Grapling in Taekwondo???

[Karate_Warrior]

Hello.
Is it any type of grapling in Taekwondo???

 

[terryl965]

Hello.
Is it any type of grapling in Taekwondo???

This is one of those loaded question and I'll start off by saying no not really but and here comes the but,There is ground work in TKD. With that being said alot of people will say I'm wrong but in my 27 years in TKD I have done alot of groundwork with my seniors and they all called it TKD ground work, so to me yes.

There are those that will say Grappling is incorporated into there curriculum and that is how they have some knowledge of very basic grappling moves.

Then you have those that believe TKD is just a sport and does nothing accept kick while playing tag with a timer.

Which ever you choose to be true is all up to you, the main thing to remember is if you are doing it in your TKD school and your Sabanim says it is part of there corriculum than it is TKD to him most likely.

I do relize this may or may not seem wierd to you but it will be this way with this type of question.

Kararte_Warrior I hope I have not confused you anymore on this subject.
Terry

 

[Karate_Warrior]

I am just a LITTLE confused , but I understand

 

[MSUTKD]

I think it will depend on your teacher or programs background. My Taekwondo teacher is also a Judo teacher. We did a lot of Judo in my Taekwondo classes and still do.

ron

 

[fireman00]

no - TKD straight up does not incorporate groundwork. However, both dojangs I've attended have tossed in some basic ground fighting.

 

[exile]

Hello.
Is it any type of grapling in Taekwondo???

There's actually a lot of evidence for grappling in TKD if you study the hyungs from the point of view of realistic bunkai. Simon O'Neil has done this in tremendous detail, using methods of interpretation very similar to what Iain Abernethy's, Rick Clarke, Lawrence Kane & Kris Wilder and many other have done and are now doing in Japanese and Okinawan karate. The grappling in the hyungs/kata is mostly of the lock/throw variety, designed to set up finishing strikes. A lot of the moves in the hyungs that look extremely unrealistic under a block-punch-kick interpretation make a lot of sense when reinterpreted in terms of locks that set up throws and controlling moves that bring vital parts in range of finishing strikes. Groundwork... that's a bit different, because you're trying to get off the ground as soon as you can. But you should check out Abernethy's books, especially Karate's Grappling Methods, on kata-based close-quarter fighting techniques---his conclusions carry over pretty much exactly to TKD, given the massive overlap in the content of the katas on the one hand and hyungs on the other. Also check out O'Neil's site at www.combat-tkd.com/Ctkd1/home.php.

 

[IcemanSK]

It seems to me that if your instructor has a background in a grappling art, then it becomes part of Taekwondo. The old saying, "If it worked on me yesterday, its Taekwondo today" applies here.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing. Heck, the Japanese taught the Koreans judo during the occupation & the Koreans have excelled at it.

So I'd say, it depends on who you train under.

 

[matt.m]

I know Tae Kwon Do has self defense in it that are hapkidoesque. However, they are not hapkido.

However, I have never seen tae kwon do with grappling in the cirriculum. I am sure it is different from school to school and if you get a little dose then it is all good.

 

[BlackDragon]

TKD does have some grappling, techniques, like joint locks and stuff with some take downs and stuff. I was shown a a couple of them. Now as far as "ground work" is concerned. I don't know. But there is some "basic" grappling techniqes, at least from a stand up point...in TKD.

Though I've only dabbled, but never formaly trained in tkd in the past. One of my friends/co-worker/training partner was a tkd instructor.

 

[exile]

I know Tae Kwon Do has self defense in it that are hapkidoesque. However, they are not hapkido.

However, I have never seen tae kwon do with grappling in the cirriculum. I am sure it is different from school to school and if you get a little dose then it is all good.

I don't know first-hand what happens in other dojangs. But I suspect that wrist locks promoted to arm locks to set up throws, the use of muchimi and other basic grappling techniques locked up in the poomsae are very rarely taught. My impression ---and that's all it is, an impression---is that poomsae are taught largely uninterpreted, exactly the way Itosu warned us not to approach the Okinawan katas that provide so much of the content of TDK hyungs.

I don't really feel it's my place to figure out an ideal TKD curriculum; I've only been doing TKD for a few years and most of the rest of the TKD forum has way more experience than me. But I have this sort of fantasy that after a few more years of training, teaching and experimentation with TKD bunkai interpretation, it would be possible to sit down and work out a really complete TKD curriculum which incorporated techniques hidden in the poomsae to give students effective combat resources at all fighting ranges. Here's the sticking point, though---is this something that students (or, in many cases, their parents) actually want? Grappling techniques are pretty intimidating, and the hard applications built into the hyungs are often quite nasty. Even if there were a such curriculum for TKD---which I would regard as ideal---I'm not sure it would be commercially viable, and from the point of view of the dojang owner/operator, that would probably deep-six it at the doorstep...

 

[bluemtn]

It depends on what school you go to as to how far it's taught, but I have to say on a majority grappling is taught. My 1st dojang I ever attended, taught grappling, and the one I attend now does.

 

[exile]

It depends on what school you go to as to how far it's taught, but I have to say on a majority grappling is taught. My 1st dojang I ever attended, taught grappling, and the one I attend now does.

tkdgirl---could you expand on that a bit? `Grappling' covers an awful lot of ground. Is the grappling you're learning in your current dojang an `add-on' from one of the other arts, say Hapkido or whatever, or is it something your instructor treats as an integral part of the strike-based strategy of TKD...

What I mean is, is it taught to you as a tactic to set up strikes, to force your assailant in the right position for a leg or arm strike? Or is it taught as an alternative to striking, or whatever?

In your dojang, does it cover groundfighting? Or is it more throws, locks, forcing moves and other primarily `vertical' techniques?

 

[searcher]

My TKD training has never had any ground fighting. This is good and bad at the same time. I did not take up TKD for ground fighting, I got a bunch of that as a kid/teen from my father and from training with other ground fighters. Now for me as an instructor I cover ground fighting, but not in my TKD classes. I have chosen to keep it the same way I learned it. I do, however, teach it as a part of my Karate classes.

 

[exile]

My TKD training has never had any ground fighting. This is good and bad at the same time. I did not take up TKD for ground fighting, I got a bunch of that as a kid/teen from my father and from training with other ground fighters. Now for me as an instructor I cover ground fighting, but not in my TKD classes. I have chosen to keep it the same way I learned it. I do, however, teach it as a part of my Karate classes.

Searcher---do you orient your teaching in this area towards breaking out of the groundfight and getting to your feet as soon as you can, or towards continuing on the ground and trying to finish it there? Just curious...

 

[zDom]

IMO, grappling is really not part of "The Art of Smashing With Feet and Hands."

Can a TKD-practitioner learn grappling techniques from wrestling, BJJ or some other grappling art? Probably

That's one of the main reasons I started hapkido.

 

[exile]

IMO, grappling is really not part of "The Art of Smashing With Feet and Hands."

Can a TKD-practitioner learn grappling techniques from wrestling, BJJ or some other grappling art? Probably

That's one of the main reasons I started hapkido.

There may be a definitional issue here with the word `grappling'---what range of actions does the word cover? Most dictionaries I know define the word along the lines of the American Heritage's Dictionary's `to seize firmly with the hands' or Webster's 3rd's `come to grips with, grasp with the hand'. This range of meanings covers a lot of stuff which I do think is in TKD. Correctly interpreted, for example, I think a lot of the `chambering' moves (e.g., retraction of fist to hip, palm up) in the forms are instructions for establishing wrist locks that, in connection with other, simultaneous or subsequent `chambering' moves(arm raised cross-body preparing for a `downblock'), can be promoted to full arm locks, followed by partial throws or forcing moves setting up a finishing strike to the attacker's now lowered head. All of those moves seem to me to come under the heading of grappling, but vertical grappling---grappling in the service of TKD's `smashing' (= striking) strategy. I'm convinced, based on a lot of the stuff I've seen on kata interpretation in recent years, especially coming out of the UK, that exactly the same is true in Okinawan and Japanese karate---just as Funikoshi warned, when he told the karateka of his day that they shouldn't overlook all these other important components of their arts. But I know that for a lot of people, grappling is primarily groundfighting technique---stuff that you need to be down on the ground to do. And there, yes, BJJ or wrestling will tell you what you need to know, and TKD or any of the other variants of karate are pretty much silent.

So zDom, is hapkido strategically closer to BJJ or wrestling than it is to the arts that make strikes their weapon of choice? Do you go for the ground whenever you're trying to establish the range of a fight? Or do you try to stay vertical but defeat an attack by controlling/disabling the attacker through lock/throw/takedown/neck-twist/choke-type techniques (without necessarily using these to reposition the attacker for a hand or possibly a low leg strike). I'm embarrassed to say I don't know any of this---I've always had the sense that Hapkido used both strikes and this palette of grappling techniques, but I've no idea what the overall strategic plan of a hapkidoist in either a controlled sparring match or a streetfight would be... ?

 

[zDom]

So zDom, is hapkido strategically closer to BJJ or wrestling than it is to the arts that make strikes their weapon of choice? Do you go for the ground whenever you're trying to establish the range of a fight? Or do you try to stay vertical but defeat an attack by controlling/disabling the attacker through lock/throw/takedown/neck-twist/choke-type techniques (without necessarily using these to reposition the attacker for a hand or possibly a low leg strike). I'm embarrassed to say I don't know any of this---I've always had the sense that Hapkido used both strikes and this palette of grappling techniques, but I've no idea what the overall strategic plan of a hapkidoist in either a controlled sparring match or a streetfight would be... ?

Vertical fighting is definately the goal for HKD as taught at MSK, as ground fighting is a bad position to be in when it comes to multiple attackers.

Your sense of HKD is pretty much on target -- strikes and a variety of grappling techniques, both vertical and ground, but a preference for staying on feet or getting back to feet quickly.

We do like to make THEM go to the ground -- really, really HARD And then strike to make sure they don't get back up.

 

[exile]

Vertical fighting is definately the goal for HKD as taught at MSK, as ground fighting is a bad position to be in when it comes to multiple attackers.

To me, that's the only sensible take on the status of `ground' in terms of realistic (i.e., very unpleasant) situations. And even if it's a single attacker---the ground is fine when it's a mat, but why would anyone want to hang out on cracked pavement littered with glass, used needles and things even more disgusting than that any longer than they had to?

Your sense of HKD is pretty much on target -- strikes and a variety of grappling techniques, both vertical and ground, but a preference for staying on feet or getting back to feet quickly.

It makes me think that TKD and HKD are---how to put it?---different plants that actually correspond to a single root. Sports pressure, marketing agenda, national policy and a few other things have turned the `public' face of TKD into a kind of hyperspecialized unique activity, but my sense of the underlying skill set of TKD, as reflected in the hyungs, is much closer to HKD than to the Olympic sport which goes by the name Taekwondo. The actual differences between the two arts are probably just matters of emphasis, and maybe the individual preferences of particular instructors. Is that too heretical a notion? ;-)[/QUOTE]

We do like to make THEM go to the ground -- really, really HARD And then strike to make sure they don't get back up.

That identifies HKD as a Korean MA for sure---as I understand it (maybe altogether mistakenly), one couldn't say the same thing about Aikido, which HKD is often compared to. Korean MAs, whatever else they use in the mix, really go in for striking techniques, and long may it be so!

 

[zDom]

The actual differences between the two arts are probably just matters of emphasis, and maybe the individual preferences of particular instructors. Is that too heretical a notion? ;-)

Nope TKD as I first learned it (as passed down from the same Korean grandmaster where I get my HKD) is VERY combat oriented.

Also, the TKD I studied through Ed Sell's U.S. Chung Do Kwan to go from 1st dan TKD to 2nd dan TKD is very similar.

 

[Kwan Jang]

When I started in the Korean arts 30 years ago, my instructors (Tony Thompson and Ernie Reyes) and their instructor (GM Dan Kyu Choi) had a tendency to blend TKD, Hapkido, and Yudo in our training, so it's hard for me to distinguish where one starts and the others end. Our schools' cirriculum has now evolved into a MMA system combining TKD (though there are still probably a heavy mix of Hapkido and Yudo mixed in there. When I tested for 6th dan, there was a Hapkido 9th dan as one of the judges), JJ, Escrima, Muay Thai, American kickboxing, Submission Grappling and Kenpo.

When I was coming up, we always did joint locks, takedowns, throws and at least some groundfighting. This was decades ago and at a time when TKD was on the door. It may not be part of the sport of TKD, but I always considered it part of the martial art. It reminds me of Judo, in a way. In the martial art of Judo (which is not very common these days), you have the atemi which includes kicking and punching, though most only know it from the katas and many do not seriously practice, espescially on the bunkai.

What Exile brought up about the applications of forms is very accurate (apparently Mr. Shirley is teaching him well). My friend and colleague, Will Higgenbotham (8th dan in Ryukyu Kempo Jitsu) has approached me on collaborating on the two of us doing an instructional DVD on both the pressure point and grappling techniques that are the purpose behind the forms in TKD. We might also get Leon Jay (son of Wally Jay and the current GM of Small Circle JJ) in on this too. By reintroducing the kyusho and tuite (using Okinawan terminology) into the forms, you can make them very effective and great for advanced cirriculum, rather than the "filler" that many instructors waste their students time with.