His technique is quite nice. I didn't watch the instructional, but even having a slow motion jump spinning side can help people (hard to do that in real time). Now on to Moi's point....look you don't need to go to Thailand to get amateur experience. Plenty of local promoters looking to fill their cards. And I personally feel it is important to get a trainer, sparring partners, etc if you plan on going that route. In other words you need to join the appropriate gym. You don't just do that stuff 'on the side on your own.' If any of my students had interest in that route I'd send them on down the road. *Maybe* I could prep them okay if I had the extra time to devote to them. Here is the thing...I don't. I've got a full plate just with the routine stuff. Someone wants to compete in amateur kickboxing/MMA or maybe even go pro, great. But don't sorta do it. Because sorta doing it will get you hurt. The life of a fighter is an artificial one. I revolves around getting prepped for a certain fight date and focused attention is needed. It is like cramming for a final exam. It is an intense focus that is not sustainable in the long term (which is why you see retired fighters playing rounds of golf and not rounds of sparring in the ring). Martial arts training, like most of us do, on the other hand has to fit within the bounds of a normal routine...
I have done both and dont hate TKD. I dislike TKD practitioners who cant take it when the flaws of TKD are pointed or given answers they dont like. If I see a TKD person in a session throw a realy poor technique or do something I genuinly want to correct it in terms of how it happens in a real violent fight so they dont think what their doing is going to work. If itmeans showing them something that proffesional fighters from another style do,then thats all it is. An example is saying or showing that Grappling in TKD is poor. (I could say knees, elbows or clinch and hands in alot of places.) Get over it. Its better learning it from a fighting grappler than a TKD person. Thats not hating TKD thats just being honest and helpfull. But someone will always come and say its there if you go to a proper TKD place orthat it was there first or something. Its nonsense. It was poor and and still is. It only isnt where people are actualy learningfrom grapplers. But even then some insist its TKD. They always will. Or I think people should just be honest and say they dont want to grapple. Fair enough. Its simple. What ever range any one wants to learn the training should replicate what current pro fighters are doing who specialise in that range. If it doesnt forgett it and go somewhere that does.
Good post and I agree with you. Just to play the devil's advocate, you may be surprised at how far some fighters get without a proper gym/camp, though. I did an interview the other day with Gerald Harris (current UFC fighter, if you're not familiar with him) and he told me that he had no training support all the way through his fights in the IFL. He was a wrestling teacher at a local high school and when the time came to take a fight he would fight. He went 7-0 that way before losing via split decision in his first IFL fight. But yeah, of course if you want to take it seriously you should have a good trainer and good training partners.
If I read you right he was a coach before fighting so he'd already had expert instruction? That's not the same as kwonflicker
I think the problem comes in when you say, "You're doing it wrong because you don't do it like we do." And that's what a lot of MT guys do: they think they're way is THE way and if you do it differently then you're wrong. Maybe it's just different. After all, not all professional fighters fight the same way. Andy Hug, even after he transitioned to K-1, didn't really look like an MT fighter. He may have picked some things up from the style, but you could tell he was doing something different, and yet it was still effective. I heard someone just the other day say that axe kicks are not effective in a real fight. If he saw someone he was training do an axe kick, he would tell them that that's not a realistic technique, etc, etc. Tell Andy Hug that. Well, there is some grappling in TKD, but I don't think anyone pretends it's a grappling style. Obviously no one would expect a TKDist to fare well against a judoka. Right. And I agree. And yet, these techniques DO exist in TKD. So again, what's the problem? Is it that the techniques aren't there? Or that, because of the ruleset that governs competition, they're just not trained properly? I'll posit this and tell me if you disagree and, if so, why: If TKD competitions were full contact with an open ruleset (all reasonable techniques allowed) then TKD fighters would be effective fighters. They would become proficient not only in kicking, but also hand techniques, knees, elbows, etc. But because of the differences in the styles, what they would do still would not be MT, not would it look exactly like MT. It would, therefore, be different, but not wrong.
In wrestling, yes. Not in MMA. And not in any striking style. And he didn't have any sort of trainer at the time; he was training himself.
Thanks for the clarification. I think it shows how important good wrestling is in MMA. Did he just take his existing skills and win with them, I'm guessing so
Yeah, pretty much. The way he put it to me was that "the takedown was plan A, B, and C." Of course, he has since dedicated himself to his training full time and has improved significantly. Right now he mostly trains with a home crew in Oklahoma, but he does go through camps at Grudge in Colorado before fights. He's actually a super-cool guy and I support him wholeheartedly. He's 3-0 right now in the UFC with all wins via either KO or TKO. He's fighting Alessio Sakara at UFC 118. I hope he wins.
Good for him! In a sense he probably used those he coached to keep himself fit and make sure his techniques were well practiced. Probably has a lightning shot. I am in the minority on MAP TKD but I think grappling should be trained separately from TKD. If your training gets too varied you aren't good at the needed fundamentals (in my opinion). So I don't try to throw in scarf hold escapes in my TKD class, for example. If someone really wants to learn it they can put in the extra time commitment and learn it in a grappling environment. I think there is a danger in trying to claim TKD encompasses all areas of martial arts. The only 'grappling' we cover in the TKD classes are the shotokan style sweeps (and those not as often as I would like). Never seems to be enough time for everything.
The techniques are there yet its not that simple. Saying TKD contains all these things doesnt cut it. Theres so many other useless things to learn that take up the time and ,yes, the ruleset of the majority of sparring done means the subtle fundamentals in the techniques are not there or learnt through trial and error. Tkd fighters would not immediaty be effective fighters. It would take trial and error for them to conclude what changes are needed to stop getting knocked out. If a person gets hit or knocked out or looses the point is to find out why then correct it. The reason a MT fighter stands like he does.moves like he does and behaves like he does is because through 100's of years of people passing things on and his and his coaches experience tells him whats what. A MT fighter worth his salt will not go into a fight with his shoulders down as it helps protect his chin during punching and helps him in the clinch to not get his head snapped down and so he can use his shoulders and angles to pummel and a escape neck ties. A TKD fighter would not know that . Yet we could say both are clinching. Theres a subtle difference learnt through experienced. Do it or get hurt or knocked out. Those little things make the difference. TKD is missing those kind of things at the minute.
On this point, I would again make the point that not MT does not necessarily equal wrong. To use my first example, Andy Hug was not a muay Thai fighter. But you can't say he wasn't an effective fighter. Dutch kickboxers also have a different style, but it's still effective. Plenty of guys from Kyokushin have transitioned just fine to K-1 and they don't even do face punch! Sure, they had to pick up a few extra skills and modify their game for the different rules, but they still did just fine after a transition period. ITF TKD rules really aren't that different from ISKA kickboxing rules. And at the dan ranks, fights are often pretty close to full contact. The truth is that plenty of ITF guys have transitioned over to full contact fighting without a whole lot of problems.
How do MMA fighters deal with having to train in all areas then? After all, they have to be on point with all aspects of their game. I wouldn't mind seeing a TKD/Judo hybrid style pop up.
Kyokushin is massively influenced by MT and its training methods. Dutch kickboxing also is. Fighters train with coaches before fights. They train forthe ruleset they will fight under with experiened coaches who will adjust them accordingly if they have to. If you want to go straight from fighting a Semi contact ITF way to full contact K1 type fights (which is not full MT) then go for it and tell us how it goes. I can see its going to MT v TKD or something. I have no probs with TKD in my eyes. I know what it is for me and what its not so I dont want to go down a verses route. MT is too effective for its own good in these types of disacussions because it sets the standard for stand up fighting and its hard not to seem all ''MT is great the rest are shat''. Im affraid itsvery good and it influences alot of standup. Its just the wayit is.
The answer is amount of time on the mat. The average TKD student will devote a couple nights a week to their training. Perhaps three nights a week. The classes are typically an hour. So you've got three hours a week to fit in as much as possible. We force students who are approaching a black belt test to come four plus times a week (six months out) and man it is like pulling teeth sometimes! When I'm not recovering from a neck injury I typically train 4 to 5 TKD sessions (personal training, not teaching) and 2 sessions of Sambo a week plus one sparring session only (an hour of rolling). The Sambo classes are 1.5 hrs so that is like 4 to 5 hours of TKD and 4 hours of Sambo. And guess what. I don't cover near the stuff I feel I'd like to cover. I'd like to improve my boxing, improve my clinch and knees, etc, etc. But here is the other side of the coin...I've got other commitments. I've got a family and no one is going to nominate me for dad or husband of the year. Then, guess what, there is also work. If I didn't have to work around a training/teaching schedule I could probably do better in that as well. The essential problem, therefore, is that this is a hobby for people and they need to keep it in perspective and balance. I'm pretty lucky my wife gives me as much freedom as she does. But her position is basically that as long as I take care of the important stuff (IE the day job that brings money to the family) I can have my 'little hobbies'. All of us on the board have the not-so-secret fantasy of being the wandering vagabond practicing our hadoken in the forest. But the hard reality is you have to support your family in the style which they feel they are entitled to...and the whole wandering vagabond who is really really good at martial arts isn't truly what they are into. Now let me say that I love Kudo - Daido Juku and would love to spar/compete under those rules at some point. But it is probably something I'd only dabble in because these darn adult responsibilities are really really good at sucking away your free time! Dang it. I never wanted to grow up...
I've never said I don't like MT. I think it's a straightforward and effective fighting style. It's a good step down the road toward the pinnacle of sport fighting, MMA. I just think that Dan-level ITF competition is more substantial than it's often given credit for. I see it as "kickboxing lite."
Yeah, this is true. Definitely with the amount of time I put into actual training, it's just a hobby. If I didn't have to work and I had a good instructor, I'd be happy to train 3 hours a day, 5 days a week, but conditions would have to change. Yeah, I always thought I'd be like Jubei from Ninja Scroll or Terry Bogart from Fatal Fury. Instead, I'm just some dude in Utah who has learned some stuff here and there and is admittedly kind of lazy. If I had a good Daido Juku school, with a cool instructor, and regular competitions that I could attend, then that might be enough to push me over the edge and get very serious about training. I don't have a wife or kids or any of that right now, so it's possible.
Sadly far too many people do not realize that TKD was formed as a mix of the MAs available & around the ROK Military in the 1950s. Even sadder is the fact that few train TKD like it was a KMA of SD:bang:
Yeah, the problem is that everyone has an idea of what TKD is and, more importantly, what it apparently just HAS to be. If the school that they trained in as a kid, or the school down the train in the local strip mall, is a McDojo then that's what TKD is . . . and that is all it is and all it can be and if you attempt to modify that formula then it's not TKD anymore. I disagree, of course. TKD, at the root, is a set of techniques and fighting theories/principles. There are a variety of ways that the system can be trained. I will agree that if someone tells me they train TKD that I assume they can't fight and would get schooled by a real fighter. That's because, for most, that's just the way it is. But that doesn't mean it's universal and it doesn't mean things can't change. Thinking outside the box doesn't make it NOT taekwon-do.
I'm sorry to be so immature but please compare these two videos. It's all I could think about when I saw the original clips. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYFYefDi5rw"]KwonKicker (just watch it for a few seconds plz)[/ame] [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpZSZw3be4U&feature=related"]KwonKicker and his famous friend, fighting (and defeating) the powers of evil![/ame]
