By Jude on Sunday, August 27, 2000 - 03:43 am:

Has any one tried Tai Kwondo (Sp?) I am thinking about trying it and would like some advice on the do's and don'ts Cheers, Jude

By Sheena on Sunday, August 27, 2000 - 08:27 am:

Hi Jude
My son, who also has HMS, does Taekwon Do. You have to be fully fit to do it, and each session starts with fitness work (lots of press-ups). It consists of very precise movements and patterns, which requires plenty of control of your movements.

I am a bit worried that in the long term he might damage his feet, which are very flat, by working in bare feet on non-sprung floors. Also you have to punch with your knuckles to split wooden boards.

The advice he has had so far is to continue but be on the look-out for injuries arising from repetitive movements. I suppose he would then have to make a decision whether to continue.

There is a website at
www.itf-taekwondo.com/

I hope this helps.
Sheena

By Jude on Friday, September 15, 2000 - 01:31 am:

Thanks Sheena

Sorry I din't get back to you sooner as I've moved abroad. I'll take note of your advice and will try and let you know how it goes.
Hope your son manages to continue for a long time yet.

jude

By Sheena on Friday, September 15, 2000 - 06:26 am:

If anyone wants to see what Taekwon Do looks like, it is in the Olympics this year.

By Diane on Thursday, November 02, 2000 - 07:24 am:

My 7 yr old son also does Tae Kwon Do. His problems with HMS didn't show up until he had been doing Tae Kwon Do for about a year and a half. His hips have got to the point that he can't run laps with the other children without intense pain. He is testing for his Black Belt this month and will then stop. For him, Tae Kwon Do has done more damage to his body than good!

By Liz on Friday, January 19, 2001 - 02:42 pm:

If you're interested in martial arts, instead of Tae Kwon Do, you might check out Tai Chi. I started it a few months ago. The Yang style which I'm learning is very slow & fluid. I also lucked out and found an instructor whose son has hypermobility, so she's very sympathetic & helpful. Actually, she's like that with everyone. We have several types of disabilities in our class.

By Becky on Sunday, January 27, 2002 - 02:15 am:

i know it's been a long time since anyone has written on this board, but i felt that i had to reply to this.

i also do a martial art, called Choi Kwang Do and i am 15 years old. ALL traditional martial arts, Tae Kwon Do included, lock out joints and this in itself damages joints even in a person without hypermobility syndrome. In which case, imagine the damage that a hypermobile person would suffer. the martial art that i practice focuses on natural body movements, including NO locking out of joints. This means that it is much less damaging than your traditional martial arts.

i have been doing this martial art for about three years and will be trying for my black belt in June of this year. Although my joints have gotten progressively worse, probably not helped by my martial art, i am still able to practice my martial art 6 times a week. i have also become an instructor.

My advice to anyone out there who wants to do a sport like a martial art or similar, is go for it, but know your limits. there is no point doing something and pushing yourself too far if it means that you wont be able to walk for the following two days. i'm not going to tell you to stop doing what you love, (i was told to give up my martial art) but instead dont push yourself too far and only do what you are capable of.

if anyone reading this is thinking about starting a martial art i really do advise Choi Kwang Do as it is the most suitable for Hypermobility Syndrome sufferers, and if you want to find out more feel free to visit the websites....

www.surreyckd.co.uk

or

www.choikwangdo.com

also if you would like more advice on taking up a martial art and you suffer from HMS then please feel free to email me...

i hope this has been of some help to someone....

By raziel on Friday, August 09, 2002 - 05:25 pm:

Hi. I'm Sheena's son. 1st off, i'd like to say thanks to Becky. I'm gonna go check that out in a second. I was online searching for information about knees to find out a bit more about what i need to do for mine etc. Taekwon-Do is an exxelent martial art, and any martial art has something of benefit weather its mental or physical. 1 thing to think about is when starting a martial art, specialy when you have hyper mobility is what that martial art contains and what its like. For instance, i used to do Judo when i was younger, and for a hypermobile person, i realy wouldnt advise it.

But at the same time, i think that these things are definately more doable for a hypermobile person if you know what problems you have, and what to do to help them. For instance, i have problems in my knees and as i said before, im looking into how best to help them and strengthen the appropriate muscles. It seems to me that its the same all through the body but weather there are certain places that you cannot help or exercise to make better i dont know. From what i've heard WTF Taekwon-Do is mostly sparing whereas ITF includes more. So knowing what's included and what your capable of is the main thing. If your not sure, then give it a try. I wouldnt advise pushing yourself, and if its no good then just try something else. Taekwon-Do is quite specific. There are many fixed stances, and are very precisely measured using your own body. So 1 stance will be as wide as your own shoulders and 1.5 times as long as your shoulders with 1 foot out no more than 45 degrees, and the other straight. So this could be of benefit, but at the same time could be a problem if these stances will hurt you.

I have had to leave Taekwon-Do for a while now while i do physio and streangthen certain muscles so that things wont hurt. My plan is just to eventualy work out any weakness my body has due to hypermobility and anything else, and do the exercises to correct them. But it can take time and patience.

I had to laeve Taekwon-Do as i was learning about my hypermobility, and as someone said previously, it can do you more damage than good. Where as i have an inballance in my quads (frontal thigh muscles) this inballance i beleive was made worse when i did Taekwon-Do because the fixed stances were exercising the wrong muscles and making things worse. Know your body, and if somethings hurting, its good to find out why. If its something that can be corrected by an exercise, then it means u could work to make the pain less and decide weather or not u want to cary on with the martial art.
I tried Thai Chi before, and the style i started learning was the same as Taekwon-Do in that because its so slow, it acts almost like you are in fixed stances and u can end up exercising the wrong muscles if u havent already done physio, or somehow corrected those inballances.

By raziel on Friday, August 09, 2002 - 05:26 pm:

Overall advice would be try things if u want to do em, and c how it goes, if u realy wanna do it...and theres something stopping u then work out how to fix it.

By Laura on Monday, October 07, 2002 - 01:07 pm:

Hi, I currently do Jiu Jitsu, but my hypermobile joints are beginning to cause me pain, particularly my left wrist, both knees and my left ankle. I am wondering if this is because we always fall onto this side when thrown. My physio has told me that i should not carry on as i am more likely to injure myself than everyone else there, in particular because of the joint locking techniques, but seeing as he just gave me theraband exercises which made my wrist worse i don't think he completely understands my joints! However, i really enjoy doing jiu jitsu and so i am wondering if anyone out there has found a way to get round these problems. Thanks, Laura

By Becky on Monday, November 18, 2002 - 02:46 pm:

hi Laura -- unfortunately ive never trained in Jiu Jitsu so i couldnt say for sure whether it was the throws that were causing you the pain. i do know though that i had problems when it came to being thrown because of the way id been taught to break my fall by using either one of my arms and then rolling onto my back. this sent shock up my arm and was very painful. by talking to my instructor we were able to adujust this by putting less weight onto my arms and more onto my shoulders and upper back so it didnt hurt as much. as for the locking of joint during techniques, im sure this is damaging your joints. it puts so much extra stress on you joints, maybe you could talk to your instructor about adjusting and shortening the moves slightly? im sure it would help you a lot. all i would say is dont push yourself too hard. its better to sit out one week because your aching a bit than sit out for much longer because you trained and ended up getting more seriously hurt.

hi Raziel -- i was wondering when you were going back to tae kwon do and also how long you'd been doing it? you sound as into your art as i am into mine! it seems such a shame to be to be forced into giving up something that you love so much, and i really hope you are able to get back to training soon. . . i wish you all the luck in the world with your physio.


love becky xx

By Jeanette B on Monday, March 24, 2003 - 06:28 am:

Warning!
I trained Kung-fu when I was a teenager and it is so easy to overbend both your knees and your elbows. A lot of the training is based on agility and which you know isn't what we're supposed to train.

I'd love to keep on training kung-fu but my MD and my physiotherapist have told me that I should consider a nother type of exercise. This excludes as well tennis, swuash, badminton etc...