Now, I love my TKD, and I'm looking forward to the seminar, but if your whisky masterclass involves tastings, well... Are you supplying the samples? Mitch
Thanks for the post Mitch, it's an important point that can be applied to a host of "issues" people have with TKD in whole, or with certain federations. Now, did someone say whisky...?
I was talking from a very general sense and you bring in an entirely isolated incident - which bears little relevance. If you want to learn to defend your self, then yes TKD will give you some useful tools, but you will more effective in this pursuit with arts such as Ju-Jitsu, Aikido, Kung Fu or any art that has lots of ground work, locks, holds etc. Fights often end up on the ground and traditional TKD has a limited scope.
But they tend to start standing up, and if it does go to the ground, it's usually as a result of a knockdown, not a takedown or throw. I'm not saying that ground work is not a vital part of your training, but that you are more likely to use standup in a real life situation.
Christ allmighty this thread is painfull to read. I mean for gods sake what on earth is the point of trying to provoke someone repeatedly to bash TKD? It's not like it isn't easy enough to find someone who will bash it anyway...
Two points: 1. Ragnarok didn't bash the art at all in either of the first two posts he made, it took 4 one liner proddings from Madhoose to get anything like that sort of repsonse from him and even then all he said at first was that he didn't like the sparring in TKD for learning elbows and knees. 2. He's right anyway, TKD does suck
Aikido doesn't have much groundwork, locks, or holds. From my knowledge it mostly contains throws and a few pins. Kung fu also doesn't characterisitically contain much groundwork. And actually I think that saying fights "often" or "usually" end up on the ground is a misnomer. I doubt you have any evidence for the fact other then speculation and isolated incidents.
I still stand by my previos statements that you are mistaken when you claim that you gotta cross train to learn to use elbows and knees. i understand you think your academy is the mutts nutts but what you mention as cross training at your dojang is what we do as part of out tkd.As it was a part of the UKTA school i used to train at.
well then you need to read up on Aikido it contains many locks. Agreed, but I was talking in a general sense. obviously I can only go off what I have encountered through my own expereince and other sources that I trust. I'm not trying to bash TKD (why would I) but as martial art for self defense my experience with the arts I mentioned sepcifically ju jistu lend themselves better to street situations. Of course you can still learn TKD and be perfetcly well trained to deal with street situations.
Back to Knees and Elbows: A lot of our one steps include knees and elbows and my instructor has a pattern called 10 basic elbows that we do. The break for our orange belt is an elbow smash. When practicing knees outside of class I use one of the small free standing wavemasters. I lower the bag so the top is at my should height and wrap my arms around it so I am in a clinch. then I do a series of straight and angular knees. If you want more, you might want to look into some Muay Thai books. Muay Thai uses them a lot more then TKD, so there seems to be more information. One way they practice them is with the Thai long pads (and a belling pad). The long pads look like focus mitts, but go from the top of your hand to belo your elbow. This give the attacker more room to strike and use elbows. The attacker can also clinch and the holder puts the pads side by side over his chest, so the attacker can work on knees from the clinch. Ultimate Muay Thai by Bob Spour is the book I have.