TKD in real life situations?

[Aodhan]

I've only seen TKD in Youtube videos, and from what I saw, TKD doesn't use much defense. I've only seen it in tournaments though(Youtube not real life).

But, I've read some comments say that TKD as a sport doesn't show the real TKD. Anyway, it seems that other I can learn Okinawan, TKD, or Muay Thai. When I think that TKD mostly uses kicks and doesn't have much for defense, I think that I won't have much use for it, especially in places that are too small and can't perform a spinning kick in.

So, is it like in the TKD sport? or is there more to TKD when used as self-defense?

The Sport side (Most commonly seen is the Olympic style, which falls under the WTF umbrella) is markedly different than "real" TKD because of the scoring rules.

Even in WTF schools, you will/should be learning things like joint locks, take down combinations, basic groundfighting as well as all the traditional elements such as forms, weapons, sparring, etc.

My current style is ATA, and we go through all of the above a few times a year on various cycles. We start learning the basics as colored belts and add on as you increase in rank.

John

[Kuma]

Sounds funny to say, but I remember watching a Cops episode a long time ago where some jerkoff tried robbing a man who was a TKD practitioner. The TKD guy actually kicked the guy in the head and knocked him out cold, then for good measure gave him a couple kicks when he was on the ground. The TKD guy actually thought he had killed him for a minute there.

[Aodhan]

Sounds funny to say, but I remember watching a Cops episode a long time ago where some jerkoff tried robbing a man who was a TKD practitioner. The TKD guy actually kicked the guy in the head and knocked him out cold, then for good measure gave him a couple kicks when he was on the ground. The TKD guy actually thought he had killed him for a minute there.

Being as the main emphasis of most training is to do the minimum amount of damage to get out of a situation, I would say the TKD guy didn't pay attention in class. Especially kicking him after he is down, that is just begging for a lawsuit. (And the TKD guy would lose. Badly.)

Not to mention there is almost no way I would be going for a kick to the head in a street fight.

John