A few things I've experienced in the dojang when it comes to self defence. 1. I was teaching self defence to a bunch of people with the green belt in Taekwon-Do. After we had done a few of the "normal" hosinsul techniques I wanted to show them other ways to break free/end a similar situation. So I asked a guy to choke me from the front. (You know, both hands around the throat and squeeze) As he did so, he expected me to do what he had learned (use the left hand as a lever (above opponents right elbow, below his left elbow) and use the right hand to move his left elbow in a circular motion, I hope you understand the drill) but I didn't. I used a technique I'd learnt during a Krav Maga seminar (make "hooks" out of your hands, place them between his hands and explode outwards, while you knee him in the abdomen). Can you guess what he and the rest of the class said? "That is not Taekwon-Do. We're here to learn TKD, stop doing that sh** and teach us TKD!" I replied that this technique is one that uses a bit more force, and that hopefully renders the attacker inable to attack for a few seconds. A useful trick if there are more than one attacker... They didn't buy it at all, and some of them almost left the class... "We're here to learn TKD, not that crap!" Needless to say, I returned to the TKD curriculum and when they started to ask about breakfalls and other techniques not currently in the TKD curriculum, I told them exactly what they'd told me. "You're here to learn TKD, period. Now shut up and to a few more 4-way turns..." Yeah, I know... I was immature... 2. In another club than mine. I was invited to this club to hold a class on self defence. Their instructor doesn't feel competent and instead of teaching what he think is right, he's using me and a few other guys who have "been there" to teach. Sensible bloke this instructor... I entered the dojang and met the class. First we did the warm-ups, and then we did some patterns, just to have done some of them. Then we started with the self defence. I noticed that one of the students was from my old club. He had stopped comming to mine and was now studying here... "Ah well," I thought, "he might have moved or something" (The clubs are located aproximately 80 km apart...) When I started talking about self defence, this guy stood up and excused himself. "I've had enough of this crap," he said, "I'm here to learn Taekwon-Do, not this other bs" This is when my friend, the instructor of this club, said the following: "What would you do if some guy came up to you and punched you in the face? Would you do a perfect block in a walking stance? Or would you do what you had to in order to avoid the punch?" The guy answered, "I'd use my knowledge of TKD to avoid the punch." The instructor suddenly flung a punch my way. It would've hit me if I didn't do anything so I did just what I'm supposed to do. I avoided it by stepping aside, I blocked, I dropped the instructor to his back, I mounted him and locked both his arms behind his back with my feet. Then I pretended I got my phone out of my jacket and pretended to call for a pizza... "We can be here all night now," I said, "because he's not going anywhere, and the moment I let him go he might try punching me again." The guy still left, because it wasn't TKD it was "something completely different". Later, I met him in town and he told me he'd quit doing TKD, because all the instructor mixed other stuff into it. Talk to me about a die-hard traditionalist :Alien: Have any of you experienced anything like this? I'm tempted to say no, but I thought I'd ask anyway...
Yes but not with the reactions. Every once in a while, my instructor has a practical self defense class, for the latter half of a regular one. Not an ounce of TKD in them he tells and of course, we greet these techniques with enthusiasm, they work, and it's great to have these lil grabs for when someone gets in too close to be able to strike them.
I think its natural for some to react like that, I mean if their goal is self defence and thats why they train in the art and then the instructor never applies that art in self defence because he belives that other arts are more effective why would he keep training?
I'd never had anything happen like this in all the years I'd been doing this... until about a year ago. I had a guy come visit my club after he'd seen us in the local directory whilst on holidays and he was a Judoka. We went through all the standard stuff then when we got into the second half of the class, which is self defence, he just excused himself because he 'wasn't into that'! It's happened to me on 2 other occasions since with similar responses, although the last guy at least stayed for a few weeks before deciding that it wasn't for him.
crazy. I remember when I used to do kung fu we had guest instructors in on a regular basis, every 3-4 months. boxers, wrestlers, judoka, a jkd guy, karateka, and so on. I dont remember anyone having a problem with them. although the kung fu I learnt was just a straight up bastardisation of other arts- we learnt whatever we could find that worked. judo throws, thai and tkd kicks, western boxing, ju jitsu locks.
My point is (I'm not sure I got it right in my first post) that if you implement self defence in your training, you teach what you know work, be it breakfalls, sweeping kicks or other things that you don't normally find in your art. When you teach them your art, though, you should stick to your art and don't throw in anything else than what's in "the books". So, when I say: "Today we're going to do some self defence." I wish that my students will understand that it's not TKD but self defence...
I have never had any problem with this kind of reactions in my club. One of the reasons is that even if I mix in stuff from other styles (which I do all the time), I try to find techniqes that "relates" to what is done in TKD, but that it is used with modifications. The way I teach is that the selfdefence part (beeing breakfalls, releases from bearhugs, groundtechniques etc) as "applied TKD" (of course with a mix of other stuff that WORKS). I think it has to do with how you present it... On the other hand if there are students having problem with that kind of training - To bad for them! (PS @Tittan: You're here as well?? Kampforum isn't enough?? )
