Tae Kwon Do any Good on the Street

Discussion in 'Tae Kwon Do Resources' started by Jackie Li, Feb 12, 2004.

  1. 47MartialMan

    47MartialMan Valued Member

    This IS 96% True



    Oh yes. Darn the internet for exposing

    [​IMG]


    Tae Kwon Do any Good on the Street ....Yes...the streets of Korea....(or a village called No De Fense, France)
     
    Last edited: Sep 12, 2014
  2. TKDstudent

    TKDstudent Valued Member

    Actually TKD training in SK is for sport. It is considered by many to be a child's activity.
    Of course do not get me wrong, as there are some very serious TKD players that get scholarships & the like to attend the prestigious TKD Colleges, etc. They have among the best training programs for the elite players in various circles. But it is NOT considered a martial art or for SD. The Korean Martial Arts are governed by different government entities. TKD is governed by the Kukkiwon. Now the Kukkiwon does have a SD component for sure, but the focus is on the Olympic Sport.
    At present MMA is popular in SK.
     
  3. TKDstudent

    TKDstudent Valued Member

    In the mid 1970s, according to Dr. Kimm He-Young, the ROK Army disassociated itself from the ITF after Gen. Choi fled in exile a couple of years earlier (72).
     
  4. furinkazan

    furinkazan Valued Member

    it's not the style that is effective in the street, it's the fighter, I can't stress this enough.

    It's like when people ask is krav/karate/womens self defense/kali/ninjutsu etc good on the street.

    The street is unpredictable, but martial arts will give you tools. It's up to you how you use those tools. I bet a good TKD could handle themselves well, and a bad one wouldnt. There's too many factors for a black and white question

    1. Day or Night
    2. Environment
    3. How many opponents
    4. Armed attackers
    5. Are they trained or just lackey punks?
    6. How much do you even want t be in this fight
    7. Your emotional state
    8. Their emotional state
    9. Alcohol or drugs involved
    10. Intention of the attack

    I could go on all day.
     
  5. Simon

    Simon Administrator Admin Supporter MAP 2017 Koyo Award

    Whether you're trained in de-escalation.

    Not every confrontation has to go physical.

    Nearly all martial arts schools miss this out. It's not a failing on their part, they're just not always self defence focused.
     
  6. furinkazan

    furinkazan Valued Member

    ah yes, that's one of the less obvious ones, probably because it should be apparent to try to reduce escalation. That's something I'm actually considering looking into outside of martial arts training (and first aider too)
     
  7. Hannibal

    Hannibal Cry HAVOC and let slip the Dogs of War!!! Supporter

    If you are studying a martial art you are not studying self defense; you are studying one small portion of it
     
  8. furinkazan

    furinkazan Valued Member

    I think TKD can be applied to the street, but it's not going to be easy.

    And to be fair it might just be a uk thing here but outside of martial arts most people seem to think it's like ballet or something and laugh... till you bring up black belts :p

    But most arts have some ridicule. I met a guy who crapped on me as soon as he found out I was booj 'ugh gendai blah blah, sign up to the military for real fighting blah blah' (he was a TKD guy as well so I didn't pay too much attention considering the consensus about TKD, as you brought up).

    I know karate guys who get stick for their art, capoiera guys who get stick for it being too dancy, kung fu guys who get stick for either NOT being bruce lee or people thinking it's flowery. Wing Chun for 'being girly' (whatever that means, never considered gendering a method of punching someone).

    The only ones I hear get glorified in public by non artists are Krav (probably from its military association) and boxing (since that has a rep here for big hard men sweating it out in a ring... wait that didnt come out right). Then again I've met some awful Krav guys.

    point is everyone everywhere has funny ideas about arts, at the end of the day, it's down to the individual, and this comes from an admittedly lazy 'shinobi' of the Bujinkan who spends way too much time looking at other arts too go 'hey, never thought of doing that with a technique that looks similar to something i did last week, lets see if it works in my classes :)

    Short answer though: It's not about if TKD is good in the street, it's if YOU are good in the street. That's a whole other matter.
     
  9. raaeoh

    raaeoh never tell me the odds

    I am sure that it has already been said. I grew up in a bad place where most of the hoodlems had no training to speak of short a bad MA movie. In this case any MA that trained to spar had a definate advantage. On the flipside most of the fights I have witnessed ir been part of were not one on one. More like 3 on 1 or worse. In thus case no MA can really be effective. Plus if you do not have the stones to fight for real I dont believe it would matter at all what MA you used.
     
  10. philosoraptor

    philosoraptor carnivore in a top hat Supporter

    I think this is just muddying the waters. Controlling for all of these factors, some martial arts have a tradition of inculcating honest to goodness skills and some do not. Saying its all about the individual does not account for this trend.
     
  11. furinkazan

    furinkazan Valued Member

    true but what I'm trying to say is style alone will never account for a large amount of the situation. Good skills come from good teaching and good training, anything can be good in the right hands.

    Put it this way, my sensei told me of someone he knew who was a very highly respected karateka who got put in hospital because, despite his skill, an assailant had a concealed weapon and an exposed one. The surprise element got him, that's not to say he was a bad karate-ka, its just he himself failed to react to a concealed weapon. Someone else may not be as good a karate-ka, but might have reacted differently and not suffered an injury.

    If you look at it that way, it's down to the individual from how they have trained, their mentality and other factors.

    Styles being 'good in the street' is not the same as the person. I might take up TKD and kick one guys tail if he attacked me with a knife. I might lose to a barehanded guy simply because he's better at brawling and has a glass bottle in his pocket and two mates I didnt see behind me.

    Styles themselves are only as good as the practitioner is what I mean to say. The street is too chaotic to really bring an entire question of how good a style is to the style alone.
     

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