Sport vs Traditional

[troubleenuf]

OK... in the years Ive been teaching Ive never had one of my students come into the gym and tell me they have been #1. Mugged, #2 beaten up #3 attacked in a dark alley whatever. Now granted we live in the upper midwest so we are in a relatively mild area of the country and we teach both sport and traditional style however when I read the posts about how bad sport is and how they could never defend themselves I wonder... have you ever realy seen a so called "sport" trained TKD player not be able to defend themselves when they needed to. Now Im not talking about the my grandma herd about my cousin seeing someone saying that they saw someone getting their butt kicked. Im talking seeing in person. So for real. Have you actually seen it?

 

[Fimbulvinter]

I've never even heard of a taekwon-do practitioner being mugged irl. Seen them beaten up in the ring on youtube videos only.

 

[mastercole]

I've never even heard of a taekwon-do practitioner being mugged irl. Seen them beaten up in the ring on youtube videos only.

I saw a pizza delivery guy get beat up on youtube, he was fighting some boxer. Then the carwash guy came in the ring and he beat up the boxer. Make sense?

 

[ralphmcpherson]

Yes once. It was in my last year of highschool and one of my best mates was a 1st dan tkdist doing sport tkd. He was good, very fast, good technique etc. Him and I were playing footy and one of the other kids came over and started hassling us and as schoolkids do, a fight erupted. My mate got his *** handed to him. Basically the other guy smothered him and gave him no room to move and just punched like there was no tomorrow. I had sparred with my mate (I did karate at the time) and he was very good providing he had distance and didnt have to use his hands, his legs were weapons but he needed the correct range to use them. Im not bagging on sport tkd bcause I have also seen a sport tkdist kick some *** on the street, but I have seen it go the other way also. Tkd can be really effective as long as you use your hands, my instructor likes to see at least one solid punch for every 2 kicks thrown to "remind us we have fists" as he puts it.

 

[StagTown]

my instructor likes to see at least one solid punch for every 2 kicks thrown to "remind us we have fists" as he puts it.

good on your instructor, hes teaching more of an original contact teakwondo! imho sport tkd moved away from use of hands/arms a long time ago, maybe im too ol skool but 4 weapons are better then 2

 

[ralphmcpherson]

good on your instructor, hes teaching more of an original contact teakwondo! imho sport tkd moved away from use of hands/arms a long time ago, maybe im too ol skool but 4 weapons are better then 2

I couldnt agree more. One of the first things my instructor said to me was "you can be the best kicker in the world but if you cant punch you're screwed in a real fight".

 

[mastercole]

I couldnt agree more. One of the first things my instructor said to me was "you can be the best kicker in the world but if you cant punch you're screwed in a real fight".

If anything, the punch in Olympic style Taekwondo sparring competition has become highly developed over the past 20 years with the implementation of the cover punch. I see many players who have this down to a science, fast, hard, explosive and stunning to their opponents body, sinking in those two knuckles, penetrating the hogu. It has truly formed into the "one strike, one kill" idea for many. Spain and Iran had this down tight at the Korea Open. And Canada, who aimed a little to high and knocked out Iran with a straight punch to the chin, Iran was taken to the hospital, this disqualified Canada, took out Iran and gave the USA the gold.

In self defense, it is easy to raise that punch by 6 to 8 inches and land one on the jaw, and with this kind of straight punch, you really only need one to finish the fight.

If a Taekwondo fighter decides to punch the face, it's going to be a serious problem for the person on the receiving end.

 

[Manny]

About punches.... the only punches I see on sport tkd are the reverse puncho to the hogu and the intention of this punches are to create room to use the leg, it's true the tkdoings favor the long range combat because this is our confort zone to deliver our best kicks, however I think is wiser to use hands and feet to fight, some times is dificult to get the right distance to deliver a very good blow so using hands in close and feet longe rang is a better thing to do.

We have some very good hand techs to use in self defense not only punches, a knife hand to the temple or to the troat has it's adventajes, a very nasty slap to the face is good too, the spear hand to the eyes can be a good aqualizer, the elbow to the soles plexus is devastating, a palm strike to the nose (ouch)!, a tkdoing ahs many many hand techs to use in real combat plus the kicks.

Manny

 

[seasoned]

What you train and feel comfortable with is what you will use. If you do a lot of groan kick and kicking to the knee practice, this is what you will use. On the same hand if you favor high kicks then this is what you will use. Which are better and what works well is personal choice, in my book. When I was young and loose I could head kick very well, but never taught it in my 8 week self defense classes, which I had periodically through out the years. In my life time I have bounced, did security work and at this time, I am a peace officer involved in court security work. Generally this is done in very tight surroundings, with things happening very fast. I feel that with the various jobs I have had over the years, that high kicks were a detriment, and more close quarter tactics were appropriate for getting the job done.

 

[StudentCarl]

We have some very good hand techs to use in self defense not only punches, a knife hand to the temple or to the troat has it's adventajes, a very nasty slap to the face is good too, the spear hand to the eyes can be a good aqualizer, the elbow to the soles plexus is devastating, a palm strike to the nose (ouch)!, a tkdoing ahs many many hand techs to use in real combat plus the kicks.

Manny

I agree that we have many good tools, and more than just hands. It also bugs me how few Taekwondoin learn and practice sweeps, lower leg attacks, don't learn how to catch a kick or damage the kicking leg, and train themselves not to use foot and knee blocks because they're not allowed in sport. I'm a big fan of sport, and I do think it gives skills that transfer to defense...but I think it is necessary to train techniques and targeting that are defense specific to be well-rounded as a student. Otherwise you're only studying part of Taekwondo. I don't hear about many folks working hand combinations on paddles or shields...usually it's kicks because the folks who put in quality time with paddles and shields are sparring competitors. But that's how you add footwork to technique, not standing with a heavy bag. I wish there were more days in the week to train!

 

[troubleenuf]

OK... so after a day we get ONE response back that has actually seen a sport guy get his but handed to him... ONE... Now granted there will be more. But I guarantee there will be a couple "traditional" guys out there who have had their butts handed to them as well. My point being sport TKD isnt the big bad thing that the traditional tkd people try to portray it as. The thing is if you are a mugger/robber whatever you are not looking for a confident type person to rob/mug. YOu are looking for an easy mark. A trained person, be it traditional or sport, is not going to come off as an easy mark. So throw out all those silly arguments about sport guys having your hands down and how they could never defend themselves and dada dada da... The truth is... THEY CAN. Or at least they obviously very seldom have to which is even better!

 

[Steve]

Angel Valodia Matos at the Beijing Olympics. He roundhouse kicked the ref in the head when the ref was completely off guard and it didn't hurt the ref at all. If there was ever a more compelling argument against point sparring, I haven't seen it.

 

[seasoned]

Angel Valodia Matos at the Beijing Olympics. He roundhouse kicked the ref in the head when the ref was completely off guard and it didn't hurt the ref at all. If there was ever a more compelling argument against point sparring, I haven't seen it.

This was clearly a point sparring kick, pulled at the last second.

 

[Steve]

Well, yeah. That's my point. He was so conditioned to pull his kick, that even in anger he couldn't pull the trigger. I'm not arguing that a roundhouse kick is ineffective. I've seen plenty of guys go lights out from a well timed kick to the noggin.

 

[chrispillertkd]

Was Matos from a point sparring background before competing at the Olympics? WTF sparring competitions are full contact (hence the use of hogu), including at the Olympic level. There's no training to pull your kick at the last second in such events since winning by knock out is legitimate.

Pax,

Chris

 

[ATC]

If your school is only teaching Olympic sparring then you are what is called a sport only school and not a TKD school. A good TKD school will teach everything. Many have a sport team or club with in the school but that is a selected few students, but the majority of the students will be learning TKD.

I know that in our school we only have 15 students that do the sport and the other 200+ students don't. They learn punching, kicking, pressure points on nerves, small and large joint locks, knees elbows, and chokes.

Even if you want to be on the sport team you must attend your regular classes. If you fail to do so you are removed from the sport team.

We start every class off with punches. Punches aimed at the filtrum, punches aimed at the solar plexus, and punches aimed at the abdomen or groin. We then move to knife hand strikes. Kicking is always last, but yes, it is our longest section.

Our one steps by comparison to what I see of others on YT use much more elbows and knees. We have a couple that use kicks but the majority of them are hand and knee strikes and end with locks and take downs.

I know that there are schools out there that only teach the sport, but that is not a bad thing. If that is what you want then that is the school for you. Just like there are schools out there that don't teach the sport at all, also not a bad thing. Then that are schools that do teach both and allow you to pick what you want to do.

It is each individuals choice so why do people care?

 

[seasoned]

Well, yeah. That's my point. He was so conditioned to pull his kick, that even in anger he couldn't pull the trigger. I'm not arguing that a roundhouse kick is ineffective. I've seen plenty of guys go lights out from a well timed kick to the noggin.

Point well taken

, Superfoot Wallace comes to mind in regards to this kick.

 

[ATC]

WTF sparring is full contact not feather touch. They don't train to pull anything. Anyone that has competed WTF will know that, those that don't not will not.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Nothing against sport MA and I can’t add much to this discussion but old school, pre-Olympic, non-sport TKD, as I trained it, had close in fight training and some simple locks

 

[puunui]

About punches.... the only punches I see on sport tkd are the reverse puncho to the hogu and the intention of this punches are to create room to use the leg

That is one way to use a cover punch in Taekwondo competition. More common though would be use of the front hand to punch while blocking or "covering" with the rear arm, since for the most part people kick to the front side of the hogu.

But competition has evolved to the point where players are going for punches to score in and off themselves. One of my students in fact lead this charge. He scored four punches one year at Nationals, on his way to winning gold. (Went on to make team that year too). He was dropping people with his punches. At the time, one point for a punch at a tournament is a rarity; four scoring punches is unheard of, at least at the time. Other martial artists from different styles who want to stereotype Taekwondoin as having no punching ability should rethink that position. Again, we are interested in everything having to do with Taekwondo, punches being a part of that everything.