Why does everyone keep on saying Taekwondo is crap.

[ipscshooter]

Actually, if it was this semi contact flicky kicky crap rules that your son "defeated" Wing Chun in, I'd say that was pretty meaningless.

Not that I rate Wing Chun, neither.

Ah yes, Thai Bri. Repeat after me... "I'm hardcore...I'm hardcore...I'm hardcore!!!!"

So let me get this straight. (A) Kata is worthless meaningless crap. And, (B) any sparring that does not result in the actual death or incapacitation of the opponent is worthless meaningless crap. Does your school keep an ambulance and emergency medical team on standby for every class? Jesus, I guess where you train, all the fights end with the Bruce Lee jumping skull crush move like he used on the incapacitated Bob Wall after the broken bottle attack scene in Enter the Dragon. Your school's attrition rate must be awful, or does your instructor demand that students continue to pay their monthly fees even while recuperating in a hospital bed? For what it's worth, I've seen harder contact during class sparring between my 10 year old son (a black belt, so I guess we study at a McDojo ) and a 10 year old red belt at our TKD school than I've seen between adults sparring at a MMA school.

Now, assuming, for the sake of argument, that this tournament was "semi contact flicky kicky crap" rules, how does it not show who would have won an actual fight between these participants? They are both using the styles they have learned and are both fighting by the same rules (and, in fact, the judges of his matches were also Kung Fu practitioners). If these opponents were unable to block or avoid "flicky kicks", how would they fare against full-on blows?

Actually, at most of the tournaments we've attended, red belts up fight full contact, except nothing below the waist, no punches to the face (although kicks to the face are allowed). The penalty for breaking those rules is two warnings, loss of one point on the third contact. Lots of people take advantage of the two free shots to the face to intimidate their opponents. In his matches, Travis knocked one of the kids to the floor with a roundhouse kick to the head, and knocked another one out of the ring and had him gasping for breath with a side kick to the solar plexus. Does that qualify as being something other than "flicky kicky crap"?

[Thai Bri]

A) does apply. But I have never said anything like B). Funny how you have to make up what an opponent says in order to win an argument.

The last two paragraphs display how you misunderstand things so badly. Of course it is flicky kicky crap and, as such, whoever wins is TOTALLY irrelevant to the real world of real fighting. All these head kicks? Tell me, are the "fighters" allowed to take down their opponents when they stand on one leg? Are they allowed to catch one of these legs - elbow smash it, and then topple the opponent to the floor? Etc. etc.

No, of course not. The rules you "fight" under disallow these, and so many other, real techniques. But guess what? Mr. Nasty out in the street doesn't even know these rules. He will jump all over you and your fellow "fighters". He will rip into your faces, bite into your throats and, God fobid! he may even do the odd ungentlemanly low kick! What a Cad!

You don't train the most effective fighting moves and, of course, don't train how to counter them. Yet you try to point to these games you pla as somehow providing evidence of real fights? You are training how to play flicky kicky. You are detraining how to fight. Anyone who is courageous, strong, rock hard and fast will take you to pieces as easy as pie.

Instructors who claim this shite to be anything other than a game should be sued. And those who pretend that it is preparing their students for a real go should be put to death.

Fond regards!

[ipscshooter]

A) does apply. But I have never said anything like B). Funny how you have to make up what an opponent says in order to win an argument.

I don't think I stretched too far. You talked about "semi-contact flicky kicky crap". I guess I assumed that anything less than no holds barred is unacceptable to you.

The last two paragraphs display how you misunderstand things so badly. Of course it is flicky kicky crap and, as such, whoever wins is TOTALLY irrelevant to the real world of real fighting. All these head kicks? Tell me, are the "fighters" allowed to take down their opponents when they stand on one leg? Are they allowed to catch one of these legs - elbow smash it, and then topple the opponent to the floor? Etc. etc.

"All these head kicks"? I only described one, and it put his opponent on the floor. And, if you take so long to throw a kick that the opponent can evade the strike, and sweep your other leg, that is a legal move in red belt and up sparring. What tournaments do you compete in that allow people to break others' legs with elbow strikes? FYI, the leg catch/takedown is one of the moves we are currently working on in our TKD class.

No, of course not. The rules you "fight" under disallow these, and so many other, real techniques. But guess what? Mr. Nasty out in the street doesn't even know these rules. He will jump all over you and your fellow "fighters". He will rip into your faces, bite into your throats and, God fobid! he may even do the odd ungentlemanly low kick! What a Cad!

Oddly, what we are told in class is that the reason for practicing high kicks is so that we have better balance and power when using the technique in a "real" context at a lower target. In other words, although we might practice side kicks to the head level (or torso, if you're old and less flexible, such as myself), the target in an actual fight would likely be the opponent's knees. Although we practice front snap kicks to the chin level, in actual use, the target would be the groin. So, in that context, I guess we are cads as well. In a tournament or classroom context, we are taught to respect our opponents. Actual use is different. Last year, at school, my ten year old saw another student repeatedly kicking one of his friends, who was lying on the ground, defenseless. He got between his friend and the aggressor, who tried to hit him several times. My son blocked or avoided each of the punches and then knocked the kid on his ass with a straight punch to the jaw (all witnessed and described to me by his teacher, who came to my son's defense..., the principal had only seen my son knock the other kid down, not the moments leading up to it).

You don't train the most effective fighting moves and, of course, don't train how to counter them. Yet you try to point to these games you pla as somehow providing evidence of real fights? You are training how to play flicky kicky. You are detraining how to fight. Anyone who is courageous, strong, rock hard and fast will take you to pieces as easy as pie.

What kind of sparring do you consider to be appropriate training, then? Are you advocating that only full contact, no pads, no holds barred training is useful? I'd suggest that if that is the case, then every martial arts school in the country would have to have a full time medical staff on duty during each class. I'd like to hear about your "most effective fighting moves", and how you train during class to apply them in a street situation. Seems to me that if you are practicing these "most effective moves", at full force and speed, in a full contact situation during class, you're going to have an awful lot of gouged out eyes, crushed larnyxes, and broken knees among your students.

[Thai Bri]

There are many ways to spar good and hard without necessarily being no holds barred. Your failure to take these into account once again betray your lack of knowledge.

"What tournaments do you compete in that allow people to break others' legs with elbow strikes?" You're not getting it. I'm not training for a tournament. Thats sport. You can design a sport that allows nothing but tickling..... but its ridiculous to suggest that these flicky kicky sports are applicable to the cold dark street.

I've often heard this "practising high kicks will improve your low kicks" argument before. Its a total nonsense. Practising low kicks will improve your low kicks. Whats next? Will practising punching the ceiling help you with body shots?

As for sparring? The first rule is this - forget about winning. Sounds daft I know, but bare with me. Boxing and/or Thai Boxing is cool. And, as long as you wear the equipment, you can go ful pelt. But you don't even have to, just go solid. And include the punches to the face for Christ's sake. But DO NOT forget that sparring is a training tool. You are doing it to become a better fighter, not to win a competition. So take chances, try knew things etc. You don't learn as much when you win.

Same as for ground grappling. It is a great sport, and can be used to enhance your REAL fighting capability. But, don't forget to learn. Leave the ego at the door. But you're putting words into my mouth again. You're making your little presumptions, and reckon I'm into crushing larynxes. How you need to misquote. Think about it. Do you want to learn what is the best way to prepare your kid for a real threat, or do you want to stay in your comfort zone?

But both these forms of sparring are only training tools. There are many more, and they are all much more use than flicky kicky.

I have done all the flicky kicky crap. I, too, used to think it was doing me good. But I saw other, better, ways. And I was big enough to walk into those classes and take my initial beatings. It wasn't so bad neither. The people were informative and kind on the whole. I came out the other side far far better than I went in.

Thanks for the tale re the schoolboy fight. Do you really think it is anything other than that? Open your mind, Taekwondo man.

[ipscshooter]

My mind is open. I'm happy to learn new things. But, offended to be told that everything I've done is worthless. I realize that TKD is not a comprehensive system (and I've never suggested it was). That's one of the reasons my 10 year old is currently enrolled in a JKD program as well.

As for the high/low practice, you have your opinion, I have mine. I can only testify as to what I've learned and experienced, and for me (I have been plagued with poor balance all my life), I can assure you that practicing higher kicks helps MY balance on lower kicks. Your punching analogy is off point, as punching is typically done with both feet on the ground, so all the balance issues are different.

As for the "tale of the schoolboy fight", I'm not sure about the source of your derision there (or maybe I'm just misreading it). Are you suggesting that the same thing would have happened if my son had had no TKD training? Are you saying that none of the skills he's learned had anything to do with the outcome? Who knows? My point was, he's had some training, he got involved in a "real" fight (against a bigger kid who was clearly the aggressor), outside the context of the dojo/tournament/rules, etc., and ended the situation with one punch.

[Damian Mavis]

blah blah blah blah..... TKD sucks because the majority of it's practitioners suck. There are MILLIONS of TKD practitioners world wide. MOST OF THEM CHILDREN AND OLDER MIDDLE AGED FAMILY PEOPLE. So ya, TKD sure looks bad when so many of it's members are not peek athletes. But I assure you, you ignoramasses. That there are a minority of strong hardcore fighters out there that have used strictly TKD effectively on the street many times.

My close friend here in Thailand comes from a small town by an Indian reserve where there was nothing to do but fight and f**k. He was 130 lbs and when he walked into a bar everyone stepped aside due to his reputation. He would cut a persons head open in one swift kick... one guy got scalped and had to have surgery to have tissue replaced into his forehead. I could tell you a crapload of similar stories but what's the point... you would refuse to believe them.

It's not the art, it's the warrior, TKD has a crapload of families training in it and few warriors. So it's rep is bad, if TKD wasn't such a popular activity it wouldn't attract all the families and would have a different rep. I know tons of people in TKD that couldn't fight their way out of a wet paper bag, but I know a few hardocre mofo's that are scary as hell. They take what they do very seriously unlike the family guy that trains 2 hours a week and then brags about his fighting ability. Then you look at another art with an untarnished rep and it attracts almost exclusively hardcore serious people like Muay Thai and submission grappling does... not many fat middle aged moms in those arts! But of course they also have a tiny miniscule number of people training in them compared to the MILLIONS in TKD and are only now becoming more popular (that is not an exageration that is an actual fact)... I'd like to see in 50 years if Muay Thai (yes I love Muay thai) still has the same prestigious rep once it goes more mainstream and soccer moms are doing it.

I don't know why I bother making posts like this heh. This is just comon sense to me but people feel an intense need to try to belittle other peoples arts to try to make themselves feel better about what they are doing.... insecurity I guess. Kind of like a bully. HA!

Damian Mavis
Honour TKD

[Thai Bri]

Just why did you get into Thai Boxing? Why not just use your hard core TKD to get you through your fights?

[Damian Mavis]

Do you know what happens to top ranked pro Muay Thai fighters here in Thailand that go into olympic style competitions (WTF TKD)? They ALL lose by a huge margin and some get knocked out right away..... does that mean their art sucked? Or maybe that they should have trained the format of the competition they were entering to learn it and be able to use it to their advantage?

Different rules means different training, I prepare for a Muay Thai match by learning it's format and making it work for me (even though I originally got into it for the love of learning martial arts). I do still use TKD though in Muay Thai formats, but it took me a long time to know how and when to use it and make it work in that format to give me an advantage. Heck I'm still figuring it out.

Long winded rambling:
TKD is not any more hardcore than the next martial art, but certain warriors that train in it are. Just like I've met really scary kungfu guys and I think most kungfu is weak, but I've trained with kungfu men that were extremely dangerous and all they know is kungfu. I guess the whole concept of the person being effective not the art is hard for people to accept but all I've done for 13 years is go out of my way to train with and learn as much as I can from other martial artists and martial arts. And I know for a damn fact that every martial art has it's killers and it's wimps. Regardless of what I think of some martial arts I'm always humbled by some guy that has tons of training time put in come along and he's so damn good at what he does that it reminds me of the old school martial arts way, it takes A LONG TIME to be really good at something and not many people train seriously in their art or train that particular art effectively. But those that do are the true masters of the martial arts regardless of rank on paper or on a belt. So many people dally in martial arts and think that if they take a year or 2 of this or that then they really know something, they don't know poop. It takes many many years to be truly good, you can probably defend yourself effectively against certain people with less training (your less training not your opponents) but the point is, are you really good? Or just good enough. Some TKD people after a few years or so are good enough, very few are really good. Bah anyway, TKD is not hardcore, BJJ is not hardcore, Muay Thai is not hardcore... but some arts certainly attract more hardcore warriors than others that really commit themselves to an art. Muay Thai really seems to bring out some serious dedication in people, my friends train a 2 - 4 hours every day minimum, I don't know alot of TKD guys that train like that but some do, and they are hardcore.

I'm not super hardcore nor am I really good, but I know people in different arts that are and I always aspire to be like them,regardless of their art.

Damian Mavis
honour TKD

[Thai Bri]

I couldn't read all that ranting!

Anyway, what your saying means this to me - that some people can become good fighters DESPITE their arts. I know you don't mean to, but thats what it adds up to. I know what you mean about training methods though. A thai Boxer doing Kata, punching thin air and walking up and down a Dojo isn't gong to get very far.....but hats partly my point. This kind of crap training is synonimous with TMAs, whereas the boxers and Thai Boxers just don't do it.

Theres also a parallel between trad Japanese Jiu Jitsu and BJJ types. One does loads of pre-arranged, rehearsed techniques, and the other rolls about (under guidance of course). OF COURSE a Japanese Jui Jitsuka could train in more BJJ type ways.... but that doesn't mean that JJJ has made him hard core.

[eXcessiveForce]

Right look at all those people who have become good fighters despite learning to roll around on the floor in BJJ or kick slowly like MT.

thread closed