TKD future as a whole

[terryl965]

Since there have been many threads about TKD and all that is bad and everything over the last year, lets see if we can talk about what is on the horizin and how it will be improving for the next generation of students.

I see the AU is getting serious about a real grassroot program and USAT is trying to overcome there negitive grassroot program what do you think will be the outcome in another couple of years and how will it arrange the powers. Will there ever be ab even playing field for all athletes or just the one's that have the money to be at the right place at the right time.

Will the official ever come to an arrangemnt as far as scoring and will the electronic chest protector really make that nuch of a difference.

Lets all try and keep this on a positive level for arguements we can split the thread for that.

 

[exile]

Since there have been many threads about TKD and all that is bad and everything over the last year, lets see if we can talk about what is on the horizin and how it will be improving for the next generation of students.

OK, Terry, here's my fantasy for a `best-case' development in TKD.

A number of TKD dojangs, some maybe affiliated with WTF, some with ITF, some independent—doesn't really matter—form an association whose avowed purpose is to promote the practical combat application of TKD. To generate interest, they sponsor a series of tournaments involving hyung analysis, based on the following premise: one or two poomsae are announced in advance as the forms which will constitute the subject matter of the competition. The idea is that each contestant will take one of the two-, three-, or four-move subsequences of one of the contest poomsae and work out the effective application of this sequence in response to one of the most common untrained street attacks that people like Geoff Thompson and Peyton Quinn have identified. The contest organization will supply a fighter for each contestant who will launch an attack of the sort that the contestant has identified as the one his or her application is designed to counter. The fighter supplied by the organization will be totally uncompliant—the only cooperation with the contestant will be supplying the form of attack that the contestant claims to have found, in the bunkai for the hyung in quesiton, an effective defense for, one which yields a forced series of responses by the assailant culminating in a his or her incapacitation for further attack.

The judges will reward contestants (i) whose applications are successful and (ii) which, in their judgment, apply techs, consistent with the movements in the kata, that seem to be most successful in forcing a series of responses from the attacker leading to the latter's elimination as a threat.

Well, you asked... :wink1:

 

[Kacey]

OK, Terry, here's my fantasy for a `best-case' development in TKD.

A number of TKD dojangs, some maybe affiliated with WTF, some with ITF, some independent—doesn't really matter—form an association whose avowed purpose is to promote the practical combat application of TKD. To generate interest, they sponsor a series of tournaments involving hyung analysis, based on the following premise: one or two poomsae are announced in advance as the forms which will constitute the subject matter of the competition. The idea is that each contestant will take one of the two-, three-, or four-move subsequences of one of the contest poomsae and work out the effective application of this sequence in response to one of the most common untrained street attacks that people like Geoff Thompson and Peyton Quinn have identified. The contest organization will supply a fighter for each contestant who will launch an attack of the sort that the contestant has identified as the one his or her application is designed to counter. The fighter supplied by the organization will be totally uncompliant—the only cooperation with the contestant will be supplying the form of attack that the contestant claims to have found, in the bunkai for the hyung in quesiton, an effective defense for, one which yields a forced series of responses by the assailant culminating in a his or her incapacitation for further attack.

The judges will reward contestants (i) whose applications are successful and (ii) which, in their judgment, apply techs, consistent with the movements in the kata, that seem to be most successful in forcing a series of responses from the attacker leading to the latter's elimination as a threat.

Well, you asked... :wink1:

It wasn't a tournament - it was a seminar - and also a demonstration by one of my seniors at his V Dan test. The details are a little blurry, as it was also my III Dan test, but I do remember that he broke with every technique (attacks and blocks) in the first 2 Ch'ang H'on patterns, then demonstrated them on resisting opponents, students of his who weren't testing that day. He'd have kept going, but the board supply was getting low, and he was stopped...

 

[exile]

It wasn't a tournament - it was a seminar - and also a demonstration by one of my seniors at his V Dan test. The details are a little blurry, as it was also my III Dan test, but I do remember that he broke with every technique (attacks and blocks) in the first 2 Ch'ang H'on patterns, then demonstrated them on resisting opponents, students of his who weren't testing that day. He'd have kept going, but the board supply was getting low, and he was stopped...

So it can be done! The sort of thing you've described is just what I had in mind, Kacey, but the trick is to get broad (or at least broader) participation, and get advanced colored belts thinking about TKD from just this angle—that was why I thought of it in a tournament format (competition seems to get people's competitive blood up). What you describe is to me an image of the form that real progress in TKD will take... just my .02, of course.