TKD as self defense

[straightblast]

Hi, I am looking for everyones view on TKD as self defense and what orginizations are more geared towards it rather than Olympic type sparring.

Regards

[DWx]

Sure its great for self defence if applied correctly, but it'll depend on the individual school and teacher as to how much and what is taught with respect to self defence. I don't know about other orgs but for ITF there is a hosin sul (self defence techniques) component to each belt level which ranges from defences against simple grabs to stick and knife defence to multiple attacker scenarios. And of course any sort of striking style will be beneficial if you've trained hard.

[CTTKDKing]

I attend a great school where we do, do Olympic sparring for competition, but also have a very rigorous self defense training regime too. We do a lot of drills, and target practice for precision, but we also have a few self defense and one step sparring techniques we need to learn per belt. After teaching these to us he (our instructor) will have us do some exercises where the attack is random and we have to use our self defense techniques to defend ourselves and counter attack. Those classes are a blast and very real life practical.

[bushido_man96]

I think that TKD can be very good for self-defense, if taught properly. It takes the right instruction, and, as mentioned previously, but it can be very useful in self-defense.

[Mistassailant5]

TKD can be extremely effective in SD...if you are very good at it. Being a powerful art, the major downfall is that if you are not very skilled at it, it is not very effective SD.

[bushido_man96]

TKD can be extremely effective in SD...if you are very good at it. Being a powerful art, the major downfall is that if you are not very skilled at it, it is not very effective SD.

I think that would be the same for every style out there...

[isshinryu5toforever]

Mistassailant5, I think you're looking at the flashier, fancier demonstration kicks that you often see performed by Taekwondo practitioners, but the self defense side is a bit different. In almost every martial art I've practiced, self defense is extremely simple, easy to grasp, and easy to become good at. It always works on the KISS principle, Keep It Simple Stupid. To put it in a nicer way, the WOO factor was used in a Black Belt Magazine article. They discussed Window Of Opportunity in relation to self-defense. The Taekwondo schools I know that put more value on self-defense than on competition, practice the full curriculum, but put emphasis on kicks at the waist or below, and simple, effective, straight punches to the chest and abdominal area with open handed strikes to the face. You don't have to be able to do a jump spinning full-side straddle wheel kick to be able to defend yourself, and I doubt most Taekwondo schools would advocate defending yourself in such a manner anyways.

[potsie23]

I am very new to the martial arts, but where I take classes we cover self defense tactics as well as sparring combinations. Our instructor is very good in teaching self defense tactics that can be adapted to the moment, if and when they are needed, but I believe they should be taught as a seperate group of skills within the disipline. I hope this makes sense.

[ninjanurse]

You don't have to be able to do a jump spinning full-side straddle wheel kick to be able to defend yourself, and I doubt most Taekwondo schools would advocate defending yourself in such a manner anyways.

SO true! Used as a training tool they are very effective at developing skills...and they look cool, however, while learning to execute such kicks develops balance, timing, strength, coordination, and speed they are not practical in most, if not all, situations.

[bushido_man96]

I am very new to the martial arts, but where I take classes we cover self defense tactics as well as sparring combinations. Our instructor is very good in teaching self defense tactics that can be adapted to the moment, if and when they are needed, but I believe they should be taught as a seperate group of skills within the disipline. I hope this makes sense.

I disagree here. I think self-defense should be taught as the core of a style, and everything else should come out of that idea. That way, you know that the bulk of what you are learning is self-defense based.