Why does everyone mouth off on TKD?

[kickyou]

Sweeper,

Just because one uneducated individual told you this does not make it a correct statement. TKD is very much an art and the sparring aspect is only one of several things that is taught to the student, patterns and history are a very big part of the training if this person is receiving training from a reputable instructor.

 

[Damian Mavis]

He was most likely WTF. They have alot of "sport oriented" schools. NOT ALL but alot.

Damian Mavis
Honour TKD

 

[sweeper]

kickyou you misunderstand me, I'm not saying because he told me that it's true, I'm saying there are schools that have made TKD a sport, and some schools only teach that sport. In other words, for the guy who said that to me it was true, and for others out there it is true. I'm trying to say it is quite posable to come across people that know nothing more about TKD than the sport, it's probaby even posably to only come across these people when looking at multiple schools (just by luck). So I don't think it's realy fair to get upset with someone when they think this because you can come across quite a few TKD practitioners that do think this.

 

[Kirk]

I think the summation is that in the U.S. there's a lot of people,
soiling the good name of TKD, in their own pursuit of money.
This influences a lot of people's perception of TKD as a whole,
mostly due to prejudice, and possibly jealousy. In the U.S., TKD
is THE most popular martial art. Some have watered their art
down because of greed, some are former students, now teachers
of these people, and some in other arts are just jealous, or need
some kind of b.s. validation of their own style, and they get that
by dogging on another style. We should all agree that
watered down styles, McDojos, etc can happen in ANY style, not
just TKD. The problem is that since TKD is the most popular m.a.
style, the law of numbers says that they'd have the largest
number of McDojos and people ruining it's good name.

Just like school pride, people naturally get offended when they
get dragged into the dirt with the truly dirty. Yet people go on
about it I only quit TKD because I felt I was just too
big of a person to be doing so much jumping, so I opted for an
art that did little to none. And I must say, I find it just a bit
disturbing that week after week THIS thread is at the top.
Let's stop what NON TKD'ers feel about your art, and
let's start discussing techniques, forms, instructors, history,
future of, etc. This thread is 11 pages long ... and all we got
was what we had in the beginning ... Non TKD'ers don't like
TKD ... big surprise there!

 

[karatekid1975]

Amen, Kirk. I totally agree with you dude.

 

[sweeper]

well I would argue that a relativly small percentage of people (relative to the total amount of MT users) have posted negativly about TKD. The thing is every couple weeks a new person joins up and posts on the thred and it pops back to the top..

 

[fissure]

I hope the "new guy" doesn't offend too many with this, but -
does it really matter what type of competiton style one conforms to? if you have rules and referees you are not fighting, you are involved in a sport.i have competed in point style shotokan competion (loved the range of techniques allowed - but i could'nt hit anyone, and after the first 27 breaks i wanted to kill the ref.), and also wtf style tournaments (nothing like k.o.ing your opponent, but even grade school kids know your not fighting if someone doesn't get punched in the mouth). my personnal teaching method combines the stances and hand techniques of shotokan, with the movement and kicking skills of tkd.i include self defence in every class, regardless of student belt level.
having said all of this, i am painfully aware of the very high percentage of really crappy tkd schools out there.sprint drills, chest protector kicking drills, et., are fine if you know why you are doing them. but to include them in your mainstream classes, and to pass this kind of watered down sport training off as authentic martial arts (especially to unknowing kids and parents) is disturbing.sorry - i'm starting to rant.
i wanted to include one of those little face things, but none seemed to express enough fustration.

 

[OldBean]

Hello,
I have just read the whole thread and I tend to agree with Kirk. A lot of non TKD people just don't like your art - some of that is because of some of the issues mentioned in this thread.

At the end of the day, enjoy your art! Be proud of it because you could be doing some other worthless activity such as browsing the web etc

Now to address a few points:

TKD in the UK is more respected than in the US partly because it would appear that standards of teaching appear to be higher and more uniform and also because it's not the most popular art in the UK as White Dragon has stated. I take this on trust as I am not a TKD chap.

A second point why people don't like TKD is that it looks good ! to do some of what you do takes time, skill and dedication - not everyone has either the physical condition or ability to pull it off - a bit of jealousy is probably there.

Posted by Damian Mavis:-

I'm still amazed that people don't realise there are 2 styles of TKD. There is olympic style which does not have boxing and then there is ITF which does. So when you talk about closing the gap on an ITF TKD stylist all youll get is punched in the face. Now if youre going to shoot in and do a take down/grapple...then a traditional TKD artist is screwed. Hopefully like everyone else they learn outside their art. Does anyone actually only learn one art nowadays? Seems like its the hip thing to do to learn several arts.

As a Wing Chun guy, if I am able to close the gap (a big IF in my case) you are in my domain, (a BJJ guy would be in his element as well) and this what we train - your telegraphed punches may not get through (they might but it's not a certainty as I'm sure you'd agree). Not everyone does a Mixed Martial Art though I think there are good and bad reasons for doing so. A BJJ guy, a JKD guy, MT fighter, Silat guy etc they are still one art and they can potentially give TKD stylists big trouble. The key word here is potentially- dissing a style is silly - dissing poor instruction can be justified because it might save someones life.

What I am trying to say is that I hear a lot of TKD guys talk about kicking and in some circumstances it just isn't wise to just kick.
(kicking is the prime skill as I understand it - you train other things but not as frequently which means that in close quarters you might not have acquired good enough skill to apply it well)

A lot of us outside TKD don't see skilled TKD guys often enough and form our opinions based on limited exposure to your art usually by looking at unskilled TKDers. The same can be said of any art.

 

[Damian Mavis]

Whos got telegraphed punches? haha

Damian Mavis
Honour TKD

 

[OldBean]

Agreeing to disagree is fine by me Damian.

 

[Damian Mavis]

What are you talking about? What are we agreeing to disagree about? heh I was serious. Who's got telegraphed punches? Me personally? I dont understand.

Damian Mavis
Honour TKD

 

[OldBean]

Damian,
First of all the wording of my mail was clumsy. My comments are not directed at you personally.

What I was trying to suggest is that quite a few TKD guys telegraph their punches through their technique - not all but quite a few. Since I am not a TKD guy I may be wrong and am quite prepared to accept that but the punching I have seen from some TKDers gives me that impression. I suspect that you disagree with me on this, right? ie you don't accept that TKD punches are telegraphic in their nature, right?


An ITF guy is not in his element in close quarter combat - other styles are. It does not mean to say that the result is a foregone conclusion - it's always the man rather than the art of course.

Hope that clears up the misunderstanding.

 

[Damian Mavis]

Well, theres very traditional schools and there are open minded schools like the one I teach. Open minded in that I take what I think is best from the arts I study and add it to my curiculum. I Box among other things so no, my punches are not telegraphed and neither are my students. And I see alot of ITF schools in my city that have great punching technique but then I see an ITF school on television or in another city doing the weirdest things that would not work on the street not to mention horrible punching skills.

I wasnt saying TKD stylists were good in close quarters, to me close quarters are knee, elbow, headbutt , biting range. Close quarters to me is just before you grapple. Most TKD schools do not touch this area, but some do. What I said earlier was in response to someone saying that if they were against a TKD stylist they would get close enough to nullify their kicks and then they would have eliminated all the TKD stylists techniques. In ITF we often get jammed and our response has always been to box like mad in that range. I also stated right after that, that if someone were to shoot in and do a takedown/grapple then the ITF TKD stylist is probably out of options. That was it. Just didnt like the fact that so many people still think ALL TKD doesnt box when in ITF that is exactly what we do.

Damian Mavis
Honour TKD

 

[OldBean]

Damian,
Your definition of close quarters is correct - that's what I'd define it to be though I didn't say it ! Argh

As for close quarter work, Wing Chun, MT , BJJ train this area extensively - In Wing Chun, JKD extra drills to improve sensitivity are trained. My point remains that without specific training in this area a TKD guy is at a disadvantage. With Wing Chun we'll always want to be in this range as it's a range we are more familiar with.

If a TKD guy is skilled in this area, fine, but most are not in my limited experience. As for kicking, we always want to be in a position where we don't allow the TKD guy to kick - we nullify by negating range or by parrying with the foot depending on the kick. It takes a lot of skill to do this right. In WC in close quarter work we kick low by angling the foot. I always find low kicks difficult to deal with - a guy untrained in dealing with low kicks will find it difficult to counter particularly when faced with a simultaneous hand/foot strike which is typical of some arts.

My understanding is that in competition low kicks are not allowed so what do you train to deal with them? I am thinking of self -defence - using your hands can work with smaller opponents but can be problematic if you face a heavy kick from a big opponent.

 

[fissure]

The last post mentions that low kicks are not allowed in TKD tournaments, leading to the question of how a TKD practioner would deal with such a tech. in a self defence aspect. This seems to be a common line of asumption at this site - that is basing a systems fundamentals upon it's competion rules. Any form of tournament 'sparring' is no more than a sport, and cannot reflect self defence or "streat fighting", regardless of the rules.The simple fact that there are rules makes any comparison impossible.
anyway thats what i'm thinking!
:EG:

 

[Damian Mavis]

heh, I don't think you understand... I agree with you fully. I'm saying this because you still seem to be debating with me but unless your trying to tell me ITF TKD doesnt box then we have nothing to debate about haha. I wasn't disagreeing with your point of view at all, I was just clarifying what I was talking about which was the opinion that TKD doesnt box and it does, thats all. Everything you've said about close quarters etc seems pretty good to me.

Your average TKD practitioner is not skilled in close quarters, period. Whenever I say things like this I'm always careful to use words like "your average practitioner" or "most" because there are always exceptions to the rule.

In most TKD schools they dont train to defend from low kicks so no they have no defence for that either. I personally train in Muay Thai, thats how I train to defend from low kicks heh.

Damian Mavis
Honour TKD

 

[OldBean]

Damian,

Sorry I rammed home the point too much

Fissure,
Your point is taken. Ok, so forget the competition side of TKD and think of TKD as a martial art - what TKD techniques would you use to defend against a low kick?

In Wing Chun, JKD a lot of what you learn is directly applicable to the street but you have to train it. Our technique is 'designed' for the street - I admit some things work better than others and I also accept that in a street situation you may not be in a position to apply your art - sh*t happens etc.

BTW chaps , don't be thinking I am hostile to TKD - I am not - I am just trying to give a different sense of perspective pertinent to this thread.

 

[OldBean]

Damian,
I realized after posting you'd answered my question- I am just trying to see if Fissure has a different perspective.

 

[fissure]

Fissure,
Your point is taken. Ok, so forget the competition side of TKD and think of TKD as a martial art - what TKD techniques would you use to defend against a low kick?

To be honest with you, I know of no technique unique or specific to TKD to counteract low line kicking attacks. The movements that we practise are probably the same as every other stlye- namely get the hell out of the way or if the kick is unavoidable, bite the bullet , raise your lower leg ,take it on the outer shin and hope for the best! By the way, we also practise leg kicking attacks - just because you can kick someone in the head doesn't mean you have to! Whats good for the goose, and all that :EG:

 

[Bagatha]

Originally posted by fissure

Fissure,
Your point is taken. Ok, so forget the competition side of TKD and think of TKD as a martial art - what TKD techniques would you use to defend against a low kick?

To be honest with you, I know of no technique unique or specific to TKD to counteract low line kicking attacks. The movements that we practise are probably the same as every other stlye- namely get the hell out of the way or if the kick is unavoidable, bite the bullet , raise your lower leg ,take it on the outer shin and hope for the best! By the way, we also practise leg kicking attacks - just because you can kick someone in the head doesn't mean you have to! Whats good for the goose, and all that :EG:

-checking kick

-pressing blocks

-crescent kicks

-cirrcular block

.......might be missing some above my degree...