Tkd for fanciness?!

[Little Dragon]

Ok,today at church i was talking to a friend of mines.He is older than i am and has taken both tkd and ken-ryu karate(iono if i said it right,if i did then forgive me).He told me in ways that karate is better than tkd for actually encounters of fights,and said that tkd is sort of like fancy pants moves.But when i asked him which style he liked better he responded with tkd but didnt tell me why.

 

For those people who take both karate and tkd..whut do u think?

[Chris Mckechnie]

Well based off what my teacher told us (He was a Black belt in Karate, Judo and is currently a 6th Degree Black belt in Taekwon-Do) Karate isn't any better for Self Defence mainly due to what he said was too much Rotational Power.

 

When he did Karate he said that it is possible to generate insane ammounts of power through rotation, but after doing Taekwon-Do he discovered that Karates means of gaining power through rotation had a major flaw, in that too much rotational power actually resulted in doing as much damage to oneself as it would do to the opponant =\

[Little Dragon]

do you know what kind of karate it was? since there are different styled ones they could be a little different from eachother.

 

But thanks for responding to my question by the way :]

[Chris Mckechnie]

Not 100% Sure Dragon, i'll try to find out for you

[Croy]

alot of ppl get the misinterpretation that tkd is not practical do to what they have seen by olympic style sparring, ppl see a couple guys do their "flutter kicks" and see no use of the hands. someone who comments on the practicality of tkd should keep an open mind and take into consideration that even though olympic tkd doesn't look practical, they need to think about a couple other things, most schools DO teach the use of hands and many practical takedowns and other self defense measures regardless of how they fight their tournaments, 2nd, have you seen how fast some of those guys can kick? personally, i don't care for olympic style tkd, but man, anyone who can kick like they do deserves some respect, i think i'd use my hands less in practice if my feet were that fast. overall, all arts are defenitely a means of self defense, each just has its own pros and cons, and anyone claiming that one art is better than the other is either ignorant or is new to the martial arts and doesn't know what he/she is talking about. just my 2 cents

[Little Dragon]

yeah,my instructor tells us the olympicians today suck since they only use legs,and he says th use of hands are very useful and what he says is true since i use my arms a lot in sparring.Like there are moments where both opponents kick n sort of stall..those r moments when u punch so they back off and gives u a chance for a immidiate kick.I try to make sparring as real as a real fight for me.

 

I also asked my friend that i wanted to learn karate instead...but he told me to stick with tkd.He told me unless i wanted to kill sumone since his style taught him to grab peoples wind pipes n tear them out(the tube on your throat).

[OceanDragon]

My instructor supplements our TKD with other styles so we learn weapons and Hapkido techniques. We also learn alot of handstrikes, such as punches, knife hand strikes, and other things. While I'm sure there are other arts which are better for self defense (or EZ Defense if you really wanna go bare-bones), any martial artist would be better equipped for self-defense than before they had training.

[Little Dragon]

your lucky.

 

Most tkd dojo's these days concitrate on tournements rather than real fights...tkd is to much of a sport-.-

 

Me and my friend do full contact sparring to bring up our experience for real situations on our own time.

[47MartialMan]

When speaking of TKD, one must not forget. Most American or that outside of Korea are mainly sport-oriented. In Korea, and practiced hard to those conditons, it is strong.

 

One guy I know teaching it, straight from Korea, does not have any juvenile students. His classes are robust, almost like a military boot camp. Methods, are those "like/emulating" Hapkido, Tang So Do, Yudo, and Kung Fu rolled into one.

 

Hardly any "forms are done". High kicking is for exercise only and not during his defense practices.

[foreveryoung001]

A lot of it will come down to the instructor and the desire of the students. A good instructor will find the passion and motivation of the student and focus on that. I have worked out with TKD instructors who only focused on the sport aspect, and I have worked out with those who were more focused on self-defense. I was also in a Tang Soo Do Clud for a brief time where they only focused on sparring. There are TKD schools that have a good well-rounded curriculum, and will help students get exposed to several different aspects of the art and sport. But I think you will find that in any style. The teacher is what will determine the direction of the class.