To draw firm your earlier examples, go to any boxing school. There will be students who regularly spar. Even in a boxing school with s losing record, you'll find guys that spar. Go to any bjj school and you'll find guys who roll with resisting opponents regularly. In the lowest denominators you have blue and purple belts claiming higher rank, but they could still out grapple most people with no bjj training.
My TKD experience is that people who attend Kukki TKD schools can spar. fitness level may vary because Taekwondo is an inclusive art, but the mid-grade guys can still spar at least competently, and spar regularly.
Now go to a tkd school. You may find light contact or no contact sparring, said school may not spar at all.
Does not reflect my experience of any Taekwondo school I have ever visited.
You'll see child black belts, accelerated black belt club programs.
Never seen this in person either.
Time is spent on kata and theory.
No it isn't, time is spent on poomsae and theory. Time is spent on theory in any martial art, including boxing and BJJ. Poomsae is the core of the art on which sparring is built and from which self defence principles are extracted.. You clearly don't understand that much about Taekwondo - so why spout off about it?
How does the fitness level of students at your average tkd school compare to the boxing school?
Just fine in my experience. In fact, in many cases exceptionally well.
How much weight does the rank carry compared to a bjj school?
Depends wholly on the club and instructor. In both arts.
Like I said, there is potential in tkd but the commercialized aspect of the art hinders it as a system. You have to be objective when considering a school. I could link my local tkd schools and no one would be impressed. I have criticisms of my own FMA system, and I surely don't think all the schools associated with it are of superior quality. That doesn't matter to me, I see the deficiencies and make sure I do better. Just be honest and admit tkd has a trend lackluster schools in the commercial martial arts market and do what you can to separate what you do from that.
That's exactly what I am doing here- you are making broad sweeping statements about Taekwondo, and I am differentiating Kukki Taekwondo from that. I just don't believe it is a national or global trend, when there are so many positive examples of Taekwondo out there, and my not inconsiderable experience of training Taekwondo in different countries does not reflect your generalisations at all.
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