WTF president considering making TKD more like UFC

Discussion in 'Tae Kwon Do' started by Vitty, Jul 17, 2013.

  1. Mitlov

    Mitlov Shiny

    Here's the problem as I see it. A big part of why people who like Olympic TKD like it so much is because of cool stuff like what's shown in the slow-motion replays at 7:22, below:

    [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_plI6e4nLE"]Dutch Open 2012 Taekwondo Final Aaron Cook VS Sebastian Crismanich -80KG ( Wicked Head Shots) - YouTube[/ame]

    I think it's "cool" kick combinations like that that makes Olympic taekwondo such a popular sport worldwide. It's certainly cool kick combinations like that that fueled massive sign-ups each fall term with my university's taekwondo club, as the significantly-more-"practical" Shotokan club languished at less than a dozen members. If people are interested in that, then Olympic taekwondo should play to that strength.

    But you can't emphasize that stuff while also having rules that feature lots of realistic punching. It won't work. There's a reason we don't see spinning hook kicks in any other martial art. Like soccer's bicycle kick, it's a product of a unique ruleset, not anything you'd ever usein a practical situation.

    If you create a ruleset that rewards realistic punching, people will quit doing the kicking combinations that make Olympic taekwondo famous, and appealing to so many youth. On the other hand, if kicking combinations like that are a school's core curriculum, they shouldn't be teaching "knife defenses" and the like at all. It's disingenuous.

    As for your suggestion that a martial art couldn't survive if it didn't purport to teach practical skills, I disagree. Look at the shooting disciplines. I know firearms are a rarity in the UK, but here in the US a lot of people train in firearms for practical skills (either self-defense or hunting). But the Olympic shooting disciplines are very abstract; they're sport for the sake of sport. Olympic pistol sports are unrecognizable as "self-defense with a sidearm," and Olympic trapshooting is basically unrecognizable as "upland bird hunting." And everyone involved knows this. But that hasn't killed the popularity of Olympic shooting sports. There are shooting sports that emphasize practical skills (3-Gun and Sporting Clays, for example), and there are highly-abstracted Olympic shooting sports that focus on doing one specific thing extremely, extremely well. But you can't do both at once. You eventually have to choose.

    Indeed, most Olympic sports with "practical" origins are now pretty much divorced from those practical origins. Olympic skiing doesn't look like anything I ever saw on a Colorado mountain. Olympic equestrian bears no resemblance the horse skills you see on ranches (and with recreational riding) in the American west. Yet these highly-abstracted sports in the Olympics survive and even thrive.

    I'm not saying all TKD should go this route. I think it makes sense for ITF to continue to emphasize more and more practical punching and fighting skills as part of its training. But "practical fighting skills" that inherently de-emphasize the kick combinations that make Olympic TKD so popular aren't going to keep the sport in the Olympics, and frankly, they're not going to fuel youth participation the way the above-pictured kick combinations do.
     
  2. Smitfire

    Smitfire Cactus Schlong

    By all means. :)
    I actually think that can be a strong point of TKD. Just think about the multiple lines of influence that went into it. How you can fight a certain way and still stay true to the heritage involved.
    But I think in some cases that heritage has been lost (or not even realised) in favour of making TKD unique or have a certain flavour or even in some cases actively covering up the heritage.
     
  3. Hannibal

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

    This is the one and only Alfie Lewis in action under a ruleset that is designed to allow access to pretty much any striking discipline

    [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3Vichs-oc8"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3Vichs-oc8[/ame]

    I find these much more exicting to watch than just legs, and given exposure I think most others would too. The rules are long overdue in TKD - purist streaks aside (an anomaly in such a young art anyway) Olympic TKD is pretty dull to watch

    The lack of punches is detrimental to the sport and by osmosis the art. This is the 2012 promo video.

    [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiqCiZWSpcY"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiqCiZWSpcY[/ame]

    Look at 0:40 - they both miss kicks and stand like lemons in a position where ANY single punch should have been a given (and an easy score) yet they didn't even consider it - I think that is a pretty sorry state of affairs
     
  4. Mitlov

    Mitlov Shiny

    What is the name of that ruleset? Point sparring? Full-contact karate? I want to look up more about the sport and examples of it besides one single highlight reel.

    Why? So long as (1) the sport is incredibly popular, and (2) it's not purporting to be a proxy of real fighting, I don't see that it's "detrimental" to the sport. Except that the sport is no longer one that you personally want to be a part of.

    And there's a lot of people worldwide who look at that and say "I want to do a sport like that." I'm one of 'em. You're holding that up and saying "wow, doesn't this look dreadful and dull?" and I'm saying "no, I think that looks like a hoot."

    On the other hand, whatever sport Alfie Lewis is doing has had every opportunity to attract a similarly-large following and has failed to do so. That's not because nobody has ever had the opportunity to see it; people had the opportunity to see it, and it simply didn't succeed as widely in the open marketplace of sports competing for practitioners as Olympic TKD did.

    It's not that they "didn't consider it" like they said "gosh, punching, I never thought of that, I should have done that!" They considered it and deliberately chose not to do it because under the rule set of that sport it would have been a bad tactical decision.

    This is true in any highly-focused sport at the highest echelon. Why do you think Greco-Roman wrestlers aggressively sprawl face-down and refuse to be flipped over when we all know that that would get you stomped on in real life? Because it's the Olympic sport of Greco-Roman wrestling, not a streetfight.
     
    Last edited: Jul 30, 2013
  5. StuartA

    StuartA Guardian of real TKD :-)

    I think its Freestyle Sports Karate - look up FSK tournaments on YouTube - its basically points fighting with less restrictions than Karate points.


    I don't think that's entirely correct - the FSK crowd were too busy doing it and never tried to push it into Olympic circles, plus they never had an IOC representative and the sport isn't seen as a country that is hosting the Olympics national sport - so not a fair comparison really!


    I was always led to believe it was because it gave Korea an advantage back then, as they were great kickers and others had to play catch up! But Im probibly ill-informed :evil:

    BTW - as I said in an early post, I believe WTF should make the sport MORE distinct from other arts, not less - something someone else echo'd in a recent post. BUT, i dont care about the Olympics or TBH the sport side, as long as people have an avenue to compete and that side exists, I really dont care how big or not it becomes.

    Stuart
     
  6. Mitlov

    Mitlov Shiny

    I don't know about FSK specifically, but people have been trying to get point fighting and/or karate into the Olympics for years. Those sports have not had the mass success as a sport that Olympic TKD has had, and they're generally less successful as "sports" due to the extreme subjectivity of the judging. Yet they also generally don't get any more respect from "real fighters" than Olympic TKD gets. So I'm not seeing any advantages on either side of the fence to emulating their rule-sets. I think looking to "freestyle karate" as a path for the future of TKD would be a grave mistake.

    Olympic TKD is repulsive to people who want "real fighting." I get that. But as a sport, it's continuing to evolve in a successful direction, and I just think it needs refinement of the concept, not a "back to the drawing board" approach. To be a good sport, I'm looking at:

    (1) objective scoring criteria;
    (2) high degree of athleticism;
    (3) reasonably low injury rates; and
    (4) audience friendliness.

    Electronic scoring and instant replays have done a lot for the objectivity of Olympic taekwondo. The athleticism element is unquestionable--any sport built around kicking combinations and spinning kicks is going to do well there. The injury rates are reasonable. And so long as the rules are massaged to (1) prevent standoffs (what I'm calling long periods of people staring at each other from three meters away while idly bouncing...also a problem in epee fencing), and (2) keep a good variety in scoring techniques (you don't want everyone just relying on just one sort of kick, just like foil rules had to be massaged when flicks became over-used).
     
  7. Hannibal

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

    Alfie pretty much runs WKC these days, but was big on all teh circuits, especially WAKO

    It isn't - it has a niche, but outside of the olympics it has little to no interest from any networks. This has clearly been noticed or the rule changes to make it "more UFC like" would not have been discussed

    Some people do that for tiddlywinks too :)

    My experience is that most non-MA folk you speak to don't get it...and the lack of hands is one reason for that

    It never had ANY mainstream exposure, had no TV coverage nor any hype behind it - yet you find WAKO, WKC, ISKA, XYZ and any number of inter club tournaments in this format on a global basis every week

    If it was an Olympic event it would have been given a huge shot in the arm

    Punching someone in a legal area and scoring is a BAD tactical decision since when?

    That's arguing a point I didn't make

    TKD syllabus has a plethora of strikes with the upper body, yet the measuring stick seen by the world has none - I fail to see how that can be a positive
     
  8. SeeDarkly

    SeeDarkly Valued Member

    Post #169-if you did that Mitlov I'd have to quit! I'd love to see the full spectrum of what TKD has to offer on display-not what certain quarters have shaped it to be to appeal to the olympics.....
    Wouldn't it be great to see two TKD practioners going at it using everything we have? As somebody said earlier (I apologise, I forget who) perhaps some of the heritage has been trampled on to get where we have gotten today, and I personally feel that is not a good way to go. TKD has a TON more to it than just kicks, let's let it breath, evolve and grow into something better?
     
  9. Mitlov

    Mitlov Shiny

    Given that the IOC is dropping wrestling as a core sport but keeping TKD as one, I don't think the non-MA folk you're speaking with are representative of the worldwide Olympic-watching population as a whole. I think there's a lot more people worldwide that like Olympic TKD than MAP generally gives credit for.

    If it opens you up to a big kick that's worth two or three times as many points as the punch that you just scored with? Taking a pawn in chess is bad if you lose a rook in the process.

    I agree that there's an inconsistency between the sparring sport and the syllabus (patterns, one-step sparring, etc). It's just that you think the sparring sport should be changed to be more like the syllabus, and I think the syllabus should be changed or scrapped since it's currently a useless distraction for the sport competitors.

    (Note that I'm not saying this for all TKD, just Olympic TKD...kind of like how I don't take issue with some of the broader trappings of Historical European Martial Arts clubs, but I think that stuff has no place in an Olympic fencing gym).
     
  10. Hannibal

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

    That's the point though - neither had an opprtunity to kick from either the dynamic or the range, both could have scored cleanly, but it wasn't a missed opportunity it didn't even occur to them even though the rules allow it

    They both settled for a zero score in that exchange - and one point can make all the difference at such a high level

    I am not saying "TKD sucks because it isn't MMA" or anything along those lines, just that the current ruleset is very niche and as it is the "yardtsick" that many judge it on it will continue to narrow down until it is literally just flaying feet
     
  11. Mitlov

    Mitlov Shiny

    I disagree. From that range, I think if one of them had committed to a torso punch, it would have allowed the other to skip a half-step back while planting a solid roundhouse on the hogu or the head, and the first competitor would have been in a physical position where he couldn't counter with an axe kick, spinning hook, or back kick (ever tried to throw any of those three immediately after a committed right cross?).

    When Olympic competitors in any sport don't do X, it's generally not because they didn't think of X, but because they thought of it and chose not to because it fails some cost-benefit analysis. These people have built their entire lives around winning under this ruleset with the best coaches in the world for that ruleset; if they both consistently don't do X in Y situation, there's a darned good reason for it. It's not because "it didn't occur to them."
     
  12. Hannibal

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

    This is the sequence - missed kicks, fall in and one even PUSHED the opponent away to put him back into "kicking range". That was a score waiting to happen that didn't - because they don't train for it or recognise it
     

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  13. Mitlov

    Mitlov Shiny

    Well if it's so obvious that there are all these points where someone can score lots of points with punching without any negative consequences, why didn't anyone--any of the competitors from anywhere in the world--go in with this "common sense" knowledge and sweep past all those blindered-to-the-benefits-of-punching chumps straight to the London Olympic podium?

    This reminds me of discussing Olympic TKD with karate guys and hearing "well, they'd be better off if they squared off against their opponent instead of standing sideways." Really? Then why doesn't someone enter a TKD tournament and win it by doing so?

    Sport competition is natural selection. What rises to the surface is what works best under the existing rules.
     
  14. Hannibal

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

    They said that high kicks and spin kicks would never work in MMA when it started - now they seem to average one spectacular KO per month

    It is not a case of "punch beats kick"- it a case of "score when you see the opportunity"; had they even considered for a nano second to look for those "once in a blue moon" shots called "punches" then who knows how many other would appear?

    Also wasn't there a rather tasty punch score in the past Olympics unless I am very much mistaken -so it CAN be done if one trains the response
     
  15. Mitlov

    Mitlov Shiny

    High roundhouses, yes. But those have always been successful in various other arts: Kyokushin, Muay Thai, UFC, etc. But I've only ever seen one turning/spinning kick get a KO in mixed martial arts, and it was Loiseau v. McCarthy, eight years ago, with a back kick. You certainly don't see spinning hook kicks being used successfully in the UFC. They just don't work well with that rule set. And even back kicks, I've never seen one really used successfully except for Loiseau v. McCarthy.

    I just can't believe for a second that Olympic athletes training maybe 60 hours per week with Olympic coaches, both groups having dedicated their lives to winning under a particular rule-set, never "considered for a nano-second" a strategy that half the internet theorists and armchair coaches are tossing out there on a regular basis.
     
    Last edited: Jul 30, 2013
  16. Hannibal

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

    [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztoCYmfyZgU"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztoCYmfyZgU[/ame]

    [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bj3xL9zoY1M"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bj3xL9zoY1M[/ame]

    All in the last 12 months - and there are plenty more
     
  17. Hannibal

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

    [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH7oRb5Knjc"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH7oRb5Knjc[/ame]

    [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2NwBmMgNQg"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2NwBmMgNQg[/ame]

    [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbVB81ffM6Y"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbVB81ffM6Y[/ame]

    [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bks-BDah_Yo"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bks-BDah_Yo[/ame]
     
  18. Hannibal

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

    Sometimes the innovations need one person to make them - look at high jumping. A sporting event for years and "we do it this way because it is the best"....until Mr. Fosbury of course

    More punches is NOT a panacea - but throw that in the mix and there is a different animal than most are used to, and that can often be enough for that edge
     
  19. Mitlov

    Mitlov Shiny

    Thanks I used to watch MMA a lot, but probably hadn't in the past 18 months (not deliberate, just distracted by other stuff) so I guess I missed this recent trend.

    But nobody had ever seen anything like a fosbury flop before. It was something random that nobody had seen before. Everyone who does TKD knows what a punch is; they just choose not to do it in their particular sport.
     
  20. gapjumper

    gapjumper Intentionally left blank

    Yet though it did a great deal to further the sport, it was still a flop.
     
    Last edited: Jul 30, 2013

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