What Martial Arts do you do, and why?

[Acliff]

I've never been sure whether you should write 'study martial arts', 'train in martial arts', 'compete in martial arts', 'participate in martial arts'

Anyway, I was reading the Bruce Lee vs All threads and the self defence concealed weapons thread, and given some of the advice, I wondered what the martial arts background of the OCUK members were. Also its nice to find people with similar interests.

To start, I am First Dan ITF & WTF Taekwondo with some training in Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu, Wing Chun and Hapkido.

What do you do?

 

[Acliff]

Sorry but I do not think you are correct, even the official ITF website shows there is NO purple belt:

8.2 Belt:

1. The belt is five centimeters wide and five millimeters thick. It is worn wrapped around the body once.
2. There are six colors of belts:

Black: 9th to 1st degree
Red with black stripe: 1st grade (kup)
Red: 2nd grade (kup)
Blue with red stripe: 3rd grade (kup)
Blue: 4th grade (kup)
Green with blue stripe: 5th grade (kup)
Green: 6th grade (kup)
Yellow with green stripe: 7th grade (kup)
Yellow: 8th grade (kup)
White with yellow stripe: 9th grade (kup)
White: 10th grade (kup)

http://tkd-itf.org/pub_web/ver_eng/bl-pp.html

So even though some clubs as you say do have a "purple" belt, even though I have been to many and never seen one, it is not officially an ITF belt. Maybe in other disciplines but not in ITF as I originally said.

ITF has smaller organisations within it which give out colours other than the ones stated above. I have regularly heard of taekwondo brown, orange and purple belts in America (maybe to run parallel with people's familiarity with Judo belts?) I know that UKTA and TAGB follow the white/yellow/green/blue/red/black scheme, it is very likely that some others don't. The club maybe ITF taekwondo but not directly affiliated with ITF.


And on the topic of muscle tone, its a laymans way of representing perceivably stronger and larger muscles, while reducing the fat surrounding it. We could start using bodybuilding terms such as cutting and bulking but not really necessary for this thread

 

[Acliff]

I can promise anyone on here that there is no purple belt within any of the 3 ITF federations. I will even put money on it

Meh:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taekwondo

Down a bit it mentions orange and purple belts.

http://www.raynerslanetkd.com/COMP_RESULTS_MAIN.html

References to purple belt as a category.

Not that I have personally come across many. I like the white/yellow/green/blue/red/black scheme a lot.