punching

[ralphmcpherson]

Im always hearing and reading how tkd apparantly does about 20% punching to 80% kicking and to me this doesnt sound right. I was just wondering how much punching work you guys do at your clubs , is it every night , once a week , once a month or less? Also , how extensively do they teach it , do they really go right into the technical side of punching or do they just keep it simple? Id be interested to know what is "normal" at most tkd clubs.

 

[wushuguy]

In my experience and from other schools i've visited, punching in TKD is very common in forms and "1 step self-defense" however, it is much less common in sparring. even many instructors I know say they would still kick in a confrontation first, and some have done that effectively.

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

Im always hearing and reading how tkd apparantly does about 20% punching to 80% kicking and to me this doesnt sound right.

In the WTF rule set, that would be about right, if a bit generous to the punches. At high levels, WTF competition is nearly 100% kicks from what I have seen. The last competition I went to, I can count on one hand the number of punches I saw and still have fingers left over.

Cannot speak for ITF or ATA competition, though I believe that ITF competition is more balanced between hands and feet.

I was just wondering how much punching work you guys do at your clubs , is it every night , once a week , once a month or less? Also , how extensively do they teach it , do they really go right into the technical side of punching or do they just keep it simple? Id be interested to know what is "normal" at most tkd clubs.

Pretty much what Wushuguy said. There are a lot of hand techniques in both Kukki taekwondo and Chang Hon and Songham taekwondo forms, and most SD will be hand focused the majority of the time.

Daniel

 

[Manny]

Im always hearing and reading how tkd apparantly does about 20% punching to 80% kicking and to me this doesnt sound right. I was just wondering how much punching work you guys do at your clubs , is it every night , once a week , once a month or less? Also , how extensively do they teach it , do they really go right into the technical side of punching or do they just keep it simple? Id be interested to know what is "normal" at most tkd clubs.

.

Well thing concersn me alot cause as you feel TKD has to have both (fists/hand techs and kicking) the name says it Tae Kwon Do The way of the fist and feet.

However we must realize koreans wanted to get rid of any japanese and chinese influence when they created TKD son that's why TKD basically is a kicking art to stand apart from karate,kungfu,etc.

But back to your questions, in my dojang we do mostly... KICKS and rarely punches or hand techs (hitting with the bare hand), I can say we do punch techs once or twice per month and the only techs we do is the reverse punch (baro chirugi) to the midsection and the face, yestarday we do some kyorugi techs were we use our lead arm to block a coming kick and use the reverse puncho as a counter.

However gadly I can tell you my sambunim bought 4 heavy bags and we are using them to punch, the punches that we are using are the jab, the cross,the upper cut and the hook. I supose we are going to punch more I mean punching class once a week.

We do hand techs in poomsae too, and one step sparring but in free sparring (WTF rules) we don't use the hands so much, however in sparring I tend to use hands (not to much) just to counter and very close, the other people does not use their hands.

Manny

 

[dancingalone]

The local WTF style dojang in my town frequent spars with the students holding small kicking shields in both hands. This makes the drill entirely focused on kicking. While it is bizarre to me, I can't deny it's popular with the kids.

 

[sfs982000]

I practice ATA Tae Kwon Do and at my school, we're pretty well balanced with both hand and foot techniques. The forms have a fair number of hand techniques and a few times a month we concentrate part of the class strictly on striking combinations (jabs, hooks, crosses, uppercuts, etc...).

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

If you do not mind my asking, what are the ATA sparring rules like?

Daniel

 

[ATC]

I would say that our school is about 70% kicking and 30% punching in practice. However our adult classes do more punching than the kids classes. Sometimes there will be entire class times spent on just punching. it is almost like a boxing class when doing this. I find it refreshing as it gives the legs a break. From time to time we even do some sticky hands or traping techniques as well. But this is only in the adult classes. Kids classes are about 90/10.

As Wushuguy stated. Most of the onesteps and SD are all hands related, if not punching you will be joint locking and or thowing most of the time.

With that said our WTF competition team is 99.9% kicking, with the one exception of the cover punch to the hogu.

 

[sfs982000]

If you do not mind my asking, what are the ATA sparring rules like?

Daniel

I just started sparring a couple of months ago since they don't actually let you spar until you hit the infamous camo belt. Now I admit I had been talked to the first couple of times because I was going to "rough". I was used to sparring fairly stiff and they do tend to go minimal contact. Kicks to the head are legal and hand strikes are not. Hand and foot techniques are legal to the chests and sides. No sweeps or throws or kicks to the legs.

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

Sounds similar to WTF sparing: kicks to torso and head, straight punches to torso. I was also curious as to whether or not competitors simply eschew punching entirely as is often done in WTF.

Daniel

 

[myusername]

The Tae Kwon-do Association of Great Britain's (TAGB) competition sparring rules score 3 points for a head kick, 2 points for a mid section kick and 1 point for any hand technique (head or mid-section). This means that even in our non self defence free sparring we use and develop hand techniques. Additionally the TAGB use the Chang-Hon forms and these contain lots of hand techniques. Our 3 step, 2 step and 1 step all contain hand techniques. On top of this my instructor is very keen on teaching us practical self defence that incorporates lots of punching, palm heels, power slaps and hammer fists. Also one of our warm up drills is punching combinations that increase in complexity as it progresses (we don't do this drill every session but it rears its tiring little head at least once or twice a month!)

But we also do lots and lots and lots and lots of kicking!

I would say that in my Tae Kwon-do if it is not 50/50 then it is at least 60% kicking 40% hand techniques (not limited to punching only.)

 

[mango.man]

I suspect that as long as corner judges are still needed to score head shots, that they will be just antsy enough and wanting to push buttons that you will start to see more punces being scored in WTF competition featuring e-hogus. Just my opinion though.

 

[ralphmcpherson]

The reason I asked was because my original instructor did not teach much punching but when he did he was very knowlegable on the subject and would put a really good lesson in on it. My new instructor , however , is an avid boxing fan and is quite a good boxer (and a 7th dan tkd) and he teaches punching much more regularly and Im finding it quite enjoyable. We spar by the WTF rule set but my club does not like to do any scoring because then people tend to only use techs that "score" rather than just getting stuck in. We are strongy encouraged that in sparring many punches should be thrown at the hogu and Ive seen many a good kicker get put on his backside from a really strong punch to the mid section. We actually have a few black belts who use more punches than kicks when sparring and its great to watch.

 

[StudentCarl]

In every class we integrate hand techniques with stance work during line drills. We do heavy bag combinations (boxing) once or twice a month for conditioning, and throw in elbows and knees (great cardio). Of course they're included in one-steps and forms. When sparring (WTF) we only practice hand techniques with specific attacks or counters such as block and cover punch counter to fast kick. I've seen arms broken blocking and hands broken punching, so we are careful to teach both good technique and good judgment.
We coach our students not to go crazy with punching, unlike some opponents in local tournaments. We gain a lot of points from punchers who leave their heads unprotected, and even our yellow belts learn out-to-in crescent kick to head in practice.

Carl

 

[Miles]

Rather than just calling it "punching", I will say we do "hand techniques."

We use the same punching mitts as boxers use and do numerous striking drills: cover punch both front and back hands, back fist, hammer fist, elbows. I don't like using the paddles for hand techniques but that is my personal feeling.

We rarely do hand techniques on the heavy bag though we do elbows on the heavy bag regularly.

Our hand technique practice on the mitts is not as often as kicking drills on the paddles/shields/bag. This is because of my belief that it is easier to teach punching as folks generally have better control over their arms than their legs.

 

[DBZ]

We are a USCDKA school and we do alot of combos with hands involved. alot of ridge hands and such