Evaluating My Taekwondo School

[bushido_man96]

This post was originally published as an article in a dedicated KarateForums.com Articles section, which is no longer online. After the section was closed, this article was most to the most appropriate forum in our community.

Every year many people sign up for a martial arts class, looking for a new experience. But, why do they sign up and how many of them actually know exactly what they are signing up for? Self defense? Exercise? Self improvement? Aside from these questions, what are their assumptions? Do they assume that all of these will be filled at every place they go?

Perhaps they view every school as essentially the same in goals, methods and tactics. Perhaps not. In light of these questions, I have decided to evaluate the state of my own Taekwondo school, using two models of evaluation.

In the first evaluation method, I will use the "Three Models of Taekwondo" outlined by Simon John O'Neill, in his book "The Taegeuk Cipher." The second evaluation criteria I will use can be found here on KarateForums.com, in a thread titled "Role of the Teacher," authored by JohnC.

The former model will evaluate my school form a narrower overview of Taekwondo schools, where the latter model will evaluate my school in a broader definition of martial arts analysis.

Three Models of Taekwondo

In "The Taegeuk Cipher," Simon John O'Neill lays out three models that today's Taekwondo schools tend to fall under:

1. Hard-style Taekwondo: for self defense and physical education

2. Modern sport Taekwondo: for tournament fighting and physical education

3. Pattern-based Taekwondo: for self defense (pp. 14)

The author states that most Taekwondo schools fall under these three categories, but it is not uncommon to find elements of one incorporated into the other.

Hard-Style Taekwondo

According to O'Neill, this style most closely resembles the art taught be the original kwans and was characteristic of Taekwondo into the 1980's. Power striking, hard blocking, backed by rigorous drilling and conditioning led to the use of percussive techniques to defeat opponents.

Grappling and vital point manipulation were somewhat neglected (pp. 14). Basic technique drilling with attention to body position (shoulders, hips and feet) was paramount. Powerful sweeping blocking motions cleared obstructions for direct, linear strikes. Knife hand and hammer fist strikes were common as well, especially for self defense.

Kicking was a bit more rudimentary, consisting of the more basic front kick, round kick, side kick and spinning side/back kick. The more complicated footwork characteristic of the sport styles had not yet come into vogue.

Modern Sport Taekwondo

In order to differentiate Taekwondo from the Okinawan and Japanese styles that it sprang from, associations began promoting its vast kicking inventory, especially of the jumping and spinning variety. As the style began to internationalize and move toward sport, safety became more of an issue. This was approached by either limiting areas of contact (not punching to the head) or limiting contact levels (light to medium contact sparring).

The push for Olympic recognition by both the International Taekwon-do Federation (ITF) and the World Taekwondo Federation (WTF) led to the establishment of sport-based rule sets used for international competition. As a result, many dojangs will dedicate much of their training time to drilling tournament techniques and strategies, with forms and "traditional technique" training becoming relegated to grading curriculum. Self defense is an occasional novelty (pp. 16-17).

Pattern-Based Taekwondo

This Taekwondo model is pure self defense, "devoid of sporting adaptations, based on the concepts and techniques shown in the patterns," (pp. 17). In this model, the pattern is viewed as a textbook from which information is extracted, studied, and then put into practice (pp. 21).

These concepts and techniques are then put to work through various levels of partner and scenario drilling to explore practical application.

JohnC's Martial Evaluation Models

In the thread titled "The Role of the Teacher" on KarateForums.com, the author of the thread, JohnC, lists four initial positions to define approaches to martial learning.

1. Martial Exercise: focus on health improvement and fitness

2. Martial Sport: focus on competitions, dependent on rule sets

3. Martial Way: focus on a "traditional" aspect of training

4. Martial Art: focus on effective self defense

Martial artists tend to use this breakdown in classifying the approach they take in how they teach and/or learn the martial arts and in a sense, it describes the general make-ups of various styles and schools.

The descriptions for the four classifications below are provided in the thread, by JohnC.

Martial Exercise

This is for people wanting to get/maintain a level of fitness without regard to the practical/competition applications of the movements (Taebo, Cardio Kickboxing and most McDojos fit here).

Martial Sport

This is for people wanting to compete in rule based scenarios without regard to the street/combat applicability of the techniques.

Martial Way

This is for people wanting to focus on traditional techniques/weapons/methods/etiquette/spiritual development without regard to whether those things are currently applicable or can be improved upon via modern approaches.

Martial Art

This is for people wanting to be/become "street lethal" without regard to style, tradition, etiquette, etc.

In both of the aforementioned models, it is important to note that each of the authors feel that the breakdowns are not totally exclusive of each other and that there does tend to be some overlap. Bearing these models in mind I will now address the layout of my typical Taekwondo class.

My Typical Taekwondo Class

To borrow some Karate terminology, a typical class at my Taekwondo school follows a kihon/kata/kumite type of format that is common to that of many traditional Karate schools. This is not surprising to me, considering Taekwondo's roots in Shotokan Karate.

Basics

This would be the kihon section of the class. Each class opens with basic techniques. These follow a set format that is the same for every class, save for those times when an instructor gets an urge and changes things up a bit. We start with hand techniques and work towards foot techniques, followed by combination techniques. Basics are done in prescribed stances to prescribed target areas, advancing and/or retreating along the floor.

Although monotonous at times, they do mimic most of the movements, targets and stances associated with the techniques when done in the forms, lending consistency when learning the forms. The chief and assistant instructors of the school are fond of stating that basics form the foundation of everything else that we do and everything else builds from the basics. That is why the basics are done first.

Forms

Following basics is the forms (or kata) portion of class. Forms are typically done in rank order, starting with the lowest ranks and working up to the higher ranks. There are usually two run-throughs; the first at the instructor's count, to make corrections and the second at the student's pace. My school practices most of the ITF patterns. Basics lead to forms, which is why forms follow second here.

Sparring

Sparring (or kumite, in sticking with the 3 K's analogy) falls into two categories in my school:

1. One-step sparring. These are prearranged defenses to a right hand face punch. They follow a down block/attack/defend pattern and are touted as "self defense techniques." Some of the lower ranked techniques have promise, but the more advanced segments contain higher level kicking combinations that would be much more difficult to render into a self defense situation. However, even the more applicable one-steps lose their self defense value if not taken beyond the down block/attack/defend layout.

2. Free sparring. This is done last in class. We follow the WTF/Olympic rule set as far as target areas and legal techniques are concerned, and also wear protective gear in accordance with those rules, which includes foam headgear, chest protector and fist/forearm and shin/instep padding. Contact levels are moderate in class, but body displacement is emphasized. Knockouts are acceptable for adults at competition. At times this class segment will consist of sparring drills and these are geared towards the sparring rules. This segment finishes out the class.

Character Traits

My school and organization are also characterized by principles of etiquette, consisting of answering up "yes sir" and "no sir" in class, showing respect to high ranks and instructors with bows and bowing in and out of class and on and off of the dojang floor. Training is also done barefoot, wearing a uniform called a dobok. Technique performance is determined by set parameters for what is considered right/wrong or good/bad technique.

Evaluation

I will now use the layout of my typical Taekwondo class to evaluate the state of my school using the classifications listed in each of the models.

According to the "Three Models of Taekwondo," my school is shaded by two of the models listed. With the heavy emphasis placed on basics and forms, my school falls under the Hard-Style Taekwondo model, but more towards the physical education aspect and not the self defense aspect.

I also shade it a bit into the Modern Sport Taekwondo model, because of the sport-based rules of sparring. I would like to emphasize that I shade lightly into this model, as sparring is not a priority in my school and rarely occupies much more than one third of the class time.

Evaluation of my school using JohnC's categories also falls under two of his models. The first model I lump it into is the Martial Exercise category. This is mostly due to the aforementioned physical education aspect of the Hard-Style Taekwondo model.

The second model I would classify my school under is Martial Way. This is because of the "traditional" makeup of the class, adhering to traditional techniques in basics, forms and one-steps, the rank-and-file order of the class and the emphasis on respect and discipline in regards to high ranks and instructors.

Conclusion

My goal in writing this article is to simply be honest with myself; to honestly present the makeup of my current Taekwondo school and evaluate what it does and does not offer as a martial art. I hope that by writing this article and using my Taekwondo school as an example, that I can also provide other martial artists with ideas for evaluating not only what they may be getting out of their own current training, but also how they may be able to seek out whatever else they may be looking for in their own martial journey.

Sources

O'Niell, Simon John. "The Taegeuk Cipher," pp. 14, 16-17, 21.

JohnC, "Role of the Teacher," KarateForums.com.

[Patrick]

Thank you for the submission, Brian.

Patrick

[tallgeese]

Excellent breakdown, and a really honest look at what you're doing. I also like the application of both models. This is probably something we should all do from time to time to reinforce that we're getting what we want out of training and that training is actually doing what it's purported to be doing.

Very nice.

[bushido_man96]

Thanks, tallgeese.

[DWx]

Great article

I think most schools would probably fall until a mixture of categories and not just the one.

[sensei8]

That was a GREAT article Brian!! Being honest with oneself across the board is very important, however, not easy to do for one reason or another. This article will get my vote as Article of the Year, should it be on the ballot.

[bushido_man96]

Thanks, Bob.

Danielle, I do agree that most schools do overlap into a few of the models I have mentioned. But what I tried to do was look at what the majority of one of our classes focuses on, and went that route. Like I've mentioned, although we do Olympic style sparring, our school is far from being categorized into a Modern Sport-oriented school. Some schools with more class time than ours probably can shade more into each of the areas, though.