my friend's kid competed at an ATA event in San Diego...

[msmitht]

He was super jazzed and asked if "Uncle", meaning me, could come. I don't like ATA but he asked so I went. Wow. They have everyone snowballed into believing that they are the best TKD and that their crap don't stink. It does.
Forms were OK. I don't like tricking or pause/go/pause/yell/go style forms so the XMA was pointless to watch. Lots of attitude but It was apparent in sparring that all they knew how to do was play tag and bareley touch each other. The MMA was laughable.
I believe that all martial arts have something to contribute but what I saw was almost sad. If the ATA is what most of the USA thinks TKD is then that is just pathetic.
His son won forms and sparring. I showed his dad some footage of CA state USAT championships and he said " thats not Taekwondo".

 

[ralphmcpherson]

Sounds like a tkd demo I saw at a school fete recently. I was shocked, and the hundreds of people watching go home thinking thats what tkd is.

 

[ATC]

I don't think most think that ATA is cream of the crop TKD. I think that most in the TKD world think just the opposite.

 

[KingDiesel]

yeah i used to be a ATA instructor many moons ago. You are very right they do get their students to think they are the best ever even though they have closed tournaments and dont encourage their students to compete on the open circuit. although they do have some pretty good athletes i think they need to get rid of the IMS or ATA MMA bullcrap if you are a tkd org stay just that dont try to teach everything because your goin to make a mockery of yourselves

 

[msmitht]

I just don't get it. What is so Extreme about XMA? It is a bunch of poorly executed basics mixed with poorly executed gymnastics. Combine that with loud yells and a lot of posturing/attitude and you get XMA. It looked OK when Mike Chat did it back in the day but he did not add the ridiculous, poorly taught gymnastics.
I get the tricking contest. Its basically the only real " battle" they have. Kinda like 80's Jr high school breakdancing battles. It takes skill and balance but should not be the sole focus when training.

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

I said it once before and I'll say it again. The ATA offers an expensively priced martial arts themed family friendly activity. Somewhere in there are a few great teachers, but by and large, it is a tightly run business, and a fairly successful one by all accounts. Not my cup of coffee, but for a middle class family living in a McMansion in suburbia who want to get their kids moving in a safe and positive environment, it's probably great.

I've seen enough of the Songahm system to say that it is a viable and servicable system in the hands of a good instructor.

Congratulations to your nephew!

 

[dancingalone]

There are a few things I like about the ATA, such as mandatory masters' testing at their annual World event. No place to hide there, so generally the people who make it that far unless they are significantly handicapped by age are very competent in their style. They also have minimum physical fitness requirements to advance in dan rank which is a nice acknowledgement that TKD is a physical activity first.

ATA TKD is family oriented martial arts. If you are expecting their sparring to look like Olympic rules TKD, you are barking up the wrong tree. If you're looking to them as a serious vehicle for MMA training, well - I would suggest there are better options out there for people who want to be in the UFC. What they do a good job of is making their interpretation of TKD accessible to young people while also providing a positive outlook on life in general to their students. As such, their people can sometimes lack technical proficiency - but honestly, I don't know that they are worth singling out. Lots of that going around regardless of the organization involved.

 

[msmitht]

I guess I am more of a full contact martial artist. Don't mind anyone making money teaching but standards should be higher, especially for what they are charging.

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

I guess I am more of a full contact martial artist. Don't mind anyone making money teaching but standards should be higher, especially for what they are charging.

Agreed.

Not to point out the obvious, but padding up the kids more than they do in WTF matches and having them go light contact is probably a very good way to further law suit proof your business.

 

[IcemanSK]

Agreed.

Not to point out the obvious, but padding up the kids more than they do in WTF matches and having them go light contact is probably a very good way to further law suit proof your business.

I was invited to an ATA BB test by my friends whose daughters were testing. They even broke boards with sparring gear on that night. One adult testing for 2nd Dan asked if he could break without his gloves on. He was denied, and the look on his face showed the entire room how ridiculous the thought of breaking one board with a punch with safety chop-style gloves really is.

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

I was invited to an ATA BB test by my friends whose daughters were testing. They even broke boards with sparring gear on that night. One adult testing for 2nd Dan asked if he could break without his gloves on. He was denied, and the look on his face showed the entire room how ridiculous the thought of breaking one board with a punch with safety chop-style gloves really is.

As ridiculous as it sounds, it's probably harder to break the boards with the glove than without, though your technique would still need to be correct, perhaps more so, given that the glove will absorb some of the impact.

Personally though, wearing a glove just takes all of the visual impact out of it; kind of a 'what's the point?' factor. Also, given that kyuk pah is supposed to be a demonstration of hand conditioning, wearing a glove when doing it is really pointless.

 

[SahBumNimRush]

I was invited to an ATA BB test by my friends whose daughters were testing. They even broke boards with sparring gear on that night. One adult testing for 2nd Dan asked if he could break without his gloves on. He was denied, and the look on his face showed the entire room how ridiculous the thought of breaking one board with a punch with safety chop-style gloves really is.

Wow. All I can say is wow. We had an exchange student from Uruguay who was a bb in ATA TKD. She had decent technique and great flexibility, but her sparring proficiency and power were significantly deficient. If this is commonplace in ATA, I now understand why.

 

[IcemanSK]

That was even this guy's point written all over his face as he hit the board. This school closed shortly after this test. The ATA hasn't done well in my town in recent years. I think that has more to do with the folks running them, than lack of interest.

 

[harlan]

I don't really see why a 'fun, feel good, family oriented activity' precludes teaching good martial arts. I can't address TKD, but ATA 'weapons'...kobudo it is not.

This is a bo form for 3rd dan?

I do a search on 'ATA kama'...and don't have the heart to post '2nd' and '3rd' dan weapons forms.

Whenever I get a new student I tell them they have to remember ONE thing: Don't leave your mind at the door. You can forget form, gain or lose technique, but don't forget to ask yourself 'What am I looking at? What is it that I am doing? And will it work?'

I don't think many students are told, or want, to ask questions.

 

[msmitht]

Really? Interest in martial arts has never been higher around San Diego. Manny MMA/BJJ schools taking students away from karate/hkd/tkd schools. Sign of the times. Dads see the Ufc and then they look for something similar. Kids usually do not stay long at those places but a few are doing well. Parents like no charge for rank advancement at bjj/judo schools.
Anyway, I took my best friends son to a wtf tkd school yesterday and his mom liked the training better. He was bummed as there was no weapons class but he'll get over it.

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

He was bummed as there was no weapons class but he'll get over it.

I've always considered the weapons programs in most schools to be gimmicky. The kids love them and some adults find them interesting, but unless your art has a traditional weapon program (hapkido, aikido, some karate ryu, etc.), it is probably just grafted on filler to provide a wow factor for potential students.

 

[dancingalone]

I don't really see why a 'fun, feel good, family oriented activity' precludes teaching good martial arts. I can't address TKD, but ATA 'weapons'...kobudo it is not.

This is a bo form for 3rd dan?

It is indeed not kobudo, though to be fair I don't think they claim it is. I think most of the people in the know within the ATA will readily admit their weapons study is more sourced from the XMA trend than from Okinawan weapons arts.

I don't think many students are told, or want, to ask questions.

I've got lots of those. I'll attribute it to youth and inexperience and honestly a lack of curiosity. The majority of the people in any situation are passive bystanders who are content to go with the flow, do their time, and walk away when the time comes. I'm guilty of the same at times (various required courses in college for example).

Not everyone is elite. Not everything has the most depth, the best quality, or highest recognition. And it really should be fine that way. You and I are not interested in this kind of bo practice. But perhaps some are.

 

[harlan]

Yes, I was. And it took quite some time to find a good situation...and I was already looking.

I'm of the opinion that a student can't see until a teacher points the way, and it's the waste of potential, the burying of interest of those 'some' that bothers me. Hard enough to find students, much less good ones, with so much distraction running interference.

 

[dancingalone]

I believe that when a person is ready, a teacher will come some way, some how. Or to put it in less karmic fashion, I bet a lot of these people were never in the market for serious kobudo study in the first place, so I don't think there was any really wasted.

I see it regularly at the TKD dojang I operate. There is not much overlap between the pool of students who study TKD and the much smaller set of karate students (who do study kobudo). Part of the reason is because I did not start the TKD dojang myself - I purchased an existing operation and have largely kept much of the existing structures in place. But interestingly when the TKD students were given the opportunity to take classes in Goju-ryu and kobudo, the ones who tried it out did not stick around for the most part. Too different from what they are used to. Now if some of them had started out as karate/kobudo people would they be happy with it? Perhaps. But what about the dozens of kids I have doing TKD that think hojo undo and sanchin is boring? Different markets - different demographics.

 

[harlan]

While I subscribe personally to the romantic karmic notion of 'teacher/student being ready', I have to agree to disagree on the 'different markets'. I think people don't know WHAT they want when they walk through the door...although on a subconscious level other things are happening. I tell them 'you may not get what you want...but you may get what you need.'

Those TKD students that can't empty their cups..it's like saying don't bother forcing kids to read books when they can just 'google' something. A whole lot easier doesn't make it right.