TKD & Self Defense

terryl965

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With all this talk about unification and senior and the KKW curriculum, I thought I would throw this into the mix. What type of self defense do you teach? I mean drop dead real street type S.D. or maybe awareness and how to avoid confirtation or maybe just some basic type that really is just fluff so you can keep students. Last thing would anybody be willing to post some of the guidelines for what they teach as far as S.D. goes.

I am hoping to get some real feedback into the different approaches the different types of TKD produces for S.D., like MDO, ODK, KKW, WTF, USTC, ATA and independant. If you are mainly a sport school how do you handle this with students? If you are mainly promoting better life style though TKD do you even have this? If you are mainly teaching childern how is this handle?
 

SahBumNimRush

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Many of you on MT may have a similar experience, but I have seen this morph a bit over the years as the class demographic has changed. When I started back in the early 80's, there weren't many children in the class, so the SD was alot more "real." Nowadays the class is mainly children, so the contact and approach is certainly different.

Every class we practice one step and three step self defense, which focuses on reaction time, distance, technique as well as age specific practical application for SD against a punch. The higher in rank you get, the more diverse this becomes, from grabbing, choking, kicking, knife, etc. We also teach about what you were stating about awareness and how to identify and avoid potentially dangerous situations, fairly early on in our students curriculum.

Every once in a while we will dedicate a whole class to SD, where we can focus on some other SD techs for lower ranks and younger ranks. For instance, students that are younger children, we cover being loud and creating a large scene if confronted by an adult assailant. Like if a man tries to grab the child and take him away, it is important for the child to scream at the top of his/her lungs, "HELP, HELP, HE'S NOT MY DADDY" After all, when you are out in public, how often do you hear kids throwing tantrums because dad won't buy the toy for them, so it is important to them to make every attempt to let the public know that they aren't throwing a tantrum and that the adult is not their parent. This is just one example of some the "non-technique" SD that we cover.

Is this what you were looking for in the OP?
 

dancingalone

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I am an independent. We teach non-mainstream TKD focused primarily towards building useful skills in physical confrontations. There is a spiritual aspect through short prayers before and after practice as we are a church ministry, but it does not bleed through into the physical practice. There is a time for training the body and a separate time to grow the spirit (worship-wise).

Our school is young as is the syllabus I am putting together. At the moment, we have nothing like situational awareness training or how to de-escalate a hostile situation. It's pretty much all about developing the physical skills useful when the 'fists start flying' along with proper tactical use of those skills.

Our curriculum has a goal of having appropriate levels of responses from the destructive to more controlling, pain-compliance options. The lower level belts work primarily on striking (destructive) measures and locks, pins, and how to use them situationally are gradually introduced as the students progress. Even so, beginners are given a 'tree' so to speak of striking options so not every exchange need escalate right away to Defcon 1.

Each belt level has a different theme to it. For example, the majority of the drills (one steps, self-defense) for white belts are designed to teach them to escape from harm, rather than ending up in a protracted exchange. Yellow belt is all about projecting fight-ending force into 1 decisive blow. Orange belt is about surviving a blow themselves and then striking effectively. And so on.

The white belt material is particularly suited for children, given the 'no tolerance' policy many schools have for fighting these days. There is a lot of angling and movement training to avoid or mitigate attacks coming in, and there is an emphasis on fleeing with appropriate shouting like, 'Leave me alone!' or 'Stop!'.
 

Manny

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This is topic I really like. In dojang most of the studentes are children,teens and moms so basically the self defense sambunim teach is very few and with acordance with children, this means some ways of scape from a punch maybe a choke and clothing grabing,pushes,etc.

The teens are in the macho high hormon thing so they are a little creative but sometimes the techs they make are not so sound.

Myself, well my self defense techs are a mix up of TKD,Kenpo Karate, a little aikido and judo and I like to practice a little more realistic (with the teens and two 20+ years old guys).

The dojang is more kicking techs and poomsae oriented leaving self defense at the end.

When I was inside Ji Do Kwan I saw a good number of one and three steps, even we had this technikes by numbers.

I am a little eclectic or unortodox so i grab what it works and discard weird moves or not sound techs.

Manny
 

searcher

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I am independant and TKD is not the primary style I teach in my school, though I do use all of the Ch'ang H'an forms in my classes. About a year ago I completely trashed the SD portion of my curriculum. There were to many redundant techniques and many were not "practical" for any application in the modern day. I decided to introduce the yellow belt SD techniques from EPAK along with a few others(Five Swords, Spiraling Twig,..) and the Gracie Combatives course. The problem we were having was that the students had to many options and they were not able to react. They would freeze like a dear in the headlights. By making it more streamlined with fewer options, they are reacting to danger and applying the base techniques to different scenarios.

IMO, SD techniques are more for suprise attacks and not for "fighting." If they can react and move away from danger by creating distance, then they can use other techniques. I have been working on implementation of more 1 steps in an attempt to give them option once they are at a distance.
 

Gemini

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You know I'm Kukkiwon certified, but even though most everything I teach is in the Kukkiwon cirriculum, I may emphasize different aspects of it than other schools.

We all know that most people have no idea how to throw a correct strike and end up doing more damage to themselves than to their opponent. We also know that receiving a strike is just as shocking to a beginner and is something I feel needs to be addressed early on.

We start with conditioning. Not just cardio, but physical conditioning of the hands, feet, knees and elbows to throw a strike. Most people have no idea how to throw a correct strike and end up doing more damage to themselves than to their opponent. Mentioned in an earlier thread, we use full contact sparring as beginners to understand what it is to receive a strike. For both giving and receiving strikes I give a heavy dose early on, and eventually (depending on the student) taper off into more of a maintenance mode.

I teach this before situational awareness (which by no means deminishes it's importance)because in my mind it doesn't help to be aware of something but still become a victim of it. I also found that this will weed out any potential students who realize quickly that real training is hard work and this may be more than they thought they were signing up for. I understand these are very debatable view points, but I have mine and you have yours.

Even though as a student progresses in rank and new moves are introduced as is generally the cirriculum of KKW schools, I prefer to keep self defense training focused on basic strikes and offensive/defensive stances and posture. This is because I believe when it comes to self defense, it's better to be able to do a few things very well as opposed to many things mediocre.
Shortly after conditioning, I introduce breathing and focus techniques, because the rest doesn't mean anything if you can't control yourself physically or mentally.

After blackbelt, we begin to incorporate more advance self defense techniques including joint manipulation. Again, I focus on primarily just a few basic principles (which we practice literally thousands of times) and get into more advanced/difficult techniques over time.

Other than conditioning, training for younger students does differ to some degree than for older teenage/adult students. I believe that while younger students are more likely to get into an altercation than older students, they also tend to initiated for more superficial reasons and inflict less damage. (I can't see my 12 year old in a situation that warrants taking someone's eyes or throat out). For that reason they don't learn some techniques that I teach adults who may find themselves in truly life threatening situations. That said, I teach older students to avoid conflict at all cost, but if conflict is imminent, maximum damage may be warranted. If your in an altercation that doesn't warrant maximum damage, they you shouldn't be in it.
 

Manny

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I am independant and TKD is not the primary style I teach in my school, though I do use all of the Ch'ang H'an forms in my classes. About a year ago I completely trashed the SD portion of my curriculum. There were to many redundant techniques and many were not "practical" for any application in the modern day. I decided to introduce the yellow belt SD techniques from EPAK along with a few others(Five Swords, Spiraling Twig,..) and the Gracie Combatives course. The problem we were having was that the students had to many options and they were not able to react. They would freeze like a dear in the headlights. By making it more streamlined with fewer options, they are reacting to danger and applying the base techniques to different scenarios.

I have incorporated inside my arsenal some techs from kenpo karate too (I am orange belt under IKKA) not too many but maybe 10 or 15 and these are the ones I teach to my teens costudents, Kenpo Karate has some good self defense techs.

IMO, SD techniques are more for suprise attacks and not for "fighting." If they can react and move away from danger by creating distance, then they can use other techniques. I have been working on implementation of more 1 steps in an attempt to give them option once they are at a distance.

You are right, if the person is alert frrom his/her enviorment/surroundings can see the trouble coming and then leave the place or step outside the treat and prepare to fight.

Manny
 

Earl Weiss

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What type of self defense do you teach? I mean drop dead real street type S.D. or maybe awareness and how to avoid confirtation or maybe just some basic type that really is just fluff so you can keep students. quote]

I am not sure hopw you or anyone for that matter defines "Drop dead real street type self defense."

If that means teaching Awareness, avoidance, Setting the legal stage, and for appropriate ages techniques that include shin kicking, biting, and sticking your fingers in the attacker's eyes. Then yes, I teach that stuff.

I also teach some stuff that might be considered fluff, because there are situations where trashing the attacker is beyond what is ideal.
 

Markku P

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"If that means teaching Awareness, avoidance, Setting the legal stage, and for appropriate ages techniques that include shin kicking, biting, and sticking your fingers in the attacker's eyes. Then yes, I teach that stuff. "

Yes, I teach the same way, but the problem is that what ever happens I might get a fine or a worst case, I might go to prison if I use too much force. ( So I prefer run really fast if possible )
 

puunui

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If that means teaching Awareness, avoidance, Setting the legal stage, and for appropriate ages techniques that include shin kicking, biting, and sticking your fingers in the attacker's eyes. Then yes, I teach that stuff.


What kinds of eye attacks do you teach? Single spear hand to the eyes? Grabbing the head with both hands and pressing the thumbs in the eyes?
 

bluewaveschool

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I teach anything considered 'fighting dirty' to be completely valid and can/should be used. But then again, one of my instructors believed that whoever fought dirtiest generally won.
 

ralphmcpherson

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My current instructor was a bit of a brawler back in his youth and by all reports was an "absolutely anything goes" type fighter and he does incorporate this into his self defence training. We practice defence against real life style attacks focusing on the types of things that we may acyually come up against. The higher the rank the harder and more full contact it becomes. I just watched one of our 5th dans who was practicing his self defence routine for his 6th dan grading, it was aginst 2 attackers and if you didnt know any different you would have thought he was just being attacked by two thugs in a pub, they threw the big haymakers, attacked with a pocket knife, a baseball bat, grabs, kicks, punches etc. Our GM focuses heavily on quick, fluid movements and finishing someone off as quickly as possible and doesnt like to see people doing their SD half paced and looking like they are thinking about what they are doing, it has to look instinctual. As they move up through the ranks they get random attackers throwing random attacks so the defender doesnt know whats coming to see how quickly they can respond. A lot of these higher level SD drills are only done at training camps or black belt classes where the higher level guys are all there.
 

searcher

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What kinds of eye attacks do you teach? Single spear hand to the eyes? Grabbing the head with both hands and pressing the thumbs in the eyes?


I know this was not directed at me, but I want to throw an answer to this question. For things like eye attacks and other finger weapons, might I recommend looking on youtube and the American Kenpo Finger Set 1. It is really about different finger attacks and it can open up some great inserts for your SD. Finger Set 2 has movement with it.

Link to Casa De Kenpo Finger Set 1:

Link to Finger Set 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7YYUiD7II4&playnext=1&list=PL127D0392D09231A4&index=39
 
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Manny

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I know this was not directed at me, but I want to throw an answer to this question. For things like eye attacks and other finger weapons, might I recommend looking on youtube and the American Kenpo Finger Set 1. It is really about different finger attacks and it can open up some great inserts for your SD. Finger Set 2 has movement with it.

Link to Casa De Kenpo Finger Set 1:

Link to Finger Set 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7YYUiD7II4&playnext=1&list=PL127D0392D09231A4&index=39


I know the finger set of kenpo but for me this set is a little clumsy, I think there are easier ways to reach the eyes with the fingers, one example is the spear hand, this tech is very quick and direct to the eyes, the othger tech is the cissors fingers again very quick and nasty ti the eyes, even the single finger trust to the eye is very efective and the claw to the eyes is very nasty too.

Manny
 
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