Self Defense in TKD class

[Daniel Sullivan]

Thank you all for your responses. Most of you all were helpful, others jumped on the attack, but I expected a little of that. We do not do point sparring, we only do olympic style sparring.

I hate to break it to you, but Olympic style is point sparring. It is continuous, which I think is good, but it you are still trying to out score the other guy. Head shots are popular because the head is worth more points.

Again, basics: areas of the body that need the least amount of pressure to do the most damage etc. The 8 year old might be able to do a wrist lock when he is 15, but then again, the chances of him having a one on one attacker and come out okay is pretty slim. I would rather him get out of there fast.

I agree. This is why I suggested sticking to the SD material that is in taekwondo, most of which involves blocking and striking. The reason that iit is good to teach wristlocks to children is not so that they can do them but so that they know how it is done. The companion to this is teaching them how to get out of a wristlock and to prevent having one applied to you in the first place.

Someone mentioned teaching for rank, and how bad that was. We test our kids on our curriculum. If your test is your standard for a belt rank, then that is what you strive for. It is reinforcement for learning.

That was me. And teaching for rank is not the same thing as using tests as a vehicle for teaching and reinforcement of the student's knowledge.

If your goal is to develop your students, then use tests, rank, and any other aid that you can. But focus on developing your students without concern for rank.

A lot of schools teach for rank with a goal of getting the students to blackbelt. Some even call it (and I shudder in typing this) graduation. This does not develop the students. It just moves them through the curriculum so that they can get another belt. The focus then becomes the belt. This is how you get students that learn material for belt testings then promptly forget it until they have to know it for black belt. Then they cram and practice to pass that test, then they forget it again.

If that is not what you are doing then great. But in your OP, you indicated that adding SD would be more material and make it more difficult for students to get to the next rank. SD is way more important to your students on a practical level than any piece of colored cloth or trophy from competition, so making it a primary part of your curriculum should be a no-brainer, especially for someone who has a strong SD background, as you say you do. Also, basic self defense is generally not overly advanced, as it is based more on gross motor skills that can be easilly executed in a pinch, so inclusion should not be overly difficult.

If they do well on the test, that means that we are teaching it right.

Not necessarily. Could just mean that your tests are too easy.

If most of them don't that means we need to modify our teaching strategy. We have many requirements for testing, including knowledge, protocol, vocabulary, kicks, poomse, breaking as well as olympic style sparring. I feel that its pretty comprehensive (as they take about 2.5 hours).

Per student per rank? Or is the testing of all of your students 2.5 hours? Makes no difference either way; just curious.

I felt that many of you got on the defensive very quickly and it must of been for my wording. I especially want to thank one of the last people that commented saying how their school structures their month (one week sparring, etc). That is more of what I was looking for. BTW, we profit about 10 dollars from every belt test, because we do not consider ourselves a belt factory.

While I am glad that you got the answers you were looking for, that is not the question that you asked. Nobody was defensive. That would have required you to have been antagonistic in some way, which you were not.

Also, nobody jumped to the attack, as you put it. That statement is a touch of defensiveness on your part. There were no antagonistic posts in this thread.

You received honest answers to what you did ask, which had absolutely nothing to do with class structures. You asked if self defense was necessary in taekwondo in order to run a successful school. That is very different from what you say that you were looking for.

You implied also that you are a sport only school. That will color how people read your questions. In your post that I am responding to, you have described something that is not a sport only school (which is a good thing, by the way)

As I said in my last post, if I come across as picking at you, that is not my intent. My intent is to answer you honestly, which is always best.

Daniel

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

Every Ju Jitsu guy I ever met from several Gracies to my own instructor has told me that for a serious threat you need to finish the confrontation as quickly as possible. This is done with a strike (hand , foot, elbow, etc.) You can't be focusing on controlling someone while their friend(s) may be kicking the spit out of you.

Check out videos of assaults on the web. See how many were succesfuly countered with joint locks and chokes.

See how prison guards go in for cell extractions . See how they control people with joint locks or restraining holds -NOT.

Yes, MMA uses Joint locks and holds. But there are two important factors at play. 1. These guys are used to absorbing a lot of punishment during the few seconds it takes to apply it. 2. Rules prevent techniques that will neutralize many holds. How many people are going to maintain a joint lock if you stick your fingers in their eyes?

LEO's need to exercise some restraint due to potential consequences of their action. For the private citizen the only consequence of concern is survival.

This is what I had assumed you meant. Best defense is to stay out of trouble. Barring that, the goal is to get out, not to prolong the encounter. Even if you gain the upper hand, circumstances can change very rapidly. Weapons can be produced, extra goons may appear, or the guy may get out of your hold by some means that you had not trained to prevent and turn the tables.

Maintain as little physical contact with your attacker as possible. If the situation demands a grapple, do it with the intent of escape or immediate incapacitation of the attacker.

Daniel

 

[dortiz]

Regarding self defense:
I cant agree more about life and death situations. What about the real fights an 8 year old will see between 8 and 25.
Truth be told they wont be a mugger or gang in some bad part of town. They will be school mates or an idiot cousin. I hate that a Black belt cant defend themselves by either not having the training or responding and kicking someone in the head or knee and over doing it, or worse case do nothing from the fear of , "well I would have hurt him so I took the shots and emberassment".
This may be out of line but as a father I want my son to be able to defend himself in all situations. These cases I talk about forge the person in their life. If my son is confident enough to handle the situation with the right amount of control only then do I feel he has learned what he needs to know.
Thats why some ground work is necessary. He will probably be rolling around. Joint locks...heck yeah. Talk about being able to end a situation where that skill will bring the temperature down and yes good kicks and punches. Sometimes that drunk friend may need to get socked good.
8-25 is a long tough road of growing up and having the right skills can make it way easier.

Dave O.

 

[IcemanSK]

We opened up a school about 7 months ago and have been very successful (about 70 students as of today). We don't do a potpourri of martial arts; we strictly teach Olympic Style TaeKwonDo (Kyroogi and Poomse) with some Traditional TaeKwonDo (chechumsugi). How necessary is teaching Self-Defense (such as small joint manipulation: choke holds, wrist locks, arm bars) to having a successful school (future black belts)? Our students come twice a week and it would be difficult to teach quality sparring, poomse, PLUS self defense in order to prepare our kids for their next rank. What do you all think? Also, we do teach few practical self defense skills (eye gouging, pressure points) briefly in order to give kids/adults tools in case they are in a bad situation. I just don't feel that teaching an 8 year old a wrist lock is going to get him out of a bad situation with an adult.

It depends on one's definition of "success." If you're asking a group of Olympic-style instructors the answer might very well be "what you are doing is just fine." But since you're asking folks from the wide spectrum of Tae Kwon Do you may not be getting an answer that you're comfortable with.

In the end, it's your definition of success that should be the one that matters to you.

I wish you all the best.

 

[KELLYG]

I think that self defense is a vital part of any martial art instruction. I do not think that it has to be overly complicated thought especially for young inexperienced students. Joint lock, wrist releases are good but I think that self defenses, should be designed keeping age and rank in mind.

Some simple defenses for the youngest of students would be. Knowing there address and phone number. Having a code word that is between them and their parents so that if someone else has to pick them up from school, in the case of emergency, that they will know that they are safe. Making sure that they understand that some people, men and women, are mean and want to do them harm. How to keep away from the, ya want some candy little boy, or the I've lost my dog type ploys. How about if some one has grabbed them screaming at the top of there lungs, THIS IS NOT MY PARENT. There are very simple strikes, kick to groin, palm heal to nose, boxing of the ears, etc. that are easy for everyone to pick up on.

 

[Manny]

Self defense classes are a must in every dojan/dojo, it's nice to perform high kicks for turnament but this techiniques are wrng in the street. You must schedule a sd class per week, you said in our dojo classes are twice per week so shedule ona class on self defense.

The kids are like pc machines they save all in their data bank, it's easier for them to learn simple self defense tricks that can be useful against a bully in school or to evade or scape from a bad adult.

SD is endless but you can teach some interesting moves, TKD is nt only kicking or pumse, remeber is a martial art.

Manny

 

[Earl Weiss]

Regarding self defense:
I cant agree more about life and death situations. What about the real fights an 8 year old will see between 8 and 25.
Truth be told they wont be a mugger or gang in some bad part of town. They will be school mates or an idiot cousin. I hate that a Black belt cant defend themselves by either not having the training or responding and kicking someone in the head or knee and over doing it, or worse case do nothing from the fear of , "well I would have hurt him so I took the shots and emberassment".
This may be out of line but as a father I want my son to be able to defend himself in all situations. These cases I talk about forge the person in their life. If my son is confident enough to handle the situation with the right amount of control only then do I feel he has learned what he needs to know.
Thats why some ground work is necessary. He will probably be rolling around. Joint locks...heck yeah. Talk about being able to end a situation where that skill will bring the temperature down and yes good kicks and punches. Sometimes that drunk friend may need to get socked good.
8-25 is a long tough road of growing up and having the right skills can make it way easier.

Dave O.

For now, let's address th 8-14 year old range. Most will not have developed physicaly to apply an effective wrist lock. I maintain a solid strike, even to the gut is much more practical and effective SD than small joint manipulation.

 

[Earl Weiss]

This is what I had assumed you meant. Best defense is to stay out of trouble. Barring that, the goal is to get out, not to prolong the encounter. Even if you gain the upper hand, circumstances can change very rapidly. Weapons can be produced, extra goons may appear, or the guy may get out of your hold by some means that you had not trained to prevent and turn the tables.

Maintain as little physical contact with your attacker as possible. If the situation demands a grapple, do it with the intent of escape or immediate incapacitation of the attacker.

Daniel

Ditto. 2 of my favorite SD styles / techniques --- Run Fu and Nike Jitsu.

 

[Earl Weiss]

Concepts behind my SD curriculum:
http://www.geocities.com/ustfregion5/commandments.html?1031002746856

 

[astrobiologist]

Concepts behind my SD curriculum:
http://www.geocities.com/ustfregion5/commandments.html?1031002746856

Not bad Mr. Weiss. It's that kind of realist thinking that martial arts school's need. Teaching the fun stuff (gymnastics, point fighting, staff twirling, handstands, etc.) is okay, but when it comes to an actual study of the martial arts we have to include the self-defense aspect in technique as well as thought. If people aren't thinking about how to defend themselves, then techniques go out the window.

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

Teaching the fun stuff (gymnastics, point fighting, staff twirling, handstands, etc.) is okay, but when it comes to an actual study of the martial arts we have to include the self-defense aspect in technique as well as thought. If people aren't thinking about how to defend themselves, then techniques go out the window.

Not only that, but if people are not learning to defend themselves, calling it martial arts is fraudulent.

Daniel

 

[miguksaram]

I hate to break it to you, but Olympic style is point sparring. It is continuous, which I think is good, but it you are still trying to out score the other guy. Head shots are popular because the head is worth more points.

In essence any competition sparring, even boxing or MMA is point sparring by that definition. Before you say in boxing you try to knock your opponent out, the same holds true in TKD, however, since knockouts are harder to come by...points are more prevalent to go for.

f your goal is to develop your students, then use tests, rank, and any other aid that you can. But focus on developing your students without concern for rank.

My instructor once mentioned that he would love to give every person who walks through the door a black belt their first day. That way they would just focus on the curriculum and not worry abut the rank anymore.

 

[miguksaram]

We opened up a school about 7 months ago and have been very successful (about 70 students as of today). We don't do a potpourri of martial arts; we strictly teach Olympic Style TaeKwonDo (Kyroogi and Poomse) with some Traditional TaeKwonDo (chechumsugi). How necessary is teaching Self-Defense (such as small joint manipulation: choke holds, wrist locks, arm bars) to having a successful school (future black belts)?

I think some clarification needs to be made. I believe you are already teaching self defense by teaching them blocks kicks and punches. Just because you don't do wrist locks doesn't mean you don't do self defense, it just means you don't do that type of self defense.

Success of your school is based on you not what you teach. You can teach every martial art known, but if you are a crappy teacher then you will not be successful. With that said, I would recommend breaking down the curriculum in a way that the students don't have to learn every move just for one rank. Place about 2 or 3 per rank and spend about 15 minutes a class just going over them. You don't need to bombard them with 1000's of locks and joint manipulations. Use the K.I.S.S. method and teach some basic ones that are fairly easy and practical to learn.

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

In essence any competition sparring, even boxing or MMA is point sparring by that definition. Before you say in boxing you try to knock your opponent out, the same holds true in TKD, however, since knockouts are harder to come by...points are more prevalent to go for.

Absolutely. Knock outs are great. Get them when you can. But if you count on them, you will most likely lose on points.

Daniel

 

[Tez3]

I have to ask if when teaching kata Bunkai is taught or are the students just going through the motions to grade? Bunkai done properly and actually taught gives you a great deal of SD.
I honestly hate to think of anyone thinking they can honestly defend themselves if all they do is Olympic TKD, 'proper' TKD no problem. the Olympic stuff, ( yes it's point sparring) is a game to see who will win, it's not fighting or SD.

 

[bluekey88]

For me, TKD (and most Karate-based arts) are comprised of the following elements:

Poomse (forms)
kyorugi (sparring)
kyuk pa (breaking)
Hoshinsul (self defense)

These four elements overlap and interact and the student who is well versed in these areas should be a reasonably skilled fighter. To that list I also include falling/rolling, grappling (clinch and ground fighting), weapons work and research as importrat ancillary skills. However, that's just me.

The bottom line is this, plenty of schools only focus on one or two things from the core list. The students excell at those things...but ultimately they lose out in the bigger picture.

Knowing forms (and by this I mean, knowing the moves and the purpose behind the moves) teaches the fundamentals of motion and can really be th efoundation of an extensive knowledge of self-defense techniques. However, forms is not fighting.

Sparring is a method of pressure testing some of those techniques, but more importantly learning how to physically prevail thorugh pain/exhasution, learning distance/timing, etc. Sparring, however, is dueling and not fighting or self-defense. But the conditioning that it teaches is improtant in those activities.

Breaking teaches focus and accuracy and is a fairly consistent method of measuring progress with certain techniques. However, breaking is not fighting. Boards don't move and (sorry Bruce and MT) they don't hit back. But the skills breaking does teach are useful in fighting and self-defense.

Hoshinsul, and by this I mean doign prescribed one-steps (also tow and three steps), creaing one steps, and free-styling one steps (similiar to randori in Aikido) allow one to safely try combinations of strickes throws and locks. With good partners, one can get quite a bit of resistance and it can almost be sparring. Here, one can try out the techniques and tactics taught in the forms. One can practice the control and focus of sparring, and even push the timing/distance and conditioning of sparring. It can all come together...but it is not fighting. We're workgin with friends who presumably do not wish us harm (and vice versa), it's a known quantity with explicit and non-explicit rules and expectations. BUT, in this practice one can prepare for a fight.

The other stuff I added simply enhances these fundamental practices. falling kjeeps us safe and is (in my experince) the skill most likely to be used in real life outside the dojang, grappling adds a further dimension to both self-defense and sparring when incorporated. One does not have to a jiu-jitsu black belt, but should be familiar with various dfundamentals both clinching and on the ground, fundamental weapons work can enhance pretty much all areas (it was afundamental part of karate before being removed in the Shotokan lineage and thus TKD). Good weapons work works on distance and timing and can enhance empty hand work. It's also goodf to be familiar with various basic weapons from a self-defense standpoint. I'm not talking about leanring a couple of fl;ashy xma forms...UI'm talking about learning basic fundamental weapons attacks and defenses. Cross-training helps by exposing one to the startegies ands tactics used by others. This ca enhanve your own training and maybe allow you to bring new things to your TKD. Researdch? Learning how to learn, to find and evaluate information....there's a lot of BS out there...learning how to get through it to the nuggets of real truth is valuable.

Sorry for the long essay. Anyways, thAt's why SD should be a part of TKD training. Not hatin', just sayin'

Peace,
Erik

 

[terryl965]

Wait Stop the presses, there is Self Defemse in TKD and Martial Arts!!! You can learn to be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, you can stop a locomotion with one hand. You can walk on water and fly like Mike all for $95.00 a month and no hidden cost except all the high tech gadgets we will need when making the film so everyone can belief.

Please cal 1-800-Self Defense and sign up today.

OK in all seriousness today I was just joking around and I believe we teach self defense everyday the only differences is are you teaching what is practical for the real world or our you giving people a false sense of something?

 

[KGTKD]

I hate to break it to you, but Olympic style is point sparring. It is continuous, which I think is good, but it you are still trying to out score the other guy. Head shots are popular because the head is worth more points.

When speaking to most Olympic Style practitioners, when someone refers to point-style sparring, is usually when the competitors are stopped after every point and reset. I just wanted to make that clarification when someone posted about point sparring.

I really thank all of your comments. It seems that we could do a bit more SD in our classes, but I definitely don't think we are doing any false advertising and by our retention rate, I think most our happy with our services. Sorry it took so long to respond back, I was at National Team Trials this weekend, followed by the QUalifier in Austin. It was great!

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

When speaking to most Olympic Style practitioners, when someone refers to point-style sparring, is usually when the competitors are stopped after every point and reset. I just wanted to make that clarification when someone posted about point sparring.

Absolutely. In a technical sense, WTF sparring is continuous point sparring versus point-stop sparring. I can appreciate both, but I do prefer the continuous.

I will reiterate what I said earlier regarding being an tournament school: if that is your main focus, be the best tournament school that you can be while teaching the self defense that is already present in taekwondo. You will find it easier to correlate the WTF style with a striking based self defense than to try to work in hapkido/aikido style techniques into an existing curriculum.

Best wishes to you!

Daniel

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

I have to ask if when teaching kata Bunkai is taught or are the students just going through the motions to grade? Bunkai done properly and actually taught gives you a great deal of SD.

Honestly, I have never seen boon-hae (bunkai) taught with taekwondo poomsae at any school that I have visited or attended. When I teach, I do my own boon hae, based on knowing what the techniques in the poomsae are for, but the Kukkiwon has no established boon hae to my knowledge. From what I have seen from people posting on MT and other places, neither does the ITF, ATA, or ITA, though that is speculation on my part. I started a thread on the subject of bunkai in TKD a while back and the consesus seemed to be that boon hae is not generally taught in most schools. This was reinforced in the thread about Simon O'Neil's book, the Taegeuk Cipher.

I honestly hate to think of anyone thinking they can honestly defend themselves if all they do is Olympic TKD, 'proper' TKD no problem. the Olympic stuff, (yes it's point sparring) is a game to see who will win, it's not fighting or SD.

Thankfully, the OP seems to be aware of that, though I have seen people here (not recently, thank Heaven) argue vociferously that WTF sparring with nothing else is just fine.

As a general rule, being a skilled WTF tournament competitor does provide you with a lot of tools that are useful in SD. Timing, distance sense, reaction and reflexes, and the ability to continue to act after taking a hit.

The major weaknesses of WTF style in relation to SD is the lack of hand techniques, the emphasis on high kicks, lack of any targets below the waist, and of course the fact that it is a form of ring fighting, a weakness built into any competative martial sport.

One comment I would like to make in general: Technically, it is WTF style, not Olympic style, which is taught in Kukkiwon dojangs. There really is no olympic style per se; WTF has formulated the style to be olympic friendly, not to mention spend years and I am sure many dollars in courting the IOC, thus it is the style that is used in the olympics.

Daniel