Athens olympic taekwondo?

[returning_wave]

Whether that's "poor fighting" is a subjective opinion. If it acheives the objective better (winning matches), how can it legitimately be considered "poor" compared with other methods like body punches?

 

i was referrign to fightign away from the rule bound Olympic arena. kicks to the head will very quickly get you flipped on your head in a real situation which i have seen people learn the very hard and painful way.

[The Saint]

First of all, Olympic TKD is a sport. Traditional TKD offers more strikes (elbow strikes and knees) and different technics when it come to fighting (although some are not used in competetion). I did watch some of the matches, and was a bit dissappointed on how many technics are not being used. Olympic TKD should allow punches to the face. There are some WTF fighters out there that are good fighters and weren't at the olmypics.

 

Secondly, Olmpic TKD is relatively a new sport to the olympics. It is good to see a Martial art in the olmypics, however to watch a watered down version with no head punches or sweeps is dissappointing.

[DLopez]

i was referrign to fightign away from the rule bound Olympic arena. kicks to the head will very quickly get you flipped on your head in a real situation which i have seen people learn the very hard and painful way.

 

Oh.

 

Well then, it sounds like you're making the presumption that those TKD fighters that participate in Olympic style competition don't know how to fight any other way and would all fair poorly in a "real" fight. If so, can you explain how you came to that conclusion?

 

The way I see it, if someone is a poor TKD practioner, they will probably fair poorly in a "real" fight. But that is also true for someone practicing Karate or any other fighting sport for that matter. By "poor practitioner", I mean makes poor judgments or decisions, not just posessing poor skill level.

 

I'm not convinced that Olympic style competition is the cause of poor TKD skills, because there are probably just as many poor Karate or Jiu Jitsu practitioners out there that don't have the benefit of blaming it on "watered down" Olympic rules.

[The Saint]

My presumption is based on taking a tradition art Tae Kwon Do (which means the art of fighting with hands and feet) and turning it into a sport. Most not all Olympic Style fighters, fight with their guard down so it is harder to score points to the body. If someone trains to always protect their ribs by keeping their hands down by their waist, the body become conditioned to have them there in a tense situations.

 

Not all WTF fighters do this- I have competed in many WTF and ITF competitions and the differences between the two styles is quite evident.

 

There's couple of things that make someone a poor practicioner of an art.1) poor instruction on techniques 2)training just to get a belt that is black 3) lack of desire to learn all aspects of the art mental/physical and there are many more....

 

Bottom line is if a person is taught poorly it will reflect on the basics of their fighting ability. Good basics usually show when a person needs to fight or react in a situation. There are many WTF fighters that could defend themselves on the street quite easy, however Olympic TKD does not reflect all TKD dojos out there.

[DLopez]

If someone trains to always protect their ribs by keeping their hands down by their waist, the body become conditioned to have them there in a tense situations.

 

I realize many people believe this assumption, as it is parroted so often. In fact, many here have taken that same logic of "fight like you train" and have applied it to the hard contact vs. light contact argument, where it is purported that someone who trains with light contact will not know how to really punch or kick in a real-life situation. The reality is quite the opposite.

 

I practice light contact sparring and I find that I really have to concentrate on keeping it light. It turns out that the natural tendency is to revert to full contact, and is something that will happen without even having to think about it, which goes contrary to the "fight like you train" theory. That by itself is enough to cause me to doubt that the rest of the "fight like you train" arguments are so cut and dry.

 

I believe it's totally possible for someone to fight Olympic style TKD, then turn around and fight capably in any other style within its rules of sparring.

 

I know I'm in the minority on this, but maybe I've simply chosen to keep an open mind about someone's capabilities as a martial artist, and not let (un)popular perceptions of their particular style trick me into underestimating their skill level.