At my TKD school, each belt progression includes various pre-set sparring defensive moves, which vary in their practical application. In general, however, we do not (in my 6 or so months with them) really angle our training towards self defense beyond leaving the practitioner's imagination and intellect to figure out how to apply these skills in the real world. On top of a deep love for the sport, the art, and other such facets of Taekwondo, I have a desire to make this as practical an experience as possible. As such I will be slowly starting to train while wearing boots, street pants, and learning how to practice on all manners of terrain (it's not exactly as natural for us to be wearing boots on cracked concrete and try to rotate that foot as on polished wood floors), practicing applying strikes to the ankles, knees, using elbow and knee strikes, and avoiding being grappled (generally with the mindset that your opponent will be the stereotypical non-combat trained bar brawler). I also am working with a Krav Maga practitioner towards these aims and will eventually train in Hopkido as well. So this is my approach at the more practical self defensive side of Taekwondo. If you have one, what is it? What does it involve? What do you feel should be part of any martial artists self defense angled program and stratagem?
You need to train with pre-fight verbal disarming techniques employed by an attacker who will attack full contact and respond with full contact techniques delivered against continual resistance. I've only managed to achieve this through using body armour and setting up scenario based training under the tutelage of people like jwt here on MAP. You don't need to change the way techniques are done, you need to change the methodology under which they are trained. Mitch
The question remains. What kinds of changes in methodology do you employ to transition from rule supporting sport TKD (if that is your style) to a practical self defense application.
This, really. Do some research and find out what the most common assaults are for your country/area. Understand the way attackers use verbal techniques to disarm your fight reflexes. Train under those constraints, with the attacker being allowed full contact attacks and the defender being allowed any response but with a goal of safe escape and you have worthwhile self defence training. Mitch
You're most welcome Do a search on posts by jwt here on MAP and get some more ideas, plus Dikzzz. Where are you based Algavinn? For research, if you haven't read Geoff Thompson and Rory Miller then have a look. I'm sure other people will also comment. You don't need to change TKD at all, you just need to change how it is (often) trained. Best wishes Mitch
How the training is changed is my intention, if nothing else like instead of doing higher end kicks from solar plexus to head I might prefer going for ankles and knees that will stop my opponent, and are harder to guard against (this at least being one conception of varying strategy, not sure if it's in line with what you mean by changing how it is trained). I'm in oregon, USA. portland metro. Thankss for the names, I'll have to look those through and see what I can gain from them.
just train as realistically as you can. spar with less rules. allow takedowns, throws, and grappling. there is only so much you can do with one-step type self defense. the closest you can get to actual combat is sparring, so do that! there are plenty of good tkd schools out there that spar hard and produce good fighters. i myself am a moo duk kwan stylest. here is a vid of how a good moo duk kwan school will spar: [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cu-dx4EH7Ko"]YouTube - Steve Grandeza Phil. Moo Duk Kwan Full Contact Fights[/ame] the less limitations in your training, the more realistic it will be. you also are on the right track when it comes to crosstraining. its never a bad idea to crosstrain. go train in styles that are completely different from tkd. learn about fighting at all ranges. learn about other styles' philosophies on fighting. and basically, just keep on keeping on!
i honestly don't believe that, because I think the pre-fight psychology is o important, but that sparring is great! Sparring is not SD, however. Mitch
*shrug* I don't personally mind them. It is one medium through which we teach certain throws and techniques that are SD applicable that we would never use in sports competition (elbow strikes, strikes to face/neck/groin, etc.), however they are requirements so they will be memorized (actually working on them at this particular moment, was just checking business online and this) even though I don't take them as my SD training.
Mitch has covered some of the most fundamental elements: 1. You need to know what sort of attacks you are defending against. 2. You need to train these with resistance. As Mitch says - there is the verbal element too, because without bringing that into play the value of your training is limited. So.. 3. You need to practise these techniques with resistance and contact while replicating the stresses of a real situation as best you can - eg having to try and talk the situation down, being shouted at by lots of people etc. A further limitation on the success of what you do physically is what you do psychologically. A large proportion of the population are not street smart, or mentally prepared to defend themselves. I could be cheeky here and say "that's why they are doing TKD and not Thai boxing or MMA" - but there s a strong element of truth to this. There are many reasons to train in the martial arts - self defence is only one of them, if often a strong background motivating factor. But the truth of the matter is that the martial art you choose generally comes down to a convenience v cost v personality type equation. People who already like to fight and who have a fighters mindset are perhaps more likely to try and art that 'roughs them up' from the start like MMA, Judo, Boxing, Thai boxing etc - whereas people who would like to be able to fight but are nervous of it are more likely to opt for the safer looking generic Karate, TKD or Aikido class. That is not to say that those latter arts cannot produce people with devastating fighting ability. In addition to Miller and Thompson that TKDMitch recommends, I'd suggest Gavin de Becker, Siddle and Grossman as starting points on learning about the psychology behind combat. Inhibition is one of the great psychological restraints that stops many from fighting. Fear of the consequences. Fear of being injured, of being injured more, of being killed, of injuring the other person, of going to jail. All these need to be addressed. There is no point training good technique if the person cannot be motivated to use it. So you need to know what the Law allows, because you need every possible weapon in your arsenal of helping students justify what they are doing. To be honest I don't find footwear a major factor. Having said that I train in trainers, but I can pivot on my foot on dodgy tarmac, grass or mud in addition to a training mat or wooden floor, and my trainers and boots have great gripping power. With reference to practicing strikes to the ankles and knees - they are good targets, but there are many better ones. Crucially however there are many better ones that you can train with contact that will have only a temporary disabling effect. If you can't train it with contact - don't expect to do it for real. If we knew where you were, we could help more. Have fun!
I think that the first thing to do is to condition your striking and kicking survaces in order to deliver real punches and kicks. If you were into sports side of TKD, your knuckles and legs are not ready for the real deal. If you punch somebody with fists that did not have proper conditioning, you will break your wrist or knuckels or tare the ligaments. 100 %. So you probably are in a good condition as far as endurance goes, but there is no point in practicing punches and kicks if you will hurt yourself more than the opponent the first time you really use them.
Fair enough. i believe a persons mindset is extremely important, if not the most important aspect in a fighting situation. basically, a persons will to survive will supercede anything taught in the physical spectrum of martial arts training. but in terms of physical training alone, i dont think there is a drill out there that can prepare someone for a fight better than good ol' free sparring can. and i believe sparring actually plays a huge factor in the mental side of training as well. once again, it is difficult to imitate a situation in which a martial artist will experience the mental side of combat. the closest you can get, in my opinion, is sparring with the fewest amount of limitations as possible.
Hi French Fri25 Sparring isn't the only method of effective paired training. Look at 1.54 to about 2.30 in the video below. Two TKD instructors engaged with one of my students (as aggressor) in what we would not describe as 'sparring'. The music covers up the colourful language they are experiencing. The first time we did a demo at a MAP Meet I had to apologise to the woman running the rspca charity stand as she went into flashbacks of domestic abuse - that was also the one where the fight fell off the demo mats in the MAP crowd. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvCov1c7z1w"]YouTube - DART[/ame]
I think i agree with TKD Mitch here. I think any SD should include elements with big focus on the pre-assault state, once it gets pass that you are going to get hurt in some degree. You dont walk away from a streetfight unscratched. As for the delivery systems i think many martialarts would give you good tools as long as they are martial arts practised with a resisting opponent., like in for example boxing or judo. Bear in mind that SD often involves in having to deal with multiple opponents, no matter how strong or quick you are this is going to give you problems. I havent seen that many schools focussing on multiple opponents but Tony Blauer and Phil Messina does and are quite wellknown in the Law Enforcement world. I think it is essential to have someone with experience from the real world of SD to set up realistic conditions and scenarious, it probably sound very basic. But a bouncer or policeman would know from experience how people, who are likely to become assaulters, react and provoke towards their victims. I believe the psychological aspects far outweigh the physical ones when it comes to SD. From having to deal with "chaos" in your training your mental robustness would increase as well. Just my 5 cents anyway, i am in no way a SD expert but i have been in some of these scenarious when i was younger.
