TKD can it survive the next

[terryl965]

I was wondering if TKD will survive the next twenty years, I mean the Olympics want more action, the people want more SD orientated schools. The Korean government is looking elsewhere for recognition. What does all these means to all of us? How will this effect what we all know and love? Will there be major changes for the sake of TKD or will it wind up like some other style just a distance memory of it past glory?

 

[Twin Fist]

WARNING
incomming controversial opinion

the olympics are the worst thing to ever happen to TKD

thats right, I SAID IT

There are lots of reasons,but here is mine. Look on YouTube for TKD knockouts.

In pretty much every singe one, the person THROWING the kick falls down too.

it looks pathetic

And it has turned TKD into a joke, a sport.

i HATE WTF TKD

I dont think WTF TKD will survive.

ITF style i think will do fine.

 

[tellner]

It fills a niche and will survive. Its popularity has almost certainly peaked because of competition in a number of the areas it used to dominate. People are more sophisticated martial arts consumers these days. What they want has changed at least a bit. TKD will either change to fit or diminish. I think it will do a bit of both.

 

[SageGhost83]

I was wondering if TKD will survive the next twenty years, I mean the Olympics want more action, the people want more SD orientated schools. The Korean government is looking elsewhere for recognition. What does all these means to all of us? How will this effect what we all know and love? Will there be major changes for the sake of TKD or will it wind up like some other style just a distance memory of it past glory?

I don't see why it wouldn't survive the next twenty years. I think that it will change as more and more people become aware of the Mcdojang schemes and avoid them. That will lead to less dojangs, but higher quality TKD. Olympic TKD will be around as long as it remains an olympic event. TKD is a very fluid martial art that is still growing and expanding, so I doubt that the TKD of 20 years from now will be the TKD that we practice today - just as the TKD of today is not the TKD that was practiced 20 years earlier.

 

[Steel Tiger]

I honestly think that the future for TKD is a very obvious split. We can already see it beginning to happen, and that divide is going to get worse. Ultimately there will be an Olympics-oriented sport called Tae Kwan Do and there will be some thing else which will be SD oriented and will have a different name. Perhaps one of the older names will re-emerge.

Olympic participation is vital to KKW plans so they are never going to move a way from it. What they will do is keep modifying TKD to create competitive spectacles that get bums on seats. SD effectiveness is very much secondary to their way of thinking.

The SD revolution is very likely to come from outside Korea as that seems to be where the majority of the demand appears to be coming from (I don't really know what the situation is in Korea).


By 2030 I expect to see more than one TKD, a sport variation and at least one SD variation, maybe wearing different names.

 

[JWLuiza]

I think we are all on the same page, but I don't think any names will change. I thing the biggest change will be the niche TKD occupied. It used to be the cash cow of the industry, I think that will decline a small to moderate amount as MMA gyms come to the fore, I think this will actually increase the quality of TKD instruction as those who stay with TKD will be more committed to the art than the business....

 

[Brad Dunne]

I doubt that the TKD of 20 years from now will be the TKD that we practice today - just as the TKD of today is not the TKD that was practiced 20 years earlier.

A true statement, but given the fact that today's TKD, in many opinions, has degraded from what was. Using this premise, if it continues to degrade further, than just what would be left?

My opinion is that this very well may be (and should be) the last time TKD will be in the Olympics. Again, degradation has been the focal point of this venue also. Not only my opinion, but that of other's and has been stated as much on other threads. Just a rewind of the last Olympics and you'll see for yourself.

We have the vision of some folks, looking to have TKD return to, as they saw it, it's original element, that being SD focused and I think this attitude is starting to gather more recruits.

There is another element that is causing a drop in the sport aspect and it is two fold. First, just on the local tournament scenes, folks have vented their frustrations, on what they viewed as less than honest outcomes of matches. I'm sure we have all been privy to such happings, if we have attended tournaments. Alligned with this, is the fact that money has become tight for many folks and the aspect of forking over money for a tournament, that is going to take up a full days travel, plus the additional funds to get there and back, eat and of course feed the oil companies, will/can play a major part in folks saying, we can use this money for better things. We have already seen, at least in this area, good sized cutbacks in the amount of attendance at the last couple of tournaments.

 

[YoungMan]

Most likely the WTF and ITF will die and be replaced by kwan-based and smaller organizations. Tae Kwon Do has always been fluid and adapted.

 

[Deaf Smith]

Twin Fist,

I understand your consearn. I have a good friend who is a 3ed black and did lots of 'new style' TKD tournaments. The kicks are interesting and I can see adding them to my set of skills (yes 5th black does not mean one knows everything... or really all that much of anything!) I do detest dropping their guards. Bad ju-ju that.

At the same time it will evolve even more. I'm sure newer ideas on how to increase speed will be born from this competition, and I'll be interested in learning them!

But it will not be SD, which is my passion (and I'm not a rigid TKD technique only guy, I'll steal them from any place I can find good technique.)

I keep an open mind, but I know 'sports' is what brings in the crowds. And right now TKD is the sports.

Deaf

 

[exile]

Great thread, great posts! There isn't one that I disagree with, so far.

I think the logic of the situation will eventually force a change in the TKD world, for the simple reason that while the current curriculum pressure from the Korean TKD directorate attempts to push dojangs in the direction of Olympic-sparring oriented curricula, most of us are not, and never aspired to be, Olympic athletes. We mostly don't want to do our MA primarily as a ring competitive activity. How many of us, when we first signed up at our first MA school, had it in mind that we were getting involved in a new kind of sport competition where we would go to tournaments and try to win trophies? For most of the people I know who do TKD, or any MA, that was the furthest thing from their minds. Little by little they discovered that TKD, dominated as it was of a group of agencies which are effectively the creatures of the Korean government, had been shaped primarily for that country's nationalist aspirations and economic strategy.

Whatever sense that makes for Koreans—and I'm not going to say anything at all about that, since I'm not Korean and have no idea how it looks to them—to me, and to other North Americans who have no competitive aspirations, but who wanted to learn a MA for effective self defense, the idea of learning TKD as the sport that Un Yong Kim and other Korean TKD apparatchiks worked so hard to turn the combat art into is a complete non-starter. We don't want trophies, we want to be effective fighters should the need arise. And eventually, I think a lot of people who feel the same way will have no choice but to collect their marbles and go home. In the North American context, a new approach to TKD will emerge which places first and foremost stress on its role as a proven, effective fighting system—if trained correctly—with emphasis on new training methods, oriented to the use of TKD in practical combat situation, borrowed from the 'reality based' approaches and the noncomplaint training methods that the British Combat Association already uses widely. Bit by be we shall reinvent TKD to suit our own needs, not those of the South Korean economy or of ROK nationalist politics.

 

[garrisons2]

What bothers me most about watching some of the "Olympic" TKD is that they might as well staple their arms to their black belts

 

[Brad Dunne]

To detour slightly, but within the confines of what's been stated, SD wise, what ever happened or is happing to that new organization that Terry informed us about?

 

[exile]

To detour slightly, but within the confines of what's been stated, SD wise, what ever happened or is happing to that new organization that Terry informed us about?

It's not really a detour, I don't think—but I gather that there have been practical problems involved in getting all parties to agree on enough things to get the ball rolling. But it's going to happen, sooner or latter, I'm pretty sure... it's just the kind of thing I'm envisaging as inevitable over the next few years.

 

[terryl965]

To detour slightly, but within the confines of what's been stated, SD wise, what ever happened or is happing to that new organization that Terry informed us about?

Well to answer your question they are talking again and trying to put there differences a side for the betterment if TKD. U am waiting for everything to be done and go from there.

 

[jim777]

Most likely the WTF and ITF will die and be replaced by kwan-based and smaller organizations. Tae Kwon Do has always been fluid and adapted.

I wouldn't mind that at all, honestly.

 

[YoungMan]

Olympic Taekwondo came about because it fit a need of where Korea was at the time. Keep in mind, at the time Dr. Kim declared Olympic TKD his goal, NOBODY believed him. Korea was this barely 2nd World nation, having survived two wars and 30 years of Japanese oppression. So the fact that TKD made it to the Olympics is remarkable in itself.
However, that need has been filled, and TKD is undergoing a LOT of problems by the beast it created, and I think a lot of people (my instructor being of them) see this.
I think the WTF will be made irrelevant, the Kukkiwon will most likely implode from lack of good leadership, the Kwans will reassert themselves due to no central authority, and TKD will look to the past (Kwans, Taekkyon, traditional Korean culture etc.) to see the future.
At the very least, Olympic TKD will become its own entity. The rest of us will move on.

 

[granfire]

It's not really a detour, I don't think—but I gather that there have been practical problems involved in getting all parties to agree on enough things to get the ball rolling. But it's going to happen, sooner or latter, I'm pretty sure... it's just the kind of thing I'm envisaging as inevitable over the next few years.

Hmm, having read up on the history of TKD...that has always been a problem. And that was when it was a relatively small endavour (1950s).

The thing is, there are so many branches and variations now, I don't think 'it' can be killed. TKD is here to stay.

maybe over time Olympic competitors get tired of being hit in the head, after all even boxers cover up...but being Olympic in general has proven a double edged situation for many sports....

 

[igillman]

TKD will survive as long as it is in the Olympics. However, will it survive in the form it is currently in today? Probably not. Everything changes with time. What we may see is yet another split with schools opening up that deal with Olympic TKD and others concentrating on Self Defence. We may end up with ITF, WTF and OTF (Olympic TKD) federations.

 

[tkd1964]

Taekwon-do will survive. For the WTF, it will lose the Olympics and more control of the art will be under the KKW. The leaders will concentrate more on the art then the sport.
For the ITF, I see a more coming together(there are three different groups) of the different factions.

For the Indies, we will continue to see more groups pop up with new ideas and training methods.

Never say die!!:snipe2:

 

[StuartA]

Things move in circles.. TKDs popularity will go up and down, but it will still be there in one form or another. Things may be slightly different but not much.

I think the biggest effect will be if the WTF lose the Olympic mandate.. how that will effect WTF TKD is anyones guess.. personally I dont think it will help popularity wise, but will be of help from a martial POV (no offence to any WTF'ers) as it wil make them re-examine what they want/need to achieve, as at the moment that seems to be the main goal pushed forward (Olympic sparring) though I know many clubs have a fuller curriculium.

ITF TKD (as its derivitaves) will still be doing the same.. a few changes but not many, I think those who want to train/teach the more pragmatic/,martial side of things will grow, but it wont outweigh the regular patterns/sparring.breaking clubs.. but it will be a bigger force than before!

Large groups make lots of money.. its that simple and as long as they continue to do so, they will adjust to what continues this for them and if that was realistic sparring.. it would become the norm.. but its not!

Stuart