Hi.
How would "old style" training be different from "sport" training? E.g. would there be a greater emphasis on forms or..?
Where I train, it isn't really a dojang per se, it's more like a club in my school. What we learn is very heavily form-oriented (poomsae/WTF forms), and we only take part in poomsae tournaments (and sweep plenty of the trophies, I gotta admit). Downside is we're much weaker on the sparring side.
I guess based on my experience of TKD I'd consider it to be more of a sport here, but I wanna discover more of its martial art aspect too.
I began training in 1982. The change from "old school" to "sport" seemed to be just turning. I judge this by things like the introduction of foam sparring gear. I trained with a lot of folks who had trained in the 70's. They told stories of sparring full contact wearing a mouth piece & cup as the only protective gear. Chest protectors were rare & head gear was non-existant. These guys bragged about their scars & broken ribs, etc. Forms were also very important to these folks.
I guess the difference could be stated in one word: intensity. Training was very intense all the time. That is my sense of it. I would welcome the thoughts of my seniors on this board who did train in the days before pads for their insights. Their words have more weight on this subject.