Tae Kwon Do: what's so bad about it?

Discussion in 'MMA' started by GotYourPants, Oct 18, 2015.

  1. Smitfire

    Smitfire Cactus Schlong

    If every time you lifted your hands up you got scored on with a quick kick to the body and needed to move your arms in order to get your legs moving fast you'd drop your guard too.
    I'm not amazed that wtf people favour a low guard but I am amazed that people that don't compete in it think they've spotted a weakness the that train it day in and day out have missed.
     
  2. Mitch

    Mitch Lord Mitch of MAP Admin

    You and I and a handful of people might think so, but; that style of sparring would likely be unacceptable to the Olympics, so at least one branch of TKD would lose its USP, and hundreds of thousands of people the world over would lose a structured competition circuit.

    I had two girls join my junior class last week, about 11/12 rears old. Both had done some WTF before, lovely kids, can kick well, good attitude. Where did they train before? Lebanon. For blokes of our age Lebanon is synonymous with warfare and destruction, and I reckon without the Olympics there'd be no TKD there at all.

    So I'm torn between the bad image that the narrow rule set of Olympic sparring creates, particularly amongst those who don't really understand it, and the obviously great outreach work that is going on and the passion of the players.

    For the majority of people out there I think the latter outweighs the former.

    Mitch
     
  3. Mitch

    Mitch Lord Mitch of MAP Admin

    This. A million times this. Of course the professional athletes who do nothing but train for it are wrong, and people who have done a bit of kickboxing know better.

    Mitch
     
  4. Mitch

    Mitch Lord Mitch of MAP Admin

    I'm also still amazed that we still get posts on 'the problem with TKD,' when it's one of the most popular martial arts in the West, with a competition structure that makes most arts look like a badly organised Sunday League kid's team.

    It's ok not to like the rule set, but you can't question the popularity.

    I think football is a stupid game played by professional frauds who are nothing but the playthings of oligarchs, but I can't pretend it isn't satisfying a public requirement.

    Mitch
     
  5. Botta Dritta

    Botta Dritta Valued Member

    Ah ok. So the threat of a straight scoring kick to the chest dissuades a high guard, because a kick to the chest is a higher pecentage strategy against a elite opponent, and a high guard would jeapodise the reaction time?

    Low arms to get the legs moving fast? Im curious about this. Is it bio mechanics or something instrinsic to the style?

    Actually theres a nice parallel with olympic fencing there where very few in olympic sabre do a quinte (overhead parry) because the time to get the sword to Quarte and Tierce parries (left/right) is a fraction of a second slower. So rather than risk it (unless they are damn sure) they prefer to pull the distance to any attack to the head. Some have decried it saying its limited the discipline but its the reality on the strip. Athletes dont use it if its a risky tactic.

    Im assuming then that olympic TKD favours a different tactic/technique to blocking high then?
     
  6. Botta Dritta

    Botta Dritta Valued Member

    My comment wasn't a criticism. Just puzzlement.

    For example most spectators can't fathom why fencing is done on a fencing strip. Why so little sidestepping? After all sidestepping is in all the 17th centuary smallsword manuals, so why not in the olympics? All fencers know why this is because they have been on the recieving end of trying to sidestep a thrust. (However change a 700g epee for a hefty rapier and voila! Sidesteping is in vogue again...)

    However for the those that don't TKD but have tried other kicking arts the reasoning are not immediatly obvious, these questions are always going to come up.
     
    Last edited: Oct 20, 2015
  7. SWC Sifu Ben

    SWC Sifu Ben I am the law

    I guess that's a bit like when my brother was teaching me some sport fencing. He was showing me some attack and ways of gripping which would not work with a full weight blade. My training has always been based around how to actually hurt people with a weapon without dying rather than scoring a touch within the rules of sabre, epee, or foil using competition blades and rules which don't effectively simulate actual sword fighting.

    Similarly I think kick boxers and Muay Thai folks will be judging based on how to strike effectively and not how best to score under that particular ruleset. So it is a weakness if you're talking about trying to fight effectively but just like competition sabre you can use a method which isn't optimal for actual fighting but which is specialized just to that competition rule set.

    Unfortunately people will always tend to judge you by your highest level competitors and as you said the rule set is not the best.
     
  8. liero

    liero Valued Member

    Just some relevant food for thought.

    Regarding benefits of Sparring

    The unmentioned element in this is about safety. The fact that there are no face punches, and the limited other rules, as well as safety gear; means people of all ages and skill levels can train a few times per week. Go to a competition on a Sunday and be back at school or work with a very low likelihood of injury.

    On, Why no face punches?

    Well I think as an Olympic sport there would be to many similarities to boxing as a point fighting style so that will never happen. Also, back to the safety thing again, it's good for kids, old people, people with disabilities and those concerned about long term damage from concussions not to get thumped in the face over and over again for years at a time. Even at the elite WTF TKD level you get kicked in the head a lot less than a boxer get's punched in the head.

    The outcome for WTF TKD is that people will develop a guard or fighting style relative to the rules. Ironically, within the debate, the guard is higher than it has ever been due to electronic systems, it's just that it is so easy to be scored to the body on these systems most of the guard work is protecting that area.

    Also, I think it's a bit silly to detract from the style due to a focus on moving and avoiding instead of blocking. Even in MMA/Kickboxing/Boxing, high level athletes and coaches insist that just having the hands over your face is not enough to protect yourself. I think the evasion skills over a good guard are more important, particularly for novice fighters. I remember in my first boxing sparring session how focused I was on keeping that guard strong until the experienced fighter hit my hands so hard I nearly knocked myself out because I was doing nothing else.

    That being said WTF Sparring is not the whole of taekwondo, it's just the most visible due to its olympic sport status.

    Taekwondo is a great martial art for fitness and basic self defence. And it's fun! You can integrate the traditional training effectively into a more modern training style incorporating other martial arts if you really want to pressure test or do MMA or other full contact less restricted rule sets. It's a lot easier to transition techniques, training styles and tactics from WTF sparring to other fighting compared to other traditional martial arts (hapkido, aikido, some karate) because the advanced sport science involved in producing Olympic gold medals mean that the training methods are surprisingly good and comparable to other professional contact sports.

    Annnnyway. Back to work now.
     
  9. Van Zandt

    Van Zandt Mr. High Kick

    It'd be interesting to see how much of the negativity towards Taekwondo is because people don't have the patience to develop the flexibilty necessary to kick properly. I've found one of the reasons Muay Thai is popular (particularly among adult males) is because the kicks can get some decent height due to momentum alone - essentially a ballistic stretch. You just can't do that with the multi-kick combinations found in high level Taekwondo (which involves keeping a high knee chamber between kicks, requiring a significant amount of static flexibility). I guess it's easier to cover up one's physical insufficiencies by buying into the whole "Moo Tie is ze brutal" culture you encounter so much these days.
     
  10. Botta Dritta

    Botta Dritta Valued Member

    Actually we get to the crux of the problem here. Those olympic fencing atheltes flailing around on the strip? They are more than capable if given a historical smallsword to defend themselves in a sword fight. They have a far more varied skill set than what was written in the manuals. Two of the disciplines epee and foil are actually no different in weight than a historical smallsword counterpart at about 500-750g. (Sabre is another thing. As a discipline its completly broken and no longer resembles historical sabre) One of the last historical duels between Aldo Nadi (olympic fencer) against Adolfo Contronei, an experienced duellist ended with Nadi's victory. His writings on the occasion can be read here:

    http://www.calpoly.edu/~dkgrant/fencing/nadi.htm

    And his generation were totally outclassed on the strip by the Soviet Block fencers in the 50's and 60's who did things like actually weight train and come up with modern peformance drills than rely just on their skills. Naturally you would be a lot more circumspect in a real duel than on the strip. No sloppy beat parries. No suicidal counterattacks etc etc...

    I guess in TKD it would br the same. We as spectators believe that they are not capable of effective kicks. But the reality is probably they are, but its a high risk strategy in a olympic sporting competition.

    That being said some artificialities may creep in.

    I am willing to bet that what your brother described was the 'flick', where you use the flexibility of the blade and use it like a fishing rod to hit improbable areas that are difficult to defend with conventional parries, something that is very difficult (but not impossible) to do with a historical smallsword which is slightly stiffer. In the early 2000's it got so bad that some cadet fencers knew only how to attack with a flick which didnt remotely resemble swordfighting at all and couldn't pull off a straight lunge even if they tried.

    Well sometimes athletes push the boundaries of the rules and the sporting organisation has to amend the rules. The FIE changed the timings on the point so now flicks have almost disappeared except for a couple of die hard 'flickers'. Flicking has become a high risk strategy so few serious competitors use it. Incidentally when they changed the rules they were some people who started to complain that foil had lost its dynamism - because you know that had to use older more traditional skills.

    You can't please everyone.

    Going back to TKD I can envision the same thing happening. If they changed the ruleset to to put an emphasis or more powerful kick, they will be someone somewhere with a gripe.
     
    Last edited: Oct 20, 2015
  11. Pretty In Pink

    Pretty In Pink Moved on MAP 2017 Gold Award

    Muay thai IIRC has a stylistic rule set. Head kicks score and body kick also score high. Punches don't score much. Clinching strikes and throws scores the highest (again, that's just if I remember rightly).
     
  12. Smitfire

    Smitfire Cactus Schlong

    I dunno about everyone else but when I kick for power and especially when I start to kick from one leg to the other in combination my arms get increasingly involved (and when punching it's the other way round!).
    Even the great Thai's use their arms when kicking to create motion or facilitate motion and power.
    Sticking rigidly to a guard would hinder how much the arms can help when kicking. Even more so when the primary defensive methods aren't blocks but timing, footwork, evasions and counter attacks.
     
  13. SWC Sifu Ben

    SWC Sifu Ben I am the law

    Except we're not talking about people pushing the boundaries of the rules here. The competitive format necessitates things which are maladaptive to fighting like using less guard/punching and more speedy head kicks. It would be like if foil created rules which required you to use the flick or if boxing decided you could only use uppercuts. It's an unnecessary and unreasonable restriction based on, as Mitch said, politics, nationalism, and I would add, probably a misguided attempt to keep it stylistically distinct from kickboxing.

    Traditional skills... Like punching for TKD.

    That's the thing though I'm not saying that they're not capable. I've trained with some very capable TKD guys. When your premiere competitive format emphasizes methodologies and tactics which are unsuited to fighting it should not be a surprise when other martial artists dump on it. You will be judged by your high level competitors and competitions.
    We had a video posted up awhile ago on why American push hands competition tends to be over-judged nonsense compared to Chinese push hands competition. The Chinese stuff looks very close to wrestling because the options are greater. The American stuff is...bad because it's so highly constrained. No wonder people here in the US tend to dump on taiji or HEMA folks tend to dump on fencing and deride them as being games regardless of the actual skill of the competitors. People never get to see those actual skills under pressure in high level competition. They could more easily be made to be more combatively functional but they aren't. I call that wasted potential.

    Yes but primary striking is not disallowed to the point that all people tend to do is kick. Fighters have technical preference sure but kickboxers and Thai boxers can fight under relatively similar open rule sets with little change to their striking methodology (and I would include MMA in there). I find that highly different to exclusion of punching.
     
    Last edited: Oct 20, 2015
  14. Pretty In Pink

    Pretty In Pink Moved on MAP 2017 Gold Award

    No but it does influence the style that fights happen. I've heard that before westerners came over the Thais' punching combinations and head movenent were not as good as todays.
     
  15. SWC Sifu Ben

    SWC Sifu Ben I am the law

    Which is a fair assessment but the rules weren't holding them back from punching in high level competition they just didn't have the same technicality of punching as the highly refined system of western boxing. They adapted. I think that's more forgivable than supposedly having good hand skills but not displaying them in high level competition.
     
  16. Botta Dritta

    Botta Dritta Valued Member

    But how do we know for sure? For example ther are traditional skills in fencing that will work against well rounded competition fencers, but that simply will not work against elite level competitors because of their athleticism. They will not let you for example set them up for a second counter riposte because they will not present their blade they stay in absence of blade. In short their skill set - perception of timing and distance is so good that the highest skill set of the discipline will not work against them sharp weapons or not.

    So then what do we do? Force elite competitots to present their blade to make it so other less skilled competitors and spectators get to view/practice something more interesting?

    For example smallsword includes grips, trips and disarms while the olympic sport does not. Like myself I have a fencer in the club that practices HEMA ( actually he is primarily HEMA but does sport fencing. I'm the opposite) and sometimes on the sly in foil matches we introduce these 'forgotten skills' for a bit of fun. I've been on the recieving end of them so I know they can be effective and they work in certain situations.

    I saw him try to use the same techniques on a GBR fencer last night. He didnt even get a chance. Not even - close even when at close quarters. And this is not because he isn't bad at fencing...( he got 5 off him) its because the GBR fencer doesnt present the blade in line, something that most HEMA folks believe is unmartial and unrealistic. Well it definetly is for a begginer or intermediate fencer...but Im unsure about advanced fencers.

    In short at what point is does the olympic skill set in TKD become becomes as you state wasted potential, or is it a symptom or the high skill set of the competitors.

    Oh Gawd this is another can of worms. Its a bit the same in the UK. I think theres too much emphasis of being soft in the UK, as the overriding emphasis of push hands, while the stuff ive seen in chinese videos seems a lot more practical. Is this actually down to the rulesets in china? Ive only ever done it in the uk.
     
    Last edited: Oct 20, 2015
  17. SWC Sifu Ben

    SWC Sifu Ben I am the law

    Because Thai boxers and kick boxers can reliably punch each other in the head in high level competition so unlike the fencers there is proof it can be done in a more open ruleset.


    It seems to be the rules/judging. For example when I trained with some Chinese taiji guys no one ever complained when I slipped in an underhook and went for a hip throw. To them it's just another contact point. Their entire competitive method was pretty simply stay stable and put the other guy on the floor or push him out so he's off balance. In other words take downs, take down defence, and dominant separation from the clinch. All the taiji folks here I've met who were rather Westernized always complained that I wasn't soft enough, or too aggressive, but mostly it was that I was doing things not allowed in their competitions.
    One group was concerned with martial efficacy. The other seemed overly concerned with style. I know which group I'd rather fight :evil:

    :topic:
     
  18. Matt F

    Matt F Valued Member

    I think TKD is a style where you get out what you put in.
    Because the standards differ so much and because there is a basic set syllabus, I believe it's up to the individual to make the effort to get what they want out of it, which can be a positive or a negative depending on want they want out of it.

    The view that TKD contains striking with hands ,feet, knees, elbows and some throws etc is a true thing to say but, for me, doesn't sit well. Yea it's true to say those words, as these things are found in patterns or SD that might be shown, but the elements and fundamentals that make those things work in real fight time are often missing. You don't have to show realistic competence in these things to pass a grade nor is it essential. There's a difference between doing an elbow and really understanding ,tactically and functionally elbows during a full contact situation....or knee...or throw...or clinch. To do that, the individual has to put the effort in and look at different avenue and test themselves or maybe an instructor has put the effort in and passes it on. ....but it's not essential and in the TKD syllabus to have to do this. And so it's not fully correct, in my opinion. It's become something to say to big up TKD. Like I say it's true, but if there's honesty it's also not true.

    It's like saying a reader's digest DIY manual contains plastering, plumbing, joinery and building. Yea it does, but it's bare bones..there's a lot more to learn.
    You get out what you put in.
     
  19. Combat Sports

    Combat Sports Formerly What Works Banned

    And THAT is why I love Dutch Muay Thai. Joanna's hands are so good the Polish Olympic Boxing team wanted her to represent Poland and she is not even a boxer.

    [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3sP7Yh4A4Y"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3sP7Yh4A4Y[/ame]
     

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