This is a full contact MA or Sport so there is no place for a sissy

[Manny]

Reading the post of Terry were a fellow described how a sissy's mom try to sue the dojang and owner of it becuase of a hit to the troat of the boy let with a bad taste on my mouth.

Here in Mexico TKD is something a little diferent, when a child wants to take TKD classes the tutor or the paretns must to signe a resposability card where they told the sambunim or dojang the disseases,illness,injures the child had or have and in this card it states that TKD is a full contact ma where one can be hurt so the tutor or the parents know this and could not sue the sambonim or dojang.

In Mexico TKD sambunims can push the kids and even punish the kids if need it, if the parets does not like it the door is wide open.

We need to remeber TKD is a full contact MA/Sport and one's can be injured doing techs or doing kyorugi or kyumpa.

My parenst as a teen stoped going to see me in kup examination afther in my kup test for red belt I had a very nice KO because of a jumping hook kick to the jaw. I remember my dad runing into the mat to help me, I was drogi believe it was a nice kick, my sambunim politely ask my dad to step outside of the mat and I got first aids. However my Dad even he was very worried about me never in life threaten not to mention sue my sambunim or dojang cause he knew MA is and once in while you can be beaten.

I can remenber how my Dad told me: Manny, mom and I are so sorry but won't go to see you do kup examination any more. We suffer to see our kid be beaten.

I got from TKD broken theet and a broken nose and I remeber when my dad told me afther the borken nose: Manny, I don't get it! I pay TKD classes so you can't be beaten on the streets but they beat you in the dojan!!! I really don't get it.

I told dad that TKD is what it is and I loved it.

Last but not the least let me tell you, when the pupils didn't behave inside the dojan (back in the 80's) sambunim just warning you once, if one's keep in bad behavoir the sambunim at the end of the class will spar with you without any kind of protection and beat you very badly to let you know the mesage, NOBODY mess with sambunim!!!

The dojang or the dojo or the box gym is no place for sissy boys and sissy moms, in a full contact sport you can be injured, we must to tell this to the parenst of the kids that want to play the play we do.

Yes, they are a lot fo mom's boys around but we must make very clear the dojang is not a kindergarden, but a place were kicks,pucnhes, etc. are allowed and one's butt can be kick once in a while.

Manny

 

[harlan]

Interesting perspective. A friend of mine, a 4th Dan in Chung Do Kwan just shared a story with me last week regarding his training, and how 'no contact' was strictly enforced in sparring. The emphasis was on CONTROL. I started MA learning weapons, with no protective gear, and this was the first lesson I learned as well. Things get ugly quick if one trains weapons, sticks or kicks, to people that lack it.

 

[d1jinx]

poeple here in the US are sue happy. Yes you have to sign a waiver but the lawyer usually tries to go around that by claiming neglect on the instructors part. There is always some quack lawyer trying to make a buck, who will take every case. They might not win but it still costs you in lawyer fees and insurance claims. This is what our country has become. land of the free and right to sue anyone.

 

[dancingalone]

We've discussed this before...Any time you open up an activity to a large group of people, you inevitably must make the material more accessible. Not a lot of people are willing to go to work the next day with bruises and an occasional cut or two. Not a lot of people want to train to the point of exhaustion. That said, a larger number of people are interested in a moderate workout where they can sweat and burn calories while receiving a modicum of self-defense instructor.

It's up to the school owner to decide what his audience is and plan accordingly.

 

[terryl965]

dancingalone is right people want training as long as they get it the soft way.

 

[Manny]

We've discussed this before...Any time you open up an activity to a large group of people, you inevitably must make the material more accessible. Not a lot of people are willing to go to work the next day with bruises and an occasional cut or two. Not a lot of people want to train to the point of exhaustion. That said, a larger number of people are interested in a moderate workout where they can sweat and burn calories while receiving a modicum of self-defense instructor.

It's up to the school owner to decide what his audience is and plan accordingly.

.

I had a surgeon classmate who used the full protective gear, you know helmet,hogu,forearam pads,shin/instep pads, groing protector,mouth protector and gloves. He told me ha have to take care of his hands caus a broken finger or hand would let him without work (surgeon), however I will use full punches and kicks and he took kicks and punches without regret the same with a dental surgeon, they know TKD is full contact but they cover his hands and take care of them but they play the game very well without complains.

Manny

 

[Aikicomp]

Our Ju-Jitsu style has required elements of sparring (Kumite). Our first rank after white belt we have a test that developes CONTROL of kicks and punches, until you pass this test you can not make ANY contact at all...PERIOD. This serves two purposes:

1. Keeping the students safe and uninjured.
2. Making sure one can CONTROL themselves and the techniques they apply.

If after passing this test the student has a record of NOT being able to CONTROL their techniques they are forbidden to make contact and have to re-take the control test again.

Our system prides itself on the fact that since it's opening we have not had a serious injury due to lack of CONTROL in over 40 years. Don't get me wrong, there have been minor injuries but, nothing to the extent that Manny has incurred or has related.

Spining hook kick to the jaw that KO'd him and a broken nose, a boy who was struck to the throat!! Lucky that boy did not die right there.

IMHO, learning martial arts are a dangerous (after all it's not golf) and every effort should be made not to have foolish and reckless injuries happen due to a lack of CONTROL.

As far as being sissy boy's/girl's/parents...One is not a sissy if one does not want to be injured while they are training because of a lack of CONTROL.

People have lives outside of the school and to risk serious injury for a wanten (sp?) lack of CONTROL is IMO not the way to train to defend yourself.

As you can see my post, it is dedicated to the concept of CONTROL, because without it, we are not martial artists we are just people who know how to destroy with no concept of self restraint and fear of what our skills can do.

As I read this thread I am reminded of something my teacher told me a long time ago:

"We train in the Martial Arts to NOT get hurt...so...why would we want to get hurt while training. It just does not make sense."

Wise words


Michael

 

[TKD_Father]

There's always an "implied risk".

When the sport involves contact there is an implied risk of getting hurt due to contact. Football, basketball, wrestling, hockey, etc..

That doesn't mean players have a carte blanche to violate the rules of the sport. Examples of incidents in hockey can be found HERE.

That said... If a 4th Dan were sparring a Yellow belt and seriously hurt them, they (the 4th) may be subject to legal action. The argument would be that at his level of expertise he should be able to control his attacks in a way as NOT to cause harm to his opponent. If the school allowed this occurrence then they too may be subject to legal action.

I'm not saying that anything like this has ever happened, but in a "lawsuit happy" country like ours, it really wouldn't surprise me.

 

[Manny]

Our Ju-Jitsu style has required elements of sparring (Kumite). Our first rank after white belt we have a test that developes CONTROL of kicks and punches, until you pass this test you can not make ANY contact at all...PERIOD. This serves two purposes:

1. Keeping the students safe and uninjured.
2. Making sure one can CONTROL themselves and the techniques they apply.

If after passing this test the student has a record of NOT being able to CONTROL their techniques they are forbidden to make contact and have to re-take the control test again.

Our system prides itself on the fact that since it's opening we have not had a serious injury due to lack of CONTROL in over 40 years. Don't get me wrong, there have been minor injuries but, nothing to the extent that Manny has incurred or has related.

Spining hook kick to the jaw that KO'd him and a broken nose, a boy who was struck to the throat!! Lucky that boy did not die right there.

IMHO, learning martial arts are a dangerous (after all it's not golf) and every effort should be made not to have foolish and reckless injuries happen due to a lack of CONTROL.

As far as being sissy boy's/girl's/parents...One is not a sissy if one does not want to be injured while they are training because of a lack of CONTROL.

People have lives outside of the school and to risk serious injury for a wanten (sp?) lack of CONTROL is IMO not the way to train to defend yourself.

As you can see my post, it is dedicated to the concept of CONTROL, because without it, we are not martial artists we are just people who know how to destroy with no concept of self restraint and fear of what our skills can do.

As I read this thread I am reminded of something my teacher told me a long time ago:

"We train in the Martial Arts to NOT get hurt...so...why would we want to get hurt while training. It just does not make sense."

Wise words


Michael

Michael thank you very much for your words. I have to agree with you perhaps in most of the things you tell us here, but want to tell you this, in my dojang we control ourselves in our techs (the same in the kenpo class) for security sake, when doing sparring (kyorugi) the sambunim ask for full protection equipment to minimize injuries, yes, we kick hard and punch hard but not viciusly, my injuries were from full power kicks to the head that caught me offguard.

I know that in full contact ma or sport there is the chance of an injury, so does football soccer, so does gymnastics my daughter has have injuries for gymnastics.

Michael, all my classmates and myself use control on the mat, yes there are sometimes when our guard is low and BAM!!! this hapens.

My point is this, if you don't wana your child to be struck or kicked or whatever then don't put your boy in a MA class, it's better to put your boy in a tenis court.

Almost all the time the sambunim or sensei has the control of the class and knows how to deal with it.

Sorry if I sounded to brutal I didn-t mind to. Yes I have recived full blows, had surgery (nose) and wired my teeth, but I knew it was my fault and these don-t make me quit, yes mi parents were worried but never in mind they think to sue my sambonim.

Manny

 

[Manny]

There's always an "implied risk".

When the sport involves contact there is an implied risk of getting hurt due to contact. Football, basketball, wrestling, hockey, etc..

That doesn't mean players have a carte blanche to violate the rules of the sport. Examples of incidents in hockey can be found HERE.

That said... If a 4th Dan were sparring a Yellow belt and seriously hurt them, they (the 4th) may be subject to legal action. The argument would be that at his level of expertise he should be able to control his attacks in a way as NOT to cause harm to his opponent. If the school allowed this occurrence then they too may be subject to legal action.

I'm not saying that anything like this has ever happened, but in a "lawsuit happy" country like ours, it really wouldn't surprise me.

Well done, this is the point were I wanted to come.

Manny

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

There's always an "implied risk".

When the sport involves contact there is an implied risk of getting hurt due to contact. Football, basketball, wrestling, hockey, etc..

That doesn't mean players have a carte blanche to violate the rules of the sport. Examples of incidents in hockey can be found HERE.

That said... If a 4th Dan were sparring a Yellow belt and seriously hurt them, they (the 4th) may be subject to legal action. The argument would be that at his level of expertise he should be able to control his attacks in a way as NOT to cause harm to his opponent. If the school allowed this occurrence then they too may be subject to legal action.

I'm not saying that anything like this has ever happened, but in a "lawsuit happy" country like ours, it really wouldn't surprise me.

Well said!!

Daniel

 

[Aikicomp]

Michael thank you very much for your words. I have to agree with you perhaps in most of the things you tell us here, but want to tell you this, in my dojang we control ourselves in our techs (the same in the kenpo class) for security sake, when doing sparring (kyorugi) the sambunim ask for full protection equipment to minimize injuries, yes, we kick hard and punch hard but not viciusly, my injuries were from full power kicks to the head that caught me offguard.

I've been caught like that as well, had some really sore ribs for a couple of weeks. :wink2:

I know that in full contact ma or sport there is the chance of an injury, so does football soccer, so does gymnastics my daughter has have injuries for gymnastics.

Michael, all my classmates and myself use control on the mat, yes there are sometimes when our guard is low and BAM!!! this hapens.

Times like these will teach you to keep your guards up and not get lazy.

My point is this, if you don't wana your child to be struck or kicked or whatever then don't put your boy in a MA class, it's better to put your boy in a tenis court.

Agreed, although, have you ever played tennis and have been at net and miss a volley coming right at you? :eye-popping: I had red spot the size of a tennis ball on my chest for a week. :rofl: Tennis isn't as safe as one would think. :wink2:

Almost all the time the sambunim or sensei has the control of the class and knows how to deal with it.

Sorry if I sounded to brutal I didn-t mind to. Yes I have recived full blows, had surgery (nose) and wired my teeth, but I knew it was my fault and these don-t make me quit, yes mi parents were worried but never in mind they think to sue my sambonim.

Manny

Your very welcome

Just posted that to try and get us all to remember to keep safe while we train.

Michael

 

[Aikicomp]

Well said!!

Daniel

+1

Michael

 

[Aikicomp]

There's always an "implied risk".

When the sport involves contact there is an implied risk of getting hurt due to contact. Football, basketball, wrestling, hockey, etc..

That doesn't mean players have a carte blanche to violate the rules of the sport. Examples of incidents in hockey can be found HERE.

That said... If a 4th Dan were sparring a Yellow belt and seriously hurt them, they (the 4th) may be subject to legal action. The argument would be that at his level of expertise he should be able to control his attacks in a way as NOT to cause harm to his opponent. If the school allowed this occurrence then they too may be subject to legal action.

I'm not saying that anything like this has ever happened, but in a "lawsuit happy" country like ours, it really wouldn't surprise me.

I try to prevent events like that from happening by always working at the lower rank's skill level or one level above. That way a student can see the mistakes or the good things they are doing and learn from it.

IMO, from a teaching aspect, me going at a Godan level with any kyu rank (or lower Dan rank for that matter) would be rediculous and would not be teaching them anything. Thus I would not be living up to my obligation as a teacher.

Michael

 

[TigerLove]

"We train in the Martial Arts to NOT get hurt...so...why would we want to get hurt while training. It just does not make sense."

Amen.

Offcourse, one must know there is possibility to get hurt on training. And also one must know that when somebody hurts on MA training, somebody's doing something wrong.

What i said above, offcourse can't be applyed on stuff like kickbox, mma fighting, muay thai, etc.

Greetings.

Egon

 

[jeorf]

"Michael, all my classmates and myself use control on the mat, yes there are sometimes when our guard is low and BAM!!! this hapens.

Times like these will teach you to keep your guards up and not get lazy."

Agreed, once you reach a certain rank. Like, maybe black belt. Otherwise, if someone gets hurt in class it's because someone else was out of control and IMO it's up to the sabunim and all instructors to be very clear about that from day one. They should recognize who has learned control of their bodies, their emotions and their egos and who has not and should be able to teach them appropriate power.

In our school no one has to be hurt. If you want to be hurt then you can ask for it (but you probably wouldn't be studying in our school) and if you want no contact (like our 73 year old 1st dan or someone who is hurt or ill) you can ask for that. Otherwise, you can probably be expected to be hit in a rank appropriate way - but for us that never includes a spin kick to the head. That's just crazy. Anyone can make just as big an impression with a controlled force spin kick 2 inches away from the head (and not aimed at someone who doesn't have good enough blocking skills) - something like that stops one of our matches and there is a bow of acknowledgment.

Maybe it's because I'm a woman and, tho I hate to say it, older and because I train at a school where respect and learning so completely overshadows "using" techniques (and probably because my sabunim is an attorney!) but I feel very strongly that one can learn all of the good things that martial arts training has to offer without harming anyone. Can you get hurt? Sure - but it should be an accident and not because someone thought it was important to use a human instead of a heavy bag. That's just showing me arrogance and ego and does not demonstrate what, to me, is the spirit of the martial arts.

Just think what would have happened if all of the warriors who are training were knocked off by their fellow students - not much left to fight the wars.

 

[ChichoBlanco]

I lived in Mexico (Matamoros) for a few years. That is how I learned Spanish. Anyways, there are huge cultural differences as it pertains to law suits. In Mexico if you're a moron and bang your head on a low hanging sign a Mexican court will just assume you should have been watching where you were going. In the US that is a lawsuit. Mexicans are generally much more sensible about those sorts of things.

 

[Shaderon]

I am part of a large acadamy and have a class in a leisure centre, there is another instructor who has TKD classes in the same leisure centre but these are a diff style. (I am ITF style and he is WTF style).
We both have very different attitudes on this subject. His attitude is that if someone is kicking an opponant they kick as hard and as fast as possible because that's the competitions they train for... full contact. In fact they say they don't block because they'd just break their arms... so they don't have that blocking instinct. To me that's suicide!
Our competitions are semi-contact and we train to kick hard and fast and punch and block hard and fast but to pull any strike on contact so it does not damage the opponant, I have been winded a few times from kicks that have been done too hard but it's not a norm, we don't wear body armour they do.
I was talking to the other instructor yesterday and we were both saying we don't like each others way of sparring, I was saying that, to me, they go in too hard and it's not necessary, he was saying we aren't fast enough. Maybe there needs to me something in the middle?

Maybe someone needs to say to people "hang on stop hurting each other and practise control but do it fast and accurately" Surely that would be the measure of a better martial artist?

If we all practised sparring the same way, semi contact in order not to hurt each other we would still be able to turn it on in the street if attacked but would not have to hurt each other to prove ourselves.

I agree with jeorf, we should be able to change what we do and how we fight to suit the person that we are matching against. We also have pensioners in our club and they wouldn't go to a full contact club as they'd just get hurt and they can't recover as well as a younger person but if an unsuspecting hangbag snatcher tried to grab the bag of a certain pensioner lady I know then I would hate to see the outcome for him.

I think that there would be an uproar from students of both sides if TKD was brought together ITF and WTF styles in sparring and patterns.
WTF people would struggle with Patterns (as a whole - I know some do the Chang hon pattern set and some complicated patterns but I do know that as a whole WTF patterns are childs play to an ITF person) and the ITF people would struggle with the sparring (again as a whole I know ITF people that would kick *** in a WTF match but I am saying generally) but if everything was brought together then I think the art would only benefit.

Saying that I don't think we'll see it and differences will continue. Until then I think we all have to realise we have a very very large sliding scale of technical ability and sparring ability in TKD and we do have differences. We should all embrace those differences and learn from each other.

What was this about? contact oh yes.. sorry digressed...

Yes semi contact for me please! I know the hospitals are way too full around here for more full contact sports, I have relatives who are nurses and the sports injuries they witness can be nasty. I don't want to spend more time at hospital than I do now thanks.