News

A Tang Soo Do practice begins with stretching. The purpose is to gain the flexibility needed to perform the art, as well as to prevent injury. As stretching out properly is such an important part of each of our workouts, it is important to understand the differences in the types of stretching that we do. There are basically three kinds of flexibility: Dynamic Flexibility, Static Passive Flexibility and Static Active Flexibility.

Dynamic Flexibility involves performing dynamic movements within a full range of motion in the joints. An example is alternately swinging your arms up and down as far as they’ll go. Static Passive Flexibility is assuming and maintaining extended positions using your weight (such as splits) or using strength not coming from the stretched limbs. Examples of this include side splits and lifting and holding a leg with your arm. Static Active Flexibility is assuming and maintaining extended positions using the tension of many muscle groups, while actually only stretching one particular set. An example of this is lifting your leg and keeping it high without any support.

How do we get the necessary flexibility to perform the martial art of Tang Soo Do? By stretching. Generally, younger people have more natural flexibility than older people, but it is equally important that everyone take the same amount of time to stretch out their muscles completely. It is also important to remember that stretching, in one form or another, is important for each of us to do every day. If you take time to practice stretching every day, you will find your flexibility increasing twice as fast.

It is best to start out with static passive stretching, then move into static active stretching, and finish up with dynamic stretching. How quickly you stretch is not important. It is not a contest to see who finishes stretching first. The important thing is to give your body what it needs to be ready for an invigorating Tang Soo Do workout.

Cambridge Tang Soo Do would like to welcome the following new students:

   – Rami Haddad

   – Maher Mutlaq

   – David Gyewu

Welcome to the family! You have made the hardest but best decision of your lifetime. We hope that you will enjoy your training, and benefit from our large family.

Congratulations to the following students for successfully completing the Summer testing cycle.
The new promotions are as follows:

Their efforts and progress have been rewarding, and we hope that they will continue their hard training in Tang Soo Do.

Our school has joined the American Tang Soo Do Association (ATA) under the leadership of Grandmaster Richard Byrne, 8^th Dan.
What this means to each of you is that:

• From a training and promotional standpoint, Cambridge Tang Soo Do becoming a member of the ATA for the most part will not have a big impact on our day to day activity. Because the ATA is a Tang Soo Do organization, there are no changes in the promotional requirements or testing environments. My main reason for joining the ATA are:
  1. the privilege of being affiliated with a world renowned Korean Martial Arts Association led by a well recognized leader;
  2. access for all of us to a breadth of knowledge through a handful of senior master instructors in the area;
  3. the opportunity to training continuously and the option to transfer to other ATA studio around the country should you move out of the area;
  4. participation in ATA sanctioned events such as seminars, camps, competitions, clinics, lectures, etc… I am also looking forward to broadening your repertoires with new forms and one-step techniques.
• From an administrative standpoint, you will notice the following changes:
  1. your certificates will be awarded by the ATA,
  2. the testing fee will increase slightly to support the ATA processing of your promotions, certificates, belts and record keeping
  3. we will all be receiving ATA patches for our uniforms
  4. we will all be receiving additional training material including new student manuals