TKD Master who found that tkd does not teach fighting

[Americana]

This is kind of a sad story. Years ago I regularly attended a tkd school on the east coast. The head instructor was a Korean immigrant (suprise). He was a 4th degree black belt and was considered a real bad ass by the students. He could do also sorts of amazing jump kicks, etc.

One day he came in looking a little disheveled and asked the class who was there to become a "fighter." The whole group sort of looked sheepishly at each other and a couple of people raised their hands. He then said well, this is not what we're doing here. You will not become a "fighter" by taking these classes.

Alot of students were shocked. It turns out that our TKD master had been beaten up that day in some street dispute. There was only one guy and no weapons involved. His tkd was useless. Now this was not a yellow belt on the six month course. He was in his prime and had been doing this tkd since he was a child.

This is a lesson in how far fetched traditional U.S. martial arts training is. If you don't know the severe limitations of these martial arts, they can do you more trouble than good.

[hounddog]

That was an ahhhsome story. Got any more?

[Maxximus]

It says more about him as a fighter than TKD as a style...

Yeah that's pretty sad, but does it really invalidate TKD? Let me just play devil's advocate here, for the sake of objectivity. Let's say that this Korean guy was a purple belt in Bjj or something. Does the fact that he got his butt whipped mean that bjj is useless? Obviously everyone here would say something along the lines of "NO, he's just not that good. Or maybe he ran into someone who was simply a better streetfighter. Or maybe the other guy just got a lucky punch in." And don't assume that if he was a Bjj expert there'd be no chance that he could lose in a streetfight because that's just bull$hit. Now I'm not trying to say that TKD in general is an extremely efficient method for practical training, but just as any other art, it has its strengths as well as its weaknesses. Depending on who you learn from and how that instructor presents the material, i'm sure that TKD has its fair share of applicable techniques. The degree to which the practitioner can apply it in a real situation simply depends on his own talent, the degree to which he has taken his training, and how well conditioned he is. Personally, I've come across plenty of TKD point fighting and kata champions who couldn't beat my grandmother up, but i've also seen some TKD guys who are extremely well conditioned, tough as nails and can kick like mules.

In fact, I know of an incident involving a reputable Korean TKD instructor near my area. Some big hotheaded moron came into his dojo and started making all sorts of trouble, and also decided to announce that he could kick the instructor's a$$ easily. I don't know what exactly happened after that, but the instructor ended up sending that guy to the hospital

[Americana]

Maxximus:

I really don't disagree with the notion that there's tremendous variation according to the indiviual (if Vanderlai Silva gets a tkd yellow belt, muggers beware). Most martial art schools engage in deceptive advertising in this regard.

p.s. Did the story about the Korean happen in LA? There was an instructor there who beat up an off the street challenger and was sued.

[MEB Boy]

Hee Ill Cho (sp?) has those great books out on TKD and he was sued yrs ago (maybe in the 70's or 80's) for kicking the ass of some wiseguy who came into his school and challenged him in front of his students. Cho stated that it cost so much money defending himself in court that he learned his lesson well, and vowed to never fight again unless he was attacked/mugged, etc. I believe he had numerous fights while living in Korea, but he quickly learned the about our well-known penchant for suing others, upon moving to America.

Cho is probably in his early 60's now, but he was an awesome kicker and fighter in his day. His TKD combined with his conditioning and attitude made him a very formidable fighter. So I believe it's has more to do about the person than the art, though I think the art of BJJ gives us advantages that compensate for our lack of other strenghts, but that's why I love BJJ.

MEB Boy

[YeLLa-TiGeR]

At least the instructor had the humilty to admit to his students that he lost the fight. It must of been an agonizing situation to face those who idolize and to confess that you lost.

Major props for being humble and honest. At least his training made him a better person. Too bad though...

[Nthman]

In a street encounter, if you walk away without your face bashed, stabbed, or whatever you have done pretty well in my book. There are so many variables ya know? Just cuz you take a punch to the face doesn't mean you lost if you then took the other guy down. Movies tend to give this impression that an awesome martial artist blocks everything before it ever makes contact but combat isn't like that..its more like minimizing damage to one's self.

Maybe this 4th degree was a complete wuss? Who knows...just because he was externally good at TKD doesn't mean he didn't just fall over when hit for the first time but someone intend on hurting him...I dunno just some thoughts.

[Mr. Miyagi]

Americana, I think you're trolling us. The story is realistic but did you make it up? Was the Korean teacher's name John Lewis?

[Americana]

Cho had a run in with the UFC a couple of years ago in which I thought he looked silly.

Cho's protege is Grandmaster Philip Ameris, who's in Philly. Any way Cho had been shooting his mouth off about the UFC. It was typical karate rhetoric, i.e., the UFC was out to make karate look bad, the karate guys they had were terrible, if they only had a real tkd guy they'd see the light.

The UFC (Perriti I think) got wind of this and offered Cho a fight, who declined on account of age (ok, no need for another 50 year old guy in the UFC). Cho brought up Ameris though. The UFC said fine, he can fight Kevin Jackson (this was before Jackson's loss to Frank). Ameris and Cho went running!

[Shrimp]

There are different kinds of TKD. Some programs really don't teach you much about real-world self-defense.

Other programs teach you a lot. Watch some Olympic TKD matches and you won't say all TKD is useless for self defense. Olympic-style TKD is badass.

[Rock Ape]

Olympic Style ?

Gees, I actually think the exact opposite when I see it !

[GinSueDog]

Dunno about that...

We have a bluebelt that pretty much kicks some ass and his first art was TKD. He was showing us some of the drills they used to go through and after that I somehow doubt every TKD school trains wimpy red headed step children to punch air. Chung Le's main art is TKD, as was Kimo's first art. I think alot of it depends on both the individual and the training. If you train poorly and unrealistically then no matter what style it is whether it is Muay Thai, BJJ, Sambo, JKD odds are you are going to fight poorly. It is just some arts are better known for using training methods that are simply more effective.-ED

[PassiveGuy]

There was a TKD instructer in ufc 6 I believe, He lost but all in all he fought a better fight than I expected. Also he was up against a trap fighter who was about 10 years younger and 20lbs. heavier. He was using traditional blocks well and boxing like punches, also made good use of the front snap kick. The trap fighter dropped him w/ an axe elbow to the collar bone, if the TKD guy had more clinch experience this may not have happened and he may have won. Unfortunatley if he did win Tank was up next and thay would have been bad, real bad...

[Mr. Miyagi]

I think you're talking about the Worsham-Varelans fight. I wouldn't want to mess with someone like Worsham and he seems like he would easily handle your average brawler, but he's probably generally out of his league against professional fighters.

[Zeke]

Worsham supposedly had some BJJ training too. He improved in his second appearance in the UFC when he fought Zane Frazier. He also looked completely different that time, much more muscular and defined. Has he only had three fights? I can only think of Varlins, Tank, and Z.Frazier.