How do you view tae kwon do?

[Em MacIntosh]

How do you view tae kwon do? Do you view it as a sport, or a martial art? Can it be both? Are some schools only for sport (not a bad thing, in my opinion)?

Being more focused on sporting aspect of it, to me, isn't a bad thing. That's kind of where I want the thread to stay at, please. There are no wrong opinions or thoughts.

To smash with hands and feet.

 

[DArnold]

I won't reply to Maarten's comments since I see he's been Banned.
The only thing I'll say is:
Amen

The sad part is when juniors base their entire view of Martial Arts on wheither you can kick someone's ***.

This is similar to... you can only be a weightlifter if you looked like Arnold S. in his prime. The rest of you are just wattered down.

How much of what it's all about has he missed.
How hard of a wall will this person hit when they become older?

Very Sad.

 

[CuongNhuka]

I can't remember lol! scroll down on the sherdog site it says there. He's also a really nice guy!

I'm lazy, I don't feel like looking, LOL. It seems like it's mostly Ref stoppage and TKO.

 

[CuongNhuka]

The sad part is when juniors base their entire view of Martial Arts on wheither you can kick someone's ***.

This is similar to... you can only be a weightlifter if you looked like Arnold S. in his prime. The rest of you are just wattered down.

How much of what it's all about has he missed.
How hard of a wall will this person hit when they become older?

Very Sad.

I'm mostly hopeing that he doesn't hit the wall NOW. Imagine if he runs into a master of say (Bak Mei), and the little knuckle head says he is only teaching Wushu. Imagine what the Bak Mei master will have to say about that?

 

[DArnold]

I'm mostly hopeing that he doesn't hit the wall NOW. Imagine if he runs into a master of say (Bak Mei), and the little knuckle head says he is only teaching Wushu. Imagine what the Bak Mei master will have to say about that?

Yes, as my instructor says, "Ignorance is its own reward"

 

[CuongNhuka]

Yep. Do you know why I choose Bak Mei speciaficly?

 

[stoneheart]

Yep. Do you know why I choose Bak Mei speciaficly?

Isn't Bak Mei one of the styles favored by members of the Hong Kong underground? Talk about running into trouble if true.

 

[CuongNhuka]

That I'm not sure about. What I do is that Bak Mei (meaning White Eye Brows, a nick name for the fouder) was developed from Shaolin Kung Fu, and only Shaolin. The founder was kicked out of the Temple shortly after he founded the art. Why? Because he tested it on some of the other Monks of the temple, and killed allthe monks who he did that with. Talk about being "battle tested".

 

[stoneheart]

There are all sorts of kung fu legends floating around about Bak Mei. He supposedly was the traitor who opened the Shaolin temple gates to the Manchu armies in the version I heard. For that reason, Shaolin disciples were supposed to have hunted and killed every Bak Mei student they could find.

Who knows if any of this was true, but it's fun stuff regardless.

 

[CuongNhuka]

True. And one way or anouther, it does show that Bak Mei himself was a good fighter. Turn the greatest fighting force over to their enemies, you gotta be able to fight. Or just completely nuts.
Come to think of it, the version I heard was that Bak Mei was kicked out for killing his fellow monks, and left the gates open as he left, and told that to the Manchu so he could have his revenge.

 

[matt.m]

I know I am going to start a fight here but.......Tae Kwon Do in its origin was not to be considered a sport. That is utter non sense. I have fellow Marines who have said that "The NVA were terrified of the ROK Marines, they were all third dans in Tae Kwon Do. They respected us U.S. Marines but defecated themselves at the sight of the ROK."

I am sorry, but my Tae Kwon Do is not a sport. I know that there does exist a sport version of the art but the sport is a watered down version of the art. The USTU, Olympic, and AAU rules as well as the traditional point sparring rules vary widely.

 

[CuongNhuka]

Matt the only one about to argue with you is Maarten, and he was just kicked off. And his thought processes is that what the ROK do isn't Tae Kwon Do, it's just Shotokan with some "flashy useless kicks, and Gen. Choi worship added". Every one else is basicly telling him he is wrong.

 

[stoneheart]

have fellow Marines who have said that "The NVA were terrified of the ROK Marines, they were all third dans in Tae Kwon Do. They respected us U.S. Marines but defecated themselves at the sight of the ROK."

TKD, aside, the ROK soldiers in Vietnam did not have the same rules of engagement as the American soldiers. One example is a ROK company had captured some VC. The company officer ordered a nearby village to guard the communists, but they escaped or more likely were set free by the villagers. When the Korean soldiers found out they shot the villagers in retribution.

Not exactly the same situation Americans fought under. The ROK soldiers were rightfully feared and a big part of that was because they weren't restrained at all in the theater.

 

[exile]

Matt the only one about to argue with you is Maarten, and he was just kicked off. And his thought processes is that what the ROK do isn't Tae Kwon Do, it's just Shotokan with some "flashy useless kicks, and Gen. Choi worship added". Every one else is basicly telling him he is wrong.

Right, CN. Matt, check my post here. I don't recall too many arguments about this point, except of course from a disputant who is no longer a member. And I think many people, certainly amongst the karateka, know that something similar happened in karate, though not to such a great extent (karate had no national government pushing as a battlefield combative system nor a national government pushing it as an Olympic sport; both of those were the case for TKD, at different times). Just like TKD, karate basically split into two different visions—as tournament competition and as street-ready CQ self-defense—and a lot of the internal churnings and debate in karate seem to mirror those in TKD around these two poles of the respective arts.

TKD, aside, the ROK soldiers in Vietnam did not have the same rules of engagement as the American soldiers. One example is a ROK company had captured some VC. The company officer ordered a nearby village to guard the communists, but they escaped or more likely were set free by the villagers. When the Korean soldiers found out they shot the villagers in retribution.

Not exactly the same situation Americans fought under. The ROK soldiers were rightfully feared and a big part of that was because they weren't restrained at all in the theater.

That will do it.

Can't help wondering to what degree the ferocious brutality of the Korean War led to that sort of over-the-top ferocity. It was hard on the US and western forces, but it appears to have been an unparalleled catastrophe for the Koreans themselves. In his history of the hydrogen bomb, Richard Rhodes, I think, mentions that something like between one and two million North Koreans alone died in the war, most of them, of course, civilians. The cruelty of the fighting between the northern and southern Korean forces was said to have been indescribable...

 

[Last Fearner]

The ROK soldiers were rightfully feared and a big part of that was because they weren't restrained at all in the theater.

Can't help wondering to what degree the ferocious brutality of the Korean War led to that sort of over-the-top ferocity.

This kind of reminds me of the old analogy about the fox and the rabbit. When the fox chases the rabbit, the rabbit will usually out run the fox because the fox is running for his dinner, whereas the rabbit is running for his life!

During the Korean War (1950 - 53), the South Koreans were fighting for their lives and their country. They were pinned down in the bottom of a peninsula with all of the forces in the north coming down on them. The war didn't officially end in '53, but was halted with a cease-fire "truce agreement."

I would surmise that the ferocity of the ROK in Vietnam (1959 - '75) might have been a carry over from the mentality developed a decade earlier - - fight to win, or lose everything! The unrestrained tactics of the ROK might well have been a continued fight against the communist forces that had threatened, and still do threaten South Korea.

However, I do believe that quite a bit of the ROK's fierce reputation came from their hand-to-hand combat and ability to kill the enemy at close quarters on the battlefield. Many of the stories that I have read about the ROK related more to that than just indiscriminate shooting of villages, although I'm sure both would have contributed.

CM D.J. Eisenhart

 

[exile]

During the Korean War (1950 - 53), the South Koreans were fighting for their lives and their country. They were pinned down in the bottom of a peninsula with all of the forces in the north coming down on them. The war didn't officially end in '53, but was halted with a cease-fire "truce agreement."

I would surmise that the ferocity of the ROK in Vietnam (1959 - '75) might have been a carry over from the mentality developed a decade earlier - - fight to win, or lose everything! The unrestrained tactics of the ROK might well have been a continued fight against the communist forces that had threatened, and still do threaten South Korea.

This has the ring of truth, for sure. The military culture of the South wouldn't have lost that `march or die' perspective very quickly....

However, I do believe that quite a bit of the ROK's fierce reputation came from their hand-to-hand combat and ability to kill the enemy at close quarters on the battlefield. Many of the stories that I have read about the ROK related more to that than just indiscriminate shooting of villages, although I'm sure both would have contributed.

The Viet Cong field command issued a directive to their fighters in 1966, which was mentioned in an issue of Time magazine, specifically directing them to avoid engagement with RoK troops because of their highly developed hand-to-hand fighting skills, and named a proto-version of TKD (one of the Kwan names, as I recall) as the basis of these skills. That's gotta tell you something, eh?

 

[DArnold]

This kind of reminds me of the old analogy about the fox and the rabbit. When the fox chases the rabbit, the rabbit will usually out run the fox because the fox is running for his dinner, whereas the rabbit is running for his life!

During the Korean War (1950 - 53), the South Koreans were fighting for their lives and their country. They were pinned down in the bottom of a peninsula with all of the forces in the north coming down on them. The war didn't officially end in '53, but was halted with a cease-fire "truce agreement."

I would surmise that the ferocity of the ROK in Vietnam (1959 - '75) might have been a carry over from the mentality developed a decade earlier - - fight to win, or lose everything! The unrestrained tactics of the ROK might well have been a continued fight against the communist forces that had threatened, and still do threaten South Korea.

However, I do believe that quite a bit of the ROK's fierce reputation came from their hand-to-hand combat and ability to kill the enemy at close quarters on the battlefield. Many of the stories that I have read about the ROK related more to that than just indiscriminate shooting of villages, although I'm sure both would have contributed.

CM D.J. Eisenhart

Although General Choi did develop TKD in the Army, what the Army used and what the General brought foreward to the world as the ITF were different.

 

[Kosho Gakkusei]

I don't study TKD but I think it is a beautiful art which requires athleticism and grace. I would not quickly discount any TKD practitioner's skills. If you end up fighting a martial artist you're not fighting their art you're fighting them.

I think Maarten's misguided perception of TKD is rooted in the proliferation of McDojos which call themselves TKD. This has roots in the sportification of the MA TKD. Not that martial sports are all bad. They do alot for the promotion of the art and somewhat testing your skills at speed. The rise in popularity of sport TKD and the Power Rangers have led to the byproduct of more "TKD" schools with trophies in the windows with floors full of 10 year old black belts than there are Starbucks Coffee Shops in every town.

I have a grey haired friend that has practiced Tae Kwan Do for many years and his skills speak for themselves but these schools that pop up all over are not Tae Kwan Do but rather TaKe yer Do schools.

_Don Flatt

 

[CuongNhuka]

I think Maarten's misguided perception of TKD is rooted in the proliferation of McDojos which call themselves TKD.

BINGO! How much do you want to bet he'll end up opening his own pseudo-McDojo?

 

[terryl965]

BINGO! How much do you want to bet he'll end up opening his own pseudo-McDojo?

I bet he does for he see money to be made. Those that cast the stone tend to follow those that they have cast.