Is Tae Kwon Do actually "useless" against other styles?

Best way to find out if what you're training works is to go to other types of schools and spar with them. If you're a Black belt or close, in TKD, you should at least be able to handle a few hard sparring round. Go to any MMA gym and ask to spar standup striking. Tell them that you have experience and want to spar medium to start out. Usually you'd have to pay the drop in fee unless you're seriously looking to join their gym for the free trial class.

 

I suppose then that Muay Thai would be an exception.

Muay Thai practitioners can generate accurate and powerful kicks to the head...but they can also defend themselves from kicks and punches to the body. Furthermore, a Muay Thai practitioner is able to check leg kicks.

 

In my experience, copping a kick to the leg hurts much more than getting a kick to the head, especially if the kick is well placed. Also, most fighters will keep their guard up, so kicking the leg is a better option.

 

I agree that kicking to the leg is generally safer/easier. But kicking to head is a high risk-high reward technique. It may not hurt as much being kicked to the had as the leg, but that's because you're unconscious if the kick is well placed.

How can someone argue a leg kick hurts more than being kicked in the head? I'm sorry, head kicks and head punches are the most common way to knock someone out.

 

True - but they don't hurt so much because the hit the "off" switch. I think that was what was meant anyway

 

It all boils down to this you can either fight or you cant. Simple fact however learning an art is very useful and definitely helps improve your ability to fight.

Some guys are just naturally tough and would wipe the floor with many so called black belts however train a naturally tough buy in martial arts and you have a more effective proposition.:bang:

Taekwon-do practitioners have this bizare sense of superiority???? however they dont kick to the legs or do any sweeps in sparring no grappling, no spinning backfist punch, or the like which limits them. Point is you get used to fighting that way ( I know I did) which is nothing but a restriction in my opinion.

And before I get shouted down I've trained ITF style since 92 and hold a BB however thankfully left all that nonsense behind in favour of a more rounded MMA style approach with emphasis on "Aliveness" as oppossed ridiculous pre fixed routines.

Just an opinion though

 

I was asked a question similar to the topic. My reply was simply put as "Every high school has foot ball. All foot ball has the same throws, plays, tackles, offense and defense." What makes one team better than the other is their workout and discipline."

I went on to say "All tkd is useful, but is the workout challenging?" Doesn't matter: Judo, Karate, Yudo, Tae Kwon Do, Kendo, Kumdo.....whatever. At the end of the day it's the hard work and discipline of the practitioner that makes the art usable.

Consider the following: while in boot camp the primary marksmanship instructors gave us a perfectly good M16-A2 service rifle. It was up to us the Marine Corps Recruit to use the tools given us and discipline to qualify on the range.

So yeah, if you train Tae Kwon Do for self defense and condition your body as such then yes you will be successful in using Tae Kwon Do to defend yourself.

 

It can be more to it than that

 

The main weakness of TKD is the hands. They are too focused on spectacular kicks and winning TKD specific tournaments. TKD's can certainly KO other fighters with their kicks, but it's usually easy to fight them by constantly pressure fighting and spamming jabs at their face to not allow them distance to set up kicks.

 

Kind of a blanket statement. Olympic Sparring for the most part yes. Old style point fighting, not so much. Plus the question was self defense sir, not sparring. One is a fight the other is a structured contest with rules. I don't particularly mind if someone crowds me and spams a jab, it's uncomfortable but okay.

 

People observe too much light contact or Olympic sparring. My TKD teacher and fellow classmates went at it just as hard with hands back in the 70's

 

Actually this is my idea of tae kwon do. Blocking drills till your forearms are beaten down black and blue, lots of breaking. Front Sweeping, real body tremor. Again, it is all about the workout and how hard you train. At this point in training I am just happy to be around. Disability and age is such a bummer.

 

My forearms hear ya marinevet! They are bruised at the moment from blocking drills wed. night!

 

No, not just a blanket statement, but the truth. Yes there are TKD schools that have decent training with hands...which is not a big deal, they can just bring in a Boxing coach that are a dime a dozen.....but they're still far and few. Since the debut of the UFC, 20 years ago and the emergence of MMA, sure...some TKD schools have smelled the coffee and woken up to real fighting or as real as legally possible. Hey, they've only had 20 years to figure out that punching is necessary.

Good for you if your TKD school teaches adequate striking with hands. You're still a rare type of TKD school though.

 

SBK,
:bang:
Bringing the UFC and MMA to the conversation man, really??????? Arent there rounds and buzzers for that stuff too. I mean gee, Judo has been doing it forever, it is an olympic sport as Tae Kwon Do is and Judo has no punching. But would you say Judo is not a good form of self-defense? No probably not considering you consider real and absolute fighting to be centered around UFC and MMA.
Tae Kwon Do and Karate the same difference, for the sake of this argument have been modified to have a rule set to be utilized as a competition. Would you tell a ROK Marine his Tae Kwon Do couldn't be used in self-defense? It is all in how it is taught by the instructor on the school level. Period.
I think the point you are trying to make is the following:
I SBK, based on my knowledge do not believe tkd to be a viable form of self defense as it can be taught in some schools. But hey I agree some arts can get a black eye because of shyster school owners that are in the minority, every art has there day care martial art schools.

 

I dont think how hard you spar or how 'hardcore' you are in terms of blocking or whatever matters. Its fundamental skill thats important and understanding and correct drilling and application.

Tkd guys could do the most hardcore hand sparring of any style and saying that sounds good or looks good in writing but it doesnt mean the fundamental skills are being applied or taught or learnt. In fact too hard sparring, too early will not do any good. You cant learn if all your doing is trying to survive or not get knocked out.Its the structure of learning, the drills and understanding of hand fighting, or whatever range it is,which are important.
Thats is arguably the area TKD needs to work on when comparing it to other styles.

 

Hardcore could transate to any form of viable training apart from contact-point sparring

 

Really? What universe are you from? Survival is the number one precept in most martial arts I know of...

 

I think if you include Badger Ladder's next sentence you would understand the point, which is a good one. Nowadays we don't teach people to swim by throwing them into the deep end of the pool. Contact sparring is an essential element of Taekwondo (Kukki). However, like any learned activity, it should be done on a progression. In my dojang, we do hogu drills with beginners from the start but we don't kick them full-power. They have to get acclimated to progressively harder contact. By the time the student is an intermediate rank, i.e. green belt, they are used to the increased contact.

 

The UFC and MMA is certainly more realistic than TKD in terms of real fighitng.

What a poor argument. But I guess if you've never fought before, you wouldn't know how bad the situation is when a grappler gets a hold of you and you're not trained to address it. Because if you do fight or at least spar for full knockouts with your TKD, you'd know that it's not that easy to KO someone with kicks. While it is a lot easier to grab and grapple them and choke or break their limb(s).

Well you probably need to learn to read better. I said "woken up to real fighting or as real as legally possible".

Name ONE TKD tournament in the last 50 years that's more realistic than the UFC, especially UFC 1-4 where punches, kicks, knees & elbows to the throat, knees, groin, head of downed opponent, spine, etc. were all legal. Biting and eye gouges also didn't disqualify a fighter neither.

Well at least here you're starting to get it by almost repeating exactly what I said about how TKD focusing too much on merely winning TKD specific kicking contests has rendered it grossly less effective than MMA as proven by the generally weak punching skills of TKD. And we're not even talking about grappling yet.

Do you even know what the context of my argument is? Show me were I said that TKD couldn't be used in self-defense? You're making this crap up.

I said TKD is less effective, compared to, ie. MMA due to it being weak with hand strikes.

Like I said, you need to work on your reading comprehension skills. Or ask someone to explain to you what I posted above.