FearlessFreep
Senior Master
Got your attention? : )
One thing that occasionally goes through my mind is that Tae Kwon Do is a very hard striking, brutal art when it comes to application of the techniques. When we talk about 'traditional' Tae Kwon Do here, we talk about the Korean military being feared for their deadly skills. Tae Kwon Do is not about control and submission, it's about damage and destruction. It's about disabling or killing an enemy combatant before they kill you
Now, in reading various threads about practical application of self-defense, one thing that stands out to me is an emphasis on de-escalation, and a minimal response. LEO's and bouncers and such talk about (the need for) controlling the situation and the person, not about rib cracking sidekicks. About legalities and repercussions, not ridge-hands to the trachea
We talk about the effectiveness of traditional hard-core Tae Kwon Do, but the examples we often draw from are from a military application, which is not the environment most of us find ourselves in.
So the question that occurs to me is two fold. One is "self-defense" for Tae Kwon Do a misnomer for the sake of acceptability, that Tae Kwon Do is simply and really about 'personal combat' and entailed in that is a significant offensive component. Two is... given the legal and social context most of us find ourselves in, does that render Tae Kwon Do obsolete as a truly practical means of self-defense?
One thing that occasionally goes through my mind is that Tae Kwon Do is a very hard striking, brutal art when it comes to application of the techniques. When we talk about 'traditional' Tae Kwon Do here, we talk about the Korean military being feared for their deadly skills. Tae Kwon Do is not about control and submission, it's about damage and destruction. It's about disabling or killing an enemy combatant before they kill you
Now, in reading various threads about practical application of self-defense, one thing that stands out to me is an emphasis on de-escalation, and a minimal response. LEO's and bouncers and such talk about (the need for) controlling the situation and the person, not about rib cracking sidekicks. About legalities and repercussions, not ridge-hands to the trachea
We talk about the effectiveness of traditional hard-core Tae Kwon Do, but the examples we often draw from are from a military application, which is not the environment most of us find ourselves in.
So the question that occurs to me is two fold. One is "self-defense" for Tae Kwon Do a misnomer for the sake of acceptability, that Tae Kwon Do is simply and really about 'personal combat' and entailed in that is a significant offensive component. Two is... given the legal and social context most of us find ourselves in, does that render Tae Kwon Do obsolete as a truly practical means of self-defense?