tae kwon do

[TJS]

All stlyes are created 100% equal. just like everything else in life and it's impossible for anything to be better than anything else..Stlyle makes no diffence .........

[Robert]

All stlyes are created 100% equal. just like everything else in life and it's impossible for anything to be better than anything else..Stlyle makes no diffence .........

 

All styles have thier advantages and disadvantages.

 

Grapling styles (jujitsu)are extremely effective against a rapist. But in a bar with brocken glass on the floor and your opponents friends surrounding the fight, the last place I would want to be is on the floor.

 

Striking arts(tae kwon do) have an advantage if you are fighting in a situation where it would not be wise to be on the ground. But on ice, where it is hard to keep your footing it may be best to take your opponent to the ground.

 

Of coarse these are just a couple examples.

 

To say one art is ultimatly better than another is nothing more than pure opinion. They are all different. They can ALL be trained for many different circumstances. (I suppose TJS's style must be the exception and is the only style that is perfect for every situation)

 

Any art can be effective for self defence if it is trained for self defence. If you are training in an art for point fighting then it will be much less effective for self defence, but much more effective for competition.

 

Robert

[karatekid1975]

I would have to say that your extreamly lucky karatekid.Most Tae Kwon Do Dojang's are competiton based,and have no concept of self defense.Im glad you found a place thats gonna teach you what the art is truly about cause i have seen true Tae Kwon Do and i have alot of respect for the dedicated people who try to keep it strong.

 

Thanks I'll pass that on to my instructor. He believes in teaching TKD the way it's supposed to be, so he will love your post.

[TJS]

I suppose TJS's style must be the exception and is the only style that is perfect for every situation)

 

no but my stlye does have stadup fighting, clinch fighting, ground fighting, takedown defenses,etc..where alot of stlyes are limited to one range..like TKD is limited to the punching/kicking range..yet somehow it's effective in all self defense situations? but it's ok well just pretend that all arts ar equal in every way.

 

BTW I dont belive in an "ultimate" stlye I belive in cross training.

[Robert]

I suppose TJS's style must be the exception and is the only style that is perfect for every situation)

 

no but my stlye does have stadup fighting, clinch fighting, ground fighting, takedown defenses,etc..where alot of stlyes are limited to one range..like TKD is limited to the punching/kicking range..yet somehow it's effective in all self defense situations? but it's ok well just pretend that all arts ar equal in every way.

 

BTW I dont belive in an "ultimate" stlye I belive in cross training.

 

Why would you crosstrain if your style completely covers everything that you mentioned? You seem to be contradicting yourself.

 

You obviously have not been able to understand what I have been saying. I will simplify it. NO style is effective in every situation. But EVERY style CAN be effective in helping one to defend oneself. To say one style is better or worse than another is ONLY an expression of YOUR opinion.

 

No style can specialize in everything. So if you want to be effective at every type of fighting then you will have to study more than one style.

 

To say Tae Kwon Do is limited to kicking and punching only shows that you have had very limited exposure to it. Not every school is an olympic sparring factory. Does it fully cover everything? Of coarse not, no art does.

 

Robert

 

BTW

 

I never said that TKD is effective in EVERY situation. This is something that you are trying to imply that I said. [edit] I also never said that every art is equal. I said that they are NOT equal and that they are NOT unequal, they are DIFFERENT. They all have their advantages and disadvantages.

 

I encourage you to stop trying to put words in my mouth. It only weakens your argument when you resort to such tactics.

[aznkarateboi]

not again.... this same topic has come up over and over and over... dont people get tired of it?

[ninjanurse]

People get tired of it but egos don't.

 

In a pefect world.........(sigh)!

 

[TJS]

Why would you crosstrain if your style completely covers everything that you mentioned? You seem to be contradicting yourself.

 

I think it covers all of the various ranges of the fight well enough to handle myself..but does that mean I could not study a specific stlye like BJJ and impove my ground work? no. Wrestling for takedowns and defenses? no...you can always grow from other stlyes..im not contradictiong at all..

NO style is effective in every situation.

 

So it's impossible for a stlye to teach standup fighting, clinch fighting, ground fighting, weapon defefense, etc?

 

It might not be possible to cover "every" situation but are you going to sit here and tell me all stlyes are equal when it comes to various ranges? no some stlyes stick to one range and others teach a full range of techniques.

 

 

But EVERY style CAN be effective in helping one to defend oneself

 

So if a TKD practicioner gets takcled by suprise and finds him self on bottom how is his training going to help him? this goes for anyone that does not train in various ranges. they might be able to use it but they may find themselves in a position where all their training is of little or no value.

No style can specialize in everything. So if you want to be effective at every type of fighting then you will have to study more than one style.

 

no a good combative stlye SHOULD cover all of the ranges of a fight..but like i said that does not mean you can not branch out and improve by learning other techniques.

To say Tae Kwon Do is limited to kicking and punching only shows that you have had very limited exposure to it.

 

Really so TKD schools spar with leg kicks, knees, elbows, takedowns, groundfighting, etc? dont lie to yourself some might but 99% do not.

you have had very limited exposure to it

Intresting opinion, but most TKD black belts have usually had a bit of exposure to the system.

[Scandinavian]

I practice ITF TKD and its suprising to see how little it is known when discussion about TKD arises. I have practiced it for some 2 years now and have only little experience of other martial arts so i will not do any comparisons but just share my view of the TKD i know about. This gets little long, so i apologize that (and the limited spelling) and im trying to shed a little light for those people that say TKD is not a martial art.

 

The ITF TKD training is very strict and traditional, everything happens in formal way and the first things taught to us are basic forms (bows, the 5 point "oath" which starts the every training session). Every, move that we have is troughly documented and instructors use those documents for their source of knowledge (or should i say, the instructors that deserve their black belts). Ie. you can look up the walking stance and see that your forward toe (when done as it should be done) points directly ahead and the other is tilted 15 degrees outwards. Weight is exactly on the center of your stance (50/50). These things are drilled time and time again, untill they come out spontaneously and i tell you, no detail is too small to left unattended.

 

We have just masses and masses of different moves, punches with fore knuckles straight to enemys nose, or with upper knuckles to side of a head..Almost anything you can figure out doing with your limbs is there, in the 14 (?) book ensyclopedia of TKD. Most of them evolve around the regular punches and kicks. One of my first moves was a knife hand fingertips pushed in to opponents solar plexus with other hand blocking the possible incoming punch to your head at the same time. IF you want to emphasize street wise "dirty" moves you can do just that. BUT if you want to learn such moves in short timespan, then TKD is not for you. The blessing and burden of ITF is the formal and traditional teaching methods, many people find them "slowing them down" while they would like to start learning that cool spinning jump kick. Our moves are trained in korean language, ie. walking stance with head punch is ordered as "gunnun so kaunde baro jirugi". Different moves may or may not be separated with pause, we train for both, combined attack and blocking moves are very common, good instructor improvises combinations just to get students out of balance. I myself am very lucky to have exeptionally devoted and skillfull instructors, one of them being 4 dan. black belt.

 

Roughly 1 of 4 times i train (currently train 3-4 times a week) are devoted mainly to sparring. We have gloves and foot patches. The rules are basically that no kicking under the belt and punches to head should be limited with strength, knock outs do not get any extra points. Match last 1 minute in which fighters score points when the hitting move is done clean and returned properly. The sparring is mostly a tool for learning to be "calm" when someone really charges you and finding the correct range and is, of course, VERY demanding physical exercise. If you train all your life kicking thin air, you have big chances to do just that in real self defence situation. Having good abdomen muscles and using them well to absorb kicks are essential if you want to stay up for that whole 60 seconds. Sparring is a tool for learning the TKD, not the other way around (or atleast in the cases i have experienced).

 

To conclude, we dont have any restrictive rules in our moves, our instructor in fact emphasizes us to use anything we can grab neareby as weapon if we get in real situation. Chair, knife, anything, also we try to figure ways to counter such attacks if possible, my money is however every time on the guy holding the lead pipe. Taekwondo, when done in its traditional way is solely meant for killing the opponent as fast as possible with your limbs and i have no reason whatsoever to suspect its ability to do so. Bear in mind, IMO 99% of the people that assault others have only little experience in martial arts or are severely drunk. They do not have any tools to counter a kick that suddenly is thrown at their stomach with timespan of 0.2 seconds and as i know it, will be the only kick that is needed.

 

And still the best self defence is 100 meters in 10 seconds.. My position in this issue is simply to defend TKD as an fine martial art, not to bash others..

[Robert]

So it's impossible for a stlye to teach standup fighting, clinch fighting, ground fighting, weapon defefense, etc?

 

I said nothing of this sort. What I said is that NO single style is effective for every situation. There are alot of styles that cover everything that you mentioned to some extent.

 

Just because a style "covers" all of those ranges does not make it effective at all of them. If it did you would not be thinking about taking BJJ to improve your groundfighting.

It might not be possible to cover "every" situation but are you going to sit here and tell me all stlyes are equal when it comes to various ranges? no some stlyes stick to one range and others teach a full range of techniques.

 

Again, I did NOT say all styles are equal. I said they are all DIFFERENT. And that it is up to the practitioner to make it effective by the way they train. Please learn to read.

So if a TKD practicioner gets takcled by suprise and finds him self on bottom how is his training going to help him? this goes for anyone that does not train in various ranges. they might be able to use it but they may find themselves in a position where all their training is of little or no value.

 

Remember that I am the one that said no style is effective at every situation. I said that every style Can be effective at helping you to defend yourself.

no a good combative stlye SHOULD cover all of the ranges of a fight..but like i said that does not mean you can not branch out and improve by learning other techniques.

 

Again "covering" all of the ranges does not make one an expert at any of them. I was saying that NO style can specialize in everything. Alot of style "cover" everthing.

Really so TKD schools spar with leg kicks, knees, elbows, takedowns, groundfighting, etc? dont lie to yourself some might but 99% do not.

 

99% of schools of ALL styles are in it only for the money and do NOT teach anything effectively. To say that it is limited to tkd is ignorant. This fact does not mean that martial arts are not effective, just that you must be carefull in choosing a school.

Intresting opinion, but most TKD black belts have usually had a bit of exposure to the system.

 

This is a false statement. MOST TKD black belts have had only a couple of years experience with tkd. And this SMALL amount of experiance is usually limited to one classroom. While there are many well deserving blackbelts the majority of BB holders BOUGHT there belt. This is true for alot of arts.

 

FYI

 

This excerpt is from the website of the international krav maga federation.

To enter our instructors program:

 

Background - 4 years in other martial art, Boxing or Kick-boxing, with good punching and kicking abilities.

I personally think that KM is great. But could it be that this is a requirement because they do not specialize in punching and kicking. And that their instructor program does not cover it enough to make someone effective at it?

 

Please PM me with any more argument on this subject. We are both beginning to sound like broken records. And it is no longer adding anything of value to the forum.

 

Robert