skribs127 148
Grandmaster
Roughly 3 years ago, I posted this thread. At the time, I had just started my BJJ journey. Since then, I have become a mascot of my BJJ gym (quite literally, I'm present in at least half of the instagram posts), where I have become one of the highest-ranking students in the adult class. I've been as involved in my BJJ gym as I was in my old TKD gym. Now, as a 4th degree black belt in TKD and a 4th degree blue belt in BJJ, I thought I'd look back on that old thread and reflect on my opinions comparing TKD and BJJ, both what they were back then, and on how those opinions have changed over the last 3 years. It also helps that during this time I have dabbled a bit into Muay Thai and MMA, and am regularly training (and leading) cardio kickboxing, which has given me an additional perspective on my striking skills. (And, as I mention in the other thread, I am also a black belt in Hapkido, if that comes up).
The first thing I'd like to mention looking back at the old thread is how much my BJJ gym has grown. At the time, a typical class was Professor running it, 1-2 purple belts, and a handful of white belts. We've recently moved into a new gym, where now we have a typical adult class consisting of 12-18 students (a good mix of white and blue), and those aforementioned purple belts are now brown belts on the coaching side. As the school has grown, we've found more and more training partners. It took a year or so for me to "figure out" how I'm supposed to move, and then as we started getting new white belts I started having more and more success against them. To the point now where most new folks that come in, even if they're significantly stronger than me, I can relatively easily maneuver them around while they learn how to protect their base.
The second thing I'd like to mention is where I had commented on my TKD Master being a good teacher but a poor mentor, and how much I really loved my BJJ professor. Both of those are more true today than they were then. My BJJ professor has all of the soft skills that I wish my TKD Master had. This is something I've gone into at length in other threads and don't want to derail this thread with past drama. Instead, I want to say how much I appreciate the man I'm currently training under, and who is my role model for the kind of Master I want to be when I open my own school.
Now that I am coaching the kids classes in BJJ, I have a different perspective on it. Instead of looking at BJJ and TKD from the perspective of a student, I look from the perspective of a coach, especially a kid's coach. There are some interesting similarities and differences in the approach.
The first thing I'd like to mention looking back at the old thread is how much my BJJ gym has grown. At the time, a typical class was Professor running it, 1-2 purple belts, and a handful of white belts. We've recently moved into a new gym, where now we have a typical adult class consisting of 12-18 students (a good mix of white and blue), and those aforementioned purple belts are now brown belts on the coaching side. As the school has grown, we've found more and more training partners. It took a year or so for me to "figure out" how I'm supposed to move, and then as we started getting new white belts I started having more and more success against them. To the point now where most new folks that come in, even if they're significantly stronger than me, I can relatively easily maneuver them around while they learn how to protect their base.
The second thing I'd like to mention is where I had commented on my TKD Master being a good teacher but a poor mentor, and how much I really loved my BJJ professor. Both of those are more true today than they were then. My BJJ professor has all of the soft skills that I wish my TKD Master had. This is something I've gone into at length in other threads and don't want to derail this thread with past drama. Instead, I want to say how much I appreciate the man I'm currently training under, and who is my role model for the kind of Master I want to be when I open my own school.
Now that I am coaching the kids classes in BJJ, I have a different perspective on it. Instead of looking at BJJ and TKD from the perspective of a student, I look from the perspective of a coach, especially a kid's coach. There are some interesting similarities and differences in the approach.
- Both build soft skills, such as discipline, respect, and perseverance. However, I believe that TKD teaches these formally and BJJ informally. If you're not disciplined in TKD, you're told about it as a failure to meet the tenets of TKD. If you're not disciplined in BJJ, you simply don't progress your skills as fast as someone who is.
- Different personalities benefit more from one style of teaching or the other. BJJ is very much an "iron sharpens iron" martial art. But what if a student isn't iron? We had one kid in our BJJ classes who would spiral pretty much every class. He would get frustrated when a technique didn't work (even in drills), and his frustration would make him sloppier, which would mean the technique fails even earlier, which would frustrate him more, and so on. It was 50/50 whether or not he would have a meltdown each class. I feel this kid would have been much better suited for a TKD style of teaching and would have thrived in my classes if I had already opened. We also have a bunch of kids that are incredibly good at BJJ and very creative with their techniques, and would probably be bored with the more static approach of TKD.
- There are reasons we do things in TKD the way that we do them, other than just "TKD doesn't know the right way". In this point, I'm going to compare switch kicks in TKD vs. Muay Thai. In TKD, the switch before the kick is usually done with both feet moving at the same time, you just pop an inch off the ground and switch your hips, and then pop back with the other foot. In Muay Thai, you do a stutter step to bring the lead leg back and then step out with the rear leg to set up the kick. Recently, I tried the Muay Thai way with a TKD stance, and it was super slow. I've realized that the movements and the stances go together.
