Hey guys and gals, After trying a few different martial a arts, and taking a few months off to think about what I actually want out of martial arts, I've decided to start taekwondo again. I just love being able to do the amazing kicks/performance aspect of the kicks, and I really want to start up taekwondo again (I'm also about to try out tricking which I'm excited for too ) However this leads me to my dilemma. Out of all of the taekwondo places in my area (Sydney, Australia), many of them seem to be split into the "traditional" dojang (belts, dogi, poomsae and line drills etc) and the "modern" dojang (either some kickboxing or mma school that has tkd, but sometimes the tkd can just be geared towards kids). On one hand, I like the idea of striving towards a black belt and developing very precise kicks, but on the other hand I do enjoy kickboxing-esque sparring and training up my hands as well as my kicks. For those of you with experience in taekwondo, do you find that it is better to join a type of traditional dojang first or did you take the path of a more "modern" dojang? I feel as though I have found one, tried out a few classes etc. This is an example of the dojang on YouTube (don't actually know if I'm allowed to post YouTube videos here, if not mods feel free to remove it!) https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=znKrFyLJ7kQ It seems like a great combination of what I'm looking for, although seems to lack any contact sparring, and when I asked the master there he said that they didn't do the hard sparring much because they want to avoid injuries etc. Again, for those of you with experience, is this the kind of optimal dojang to go to? Or is it better to find a much more traditional one that sticks to a unified/governed taekwondo body such as the WTF? Thanks again everyone, just trying to make the right decision and don't want to have to change martial arts schools again because it wasn't what I wanted!!
When I owned my own school it was mostly traditional but once a month I would bring in someone from another art to do demonstrations of the intricacies of their art. I actually lost a few students to these other schools but it was no big deal.
If you are in Sydney I strongly urge you to check out the ITFA. It's headed up by Sr Master Andrew Rhee (8th Dan) who is the eldest son of First Grandmaster Rhee Ki Ha. SM Rhee is also a former assistant to the founder of TaeKwon-Do and former President of the ITF, General Choi Hong Hi. I'm based in the US but have trained with SM Rhee both virtually and in-person for the past two years and he is an EXCELLENT instructor. And I say that as someone that has trained in TaeKwon-Do for over 20 years including obtaining Dan grades from both the ITF and the Kukkiwon (WTF-style). Their website is http://www.itfa.com.au/
