[Choi Kwang Do] Choi Kwang Do

There are many other styles that i have not seen, i have seen a quite a few, and trained in a few. In CKD the emphesise is not on whether we can beat another martial artist or a pro' boxer or win on the ground in a cage, i would have little confidence(though i'd have a go if i HAD to) against a pro' in a ring/cage or other arena.
The point is to defend ourselves in a street confrontation i.e mugging etc - in this situation i would not necessarely stand and fight, i may have to hit and escape/run for the opponant might be a lot bigger and stronger, have weapon, or have his mates waiting for there turn. So its the escape opportunity i want more than anything in that case - it really depends on the situation. This is reality.
I suspect a great athletic martial artist could do a 56 move kata on an attacker, but while he's doing that one of the attackers mates puts a bottle over his head or a knife in his back or kicks his head in while he's on the ground trying to put an arm lock on(this is why we(CKD) don't go to ground if we can help it).
We (CKD) know how it all works, that doesn't make us right all the time with every technique, it just our (CKD) way.
I said earlier "if i had to"(defend myself)only then would i use anything i have been taught and a hell of a lot more for survival.

We are also taught to bite - gauge - elbow - knee - pull hair even and do anything it takes to defend ourselves. You name it we 'll use it because thats what its all about SURVIVAL!

 

Hi folks,

just a quick question for the CKD guys and apologies it's it's been answered before and I missed it?

Do you pressure test (in the animal day sense of the term) yourselves and your techniques?

 

I try to personally, but we can only go so far, i try to pressure test my students also to a certain extent.
Not quite animal day.

 

For the sake of argument yes.

Then the TKD your Mr Choi learned was not a traditional art.

Name 3 others.

Nope, thats not how it works. 100+ years ago no locking, probably 50 years ago. The change was locking to make it look better. This was most likely a mistake in the proper transimission of technique.

Oh, and traditional arts CAN change.

No Holds barred fights are the closest your going to get to streetfighting. What works in them will most likely also work in a street fight. Whats that nickname you like to give your style again?

And a 286 works, why would anyone want a pentium 4?

What!?! Rarely see?!? I suppose you'd actually have to look to see what others are doing. You'll never see the sun if you stay locked in the basement.

They don't hit back, pads and shields are not the same as people. You can't learn timing from a pad, it just doesn't work.

You ignore 99.99% of traditional styles and insult them at every turn, you ignore all evidence that doesn't lead to the conclussions you want. Knowing nothing about your training methods that alone is enough for me.

Because somebody has to, this is a public forum, Choi's advertises outside of there own membership. If someone makes claims against what I do that have no backing I will point out the errors. I will also put the people making the attacks on the pedistal, see if you can back your claims and where you get your information from.

You cannot. You only look at the few examples in which things are done wrong, locking the joints for example, and ignore the 99.99% of "traditional" styles that don't do that. You say you're methods are superior, but you know nothing about what others are doing.

If you don't want traditional stylists to attack your style, don't attack traditional styles and methods without knowing what your talking about first.

Yes the art of streetfighting, in which noone will fight.

 

You miss the point to kata completely.

I once had a BJJ practitioner say that they spend a lot of time fighting with someone in a mounted position because that was the las place they'd ever want to be in a real fight.

Wanting to avoid the ground is a lot different then not training to be able to do it.

By the way, BJJ is just as traditional as TKD if not more so in my opinion.

 

I'm sorry, I was under the impression that you were insulting my art with absolutely no knowledge of it. I understand now that saying something that is true in many cases, although not in all or most, is an insult to all traditional martial arts, not merely those that lock out and do perform damaging techniques. I will mend my ways in future and not point out the benefits of CKD over these.

I have backed my claims up, many times. Once again we come to you arguing purely for the sake of argument, and ignoring all evidence that I give because it doesn't fit into your frame of reference.

Locking out isn't the only way that some traditional styles damage your joints. You don't even need to lock out to cause damage if you're having to use muscle to stop a technique you've thrown, it does almost the same thing. I'd also call it pretty damaging when you put two people up against each other full contact, hardly going to appeal to the average middle-aged businessman who just wants somewhere his family can go and learn martial arts to make themselves secure.

You might note that I didn't attack anything. That was you attacking Choi out of the blue. If your argument is with grandmaster Choi or the claims made on the website then e-mail them. I'm a lowly assistant instructor, unsuprisingly the heads of Choi Kwang Do do not confide in me everything that they are going to do.

I have a 386 here, I actually use it on quite a regular basis for the things that it works for. It is infinitely more reliable than this tacky, overpowered and underefficient pentium that I've got in front of me at the moment.

 

Humor me, without mentioning TKD name 3 tradtional arts which typically lock out there techniques. I'm pretty sure I could name 30 that don't.

 

Andrew you seem to be taking every little point literally.
You also seem to want to argue more statements made by CKD STUDENT, you only pick up on the fact that you think we are attacking trad' forms of martial art.
When CKD was first announced it was advertised as being better for you than SOME NOT ALL trad forms but now CKD can stand on its own two feet, some of the statements about trad forms are just left overs from that period.
Is the style you practice actually named as being inaffective? No its not, CKD was pointing more to TKD and sports /competition karate - if YOU teach in a way thats geared towards the street then thats fair enough i and i'm sure all other CKD students/instructors will highly respect that.

 

Nice debate going on guys.

Firstly, don't you think that over the 1500yrs of recorded oriental schools and I believe over 2000yrs for the Egyptian/Southern european schools that prehaps they would have figured out the best way to practice techniques long before know. There are of course personal preferences but come on, basics are basics. The only real points that exist these days are power against mobility against cover up.

The kicking techniques you describe sound very familiar to the ones I practice in Shotokan and Wado Ryu.

And as to locking out this, I believe, was started in the 1950's by the American GI's who trained in Japan for a couple of years and then went back to america, promoted themselves to BB and opened schools. Their Japanese teachers didn't correct them either through ignorance (the difference in body types) or because the Americans had nuke them twice and they thought it would be funny for these GI's to be inadvertantly hurting themselves.

I've got to agree with Andrew on the pressure testing because I do alot of it myself and see a big difference between myself and students of schools who do not. I'm thinking of writing up something to show people how to safely pressure test.

In closing I'd hope to see Jimmy and Morphus at the UK meet we've been trying to organise for a while so we can all enlighten each other.

Cheers

Colin

 

What exactly do you mean by pressure testing?

With regards to working out how to do the techniques properly two thousand years ago, yes, I have no doubts that they did. Those techniques have passed down and passed on through time.

Heard of Chinese whispers?

The best way to keep techniques effective and relevant is simply to constantly research them. I know that most traditional arts do this, but some schools boast that they are doing the techniques their master was taught by his master was taught by his master, and so on, without any new memes in the mix. When that happens what you get is meme inbreeding.

 

Here's a example of the sort of progression I typically use.

Sprawl & leg take down:

First take the leg take down, go throw the mechanics working against a stationary opponent. Grab like this, shoulder here, head like this, follow throw like this, etc.

Once the mechanics are down get the opponent to start moving and throwing strikes. The person doing the takedown defends and when the time is right moves in for the take down. Start slow work it up, have the other person move out of the way if they see it coming after its been done a few times...

Next introduce the sprawl. Go through the how to, get the motions down, then have someone really try to take you down. Sometimes they succeed, other times they don't. Take just that technique and spar with it. Both people just go for a leg take down, defend with a sprawl.

Have one person throwing strikes, the other going for a leg takedown, the person throwing strikes is to do the sprawl when the leg takedown attempt is made, the person going for the take down really does go for the take down.

Now let either do it, both throw strikes, just some light sparring strikes only. But at anytime either may attempt a leg take down, the other may respond with a sprawl. The goal is either a successful takedown, or a successful sprawl.

Now really spar, all techniques go. The leg take down and the sprawl become a part of it. If you can't make it work, it fails the test. If you land on your face every time you try the take down it needs work, if you spend most of the time falling backwards your sprawl needs work.

If you can't make it work effectively in sparring no matter what you do, it probably isn't a very useful technique.

Being able to do a technique well isn't enough. Being able to land a solid jab into the bag is nice. But you also need the timing to do it when the target is moving and coming in and out of your line of fire, it is trying to defend against you and it is also trying to hit you, or close to a clinch or takedown.

Pad's don't protect themselves or hit back. There are many drills you can do to improve your jab, but one must be sparring with it.

 

Cheers for the pressure test explanation Andrew.

You can also take this to its natural conclussion and allow almost anything, exclussions normally include fishhooks, eye-gouges, biting etc. This sort of training has to be done under strict supervision for the obvious reasons. This way you get to practice attacks/defence in real time against a trained opponent. If you can get techniques to work in this environment, it should be easier to do it live.

Thanx

 

Just posted a brief discription of how we Tai Jitsu guys pressure test over in the Tai Jitsu thread if your interested.

 

Choi Kwang-Do

Andrew Green

First, you have never seen Choi Kwang-Do in action, or had its principles and philosophies explained to you. This message board is a poor medium in which to explain techniques and drills. The best thing to do is to see a few classes or seminars on the subject and then base your decisions on that. If you want to have the chance to see CKD then there will be a seminar in Canada if you can make it

Canada Seminar
When : Saturday, July 19, 2003
Where : Toronto, Ontario
Details : Contact HQ for Details

Im not sure if it is that far away from you.

Why do we mainly list Tae Kwon Do as a traditional Martial Art and compare CKD to it. Simple, the majority of the ORIGINAL CKD instructors came from Choi Kwang-Do. They attended a seminar by Grandmaster Choi and they compered their art to CKD and decided that what we taught made sense. We do however have instructors who have studied many other arts, such as Jiu Jitsu (Mr Paul Jones, Mr Jamie Treharne, Mr Chris Ellis in the UK to name a few.)

verseas, Mr Bruce Cairney (Austrailia, studied numerous arts), "Mr Stephen Kendall Jones, New Zealand The Chief Instructor and owner is Stephen Kendall-Jones, with 28 years training and a vetran 5th Dan Black Belt. Master Instructor Kendall-Jones is a holder of multiple black belt grades; 5th Dan Choi Kwang Do, 5th Dan Shotokan Karate; 3rd Dan ****o Ryu Karate; 3rd Dan Tang Soo Do Korean Karate; 5th Dan American Kenpo and instructor level in Krav Maga (Israeli military self-defence). His knowledge of fighting systems are unparalleled in this region. He also has a lot of real-life experience to draw on after 8 years as a specialist police officer in a variety of roles including undercover, riot, anti-terrorist and detective roles in one of the UK's most violent cities, being involved in over 400 serious, violent incidents. 5 years of service as aircrew in the Royal Air Force gives Sensei Kendall-Jones a unique view of combat strategy as well."

THIS MAN HAS CONVERTED TO CHOI KWANG DO BECAUSE IT IS SUCH A PRACTICAL MARTIAL ART. HE CHANGED BECAUSE HE SAW THE ART IN ACTION AND WAS FED UP WITH THE INJURIES THAT HIS PEERS WERE INFLICTING UPON THEMSELVES.



Maybe you would like an unbiased opinion. Mr Paul Clifton, Editor of 3 of thh UK's martial arts magazines, who has seen almost any style that is worth seeing says this.

As the editor of 3 world leading martial arts magazines, I can assure you there is very little that can be classed as new in the world of martial arts.

I must admit that I too was very skeptical about some of the statements being brandished about, such as ;



“It has given me a new vigor for life” and



“since taking up the study of Choi Kwang -Do I can face any obstacle in life”



My skepticism was quashed, however, when I finally had the pleasure of meeting and interviewing the man behind this revolutionary martial art; Grandmaster Kwang Jo Choi.

Mr Clifton has met Grandmaster Choi on numerous occasions now and ranks CKD as one of the best martial arts he has ever seen. On his first interview with Kwang Choi, he came away from the photo session and he asked his cameraman what he thought of Choi Kwang-Do. The cameraman of this magazine who also has seen just about everything that you can see in martial arts wanted to join the art. If you dont believe me then contact him at Paul@martialartsinprint.com or pick up a copy of COMBAT magazine.


As for Sparring. Like everything in life it has its pros and cons. Sparring may help you develop reflexes, timing and strategies. Sparring isnt suitable for everyone. It may well work for you. However sparring leads to more injuries (fact). Sparring isnt practical for a street self defence situation (fact) With sparring, there are rules to follow - which you would not have on the street. By sparring you are both looking for openings to hit the other person. I have had a few of my students start sparring in class as an experiment. They moved around, they jabbed, they both ended up countering each other. They would switch bewteen attacking and defending when need be. At the end of it they were bother knackered and hurt. They were so focused on finishing the fight atht they werent looking for a way to get out of it unharmed.

What is wrong with doing a sprint away from your opponent and avoiding a fight? If i do that have i not " Defended Myself" Succesfully. Why do we need to have such a Macho, ******** attitude in the martial arts. As far as im concerened i will do my best to avoid a fight if possible. But i get attacked and i have to retaliate i will hit the person attacking me as hard and fast as i can.

Another thing with sparring, you know your opponent. If you and i were to spar, you would instantly be aware. your adrenilin would flow and you would prepare to fight. You will have had a chance to evaluate me and guess what are my strengths or weaknesses. If i was to see you on the street and attack you without any notice, the psychology would be different. And if i hit you on the street, it would hurt you a hell of a lot more than when we sparred. You may outpoint me in the dojang or even outfight me. But if you were to attack me in the street and you had no idea of who i was and what i do, you would have a hell of a time trying to put me down.

As we do not spar, we use defence drills to build these skills. The drills start off by getting the students blocking punches and kicks of any type. With this they learn to deal effectivly with a large variety of techniques from multiple angles. They also learn to angle around, to not move in a straight line and make as hard a target to hit as possible. We also teach dodges and slips to make it that much harder to hit the person. This is all taught (Not Mastered) by Yellow Senior belt at least (6 months in).

Sometime during the first six months, we start weaning the students off of this type of blocking constant attacks from multiple angles. They have learnt defensive skills and have improved their reflexes considerably. We than teach counter attacks. One student will attack with punches or kicks. the otehr will angle around (Opening the oponent up to attack at the sides or back) and then counter attack as quickly as possible. This start off slow and then builds up speed until the defender can block and throw an effective counter attack in the smalles amount of time.

the next step then is what we call "Wild Attacks". This is where we start with our hands down and no stance. We are then attacked from any angle within our field of vision and we react by blocking and the counter attacking. So by now we have built up our defensive reactions and are opening up pour opponent and looking for where we can counter attack. After this drill we have a few others that im not going into for now.

So we basically build the same charecteristics that you do with sparring. We work on our reactions, we build up counter attacks, fighting strategies. We do this in as safe and controlled manner as realistically possible, because not all people want to leave the class hurt, but want to know self defence skills. In all of the years i have been in CKD (11 in jan 2003) i have never seen any choi student come away from a lesson with a serious injury. One or two nose bleeds and a bruise are the worst. In comparison, two years ago in a tournament, semi contact near to where i live a Karate student was killed by a messed up techniqe. I have spoken to a few Karate and Tae Kwon Do people and almost all that do free sparring or competitions have been injured or hurt badly in class. If you can gain the same skills without getting hurt what would you prefer?? Or do you feel that getting hurt is a part of martial arts?? Self Defence, the idea is to keep yourself from harm and minimise any damage. By sparring you will end up hurting yourself. Doesnt sound like the kind of defence i would like. Why spend years of yourlife learning to save yourself from getting hurt by a stranger when you are effectivly hurting yourself to do it??

quote:
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Irrelevant. If your kicks truly are effective, people who do compete would be using them.

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Wrong. How many CKD schools are there in Canada?? As far as i know there are two in ALL of Canada. The main areas for CKD are Atlanta Georgia, Michigan, UK, India and thats about it. It is a new martial art. Not many peole have heard of it or taken the time to learn about its principles and techniques. The most anoying thing that people do is when i tell them i do Choi Kwang-Do they tell me that i mean Tae Kwon Do. Not many people have experienced this art and so it hasnt filtered into the mainstream as such. Give us 50 years and see how many people will adapt our teachniques for their practicality and power then. We are now 15 years old!! How many of the people who compete have seen CKD, trained in CKD and understood the art. 0% If they did, they would utilise teh techniques. Too many people think that we are basically modified Tae Kwon Do with a bit of boxing. They have never taken the time to understand how the art works and so derride it

By the Way, Paul Jones has a students who entered an amateur boxing competition. There were many stages and his student got to the final. The majority of the people he fought were knocked out and a few by his first or second punch. He also had the highest knockdown rate in the contest by far. The final fight wasnt much because both men had got tired and they fought to a points decision. If you would like to spar and ever come to the UK get Paul to ask that student to train with you. I would put my money on him and he isnt even a black belt. Ok, he may not have been able to kick in the competition, but i would love to see you take one of his kicks. I know people who have a bruise that has lasted for 2 years because they had to try and block his techniques he is that powerfull.


Target areas, elbows/knees, grabs, throws, locks, groundwork?

Choi Kwang Do also has close range drills. these are for when you get into grappeling range. they are generally basic techniques for fighting you way out of being grabbed. What we teach hear is basic, but extremely effective. Why is it basic. Because, 1 the simple stuff we do works. 2 Its a lot easier to remmeber. How do i know it works. 1 I have been attacked and succesfully used them to defend myself. 2 In my class we practice the close range agressivly among the senior adults. I have used these drills to release myself from quite a few grabs and holds against people bigger and stronger than me. Once we get a release we use in fighting techniques. A range of elbows, knees, headbutts. I teach controlling the head to controlthe body and throw the attacker off balance. I even teach my students to use bighting, gouging and even their shoulders as weapons. We also teach the students a few basic takedowns to finish off a fight. We dont go down with them and get them in locks. We teach how to break a persons balance and slam then into the floor. We dont teach any more after that because there is no need to attack a person that is down and it would be illeagal then anyway.

We do also have a limited amount of groundswork in the art. It isnt part of the syllabus, but it is stuff that the instructors are taught so that they can round off their martial arts and self defence skills. This is then taught to the students when teh instructor feels it is appropriate.

As for locks, we dont teach then. Its all fine to practice locks on your partner, but it restricts you and leaves you vulnerable to attack by others. Why, tie up two or more of your weapons to get a person in a lock when you can end a fight by punchinh, kicking or striking? Why get someone in a lock and run the risk of one of their friends being nearby and attacking you when your tied up?? And when you get a person in a lock, what do you do? Do you break their arm or joint etc?? Do you leave them go?? If you leave them go, whats the likelihood of them attacking you again, but being sneekier this time. Why wait around, or give that person a chance to attack you again?

CKD like everythin has good and bad points in an overall self defence system. We can teach you to punch, kick and strike to your full potential. You could improve your power considerably when you spend the time to learn the art. We do not however have much of a groundwork syllabus. It is a small amount that we
do, but it is basic and it works. Our aim isnt to go to the floor and wrestle, but if we are taken down we can defend ourselves. Maybe not as much as a jiu jitsu black belt, but we have a better chance then other people.

Im sure that you will pick apart everything i write with a fine toothcomb. You may find the odd contradiction, but then who is perfect. And by the way, sorry for the spelling and bad grammer, its late and im tired.

Dont have a go at CKD, you have never experienced it. The majority of the UK instructors have come from different martial arts. they have experienced many different kinds and have settled onthis because IT WORKS. James' instructor used to do other arts and so he passes his knowledge and experience on to James. He may or may not have done any other art in his life, but the fact that he is using facts, tken from a second generation source, doesnt make them any less truthfull.

And by the way, CKD does advertise outside of its membership, but so does every other art. what is the point of advertising and promoting the art to people who have already found it and experienced it?? We are proud of the art, it is incredible and we are proud of that. We welcome anyone who wants to learn it, just like other arts would. We want to see it grow and spread to as many places as possible. What is wrong with that. Im sorry if that offends you and that you dont like what we claim. However, i fail to see how you can dispute our facts when you have never seen the art for yourself and base your comments on articles and adverts. Why are you so defensive? Maybe you feel threatened by the fact that, if what we are saying is true, then some of what you have spent years learning has been improved on and you dont know or understand it. If you werent so thretend you wouldnt be arguing with a teenager who has spent a small amount of his life studying the art. Try aiming your arguments to the more senior people such as Mr Brophy whos contact details you can find at www.choikwangdo.co.uk or are you afraid of the possibility of being proven wrong?

Pil Sung

Dale Miller

CKD Instructor and examiner for Wales, UK

 

Correction

BTW

It should read


Why do we mainly list Tae Kwon Do as a traditional Martial Art and compare CKD to it. Simple, the majority of the ORIGINAL CKD instructors came from Tae Kwon Do. They attended a seminar by Grandmaster Choi and they compered their art to CKD and decided that what we taught made sense. We do however have instructors who have studied many other arts, such as Jiu Jitsu (Mr Paul Jones, Mr Jamie Treharne, Mr Chris Ellis in the UK to name a few.)

 

Wow, getting a bit heated in here

Personally I don't think that any one system is more practical than any other. It all depends on the practitioner, and the quality of instruction.

After reading your post, I don't believe CKD would be practical for me. But for others it most likely would be a good choice, depending on what purpose is behind the training.

Rob

 

Dale,

Perhaps I'll go into this more later as I'm a little short on time right now.

You have said nothing that has not been said, your attempt to prove the case of CKD has done nothing to sway me towards seeking out an instructor. In fact it has simply confirmed my opinion that CKD is not for me and does not train in a manner I would consider effective for my purposes.

On the kicks, you don't need a CKD practioner to throw the sort of kicks you do, if they worked those that compete would use them its that simple. Do you really think a MMA competitor cares what schools teach the kicks he uses? Of course not, if they work in the ring (or octagon) they are good kicks.

As for your puncing, aren't your punches derived from boxing?

If so do you know why boxers punch the way they do? Do you know how they punched under LPR, or Broughton rules? Do you know why they do it differently now?

Street vs Mat: Not as big of difference as you think. If it doesn't work on the mat, it won't work on the street. Yes there are differences and they need to be recognized, but the two are very similar.

grappling: very important, hitting someone isn't always the best alternative for real situations. I'd prefer to end it with a lock/restraint/choke if possible.

Sparring: without some form of it (many forms prefered) with as few rules as possible you are missing out on the most effective means of training.

Kind of like opening a hockey school (Hey, I'm Canadian ) and teaching some skating, puck handling, shooting, passing and saying you've learnt to play hockey without ever actually playing or even getting hit and hitting, trying to get past a real person, etc. You may have better chances then someone without that training, but you haven't learnt to play. All you've done is learnt some basic skills. Anyone with any real experience is going to beat you badly, so what if you get lucky against a team thats never even skated before?

And then, you go out and claim a superior method of learning to play hockey, no one gets hurt and you don't compete, even amongst yourselves.

Now you market your "new and improved" method of teaching hockey to a bunch of real hockey teams and seem supprised when someone starts pointing out that you're "system" is flawed in its approach. The only reply is that they should come out and try it before giving an opinion. Why bother?

You don't play the game, you leave out a good chunk of the skills as they might cause injury and do things differently then those that actually play the game, drawing from modified skills coming from other sports like figure skating and baseball.

 

Can I interject with a dose of reality?

The proof of the the pudding is in the eating. Have you ever had to defend yourself in the street? This is the only real test to the practicality of your training?

Colin

 

Personally I'm pleased that, whilst heated, the current CKD thread is a little more objective than the previous one.

We express opinions based on the sum total of our previous experiences, yet; we are limited by our ability to recognise others reasoning via this present medium.

On both sides of the debate I see points well made, and points I vehemently disagree with. The best conclusion is to meet up and discuss, prove/disprove points made, though I think this should be done in a less challenging manner by both parties.

As opposed to making statements, I feel there is a need here to ask more questions to clarify the points made.

Regardless of whether we agree all the time, I have found from experience that we, as MArtistes have so much common ground that we always get along in person.

Let's not start firing missiles across the Atlantic just yet eh?

(A.Miller you can correct mistakes in your post by hitting the red Edit button at the bottom of it. No need to re-post the correction)

Regards to all.

Andy

 

Any question in particular?

Ok, Andy Murray has made a good point, more questions need to be asked and more answers given. So, can we have questions about CKD perhaps from Andrew Green or anyone else for that matter, the questions should be about one point/subject at a time, so it gives us a good chance to answer in depth about that particular point/subject.