Limited Emphasis on Forms/Poomse

[stoneheart]

It's not the kicking practice I'm sheepish about. I'm a stickler for using the right terminology when I can, so I feel a bit weird about teaching a shorin-ryu class that's really a TKD class. Obviously I have no axe to grind with TKD myself. It's a fine system although we (the figurative we) can and do argue all day about it.

Good night. I've enjoyed the discussion thus far.

 

[foot2face]

A killing or incapacitating strike is what it is because of biomechanics, not æsthetics or signature idiosyncrasies or anything else. A backflip doesn't become an effective fighting technique simply because it becomes part of some MA's `style'.



And the systems that do not teach them do not teach them because they are risky and their effect is far better implemented with elbow strikes to the face, forearm strikes to the throat and so on. The logic you're using here, so far as I can tell, is the same as someone who says that automobile engineers who do not advocate use of rubberband powered engines do not impress you, because they do not work for automobile companies which have utilized rubberband driven engines. Well, of course, if they had good reason to think that such engines were inferior to internal combustion engines, then they wouldn't advocate the former, right? What you should be asking is, why do they exclude high kicks from their system?



Yes. I gathered this.



Well, foot2face, you read the following and you tell me if Mr. O'Neil is censoring himself because of squeamishness about the `gruesome' aspects of their system:

Open-hand throat attacks are also extremely common in the [Chang Hon] patterns, generally taking the form of knifehand strikes. A well delivered blow to the fron to the front of the throat will crush the trachea, killing the recipient... a blow to the side of the neck using the edge of the hand can be a knockout technique due to its effect on the vagus nerve and the carotid sinus. A descending attack to the collarbone can easily snap it, leaving the victim in considerable pain and lacking the use of his arms....One of the most effective ways to kill a human being, well used in combat grappling systems all over the world, is to break the neck. This is usually done by twisting it beyond its natural range around the vertical axis, although a sharp rotation around the horizontal axis can also be successful, also leaving the throat open for a strike. There are several techniques in the Chang Hon hyungs in which both hands are raised to head height before sharply changing position. These movements often indicate neck breaks....​

A number of secondary techniques are used to support the main methods. These include groin maimers, guaranteed to leave a man incapacitated; eye jabs, at least disconcerting, at best highly traumatics; foot and knee stamps—again either painful or crippling, depending on the contact made; and basic throws, particularly those that dump the recipient on his head.​

Self-censoring? :wink1:

BTW, throughout his whole series of essays in the Combat TKD newletter, and in the article that Mr. O'Neil wrote for a 2005 issue of Taekwondo Times, he discusses the role of what he calls `simple kicks': front and side kicks aimed at the midbody or lower. In connection with General Choi's curriculum for the ROK infantry and special commando units (the Black Tiger and White Tiger squadrons formed for advanced field operations, aka silent killing and sabotage, in the Korean and Vietnam wars respectively), he comments that

Simple kicks, particularly the front and side kicks, are devastating weapons, particularly with the added weight and hardness of military boots.​

In connection with high, tournament-format kicking techniques such as the high kicks you seem to be seriously advocating as tools in the chaotic close-range conditions of a streetfight, O'Neil observes in one of his essays, `Taekwondo as a kicking art', that

One of the ways in which Taekwondo was made to look less like Japanese karate was to take advantage of the wealth of native Korean kicking technique, and to emphasize this aspect within the existing framework. With time, kicking grew in importance in competition Taekwondo and featured more heavily heavily in the hyungs and poomses than in the older patterns. As a result of the growing popularity of the tournament sport in particular, a large part of regular training is taken up by kicking drills and physical conditioning to enhance kicking ability. This tendency has continued in the last 20 year or to to such an extent that Taekwondo—particularly the WTF variety, but also the ITF—could be said to have moved way from its origins as a self-defense system to become closer to Taekyon, the tournament activity in which contestants attempted to knock each other down with kicks. Taekwondo's undeniable progress as an international sporting and artistic phenomenon has meant the inevitable loss of a significant part of its original practical self-defense content. One of COMBAT-TKD's principal goals is the recovery of this lost tradition....​

I'm not sure how much plainer this could be stated. But if you like, you're free of course to assume that I've been misinterpeting Mr. O'Neil's fairly constant reminders to avoid any but the most simple low-target kicking techs.



I think you misunderstand me, foot2face. I am not really interested in convincing you of anything; I'm concerned with the logic and practical content of your arguments, in terms of what people who read this thread will conclude. If in the course of a street assault by somone who's done that sort of thing for a long time on dozens of victims you decide to defend yourself with a high kick to the head, that's your choice entirely, and I really wouldn't attempt to dissuade you—what happens to you doesn't affect me, after all.



As I say, if you want to go ahead and try to use kicks to the head in a bar fight, or a similar altercation, I wouldn't dream of trying to stop you—just as I wouldn't try to dissuade someone who was convinced that backflips, or a 720º flying back kick, or a triple toe loop sans ice skates, was the right thing to do in a CQ encounter with a skinhead brawler.

Gentlemen, we have a disagreement! One thing I think we can agree upon, howerver, is that TKD is somewhat of a generic term similar to karate or kung fu. It is obvious by your previous post that you have an ITF lineage which I understand has strong ties to shotokan. I am not an ITF man and not beholden to Japanese dogma. The system I studied is governed by different philosophies and principles, not more or less effective, just different.

In regards to the excerpts from Mr. O'Neil article. The open-hand throat attack is precisely the technique I referred to in my earlier reply. This is a precision technique that must be executed exactly, especially if the intention is to kill(or all the students who have been accidentally struck in the throat would have died) this is significantly easier to do if your target is lying helpless in front of you. The article also mentions breaking the collarbone. The collarbone is fairly sturdy and not easily broken, especially in a standing target who would collapse downward, negating much of the force from the blow. It is much easier to accomplish if the target is motionless on his back with the ground bracing him below. The neck twist can also be found in Koryo form. It is often described as a groin tear hammer fist combo. You lunge forward (as you would when executing a front stance) over your target who is lying face down. Sitting on the upper back in order to gain leverage and stabilize the target, you continue the technique. The low upward-facing spear hand is the means by which you reach under the chin, grabbing the opposite side jaw. The chambered hammer fist is where you grab the hair. The simultaneous spear hand retraction and hammer fist strike is in fact the neck twist. The technique I just described requires a sure grip and a good bit of leverage and would be exceedingly difficult to execute on a conscious opponent who is resisting your every move. We may disagree on the merits of high kicks in TKD but I think that we can agree that TKDist of any style generally lacks the extensive grappling skill need to immobilize and execute such an advance maneuver as a neck break on an opponent who is fighting back. Did Mr. O'Neil censor himself when he wrote of those killing techniques, perhaps not, but maybe those who taught him, did. It is one thing to kill you enemy on the battlefield while engaged in desperate hand to hand combat, such images are often glorified. It is a completely different thing, howerver, to mutilated the body of an unconscious and utterly helpless man. It is an image that many may find distasteful and nowhere near as heroic, never the less this is an ugly reality of war and the men who did such things may feel reluctant to speak of them.

Why must you imply that simply because I am an advocate of head kick that I must be one of those 720º flying back kickers, I made no such inference. The methods I use to land my head kicks are practical, I just don't run up to a guy, spinning with my feet in the air like a dancer. My head kicks are often setup with low body kicks compromising my opponent by knocking them off balance, causing them to double over, to drop their hands or to wince in pain. The head kick is then delivered usually from an awkward(for my opponent, not me) angle. I prefer to use head kicks because I am a believer in the principle of "combat accuracy," which sates that in the random chaos of combat it is more effective to deliver excessive force to a general area than less force to a precise location. It has been my experience as well as the experience of the men I have trained with and learned from that head kicks deliver force far above the threshold required to render someone unconscious. I don't have to hit then on the temple from an exact angle, it doesn't have to land right between the eyes or on the point of the chin. Any solid contact and they drop.

I hope this helps clear things up and settles our differences.

Respectfully, Foot2Face

 

[Kosho Gakkusei]

Why must you imply that simply because I am an advocate of head kick that I must be one of those 720º flying back kickers, I made no such inference. The methods I use to land my head kicks are practical, I just don't run up to a guy, spinning with my feet in the air like a dancer. My head kicks are often setup with low body kicks compromising my opponent by knocking them off balance, causing them to double over, to drop their hands or to wince in pain. The head kick is then delivered usually from an awkward(for my opponent, not me) angle.

What your describing is not the high kick that exile spoke about that sparked the disagreement here. If your opponent is on his knees or off balance a kick to the head will be about a waist level kick at most unless your opponent is 9 foot tall. NOT A HIGH KICK!! What exile was speaking about was the overemphasis in modern TKD sparring on kicking high to the head on a standing opponent. I have to agree with exile that trying to execute a high kick to the head on the street is very risky because it leaves your groin open and makes you easy to bring to the ground. Matter of fact, my opinion is that any kick delivered above knee level requires a proper set up and the higher the kick the more you have to set it up.

In response to some of your previous posts where you claimed Japanese and Okinawan Kempo lineages do not train high kicks. You are 100% wrong. Okinawan and Japanese Kempo do train high kicks but mostly for developing strength, flexibility, and balance in order to make the low kicks more effective.

_Don Flatt

 

[foot2face]

What your describing is not the high kick that exile spoke about that sparked the disagreement here. If your opponent is on his knees or off balance a kick to the head will be about a waist level kick at most unless your opponent is 9 foot tall. NOT A HIGH KICK!! What exile was speaking about was the overemphasis in modern TKD sparring on kicking high to the head on a standing opponent. I have to agree with exile that trying to execute a high kick to the head on the street is very risky because it leaves your groin open and makes you easy to bring to the ground. Matter of fact, my opinion is that any kick delivered above knee level requires a proper set up and the higher the kick the more you have to set it up.

In response to some of your previous posts where you claimed Japanese and Okinawan Kempo lineages do not train high kicks. You are 100% wrong. Okinawan and Japanese Kempo do train high kicks but mostly for developing strength, flexibility, and balance in order to make the low kicks more effective.

_Don Flatt

When I say high kick I mean high kick. Just because I kick a man in the groin or sweep at his leg, doesn't mean he is going to instantly drop to his Knees. I have to take advantage of his compromised state and kick his head where ever it may be.

In regards to Okinawan and Japanese Kempo and training high kicks, you made my point for me. When I speak of training hick kicks I am not talking about just developing strength, flexibility and balance but the cultivation of skill and practical knowledge for the explicit goal of kicking someone in the head.

 

[Kosho Gakkusei]

CIRCUMSTANCES THAT ALLOW FOR KICKING HIGH TO THE HEAD

It's really quite obvious that if you offset a man's balance, cause him to double over, or drop him to the ground makes it easy to deliver a powerful finishing kick to the head. But then again it's not really a high kick then is it?? And we all know if it's not a high kick to the head it just doesn't look as cool so I will outline some circumstances that will allow you to deliver that ultimate kick to the head finish!!

1. Fight someone else who is also trying to kick high to the head. They will definitely be hanging back at the right range and you won't have to worry about those pesky throws, takedowns, or hand techniques. Just hope your kicking is better than theirs.

2. Become a world class grappler so that people will be weary of getting too close to you then surprise them with that flashy high kick finish you've been working on. They will definitely be hanging back at the right range and you won't have to worry about those pesky throws, takedowns, or hand techniques.

3. You are Chuck Norris. The mere sight of your beard will cause them to hang back at the right range and you won't have to worry about those pesky throws, takedowns, or hand techniques.

4. Fake them out. Use hand gestures. Kick them in the legs a few times so they think the high kick is gonna be to the legs. Make a funny face. Whatever it takes to keep them hanging back at the right range so you won't have to worry about those pesky throws, takedowns, or hand techniques.

5. Your opponent is drunk. This will make it easier to put them at the right range and you won't have to worry about those pesky throws, takedowns, or hand techniques. (As long as they're drunk and you're not, you should have time for your high kick to the head.)

6. Your opponents back is turned. You could get a friend to tap their shoulder, run into another room and hide behind a door, or pay some hot girl to call their name at the right time. Make sure they're at the right range and you won't have to worry about those pesky throws, takedowns, or hand techniques.

7. Use a throw, a takedown, or some pesky hand techniques to get them down to the ground then wait for them to get back up and as soon as they do--- Kick them high to the head!!! This way you won't have to worry about those pesky throws, takedowns, or hand techniques.

Thus ends my public service announcement.

_Don Flatt

 

[foot2face]

CIRCUMSTANCES THAT ALLOW FOR KICKING HIGH TO THE HEAD

It's really quite obvious that if you offset a man's balance, cause him to double over, or drop him to the ground makes it easy to deliver a powerful finishing kick to the head. But then again it's not really a high kick then is it?? And we all know if it's not a high kick to the head it just doesn't look as cool so I will outline some circumstances that will allow you to deliver that ultimate kick to the head finish!!

1. Fight someone else who is also trying to kick high to the head. They will definitely be hanging back at the right range and you won't have to worry about those pesky throws, takedowns, or hand techniques. Just hope your kicking is better than theirs.

2. Become a world class grappler so that people will be weary of getting too close to you then surprise them with that flashy high kick finish you've been working on. They will definitely be hanging back at the right range and you won't have to worry about those pesky throws, takedowns, or hand techniques.

3. You are Chuck Norris. The mere sight of your beard will cause them to hang back at the right range and you won't have to worry about those pesky throws, takedowns, or hand techniques.

4. Fake them out. Use hand gestures. Kick them in the legs a few times so they think the high kick is gonna be to the legs. Make a funny face. Whatever it takes to keep them hanging back at the right range so you won't have to worry about those pesky throws, takedowns, or hand techniques.

5. Your opponent is drunk. This will make it easier to put them at the right range and you won't have to worry about those pesky throws, takedowns, or hand techniques. (As long as they're drunk and you're not, you should have time for your high kick to the head.)

6. Your opponents back is turned. You could get a friend to tap their shoulder, run into another room and hide behind a door, or pay some hot girl to call their name at the right time. Make sure they're at the right range and you won't have to worry about those pesky throws, takedowns, or hand techniques.

7. Use a throw, a takedown, or some pesky hand techniques to get them down to the ground then wait for them to get back up and as soon as they do--- Kick them high to the head!!! This way you won't have to worry about those pesky throws, takedowns, or hand techniques.

Thus ends my public service announcement.

_Don Flatt

Whats with all the acrimony? I never insulted anyone's technique or questioned the effectiveness of their style. I simply related the methods I apply and that have worked for me. I am not an old fogy but I have been around the block more than once and one of the lessons I've learned was that every style works, if applied correctly. I would never dream of speaking about the meathods of an other fighter in such a definativly negative manner as you, especially if we are not standing face to face.
Your post only exposes your inexperience and the insecurities you have about your methods, not the ineffectiveness of mine.

I said it before and I'll say it again. Just because you or the people around you can't do it doesn't mean it can't be done!

 

[Flying Crane]

Whats with all the acrimony? I never insulted anyone's technique or questioned the effectiveness of their style. I simply related the methods I apply and that have worked for me. I am not an old fogy but I have been around the block more than once and one of the lessons I've learned was that every style works, if applied correctly. I would never dream of speaking about the meathods of an other fighter in such a definativly negative manner as you, especially if we are not standing face to face.
Your post only exposes your inexperience and the insecurities you have about your methods, not the ineffectiveness of mine.

I said it before and I'll say it again. Just because you or the people around you can't do it doesn't mean it can't be done!

I'll just add my own comment here, I've not really taken part in this discussion but have kept an eye on it. First, I certainly believe that kata, when done well, when understood properly, is very very important and useful. I also understand why many people don't like them.

As to high kicks, I think most people believe that they have too many inherent dangers to make them reliable. It's true, they can certainly work for someone who is skilled with them. But for most people, reaching that level of skill and confidence with them is beyond their reach. They may practice them, may use them in sparring, but on the street, feel their efforts have better chances elsewhere. But this doesn't mean that they won't work for someone who has developed the necessary skill and confidence in them. I think it is safe to say that they are a riskier technique than many others. But that doesn't mean they cannot work.

 

[exile]

In response to some of your previous posts where you claimed Japanese and Okinawan Kempo lineages do not train high kicks. You are 100% wrong. Okinawan and Japanese Kempo do train high kicks but mostly for developing strength, flexibility, and balance in order to make the low kicks more effective.

_Don Flatt

In regards to Okinawan and Japanese Kempo and training high kicks, you made my point for me. When I speak of training hick kicks I am not talking about just developing strength, flexibility and balance but the cultivation of skill and practical knowledge for the explicit goal of kicking someone in the head.

I'm going to invite readers of this thread to walk through the logic here with me for a little bit. Kosho is pointing out to f2f that f2f's claim—that O/J MAists can't be trusted to formulate reliable judgments about high kicks is unsound because they don't know how to do them—is without foundation, because O/J MAist do train high kicks. They just don't use them because they view them, along with a large majority of MAists, including plenty of TKDists who are quite good at them but wouldn't dream of using them in a streetfight, as absolutely hopeless in such a fight. F2F's mysterious reply is that 'In regards to Okinawan and Japanese Kempo and training high kicks, you made my point for me.' Well, if the O/J MAists know how to do these kicks, and therefore know what it takes to do them, isn't their reluctance to build them into their CQ self-defense curricula then a reflection of their judgment that it is a mistake to try to train these high kicking techs for serious combat use? Just as Gen. Choi, who used the basic sets of Chang Hon kata, which did not contain any high kicks at all, as the curriculum for the RoK military in two wars to train the lethal battlefield TKD, left them out of the curriculum? And just as innumerable karateka who also happen to confront serious violence professionally (some of whom I've alluded to in previous posts) have also dismissed high kicks for what Geoff Thompson calls `the pavement arena'; see also the work of Peyton Quinn (the article at http://www.rmcat.com/morePQarticles.html#itb gives a snapshot of his views on MAs, including his dismissal of the practicality of kicks above the waist), creator of the Rocky Mountain Combat Applications system, author of REAL FIGHTING: Adrenal Stress Conditioning Through Scenario Based Training, and America's closest analogue to the UK's Geoff Thompson. In what sense has Kosho `made' f2f's point for him? All that follows from Kosho's post, again, is that people with trained expertise in the technique of high kicking do not view it as a useful, safe CQ defensive tech, since otherwise, possessing as they do the ability to use it, they would. I'm baffled by f2f's logic here, as I have been throughout this thread, but, well, what can you say?

Your post only exposes your inexperience and the insecurities you have about your methods, not the ineffectiveness of mine.

Now bear in mind, this is coming out of the (electronic) mouth of someone who in the very same paragraph asks, `Whats with all the acrimony?
The content of the following material I've posted indicates that unlike Kosho, f2f is quite happy to attribute to a fellow member of MT both insecurity and lack of knowledge, which by any definition are negative and even derogatory characterizations of Kosho's mental/emotional properties. Putting it more plainly, these are personal attacks which f2f is in no position to make: how on earth can he or anyone judge whether someone is insecure based on that other person's considered assessment of a particular MA technique—an assessment which the overwhelming majority of experts on close quarters combat and realistic combat training support? People like Thompson, Quinn and the high dans in the British Combat Association repeatedly advise strongly against high kicks. They are professionals in both realistic MA application and systematic violence and have been in the business for decades in many cases. And we're supposed to believe that these guys are opposed to high head kicks because they're inexperienced and insecure about their methods?? :lol: Issues of rudeness aside, the use of language like this doesn't do much to enhance the credibilty of any `argument' that has to resort to statements whose silliness becomes apparent so quickly.

I said it before and I'll say it again. Just because you or the people around you can't do it doesn't mean it can't be done!

True, f2f has said it before and is saying it again. But unless you also accept the thinking of the Bellman in Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark—`what I tell you three times is true!'—the repetition doesn't add anything to the very dubious arguments he's presented to date. I'd suggest that anyone interested in the topic look at the first half of Chapter 6, `Kicking Techniques', in Becoming a Complete Martial Artist: Error Detection in Self-Defense, by Tristan Sutrisno and Marc MacYoung, which shatters, using realistic combat success criteria, any shred of crediblity that anyone might claim for high kicking in violent street conflicts. MacYoung, btw, is another self-defense systems expert, MAist (primarily karate and Wing Chun, but years of boxing experience as well) who trains LEO and military personnel in H2H combat techs for a living, along with writing books on realistic self defense approaches—someone else who is probably neither inexperienced or insecure about his methods. :wink1:

 

[Kosho Gakkusei]

Whats with all the acrimony? I never insulted anyone's technique or questioned the effectiveness of their style. I simply related the methods I apply and that have worked for me. I am not an old fogy but I have been around the block more than once and one of the lessons I've learned was that every style works, if applied correctly. I would never dream of speaking about the meathods of an other fighter in such a definativly negative manner as you, especially if we are not standing face to face.
Your post only exposes your inexperience and the insecurities you have about your methods, not the ineffectiveness of mine.

I said it before and I'll say it again. Just because you or the people around you can't do it doesn't mean it can't be done!

No acrimony is intended. I'm not even sure of the definition of acrimony but judging from the context of your response, I was making a point with humor. I'm sorry you did not find it funny. We must not only use a different approach to fighting but also humor. My last post was for those of you that will enjoy the wit.

Stating my opinion without the wit. Successful use of a high kick not only requires the appropriate training to do so ie. flexibility, balance, power, speed, & timing but also requires an appropriate set up to work. The range of the move is very particular and the movement is easily jammed in chamber.

Can it work? Yes, depends on the skill level of both parties. You have a "kicker's chance" which is slightly worse odds than a "puncher's chance." Strategically, I would veiw it as slightly inferior to seeking a one punch knockout. Reason being is that it takes longer to throw a kick to the head than it takes to throw a punch to the head and it also takes longer to retract a kick than it takes to retract a punch. Additionally, being on one foot temporarily makes you immobile. My preference is maintaining mobility and utilizing combinations.

Let me relate a relevant story. As a concrete dispatcher, I interact with some interesting truckers. One such is an aging biker appropriately nicknamed "Chopper". Chopper is only 5'8" but has shoulders over 3' wide and is built like a tank. He related an occaison when a "Black Belt from Red Dragon Karate" started a fight with him in a biker bar. According to Chopper, the black belt kicked him in the head a few times. Chopper then showed me a permanent egg he had on his shaved head from the incident. I asked him what happened next and he told me that he got mad and put the black belt in the hospital as well as some of the other "black belts" that had tried to jump in to help their friend.

_Don Flatt

 

[exile]

No acrimony is intended. I'm not even sure of the definition of acrimony but judging from the context of your response, I was making a point with humor. I'm sorry you did not find it funny. We must not only use a different approach to fighting but also humor. My last post was for those of you that will enjoy the wit.

Stating my opinion without the wit. Successful use of a high kick not only requires the appropriate training to do so ie. flexibility, balance, power, speed, & timing but also requires an appropriate set up to work. The range of the move is very particular and the movement is easily jammed in chamber.

Can it work? Yes, depends on the skill level of both parties. You have a "kicker's chance" which is slightly worse odds than a "puncher's chance." Strategically, I would veiw it as slightly inferior to seeking a one punch knockout. Reason being is that it takes longer to throw a kick to the head than it takes to throw a punch to the head and it also takes longer to retract a kick than it takes to retract a punch. Additionally, being on one foot temporarily makes you immobile. My preference is maintaining mobility and utilizing combinations.

Let me relate a relevant story. As a concrete dispatcher, I interact with some interesting truckers. One such is an aging biker appropriately nicknamed "Chopper". Chopper is only 5'8" but has shoulders over 3' wide and is built like a tank. He related an occaison when a "Black Belt from Red Dragon Karate" started a fight with him in a biker bar. According to Chopper, the black belt kicked him in the head a few times. Chopper then showed me a permanent egg he had on his shaved head from the incident. I asked him what happened next and he told me that he got mad and put the black belt in the hospital as well as some of the other "black belts" that had tried to jump in to help their friend.

_Don Flatt

Don, I think you can go a little further.

People who make it their business to study such things, like Patrick McCarthy, who's compiled a list of the `habitual acts of violence' which initate a fight, have noted that unlike tournament sparring distances, which typically involve 8–10 feet of separation between the participants, a streetfight is normally initiated when no more than a single foot of distance separates the participants. Let's assume your target is 6' tall and you're equally tall, so that your leg is something like 4' long. Then very basic trigonometry tells you that the angle between your two legs when you tag them in the head will be be just a shade under 170º. In other words, all you would-be head-kicking street-fight defenders out there had better be able to do the splits—standing!!! because that's pretty much what you have to do, apparently. That's hard enough in the ideal case when the surface is dojang-secure and you don't have a ton of obstructing crap in the physical environment. To be a bit more realistic, add those factors in as well. And then you get some idea why people like Loren Christensen, Geoff Thompson, Petyton Quinn, Marc MacYoung and Iain Abernethy—guys with well over a century of collective experience at applying SD techs from the karate-based arts to violent conflicts on mean streets—advise you not to even think about using high head kicks in a real street assault situation.

And yes, I've heard the `it's not the art, it's the practitioner' argument before, I've used it myself in enough of these pointless art-X-beats-art-Y arguments that seem to dog us, even on MT. But strictly speaking, that line is inapplicable to the current discussion, which is not whether the art itself is able to defeat some other art in a fight (obviously an absurb claim, regardless of what the arts in question are). The current discussion is, is some technique from a given art practical in a real-time do-or-die survival situation? And if you say, well, it is, if the practitioner can do it, then you have to ask, OK, what would a practitioner reliably have to do to make it practical? In an objective, engineering sense: what are the physical constraints that would be involved—the hoops you would have to jump through? This is of course what I was getting at in earlier posts about the idiocy of trying to use a 720º flying back kick in a streetfight: sure, you can say in this case just what you can say for a high head kick—it's not the technique per se, it's the practitioner. But exactly what would a practitioner have to be able to do, reliably, to make such a double-rotation flying back kick usable in a realistic situation, not a staged dojang demo?

The answer to this question in the case of the high head kick is pretty clear: you would have to be able to execute a standing split while maintaining balance on an irregular surface with masses of interfering stuff in the environment, half of which or more you won't be able to see once the adrenaline dump hits you and you start developing one or another degree of tunnel vision. Are you the MAist who can do that? Can even years of training make you that MAist? Given the facts that (i) the brutally effective techs recoverable from katas and hyungs allow you to incapacitate on attacker (or worse) under the same bad conditions far more reliably and safely without any kicks higher than the waist, and that (ii) only a minute fraction of MAists with the inherent genetic capacities to do what high kicks require are going to be able to execute such techs reliably—or even once by dumb luck!—why are we even having this discussion??

 

[foot2face]

Exile, are you trying to learn to fight from a book like Daniel at the beginning of The Karate Kid? You keep referencing books written by who knows who. Don't you have any of you own experiences or at least the experiences of the people you supposedly train with to relate? Never the less, you should be proud of your extensive book collection, you are obviously well read.

I was looking forward to a friendly discussion, but you don't want to hear what I have to say, just criticize it.
I am disappointed that this debate was not predictive, but that's the way things are with some people.

 

[exile]

Exile, are you trying to learn to fight from a book like Daniel at the beginning of The Karate Kid? You keep referencing books written by who knows who. Don't you have any of you own experiences or at least the experiences of the people you supposedly train with to relate? Never the less, you should be proud of your extensive book collection, you are obviously well read.

I'm sorry, f2f, but instead of answering a question with a question, what you should be doing is responding to the points I raised in my last post. Or some of them. Or even one of them.

In answer to your question... I really hate to do this—I was involved in street violence in NYC during the 10 years I lived there that involved use of every weapon from my feet and hands to a K-55 single-edge lock-blade, a motorcycle chain I had rigged up as a belt and wore every day for years, and a car antennae that I opportunistically borrowed to deal with an assailant who was, let's say, distressed by his contact with it. Strictly speaking, none this is any of your business, and it's also irrelevant to the question. In my last post I mentioned some very good reasons why high kicks in a streetfight are a rotten idea for all but a few percent of MA practitioners. I notice you haven't said one thing in reply except to note that I'm well-read. Exactly what do you think an objective reader of this thread is going to conclude from this pattern of responses?

I was looking forward to a friendly discussion, but you don't want to hear what I have to say, just criticize it.

I did hear what you had to say, f2f, and it was on the basis of the content that you have to say that I was criticizing it. You seem to be operating with the implicit assumption that there's something to be said for every point of view. And what I'm saying is, having heard what you have to say, I see absolutely nothing right about it. We're not arguing æsthetics. I'm applying a standard of logic and respect for the facts to your arguments and finding them essentially empty, nothing but an endless repetition of the assertion that high kicks can work if you can make them work. As I noted above the same is true for flying back kicks and every single XMA circus trick Matt Mullins has ever performed with his troupe... sorry, performance team. It's also true that throwing 315lb weighted barbells at an assailant works if you can make it work; in fact, X works if you can make X work is true no matter what X is. But all that means is that that argument has no content. If X is true, then X is true is not particularly informative.

I am disappointed that this debate was not predictive, but that's the way things are with some people.

It actually was predictive, f2f: it predicts that if you try to use high kicks against an experienced assailant attacking you from a foot or so away, you're going to get your clock cleaned.

And if you meant to write `productive' instead, well, there again we part company. The fact that so little substance has been forthcoming in defense of high kicks is informative and pertinent to a judgment on high kicks, wouldn't you say? I'm sorry you think that when you make a claim about something, that claim doesn't have to pass critical scrutiny, but things are otherwise. If you try to argue that a heavier object falls faster in a vacuum than a lighter object, you're also going to get an argument from me of the same kind. I don't think having a friendly discussion precludes subjecting some set of claims from one or another of the discussants to serious scrutiny and finding it both inherently deficient and inadequately argued. The term `friendly' doesn't entail `uncritical'.

It does, however, seem to me to entail not making personal judgments about other participants' `insecurities' and so on...

 

[bluemtn]

ATTENTION ALL USERS:

Please, return to the original topic.

-K. Lane/ tkdgirl
-MT Moderator-

 

[stoneheart]

Flying Crane or Exile, could you explain the "original Four HEROIC Cynical Curmudgeons" thing? Thanks.

 

[DArnold]

To be honest though, anyone who has studied both the Chang Hon forms and the Shotokan Heian forms knows where General Choi got most of his inspiration from. The good general lifted many moves verbatim from the Heians. It's not unreasonable to use the karate bunkai to interpret the Chang Hon forms, the desire for TKD to come out of karate's shadow notwithstanding.

I realize kick2face's teacher and seniors have said high kicks were part of the ROK soldiers' repetoire in the Vietnam war. I, like Exile, have a different understanding, but it's not like I was there myself, so I ultimately am relying on what I have read and heard from others. There's a Black Belt magazine article within the last year where Hee Il Cho himself states the jumping and spinning kicks were added recently (certainly post-fifties) to TKD. I don't have the magazine anymore else I would quote it directly.

This is a fallacy, as I have studied both, and anyone who has can tell your your stament about them being the same is wrong. The moves may look the same but they are vastly different and it is a great dis-service to generalize about Shotakan and TKD this way.
As for anything you can gleen from you statment that is true, it is that they were an insparation, nothing more

 

[exile]

Flying Crane or Exile, could you explain the "original Four HEROIC Cynical Curmudgeons" thing? Thanks.

Well, Tellner, Flying Crane, Xue Sheng and I found ourselves not just on the same page in one particular discussion, but on the same line... a line that was fairly cynical, not in the sense of being willing to exploit people's weakness or ignorance, but in the sense of believing that the explanation for whatever we were talking about was to be found in some kind of ethical deficiency or corruptness—something along those lines. It was suggested that we now belonged to some kind of brotherhood of cyncial curmudgeonity, and... well, the rest is history...

PS: the `HEROIC' part was self-mockery (as well as mockery of a certain genre of describing people). True cynicism begins at home!

 

[exile]

To be honest though, anyone who has studied both the Chang Hon forms and the Shotokan Heian forms knows where General Choi got most of his inspiration from. The good general lifted many moves verbatim from the Heians. It's not unreasonable to use the karate bunkai to interpret the Chang Hon forms, the desire for TKD to come out of karate's shadow notwithstanding.

I realize kick2face's teacher and seniors have said high kicks were part of the ROK soldiers' repetoire in the Vietnam war. I, like Exile, have a different understanding, but it's not like I was there myself, so I ultimately am relying on what I have read and heard from others. There's a Black Belt magazine article within the last year where Hee Il Cho himself states the jumping and spinning kicks were added recently (certainly post-fifties) to TKD. I don't have the magazine anymore else I would quote it directly.

This is a fallacy, as I have studied both, and anyone who has can tell your your stament about them being the same is wrong. The moves may look the same but they are vastly different and it is a great dis-service to generalize about Shotakan and TKD this way.
As for anything you can gleen from you statment that is true, it is that they were an insparation, nothing more

I suggest that anyone who wishes to investigate the matter for themselves check out Stuart Anslow's book Ch'ang Hon Taekwon-do Hae Sul: Real Applications to the ITF Patterns, Vol: 1, Cornwall, UK: Diggory Press, and compare the kinds of bunkai proposed with those for Shotokan the book by Iain Abernethy (who wrote the Foreward to Anslow's book), Bunkai-Jutsu: the Practical Application of Karate Kata. The gist of stoneheart's point is his statement that `It's not unreasonable to use the karate bunkai to interpret the Chang Hon forms...' I think it would be worthwhile for those interested to study the bunkai interpretations that Abernethy and Anslow are providing respectively and determine for themselves whether these are `vastly different'.

 

[DArnold]

They don't understand or know how to train high kicks? High kicks are intrinsically unstable and difficult or impossible to get in at close fighting ranges. That is a fact about high kicks themselves. Somehow you deduce that people who want to base their training on the standard karate kata or their recombinations in KMA forms and recognize the combat impracticality of high kicks don't understand or know how to train high kicks. Would you care to fill in the missing reasoning steps, DA? There are going to have to be an awful lot of them, I'd guess!

This question is a bit of a non sequitur. The issue is whether high kicks are practical for self-defense in real CQ combat. How is my occupational preference relevant to that issue? You question doesn't make much sense to me, I'm afraid. I've no idea what you're getting at here... so let me just observe that (i)Bushi Matsumura and Anko Itosu were two of the greatest MAs of all time, the creators of modern linear karate; (ii) they were not bouncers; (ii) they had, between them, scores of fights; and (iv) they did not include high kicks in their system. I conclude from their example—and from that of Chotoku Kyan, Choki Motobu, Mas Oyama, and several dozen names of eminent karateka I can think of for whom (i)–(iv) apply equally truly—that not using high kicks in your fighting system, and using your art for self-defense in violent encounters, is compatible with being a martial artist and does not entail that one is a bouncer. So I have to say, again, that your question seems unconnected to anything relevant to the discussion.

Sorry, but this again makes no sense to me. It has the feel of words thrown on the screen. What are `[my] techniques above' that you're referring to? Who talked about a silver bullet (I take it you mean something like `magic solution', but for the life of me I can't figure out what you're getting at! )
Um... yes.... what is supposed to follow from that?

Which styles, DA? Okinawan karateka don't know how to train high kicks? They don't know how to carry out basic balance, accuracy and power exercises that every color belt in any of the karate-based arts learns to do in a proper school? Iain Abernethy doesn't know how to train high kicks?

If these guys don't train high kicks, DA, it doesn't seem likely that the reason is because it's such a secret, is it, now? Those styles don't train people to do back flips either, but it's not because it's a great mystery how to do back flips. It's more likely that they don't train back flips because they're not a particularly practical combat move, wouldn't you say? Well, based on the writings of people like Abernethy, Loren Christensen, Kane & Wilder and many others, it's quite clear that their advice about high kicks is based on the same reasoning that holds in the case of back flips. I myself train high kicks, but I would never dream of trying to use them in a street fight at close quarter range, for exactly the reasons that Abernethy gives. I train high kicks because if I can deliver a high kick with power, balance, and accuracy, then any low kicks I deliver to an attacker will be very effective indeed. It's no different from a runner training by wearing a 20 lb. pack on his or her back. S/he certainly isn't going use it in the actual race itself, right?

Yes. And this has to do with what, exactly?

Someone who trains Goju-ryu, TKD or any other karate-based art is a martial artist to the extent that s/he is a practitioner of a martial art (Gojo-ryu, TKD, etc.) Last time I checked, that was the dictionary definition of a martial artist. A karateka or TKDist is a MAist by virtue of practicing a martial art. If you practice a martial art in such a way that what you learn is less effective in combat than some other way of practicing that art, then I'd have to say that you're a less accomplished MAist than somone who practices the more effective version. One useful thing about looking at the history of the MAs is that it's full of examples of great martial artists who were also great fighters; that is, they excelled in fights. Not tournament competitions, but fights. They were fighters and martial artists. You're not, by any chance, suggesting that the two are mutually incompatible, are you? Because, as I say, the history of the MAs is full of people who were both.

I'm sorry, DA... I haven't a clue at what these disconnected phrases are supposed to add up to. I have the impression that you may have overlooked much of this thread before posting this reply, so I'll just say that I am a big fan of kata, for reasons I've given here and in Kidswarrior's poll/thread on kata as complete fighting systems. I have the sense that you are talking to several different people here about somewhat different things... but I have to say, it's really hard to tell from your prose just what you're trying to get across.

The reason you are wrong is because you make statements like the following,

"High kicks are intrinsically unstable and difficult or impossible to get in at close fighting ranges. That is a fact about high kicks themselves."

That is not a fact, it is merly your supposition. However, I can see from a limited point of veiw where you may assume something like this as fact, based on people who are not experts in the field. People everyday do exactly what you say does not work to save their lives.

I'll break it down and make it simpler for you.

You have used biased people, who are not experts in the field you are making conclusions about (High kicks), to deduced that high kicks are ineffective and don't work. This in no way diminishes them as experts in hand fighting. But since close range high kicks work, and they don't use these techniques, what they say has little, if no bearing on drawing any far fetched assumption.

This would be similar to me making conclusions about BJJ based on TKD or Shotakan based on KungFu. It would mearly be me trying to validate what I was doing or give a sales pitch, which anyone who has been in any art long enough knows, is silly youthful exuberance.

Your logic is that based upon people who do not train or know how to use close range high kicks. So I am saying, and from experience, that your statements are wrong.

(As far as back flips, I dont know of anyone in a Martial art, or a Fighting School who teaches this as a defense technique. But would be interested if someone had a story about it)
____________________________________________

Now is where it gets fun.

So where you say, ...you could be unbalanced when you throw a high kick.

(I could be blinded, throwing up... Wow, this is the "WHAT IF" game which is silly - well, what if your standing on a sheet of ice and a 747 is coming down at you... waste of time.)

Yeah, if you kick as fast as my grandmother. However, most kickers don't sit there and hold their leg out for you to grab. Once my leg hits you in the temple, just as fast or faster than you punch, you'll go down.

Now I could go point to point, endlessly back and forth, which proves nothing except for the fact that we both have good and bad examples which will prove my point further in the post about validity.

Any real expert knows that if you train in grappling for a couple hours every night for yrears, or you train in Shotakan a couple hours every night for years, or you train TKD kicking a couple hours every night for years then you will be a dangerious person able to defend themselves.

This, "I have a silver bullet" argument, that my style works the best is just insecure juniors talk of validation or sales pitches. Nothing more.

There is a very simple test as to what is the best and what is valid in self defense...
Ready...

When was the last time any style/technique was used to defend someone.

It has nothing to do with organizations, federations, schools...

That's it

It's that simple!

Which is hard for many (stuggling juniors and those trying to sell what they are doing) to understand.

If it has been used, then it is the best, and valid.

If a woman wards of a rapist by hitting him in the head with a phone...
then that is valid and the best

If a child stabs an abductor with a pencil and gets away, then it's valid and the best.

If you use a punch and stop a problem in a bar fight, then it's valid and the best.

If I use a TKD High kick at close range and stop a mugger, then it's valid and the best.

It's really very simple, but then again this flys in the face of those argueing that their style is better, or those tyring to sell what they are doing.

As your techniques are used daily and save peoples lives, then they are the best and valid. As "close in high kicks" are used daily and save peoples lives, then they are the best and valid..

The only true invalid techniques I have seen are those that have never been used.

The point at which your arguments started to fall apart is when you start stating things as "Fact"

You can speak to your own preferences or others preferences but unfortunately there are examples, too numerious to reference, that disprove your assumptions


Addition: Anyone that trains with high kicks knows that they are for close in, as there is no such thing as a long distance high kick

 

[DArnold]

I suggest that anyone who wishes to investigate the matter for themselves check out Stuart Anslow's book Ch'ang Hon Taekwon-do Hae Sul: Real Applications to the ITF Patterns, Vol: 1, Cornwall, UK: Diggory Press, and compare the kinds of bunkai proposed with those for Shotokan the book by Iain Abernethy (who wrote the Foreward to Anslow's book), Bunkai-Jutsu: the Practical Application of Karate Kata. The gist of stoneheart's point is his statement that `It's not unreasonable to use the karate bunkai to interpret the Chang Hon forms...' I think it would be worthwhile for those interested to study the bunkai interpretations that Abernethy and Anslow are providing respectively and determine for themselves whether these are `vastly different'.

Unfortunately Mr. Anslows book is not an accepted definition of TKD and to make conclusions on this would be doing TKD a big injustice.
I have seen parts of Mr. Anslow's book and just as you have stated, they are proposed.
Unfortuantely, in the ones that I have seen they miss the mark on what the General was teaching.

They go into personal supposition and venture into things that make the most sense to the author.
Is this bad, not really.
Does it define TKD, not really as in many cases I could, as Mr. Anslow, suppose Judo, Aikido, Kempo, and Hapkido moves that would make just as much sense... However, drawing a conclusion from this that these styles are all alike would also be failed logic... due to me publishing a book based on supposition.

This is analogous to where the General Choi used to ask what the purpose of a low block with the outter forearm was. To which many replied it was to stop a front kick. Incorrect. it was to stop anything attacking the lower abdomen. So where Mr. Anslow adds his own definition I would in no way say they are a definition of TaeKwon-Do

So has Mr. Anslow made people think about what they could do next? A good idea - Yes, but any good instructor can do this.
Are they the basis of TKD and what the general taught - NO

This feeds the larger problem of many juniors who look for the one correct answer and miss the point. This is nothing new as many have published books similar to this in the past, Jhoon Ree, Cho...
It gives juniors something to argue about when they miss the forest for the trees.

Remember, books are just trainging tools, but not necessarly the truth or the way...
or correct:uhyeah:

 

[exile]

Unfortunately Mr. Anslows book is not an accepted definition of TKD and to make conclusions on this would be doing TKD a big injustice.

I'd like to see that statement substantiated, DA. So far you've just offered your own personal authority as validation. But your statement is considerably broader: `X not an accepted definition' is usually taken to imply that X is not accepted in general.

I have seen parts of Mr. Anslow's book and just as you have stated, they are proposed.
Unfortuantely, in the ones that I have seen they miss the mark on what the General was teaching.

We seem to be at cross-purposes here. I am assuming that Mr. Anslow is correct on the performance of the tuls (if not, a correction would be most welcome!), so what is at issue is the question of bunkai. The question is not what Gen. Choi's intentions were in creating the forms, or what he himself intended as the bunkai. The question is, what self-defense applications are recoverable from the bunkai. If you start at the beginning of this thread, what you will notice is the question of whether hyungs are a necessary or at least significant part of TKD, and if so, how. The arguments that have been made involve the assertion that hyungs are very important because they encode practical applications. If a certain sequence in the ITF tuls turns out to have realistic street-applicable defense applications, then those applications are both valid per se and also constitute evidence that forms do constitute an important component of a TKD curriculum. It is completely irrelevant whether the interpretation was one that Gen. Choi envisaged or not. Mr. Anslow's interpretations might well be superior to those that Gen. Choi, envisaged, for example—he, like many of the other `bunkai-jutsu' investigators, subjects his interpretation to demanding `live' testing against noncompliant opponents—and so, if his interpretations are robust, then with respect to the point at issue, their resemblance to what Gen. Choi himself intended is, as I say, irrelevant

They go into personal supposition and venture into things that make the most sense to the author.

What you are saying here holds for all bunkai interpretation, does it not? In the old Okinawan curriculum, such as Fukakoshi and Motobu and the other first-generation Okinawan expatriates experienced in their training, a student was taught a limited number of kata and was expected to spend years investigating them for practical use. They were not spoonfed interpretations by the instructor; part of their training was specifically in making sense of kata. There is a terms for the goal of that investigation—kaisai no genri—the general method of deciphering kata applications, which students were rarely instructed in; they were expected to spend years learning that method for themselves. So Mr. Anslow is doing nothing different from what the Okinawan pioneers did themselves to create and propagate the systems that became the Shotokan roots of the Kwan systems the founders brought from Japan.

And there was no guarantee that a karateka would come up with the best interpretation possible; as Patrick McCarthy has noted, Motobu was convinced that Fukashima's were inferior, for example, and as almost certainly the far better practical self-defense expert of the two, he might well have been right. In which case, the kind of bunkai that Gen. Choi learned when he studied under GF in the 1930s would have been suboptimal as well. Since by his own account Shotokan karate was essential to the formation of TKD (as stated in an interview in Combat magazine in the 1970s; you can find the documentation in Mr. Anslow's book), it seems likely that by his own account, his training training in Shotokan, making up the largest portion of his MA training, if not its entirety, would have become implicated in his own kata designs. If Mr. Anslow can find better ones than Gen. Choi did, then those applications are to be credited to the Ch'ang Hon tuls just as much as anything the General intended, and actually, more so. We'll just have to look at whether his bunkai meet the kind of criteria for street effectiveness that people like Bill Burgar, Kane & Wilder, and Sutrisno & MacYoung, in books on form interpretation and street defense, observe as necessary conditions on application. Saying that `Gen. Choi didn't intend this' is a biographical fact about the General that has nothing to do with whether the tech in question is more or less useful.

Is this bad, not really.
Does it define TKD, not really as in many cases I could, as Mr. Anslow, suppose Judo, Aikido, Kempo, and Hapkido moves that would make just as much sense... However, drawing a conclusion from this that these styles are all alike would also be failed logic... due to me publishing a book based on supposition.

I can't make much sense of this passage, I'm afraid.

This is analogous to where the General Choi used to ask what the purpose of a low block with the outter forearm was. To which many replied it was to stop a front kick. Incorrect. it was to stop anything attacking the lower abdomen. So where Mr. Anslow adds his own definition I would in no way say they are a definition of TaeKwon-Do

If you are saying that TKD is exactly what the content of General Choi's mind was on any given point, then there really is nothing more to discuss, I'm afraid. And there is plenty of reason, given by the MAists who have written in detail about realistic interpretation for forms, to regard use of a low block to stop an attack as, practically speaking, a very low-value use of that move. The kind of interpretation Mr. Anslow gives, where a low forearm`block' is in fact a strike to an assailant's forcibly lowered, exposed throat, is in line with a great deal of work on effective self-defense. Again, whether or not that's what Gen. Choi intended, or even imagined, is irrelevant to the thread topic, because if the tech is a consistent intepretation of the form and is effective in combat, the General's possible attitude with respect to it is completely beside the point.

So has Mr. Anslow made people think about what they could do next? A good idea - Yes, but any good instructor can do this.
Are they the basis of TKD and what the general taught - NO

This feeds the larger problem of many juniors who look for the one correct answer and miss the point. This is nothing new as many have published books similar to this in the past, Jhoon Ree, Cho...
It gives juniors something to argue about when they miss the forest for the trees.

I don't see just what this comment bears on, DA.

Remember, books are just trainging tools, but not necessarly the truth or the way...
or correct:uhyeah:

And one could say the same thing wrt to the Encyclopædia. In which case, Gen. Choi's intentions have no priviledged standing so far as tul application goes. And in that case, Mr. Anslow has done the only thing possible: sought to explain why what he is proposing is a valid set of interpretations for each tul subsequence. So far, he's produced a massive, encyclopædic reference to this end, one which you yourself say you've only read parts of. And your response to his work, so far as I can see, are a few paragraphs offering not one criticism, well-supported or otherwise, of the effectiveness of his applications—which, again, is the issue that is relevant to the thread topic of whether leaving out or limiting poomsae training is necessarily a deficiency of a TKD dojang.