FearlessFreep
Senior Master
Freep, I have to ask you, you brought up an interesting related issue in another thread that was actually a discussion from another board. I was in that discussion on the other board. It was in regards to whether it's better to train one side of your body all the time, or both side equal time. Without rehashing it, isn't this the exact same thing? Is it better to practice one art to perfection or several equally? I know the common answer is cross-train. I don't necessarily agree. I think that answer can only be answered on an individual basis. Maybe that's a good question for another thread?
Yes, that was some time ago on Budoseek.net, iirc. The discussion was in terms of training the same techniques from the left side and the right and from a TKD perspective I was of the opinion that you should train both sides to at least be effective. A lot of people who trained in other fighting styles were strongly of the opinion that they would rather train their strong side an extra hour to be that much better than to spend that hour training their week side. From a certain perspective* I think that makes a lot of sense, and I've always remembered that conversation and thought about it in terms of learning multiple arts versue putting in that same time in perfecting the art you already train in. That, coupled with a point my instructor made about Superfoot Wallace, that he really only had three techniques, due to leg injury but he used them *very well*, has made consider that cross-training in 47 different martial arts may not be very productive (I realize that Wallace was sport-sparring in a given art and that's not quite the same as other contexts)
As you said it being a personal decision, I'm a 36 year old adult. I have a job and hobbies. I'm *not* training for a MMA sport competition for four hours a day for some match a few months in the future. I train for self-defense at any moment and TKD Olympic-sparring for fun and competition. As a result, I tend to want to economize my training meaning that if I spend an hour working on snap kicks for forms and sparring, I want that snap-kick to be a weapon in my arsenal for self-defense. I'd rather spend 15 minutes of that given hour learning how to use that snap kick to break the knee of someone trying to take me down rather than half to spend *another* hour learning BJJ moves to stop the same takedown from a different philosophy and set of techniques.
One other thing I seem to be realizing in watching MMA competitions is that it's a lot easier to defend than it is to fight on someone else's terms. I've seen strikers try to become grapplers and it often doesn't work well. They are 'ready to fight on the ground' so when they are taken down...they lose to a takedown/grappling specialist. But I've seen strikes who basically seemed to say "I ain't going down" so they worked enough technique to prevent the takedown and kept the fight at their speciality rather than engage at something they weren't as experienced at (and I've seen a lot of matches recently where the takedown defense between the takedown and the one trying to do the takedown has lost when the attempt failed and was turned on them)
Like someone said up in the thread about most effective stopping kick. If you are not strong in an area, don't engage the opponent in that area. If you are not a kicker, don't get in a kicking fight with a TKD practioner, if you are not a grappler, work on staying on your feet. Work to keep the fight where you want it. I rather think, since we are in a TKD forum, that a TKD person is going to be a lot better off learning to use TKD techniques to stop a grappler then he will be trying to learn to grapple.
Just a rather inexperienced opinion, though...
* In TKD sparring, at least, it still makes sense to train both sides since TKD sparring makes use of foot movement for deception and feinting so you pretty much need to be able to do at least *something* from the left or right in closed or open stance so, and the more complete your are to both sides, the harder it is to guess what you will do. Boxing, for example, is not the same so training your strong side and weak side differently makes sense to me.
Yes, that was some time ago on Budoseek.net, iirc. The discussion was in terms of training the same techniques from the left side and the right and from a TKD perspective I was of the opinion that you should train both sides to at least be effective. A lot of people who trained in other fighting styles were strongly of the opinion that they would rather train their strong side an extra hour to be that much better than to spend that hour training their week side. From a certain perspective* I think that makes a lot of sense, and I've always remembered that conversation and thought about it in terms of learning multiple arts versue putting in that same time in perfecting the art you already train in. That, coupled with a point my instructor made about Superfoot Wallace, that he really only had three techniques, due to leg injury but he used them *very well*, has made consider that cross-training in 47 different martial arts may not be very productive (I realize that Wallace was sport-sparring in a given art and that's not quite the same as other contexts)
As you said it being a personal decision, I'm a 36 year old adult. I have a job and hobbies. I'm *not* training for a MMA sport competition for four hours a day for some match a few months in the future. I train for self-defense at any moment and TKD Olympic-sparring for fun and competition. As a result, I tend to want to economize my training meaning that if I spend an hour working on snap kicks for forms and sparring, I want that snap-kick to be a weapon in my arsenal for self-defense. I'd rather spend 15 minutes of that given hour learning how to use that snap kick to break the knee of someone trying to take me down rather than half to spend *another* hour learning BJJ moves to stop the same takedown from a different philosophy and set of techniques.
One other thing I seem to be realizing in watching MMA competitions is that it's a lot easier to defend than it is to fight on someone else's terms. I've seen strikers try to become grapplers and it often doesn't work well. They are 'ready to fight on the ground' so when they are taken down...they lose to a takedown/grappling specialist. But I've seen strikes who basically seemed to say "I ain't going down" so they worked enough technique to prevent the takedown and kept the fight at their speciality rather than engage at something they weren't as experienced at (and I've seen a lot of matches recently where the takedown defense between the takedown and the one trying to do the takedown has lost when the attempt failed and was turned on them)
Like someone said up in the thread about most effective stopping kick. If you are not strong in an area, don't engage the opponent in that area. If you are not a kicker, don't get in a kicking fight with a TKD practioner, if you are not a grappler, work on staying on your feet. Work to keep the fight where you want it. I rather think, since we are in a TKD forum, that a TKD person is going to be a lot better off learning to use TKD techniques to stop a grappler then he will be trying to learn to grapple.
Just a rather inexperienced opinion, though...
* In TKD sparring, at least, it still makes sense to train both sides since TKD sparring makes use of foot movement for deception and feinting so you pretty much need to be able to do at least *something* from the left or right in closed or open stance so, and the more complete your are to both sides, the harder it is to guess what you will do. Boxing, for example, is not the same so training your strong side and weak side differently makes sense to me.
