WTF TKD = Olympic foot boxing imo. I use to knock TKD as an art but I've met some who could really do it at a fighting level, which is all I'm interested in tbh.
Used to have two coaches. One did purely wtf. The other focussed more on non-sport fighting. Also had a judo black belt. Good balance. Now we only do wtf. Rubbish? No. Great within a point scoring ruleset; dont waste time on blocking. Just evade and counter immediately for some quick points. I get the philosophy behind it. But fighting within the ruleset has lost its appeal to me. Could be my krav maga background acting up. Its all just too sporty. And kyokushin gets a pass because they dont use chestguards.
Beyond saying "it used to" and that I think having that as an alternate ruleset would be good just as having throws in Sanda is great... And beyond my previous point that to build skill for some techniques you need a more artificial and constrained ruleset... I think there is a key difference once you talk about using the sportive method to build practical fighting skills. Manual pugilism is an instinctual action amongst ours and related species and was so prevalent that once our hands were able to fully close the forward facing bones of our skulls thickened in response. One can get by very well in conflicts in a variety of settings and ranges with only punching skills where the same cannot not be said of kicking. TLDR; if I tied your hands and put you in a ring with a boxer I know who I would expect to come out on top.
But I think that adds insult to injury more than anything (no offense brother). Neither of them are designed to but one of them builds primary striking skills which are easily transferrable to many types of conflict and the other disallows those primary skills. I think THAT is why people tend to view it as a game of foot tag.
No offense to me, I don't do it I think the point is that both are sports, and Olympic style sparring is a particularly specialised sport that is a goal in itself. I've interviewed a few of the GB Olympic team and they are professional sports people in the same way that all athletes are, their sport just happens to involve kicking and (very occasional ) punches. The idea that it's for developing practical fighting skills is alien and irrelevant to them, they are utterly focused on competing in their sport at the highest level. In the same way as a footballer doesn't contemplate if their kicking will make them a better fighter, nor does the TKD competitor. It's irrelevant. I think the rules leave it isolated from people's experience and looking rather odd; but then, skeleton bob is an Olympic event too Mitch
What are the advantages of Karate compared to TKD? I heard it's an offensive vs defense kind of thing, and I can definitely see how TKD would be defensive.
But...boxing isn't marketed as having those things is it? Whereas TKD, even WTF, still has the trappings of a more rounded system with elbows, knees, forearm smashes, low kicks and a whole load of hand techniques and shapes as well as the kicks. Does the WTF have a syllabus or encyclopedia like ITF TKD? So could even include throws too (as ITF should)?
I honestly didn't have a high opinion of TKD until I became friends with a guy in college that had been training since he was 6 or so. We eventually had some friendly sparring matches and it was like fighting a super hero. This drove home the point with me that I wish had come earlier in life, and I've seen reiterated on these forums multiple times now. It isn't the art alone, a lot of it comes from the individual brings in the way they train. Typical TKD schools around my area have always been low talent black belt factories, but on rare occasion somebody like that guy pops up. Years later, I trained under him for a couple of years and it was really eye-opening.
Just came back from a nice technical class and my faith in taekwondo has been restored a bit. But the sparring is still awfull.
My point was about how sparring is used to differentiate Olympic TKD from other Olympic combat sports. Boxing isn't ever going to reintroduce the things it once had as it would no longer have the unique identity it requires for competition. I believe there is some WTF material on wider skills, but I don't know how good it is or how widely it's trained. Mitch
O contraire miseur. Amateur boxing will no longer have the head guard. Something that was like before being reintroduced, no? /Bad French accent
Love the accent mon grand Mille Feuille I was referring to bare knuckle days when there was a lot of grappling, throwing etc. Mitch
I was thinking wtf sparring should be re-dubbed "kick boxing". Because it's like boxing but with the feet rather than the fists. The I remembered there already is something called "kickboxing". "Foot boxing" maybe?
TKD has been making a steady comeback into relevance in the UFC. People like Anderson Silva, Uriah Hall, etc proving it's usefulness. What it amounts to is people just need to do live sparring with it in the MMA rule set.
If (and it's a big if) TKD actually got its act together and combined the historical influences that in its background together it'd be a much better art for it. In many ways it could be like JKD. At long range it obviously has powerful kicks, fast blitzing hands and mobile footwork. Boxing style punches have been in TKD for decades. As the range decreases it should have the aggressive grab and smash clinch fighting found in its Okinawan karate DNA. Backed up with the basic throwing found in the encyclopedia. There's the emphasis on physicality and fitness from Japanese karate. The elements are there. Sadly much TKD drilling and training is overly influenced by the 2 sporting formats TKD has spawned. Sporting formats that don't actually reflect the rich heritage TKD possesses.
Mmm just had a peek at some olympic videos as i dont know anything about it. I get the sense that the guys are capable of a lot more skill than they show, much like in olympic fencing where it looks athletic but barely resembling the original art be because: A) they are up against athletes that don't allow time for complex techniques to develop or B) the rule sets makes them favour a limited set of high percentage techniques that will allow them to score a point. Regardless i think these guys are perfectly capable of delivering a weighty kick but fir sporting reasons don't. One thing that is perplexing is the total lack of a high guard. Forward parries to probing leg attacks but no high covers to the head (which is where maximum pointe are scored?), and unless I'm wrong, willing to attack or counter into a attack but no defence. Why is this?
