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!

To the Blog Visitors...

Hello, visitors of the LVTKD Blog! I was just posting this to remind everyone that if you scroll down to the bottom of the page, you'll find a monthly LVTKD Poll- a poll that's just for fun where you can click to cast your vote for different subject options that are TKD related. Also, you can rate each post- just one click and you can share what you think of the blog's videos, pictures, stories, and more. Feel free to comment if you have something to say, have any questions, or have any answers to other questions. This is just a reminder of what you can do as a viewer, if you didn't know how!
To see pictures in their biggest size, just click them. If a video is taking too long to load, just pause and wait until the line that will be on the video screen is all darkened. Then the video will load faster, and you can watch the whole thing without any pauses.
If you want to learn more about Taekwon-Do, visit www.lvtkd.com- there is lots of Taekwon-Do info there, and even if you already take Taekwon-Do you can look there to see the references and the pictures and videos.

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Also, congratulations to Roman, my dad, Austin and Richard on their new belt grades! And Richard and Austin got surprise tests- Austin wasn't there when Master Bosse said who was testing and no one even knew that Richard would test! Great job, everyone!

Look what I found...

The 3rd dan black belt test of Cassie Bosse, an LVTKD student. The sparring is no-contact.


And you can't miss out on her Ho Sin Sul! Also, go to www.lvtkd.com and click on 'Pictures & Videos' to see two other Cassie vs. Andy Ho Sin Sul performances (Ho Sin Sul is a pre-arranged self-defence scene that is supposed to look like a real fight but in actuality, no one gets hurt)

The Mt. Charleston Class

Wow! We have four white belts, one gold stripe, one gold belt, three green belts, two blue stripes, one red belt, one black belt, and Master Bosse in our class! That makes 13 students plus one instructor! That's a lot of students for our small Mt. Charleston class- it doesn't seem so small anymore! Here are some pictures from a few days ago, and this is before another new student joined yesterday, and on a day when not all the students were there! Our little Do-Jang Garage is getting pretty crowded now, are we going to have to find someplace bigger? But new students are still welcome, so don't hesitate to come to class! Also, congratulations to Gino, Gabriel, and Sebastian for their new belt promotions, and to Roman, my dad, and Austin for their upcoming tests!

And speaking of new belt promotians, even if this might sound kind of silly, at the Whitney Ranch class the students were always saying that the new belts smelled like different kinds of candy- the gold belts were supposed to smell like honey, the blue belts like cotton candy, the red belts like cherry, ect. Me and my brother, once Whitney Ranch students, don't remember what they other ones were supposed to smell like, but I believe that one of them was supposed to smell like chocolate. I have never found them to smell like anything. MythBuster-type test: Do new belts really smell like candy? Take a whiff of your next new belt to find out for yourself! I don't believe it, but my brother and lots of the Whitney Ranch students say at least some of them do! So comment to share the test results of this (clearly a myth, I think) Whitney Ranch TKD myth!

Cold Water Training and Walking Barefoot on Snow

General Choi Hong-Hi reccomends walking barefoot in snow and doing cold water training. He writes: "By taking cold showers and baths or exercising on snow-covered ground in bare feet, students build tenacity and pride." And next to these words are an image of a man doing a heaven hand behind a waterfall and three boys standing waist-deep in a lake, both of course, cold. I hope walking barefoot through snow to get to a freezing cold lake to do a side kick in front of a waterfall on top of a wet log that's halfway in a stream is considered doing cold water training! With the extra benefit of walking barefoot through snow three times! I didn't really do it to build tenacity and pride; in fact I'd actually forgot what the benefit of cold water training was; I actually did it more for the cool picture at first. But after doing that, I was pretty proud of myself! The water didn't seem too bad, and though the snow was really cold, I managed to walk through it!(But if my toes could talk, they probably would have yelled at me for letting me get them so cold!) Here are some pictures. Also, I want to make sure that I don't scare off any potential students- cold water training is absolutely NOT REQUIRED to take Taekwon-Do -it is not like we go out with Master Bosse to train in waterfalls every class! So if you want to take Taekwon-Do but don't want to make your feet cold, it's okay, the cold water training is just an optional thing that individuals can do for fun if they so choose.

TKD Cookies

Since yesterday was the day after Taekwon-Do's birthday, I made Taekwon-Do cookies and brought them to Taekwon-Do class- Peanut butter cookies and oatmeal cookies, some of which I decorated to have Taekwon-Do pictures on them. Since they were a big hit, I'll give the recipe here!

Peanut Butter:
2 cups smooth peanut butter
1 1/2 cups of sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon of sea salt
(Optional: 2 cups chocolate chips)

Preheat oven to 350.
Mix all ingredients together until smooth. If wanted, add chocolate chips at the end of your mixing. Drop (by desired size- the grow a lot, though!) onto buttered cookie sheet or one covered in parchment paper. Back 10-13 minutes until golden around edges. Don't take off the cookie sheet until the cookies are cool- if not they might break.

Oatmeal Cookies:
3 cups of oats
2 cups oat flour
1/2 teaspoon guar gum
1/2 teaspoon xanthun gum
1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 cup of maple syrup
1/2 cup of sugar
1 1/2 sticks of butter
2 eggs
1 teaspoon cinnamon
(Optional: 1 cup of raisins)

Preheat the oven to 350.
Mix ingredients together- you can start with creaming the butter and sugar together, or you can melt the butter and add it later. You can switch out more sugar for the maple syrup if you do not have any. Put the cookies onto a buttered pan and cook for 15 minutes or until golden around the edges.

Royal Frosting:
Beat one egg until it is foamy. Add in 2 cups of powdered sugar and the flavoring of your choice (vanilla, almond, ect.) Color it if you like, and thinly frost the cookies. This frosting will harden on the cookies and shine nicely. If you let the frosting sit too long, it will start to harden and won't look as smooth and shiney on the cookies.

I put Taekwon-Do techniques on some of my cookies, but we didn't get a picture of them...

Happy Birthday, Taekwon-Do!

On April 11th, 1955, General Choi Hong-Hi founded Taekwon-Do, and the most popular martial art was born! Today is the day that Taekwon-Do was founded 55 years ago! Happy Birthday Taekwon-Do! And in celebration, I am wearing a Taekwon-Do T-Shirt from a 1994 tournament with Joe Bosse doing a split kick on it (and a bunch of other kicks on the back), an 'I Love Taekwon-Do' pin, a bracelet that reads 'Taekwon-Do Black Belt,' a dogtag necklace that says 'Patrica- Black Belt' on it, and a necklace that says 'I Love Taekwon-Do!' I almost wore my Yin-Yang necklace, too, but decided three necklaces was too much. So, do you think I like Taekwon-Do?!

Taekwon-Do Eggs

So here are my Taekwon-Do eggs from different directions. And there was also a General Choi Hong-Egg but he's not on here.

People X Taekwon-Do=Metamorphosis and The Heartbeat of Taekwon-Do

Master Bosse wrote two great papers called, "People X Taekwon-Do=Metamorphosis" and "The Heartbeat of Taekwon-Do." They are both really good, and they are both on the LVTKD website here. Check them out!

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter for all of you who celebrate it from the LVTKD club! And no, I don't know if the Easter Bunny actually takes Taekwon-Do, for all of you that are wondering. Ask him yourself! Have a great Easter- and if you make any Taekwon-Do Easter eggs post pictures here on the blog, if you're a poster for it!
Taekwon!