midnight oil in putting it all together, something many of us want to do, but never quite get around to. Therefore I have nothing but praise for Mr. Anslow in his tireless work to produce these volumes. A job very well done. Congratulations!

Finally, with regards to rank. My views are; “A belt does not say how good you are, only what grade you are.”.

“Don’t dismiss an opinion because of rank, 40 years experience doesn’t always mean they have the greater knowledge.”

If you judge a person on indepth knowledge opposed to time served, then from my opinion Mr. Anslow is of Master status!

Thank you Mr. Anslow for allowing us to share your knowledge!

Patterns, Kata’s, Forms, Drills, whatever you want to call them are a basis…a foundation of many of the martial arts in the present and the past.

So what are the benefits of performing and perfecting of patterns? Some will say; “It is a method of putting individual techniques into a logical sequence, it is building muscle content to perform techniques, improving ones stances and applications. It is a attacking and defence system.”

I explain to my own students; “Patterns are like learning a foreign language, each technique is an individual word within that language, but to speak the language you have to put the words into sentences, Patterns are forming those sentences to enable you to speak the language, perform the art.”

Like all traditional martial arts, Patterns have been handed down from founder to student, who eventually becomes a Master, Master to instructors, instructors to senior students and so on. Also like all martial arts in our modern world, splits occur within organisations. How big would the founding body that first came to these shores (the U.K.) be today if it were