How can you become a good fighter if self-defense is your goal?

You apparently assume that TKD schools that are not sport oriented do not do full contact sparring.
If a TKD school does any kind of sparring, by definition, that school is using the sport approach.

When people said, "I spar, I don't compete." I truly don't understand what that person is trying to say.
 
Well sure. All else being equal, one group will understand distance and timing, and the other will not.
I totally agree. That would be my expectation. And to be clear, I'm talking about two large groups of roughly equivalent TKD practitioners with no advance warning, roughly the same age, size, experience level, fitness level etc. In fact, for control, let's add in a group of untrained people. Then in some way (random or round robin), just see how they do. In my mind, I would think we'd need at least 50 in each group.

Edit: to reiterate, I think the sport guys would perform very well overall, because they would have more opportunity to develop the timing, etc. What I am very curious to see how well the non-sport guys do again the sport guys, and also how well the untrained guys do against the non-sport guys.
 
how well the untrained guys do against the non-sport guys.
Many years ago, a school brought 15 students to a Chinese wrestling tournament. Each and every student of that school all lose in the 1st round. That school only trained forms and they don't wrestle on the mat.
 
Not assuming anything. I'm proposing what I think would be an interesting experiment and sharing my hypothesis.

Seems like you are, since you say they must "adapt" to full contact. What you're describing sounds to me like what we call "sparring" so there really wouldn't be any adaptation needed.
 
If a TKD school does any kind of sparring, by definition, that school is using the sport approach.

When people said, "I spar, I don't compete." I truly don't understand what that person is trying to say.

I would say that sport oriented schools spend the majority of their time training specifically for tournaments.
 
Seems like you are, since you say they must "adapt" to full contact. What you're describing sounds to me like what we call "sparring" so there really wouldn't be any adaptation needed.
yeah, well, don't take this the wrong way, but I'm not inclined to take your word for it. I think it would be very informative.
 
I would say that sport oriented schools spend the majority of their time training specifically for tournaments.
You're stating the obvious. The question isn't what they train. The question is which training model is building proficiency that is more adaptible to a different context. Why are you getting defensive about this?

My theory is it would go very much the way grappling would go between sport grapplers (wrestlers, judoka, sambo, bjj etc) and non sport grapplers (eg, aikidoka, ninja, etc), and untrained grapplers as a control. Similar to the tkd, I would guess the competitors would do very well, but I would be very interested in how well the untrained guys do against the non competitive guys.

edit, The point of the exercise is to isolate the trained skills, not highlight what isn’t trained. So for tkd, grappling might be off limits. But for grappler, I think striking would be fine provided everyone had minimal formal training in striking.
 
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The reason that "sport" format is needed because some combat skill that you just can't train on your partner.

In combat, you will crack open your opponent's skull.

head-smash-dummy.gif


In sport, your round will end like this.

head-smash.gif
 
This issue bother me big time.

A: Today I'll teach you how to take/knock your opponent down.
B: Dear master! Have you ever taken/knock down your opponent?
A: Yes! I have taken/knocked down many opponents.

A: Today I'll teach you how to defend yourself.
B: Dear master! Have you ever defend yourself on the street?
A: No! I haven't.
B: What make you think that you are qualified to teach me the self-defense?

A: Today I'll teach you how to use a sword.
B: Dear master! Have you ever used your sword to hurt someone?
A: No! I haven't.
B: What make you think that you are qualified to teach me the sword fighting?
With exceptions there's. I can teach someone how to hit another person in the head with a brick and the results will be similar across the board regardless if I have done it myself. This would be like saying Technique A produces Result A. You don't have to actually shoot someone to know the outcome. I think there's a lot of that when it comes to self-defense, but not as much when it comes to fighting. Because at that point the technique isn't as big of the issue as correctly deploying that technique. Get the deployment wrong then you risk having no delivery.
 
The reason that "sport" format is needed because some combat skill that you just can't train on your partner.

In combat, you will crack open your opponent's skull.

head-smash-dummy.gif


In sport, your round will end like this.

head-smash.gif
Perfect example of my previous post. Without ever having done this, (hopefully) It's safe to say that this results would be accurate. At minimal it's going hurt, maximum someone is going to have a broken neck. There would be no need to pressure test this. The only thing that would need to be pressure tested is the technique used to get someone into this position. Thanks to wrestling there's videos of accidents where people have broken their necks from landing like this. Even if video didn't exist, there would be stories of how someone got dropped on their head and broke their neck.
 
My point is universal to all training. It isn't specific to fighting. Just the opposite. Point remains that adding more to something doesn't necessarily make it more complete. As I said before, sometimes more is just more. You took a general comment very personally.

And when you take every general comment personally, I'm not surprised you think it's personal.
Well, since you quoted my post about specifically fight training without fitness lacking something compared to fight training with fitness, it's difficullt to see how that remark would NOT be a response to the quoted item.

As for "taking it personally", if by that you mean I thought you were replying to me, personally, yeah. Because you quoted my post. If by that you mean I think you're personally persuing this topic with me, yeah. Because you're pretty clearly still trying to make the same point you've been making across multiple threads, and which was originally (and continues to be) directed at me. You know it and I know it. To try to dodge by saying I'm taking it out of context and implying I'm getting all emotional is pretty petty.
 
Here's the thing I really don't think you understand. This is an academic discussion that you continue to personalize and then you take personally. This may shock you, but I really don't give to squats about your training. Sure, I don't think you're qualified to teach self defense, but I don't expect to change your mind and have said at least a couple times in this thread that we can just agree to disagree. But, you seem compelled to convince me not about self defense training in general, but that you specifically are qualified to teach self defense. And then you get butt hurt when I, miraculously, still don't agree. You say snarky things about how I'm singing the same song. Well, of course, man.
Show me where in this thread I've talked about my qualification to teach with a self-defense orientation.

You're like a flat earther complaining that I'm just not coming around to agreeing that the earth is flat. Of course not. Why would a reasonable person come around to an unreasonable position? And yes, I think your position is unreasonable. You're trying to convince me that a person can not just learn something, but become qualified to teach something that they have no real experience doing. It's as simple as that.
Again, not sure where you're getting that I'm making assertions about myself. You seem to be reading that into discussions of analogies.

In the end, this isn't about you. It's an academic discussion in which you keep using yourself, for some reason, as proof of something that isn't so. Which invites response, which you then take personally.

So, I would still suggest you get a nice cup of coffee, pet your cat, do something fun and return to the thread with just a little bit of perspective. It's not about you, unless you make it about you.
Yep, that's why I haven't really been tallking about myself so much. But you've managed to read them as being about me, anyway. Then you try to stick in your little jabs, in an attempt to actually make it about me, rather than the academic discussion.

I think we're done here. You used to be able to have discussions without getting lost in your own points, and gave me damned good stuff to think about, especially when we disagreed. I miss that Steve.
 
If a TKD school does any kind of sparring, by definition, that school is using the sport approach.

When people said, "I spar, I don't compete." I truly don't understand what that person is trying to say.

I completely disagree. Sparring can be training for sport or training to fight. Or a mix of both.

If I spar you with the intent of practicing my techniques for self-defense, I don't think there's much sport involved.
 
yeah, well, don't take this the wrong way, but I'm not inclined to take your word for it. I think it would be very informative.

Wait. You're not inclined to take my word for my own experience? Are you saying I'm lying about how we spar?
 
Wait. You're not inclined to take my word for my own experience? Are you saying I'm lying about how we spar?

Reminds me on another forum, someone told me that he knows all about how we spar in Hapkido because of this one Aikido class he took.

Because that one class is indicative of all classes...and because Hapkido and Aikido are the same thing (according to him).
 
Wait. You're not inclined to take my word for my own experience? Are you saying I'm lying about how we spar?
Nope. I'm saying you're trolling, which as a moderator is a bad look.

When I say I don't trust you on the subject, what that means to people who aren't trolling (i.e., everyone but you) is that, regardless of what you believe or assert, the idea is to actually find out. That's kind of the entire point. I've shared my hypothesis, which is that the non-sport guys would not do as well. You seem to be suggesting that the non-sport guys would do just as well or better. Great. I think it would be very interesting to find out. I think the outcome is very predictable. The only thing I really think is in question is how the non-sport guys would do against folks with no training.
 
Reminds me on another forum, someone told me that he knows all about how we spar in Hapkido because of this one Aikido class he took.

Because that one class is indicative of all classes...and because Hapkido and Aikido are the same thing (according to him).
Hey, just to be clear, I have no idea how you guys spar or not. It's completely irrelevant to me. If it makes you feel better, I'm sure you guys spar very well.
 
Nope. I'm saying you're trolling, which as a moderator is a bad look.

How is saying "that's how we spar" trolling?

When I say I don't trust you on the subject, what that means to people who aren't trolling (i.e., everyone but you) is that, regardless of what you believe or assert, the idea is to actually find out. That's kind of the entire point. I've shared my hypothesis, which is that the non-sport guys would not do as well. You seem to be suggesting that the non-sport guys would do just as well or better. Great. I think it would be very interesting to find out. I think the outcome is very predictable. The only thing I really think is in question is how the non-sport guys would do against folks with no training.

I have no opinion on how they would do. That's why I didn't voice one. I merely stated that your hypothesis appears to be flawed, in that it includes the built in assumption that non-sport schools don't spar with contact. You seem awfully touchy about that.
 
When I say I don't trust you on the subject, what that means to people who aren't trolling (i.e., everyone but you) is that, regardless of what you believe or assert, the idea is to actually find out. That's kind of the entire point. I've shared my hypothesis, which is that the non-sport guys would not do as well. You seem to be suggesting that the non-sport guys would do just as well or better. Great. I think it would be very interesting to find out. I think the outcome is very predictable. The only thing I really think is in question is how the non-sport guys would do against folks with no training.

Your hypothesis was on their ability to adapt to full-contact. If they're already doing full-contact, there's no adaption needed. That would be like having a hypothesis on whether sport or self-defense TKD guys would adapt better to living on land. We already do.
 
Show me where in this thread I've talked about my qualification to teach with a self-defense orientation.


Again, not sure where you're getting that I'm making assertions about myself. You seem to be reading that into discussions of analogies.


Yep, that's why I haven't really been tallking about myself so much. But you've managed to read them as being about me, anyway. Then you try to stick in your little jabs, in an attempt to actually make it about me, rather than the academic discussion.

I think we're done here. You used to be able to have discussions without getting lost in your own points, and gave me damned good stuff to think about, especially when we disagreed. I miss that Steve.
Now you're making it about me. It's very simple. Stick to the topic of the thread. But for what it's worth, as topics recur on the site, I like to go back and re-read past threads on the same topic. I enjoy reading the discussions, which often include many of my own posts. Unfortunately for you (or maybe for me), I'm very consistent. My posting style hasn't changed much, if at all. I dislike blowhards, whiners, and hypocrites, and always have. I'm always on someone's **** list. It's okay, even if it's arbitrary.

At some point, when you get back to addressing the post and not making everything about you, it will amaze you how fast your blood pressure drops.
 

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