"Full contact" TKD?

[Elky]

usually when students reach around 6th or 5th kup, we start them on full contact.

What safety precautions do you take?

[french fri25]

yea, we start them off with point sparring and then we go to medium contact. then we do medium contact with sweeps, takedowns, throws...

we take safety precautions. we wear cups obviously, headgear, gloves, footgear, and chest protectors if we want. with full contact we use 12 oz boxing gloves so we obviously dont do many takedowns, maybe sweeps occasionaly. with the medium contact, we use mma/grappling gloves. so that we can be more proficient with takedowns and such.

[wingedMonkey]

ATA used to do it quite recently too but started implementing equipment for the safety of the students

[bushido_man96]

The ATA sparring that I remember was always light contact.

[shinbushi]

Years ago, I trained briefly at a TKD school that did full contact sparring and it was weird. They wore chest protectors, cups, and mouth piece but allowed leg kicks. The weird part is, they weren't wearing shin pads and definitely weren't accustomed to a simple check and ate a lot of my leg kicks. They allowed, sweeps, throws, and takedowns too. It was too bad the instructor wouldn't spar me because it was convenient to where I lived at the time but the only other students sparring me were white belts, which is what I wasn't looking for at the time. Oh yeah, they also allowed all face punches, too..so it was really like a form of kickboxing or xanda? At least the rules they sparred by.

[YoungMan]

We follow WTF rules, and do not allow full contact until after black belt. But it also depends on the student. Some students are not ready for full contact even after black belt.

We do not allow face punches, sweeps, takedowns, leg kicks etc. for the simple reason that our main concern is safety. We don't want students getting hurt. We have taught these techniques as part of self defense, and we have Insructors well versed in them. But we don't believe in using them during free fighting for the simple reason we don't want students getting hurt. And any Instructor who allows them simply to allow them is, in my opinion, irresponsible.

Yeah, I know Thai boxing allows them. And how long is the average career of a Thai boxer?

[DWx]

We follow WTF rules, and do not allow full contact until after black belt. But it also depends on the student. Some students are not ready for full contact even after black belt.

We do not allow face punches, sweeps, takedowns, leg kicks etc. for the simple reason that our main concern is safety. We don't want students getting hurt. We have taught these techniques as part of self defense, and we have Insructors well versed in them. But we don't believe in using them during free fighting for the simple reason we don't want students getting hurt. And any Instructor who allows them simply to allow them is, in my opinion, irresponsible.

Yeah, I know Thai boxing allows them. And how long is the average career of a Thai boxer?

If you are so concerned about safety, how can you justify a full contact technique, lets say a roundhouse to the temple, but do not allow leg sweeps or a punch to the face? IMO a properly executed sweep is no worse than a full power side kick that sends you flying. In fact, in some cases such a sidekick would be worse as you would be travelling across an area into such hazards as walls, other people, equipment etc. At least with a proper sweep the emphasis is on you travelling down to the ground rather than pushing you across a room.

[YoungMan]

We don't. Students are expected to exercise extreme caution and self control when executing head kicks. In fact, we've had students get penalized for excessively hard head contact. Some black belts are not allowed to do high kicks during free sparring at all against some students because it is recognized they have a lot of power in their head kicks.

High kicks, whether in class ir tournaments, are expected to land lightly, not take the guy's head off. We reserve full power high kicks for form, basic kicking, and bag work.

We don't allow takedowns and sweeps during free fighting because (a) the chance of injury is great and (b) they are not allowed in WTF sparring.

Now demos and self defense are another story. Our demo team shows those techniques all the time. But they are also black belts and specially trained.

[DWx]

We don't. Students are expected to exercise extreme caution and self control when executing head kicks. In fact, we've had students get penalized for excessively hard head contact. Some black belts are not allowed to do high kicks during free sparring at all against some students because it is recognized they have a lot of power in their head kicks.

High kicks, whether in class ir tournaments, are expected to land lightly, not take the guy's head off. We reserve full power high kicks for form, basic kicking, and bag work.

We don't allow takedowns and sweeps during free fighting because (a) the chance of injury is great and (b) they are not allowed in WTF sparring.

Now demos and self defense are another story. Our demo team shows those techniques all the time. But they are also black belts and specially trained.

IMO not allowing a student to practise a technique during sparring because they can't control it isn't the best way to resolve a safety issue. For one, if you say to students that they should be sparring full contact then they should be allowed to spar full contact and not be restricted on what "full contact" power is.

"A full-contact sport is similar to a semi-contact sport, but which contains physical contact between the combatants with the aim of causing a knockout or otherwise rendering the opponent unable to continue the match. Injuries are much more common in full-contact sports since the amount of protective gear is often reduced, and the techniques are executed at full power. "

I just took that quote from Wikipedia . Now by that definition I would say that full power head shots would be allowed.

However, if an instructor feels that certain students/techniques are hazardous then they should be toned down not removed completely. If a student, especially a black belt, cannot adapt their techniques to a required intensity then they need to go away and train those techniques in a new way. Surely by black belt a student should have the ability and self control to judge the necessary power? A black should be able to kick full contact to someone's head with just enough force to ensure a reasonable amount of contact is made but then not take their opponent's head off.

Its fair enough that you train by WTF tournament rules so you don't allow sweeps, but I still think that they pose no more of a threat than a full power sidekick does. Also doesn't WTF allow you to do head punches now?

[YoungMan]

You'd think, but not always. Some black belts simply do not have enough control in their high kicks to warrant being allowed to use them in sparring, for whatever reason.

And as far as I know, the WTF does not allow head punching. Maybe they were debating it, but I don't believe they decided to allow them. If they did, our Senior Instructors would have said something.