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!

End of the Month Tournament

I am very happy today. Yesterday, for the End of the Month Tournament, I did well in pattern competition- I went in a group with JP (2nd dan), Eric (1st dan), Patrick (2nd dan) and Cassie (3rd dan.)I won against JP (split decision) and for 1st and 2nd place I lost to Cassie- but that was also a split decision! Wow! I got a split decision against Cassie- Master Bosse's granddaughter who has really good patterns and is great at sparring. At least I am getting better- and I'll keep working on my patterns so maybe I will win next time! And also for sparring I went against Cassie, who's feet I am usually sacred of during sparring, and I wasn't scared- I went in on her and did good, though my technique could have been better. Cassie won that, too, but I did well against her and Cassie didn't think that she'd won.

So, yay! I'm getting better!

I'm Learning Free Sparring Pattern # 11/ Black Belt Free Sparring Pattern #1!

Hello, Taekwon-Doins! I am learning Free Sparring Pattern #11, or Black Belt Free Sparring Pattern #1. In case you readers take Taekwon-Do but not at the Las Vegas Taekwon-Do Club, the Free Sparring Patterns (Or Free Spar Patterns for short) were created by Master Park and the Young Brothers Taekwon-Do Associates. As far as we know, Master Bosse is the only person left in the world that teaches them. He teaches 10 of them, and you learn one at each belt up until black stripe, but there were originally 13 patterns. And I am very fortunate to be able to learn number 11, meant for 1st dan black belts! I am about halfway through the pattern (I'm on number 7 of 13 movement groups)and it is really fun and cool!

In case you are wondering how they go, they consist mostly of kicks with punches at the end of each series of movements, and they are patterns to learn alongside the regular patterns (Chon-Ji, ect.) They too have you end where you started from, and they are full of great combinations of kicks that, unlike quite a few of the combinations in the regular patterns, are very helpful in sparring.

Also, if you know of anyone who teaches these patterns, please comment here! I'm very interested to find out if we are the only students of Taekwon-Do that learn these 'lost patterns.' It's hard for me to imagine Taekwon-Do without them- testing would be way too easy for the color belts!