Tae Kwon Do any Good on the Street

It can be effective but it's more of a Combat sport than a SD sport. The goal of TKD is more about competition and scoring points (wtf). Although, that doesn't mean it cannot be used for SD - I've done TKD for 14 years, if i ever happen to kick someone right on the jaw, I don't think he would stand very long...

 

I agree with Stratiotes. I think too much emphasis is put onto the WTF style of Taekwondo. As the WTF style has been developed for more of the sport angle, and thus use of your legs to score, it is easy to see why people feel that TKD is not an effective art on the street.

I study ITF style. There are over 3000 fundamental moves, both defensive and attack in TKD. (Last split I heard was that 1500 moves are for legs and around 2000 are for hands). Essentially this means, that if you learn techniques of TKD that allow you to block and counter an attack, then it becomes valuable on the street. Even the simplest of blocks that stops an attack is worthwhile.

The main purpose of Self Defence is to allow you to get into a position that you know longer feel threatened in. If you can use your techniques effectively to remove yourself from danger then its useful.

 

Why the hell aren't you practicing sprinting then if you think that's the best way to fight?!?

Personally, I think I would rather be good at fighting and knowing how to deal with the situation than just running fast. What if you're in a crowded pub and it all kicks off, you gonna run away then? What if someone attacks your family or friends when you're out with them, you gonna run away then? What if someone gets you in a corner, they have a knife and they're going to attack you no matter what, you gonna run then? If you say yes, then you suck at life.

BTW, the tao of JKD needs to be mixed with a couple of other books to begin to understand the real essence of the basis he was trying to put forward. I would recommend "jun fan gung fu - seeking the path of JKD" by Kevin R Seaman if you really want to get a real idea of the basics of jun fan.

Although my opinion on the argument about TKD and muay thai is rather uneducated from my own physical point of view ie. I haven't trained in either much, I would say that muay thai has more effective kicks from what I have seen. The widespread use of these kicks in many mma clubs and by cross-trainers must say something about the efficiency and power. I never chamber anything, so it isn't really for me. But whatever floats your boat.

 

Regarding street effectiveness

As a WTF stylist, I would like to point out a few items:

(1) Don't blame the style, blame the student/instructor/school. Sport oriented schools focus on sport aspects... not just in TKD but in other styles as well. If a student chooses to learn that, good. If a student chooses to learn practical self defence, thye need to find a school to teach it. There are some TKD schools that do.

(2) For the differences between ITF and WTF Taekwondo, see #1 above.

(3) Martial arts are individual based. You INDIVIDUALLY need to assess your needs and desires and match them with an instructor and school that meets them. The name of the style means little compared to the individual school.

(4) For me personally, TKD gives me a wide range of fast and powerful kicks and well as fast and efficient hand strikes. I personally like the striking style that is taught in my TKD school. We round that out with joint locks, defences, and breakfalls from Hapkido and cross train ground grappling and weapons at the TKD school. You can say "That's not TKD", but we do it in a TKD school because that's how we mesh our students' desires with our curriculum.

Sorry to be a bit snippy, but the "effectiveness of TKD" threads do get a bit tedious and I get tired of the WTF bashing and the TKD bashing. But, that's my personal opinion.

 

Though I've trained in TKD for years, I wouldn't say it is the end all of SD. Far from it. Most single martial arts aren't very good alone for SD. Now you start cross training into joint locks, grappling, etc...then you have a great combination of styles to put together and use in a street defense.

 

Before anybody gets thier knickers in a twist about this I'd like to point out a few things.

Muay Thai boxing is far more efficient form a teaching a wide range of easily accessible, powerful (some more powerful than TKD) strikes than TKD. The sparring they regularly do gives it a good background for practitioners to understand body mechanics of blocking/covering up against full force techiques and striking at full force. It also promotes the use of attacking tools which are, statistically, less likely to be broken. It also prmotes a regular sparring environment with more ranges than TKD.

This is fact and is non-disputable.

TKD both ITF/WTF is more a sport art but that doesn't mean everywhere you go you get a carbon copy of schools. Different schools have different focuses, some sport , some not. Before anybody start hooting about sparring in TKD, I advise you to at least find out some information about World Championships level ITF sparring. I honestly think a lot of you would be shocked at the level of contact. It is very high and very brutal.

There are countries in the world that have been the best at TKD sparring for years and the most "dangerous" of this group have been the Polish, who have been heavily influenced by MMA and NHB events these days.

There needs to be a fundamental change in the rules of TKD sparring in order for it to start to come to terms with being taken more seriously and developing as a "more effective" (nothing is absolutely effective) Martial Art.

 

So am I to be honest! Poop Loops. If you've got something to say leave it out the quote box please, mis-quoting people is the Paparazzi's job not yours!

I have competed for my country at World and International level, there is no way in hell I would prefer a kick from a Muay Thai practitioner.

.....and I get kicked in the head alot!

You have to make the connection between a sparring kick in semi-contact TKD versus someone who practises full contact as their bread and butter like Muay Thai. Before WTF stylists complain they do full contact, the lack of legal techniques is the downfall here.

I say full contact ITF TKD please, but that is just my 2 haggis's worth!

 

couldn't agree more!!!!

 

"Why the hell aren't you practicing sprinting then if you think that's the best way to fight?!?"

I didn't say that is the best way to fight. I said it's the best self defense. The best self defense is to stay out of the fight. I realize that's not always possible, but could probably get just as much success rate as anthing else. I'd rather dodge a blow and run, then hang around and take my chances, when he may have friends nearby, who may have weapons i don't know about, etc.

"Personally, I think I would rather be good at fighting and knowing how to deal with the situation than just running fast. What if you're in a crowded pub and it all kicks off, you gonna run away then? What if someone attacks your family or friends when you're out with them, you gonna run away then? What if someone gets you in a corner, they have a knife and they're going to attack you no matter what, you gonna run then? If you say yes, then you suck at life."

This is a good point. My point wasn't that knowing how to fight is useless. My point was, everyone seems to be obsessed with how deadly their martial art is, when in a fight, you're probably going to be outnumbered. You won't know what weapons they may have. You don't know what their fighting skills are like.

"Although my opinion on the argument about TKD and muay thai is rather uneducated from my own physical point of view ie. I haven't trained in either much, I would say that muay thai has more effective kicks from what I have seen. The widespread use of these kicks in many mma clubs and by cross-trainers must say something about the efficiency and power. I never chamber anything, so it isn't really for me. But whatever floats your boat."

Why is muay thai's kicks more effective then TKD? Because they use their shins instead of feet? Some of us do use our shins.
Because they use their hips and don't chamber? We use our hips in everything and In our school we aren't taught to chamber in self defense or in sparring, only when strengthening our legs for the kicks, and warming up. High flashy kicks don't work in real life? Just because that's how we do in the dojo doesn't mean we don't know how to kick low. Also, flashy doesn't necessarily mean 'weak'.

Only way to really be able to fight in a real no rules fight against some good fighter, is to get used to pain and getting beat up. That's why muay thai fighters are so tough. Anyone who conditions their body enough to take pain and abuse will be just as good because they will be ready for it and won't be controlled by the pain.

If tkd schools fought without pads and gear, full contact, they'd get conditioned for real fights too. I think conditioning is the main factor, not so much the style you use.

 

All:

Forgive me for interupting this particular thread, but I have a quick thought I would like to share. Although I'm not a student of TKD (I practice Tang Soo Do), here are my thoughts/questions.

I've only been in Martial Arts for nine months and have used this time to educate myself with Martial arts as a whole as opposed to a particular doctrine... and I continue to study... During this time I've come to the conclusion that martial arts is not all punching & kicking; there's a lot more than that. Some of the books I've read are the following: Living the Martial Way, Zen in the Martial Arts, Tao of JKD and other Bruce Lee books. I would recommend "Living the Martial Way".. this book talks about cross training within arts to compensate for areas that are emphasized in your school as well what a takes to be a real "martial artist". It's a great book....

I love reading your board and educating myself on TKD and it's students... I just think there's so much more out there than focusing on punching and kicking... I practice Tang Soo Do during the week and take Jujitsu on the weekend... it compliments Tang Soo Do...

am I out of line here? Do I make any sense? thanks for allowing me to contribute...

I love Martial Arts and family it fosters...

 

Listen to Tosh fellas, he makes a good point. ITF sparring in my day was done without pads and all the other bloody suits of armour that the WTF guys wear. The ITF was supposed to be semi-contact and the WTF full-contact.

I'm a qualified instructor in both and I can tell you that the ITF style is much tougher due to its lack of reliance on body armour, gumshields, groinguards,
headguards, chainmail suits etc.

I don't know what it's like now but the original ITF style we trained in Glasgow was as hard as nails. Competitions could indeed get rough but the technique was always there, unlike a lot of the sloppy flailing techniques being passed as WTF sport.

 

Because you said kicking contest, not fighting all around. TKD is mostly about long range/kicking. In Muay Thai you can use elbows, knees, etc, so the emphasis on long range isn't as big.

PL

EDIT: And as to your self-delusionment counter: get your head out of your ass. They train differently, so they fight differently.

EDIT2: Omg you people... I made all the changes RED. Why? To see if his quote would still make sense if you substituted something for it. After all, TKD specializes in kicking, Muay Thai does close range stuff too.

 

Okay PL,

1) Keep the personal attacks to yourself. Consider this a yellow card, if you can't have an conversation without attacking someone you won't be having a conversation at all. Comprendhe?

2) If you want to make a point just say it, you didn't need to quote Kickcatcher so why do it? Stop being so lazy with your posts, please.

Your comment above would be true if TKD did nothing else except kicking, unfortunately it does hand techniques (a different range) also.

Now somebody better get this thread back on track quickly or it'll be the end of it.

This is not a discussion about Muay Thai Vs TKD!

 

Sorry if this isn't much of a steer back on track Tosh.
But...
Poop-Loops,
When I said that I think that Muay Thai is better at kicking I meant it. It's only an opinion but it is easily put to the test: Go to a Muay Thai club and spar them. I reckon that you might learn something about effective kicking. If you think differently then cool, but I do have both sides of that picture....

Anyway, back on track:
TKD is not best suited to the street. for all the SD (of varying credibility depending on club) it is ultimately a kicking-orientated art, deliberately unbalanced and sparred in a manner which rarely (if ever) teaches the practioner the inherent limits of the techniques, nor their full potential. How can a TKDer speculate about the effectiveness of a technique, however 'theoretically' deadly, if they have onlty performed it in the abstract manner of Patterns, 1step and thin air?

I think that the same critiscm can be levelled at many arts but TKD is hardly innocent in the false sence of security it gives it's typical practitioner.

 

I never attacked him. I questioned his opinion.

It actually takes longer to manipulate a quote. Plus, it has style if done right. Come on, I didn't make it say "Hey look i are teh gay fag!", I just substituted some words in, and made it obvious. I can't see why that's wrong. It's an analogy, but made through the person I'm directing it to.

You NEVER said "spar" you said "kick". Effective kicking? What, MT uses some magical kicks that are just beyond TKD's grasp? A round house is a round house. A TKDist does it more than an MT guy, so I can't see why the MT guy would kick harder or better.

TKD is guilty? Or do you mean the schools that teach it? Generalizing too much. But I can see where you're coming from. It's so much easier than assuming that that schools vary from one to the other.

PL

 

I'm sorry. What?

So when i throw a roundhouse im relying on my chest protector for that am i? Makes no difference to me what im wearing. I can still kick.
To that point, all the chest guard does is spread the impact area of the strike over a wider area, much like the very soft semi-contact boots in ITF.

I can agree that in competition some of the WTF kicks are sloppy, but those sloppy techniques are usually thrown for lack of being able to punch, simply to keep the opponent back. And from some of the ITF sparring i've seen, the hand techniques seem very sloppy indeed (although the handful of videos i've seen might not be a good example).

WTF and ITF sparring is very ideologically different, but its still basically kicking and punching (well, maybe not in some wtf comps ).
A style that promotes wearing safety equipment so you can go all out is less realistic that a style that punishes combatants that use full-power techniques? Or vice-versa?

WTF protects the areas that you will get HIT, ITF protects the areas you hit WITH. Neither is full contact. Although those ITF boots do look very clumsy, what are they like to spar in?
To that end from WTF sparring my feet are hard as hell from kicking without instep protection, which is handy if you wanna give someone a sharp kick to a hard part of the face

But WTF sparring is more brutal than you realise. The head maybe protected, but the face isnt, and nor is your foot. A nose is easily "accidentially" broken, and in recent years a "face-shot" has become a particularly effective WTF technique, although seen as underhand by some, at the last competition i attended i saw someone get a very nasty broken nose. The same guy that gave that guy a broken nose also knocked my freind out in a previous fight.

Anyway, all this talk is head-doing and im feeling the oddest sense of deja-vu. Sorry if i offended anyone, but 'tis late

 

The key difference is the way they train which results in a slightly different manner/mechanics of kicking. Muay Thai practitioners train to kick full contact and also to kick low. It's one thing to say that a TKDer could kick low but quite another to claim that mainstream TKD trains to kick low.
I would guess that you haven't ever sparred a profficient MT fighter. Try it and then come back and say that TKDers are more effective at kicking. It's all down to training IMO.

 

Helm, no offense taken buddy, you make some valid points. It's just that I feel that the WTF boys have become sloppy simply because they've got so much protective kit on when they spar that it takes a lot more energy to throw many techniques than to just lay back and kick each other around the backsides. You almost never see them through any jumping kicks at all, but with three rounds of competition sparring you'd have to be superman to last the pace with those.

I've sparred WTF style and it's really difficult to move naturally in that stuff, you have to wear it a lot to get used to it and that just aint practical. Sure the headguards do let through a well aimed kick to the face but I think a lot of these land simply because a lot of WTF people spar with their hands at their sides.

Having said that, the ITF boots are really awkward to spar with, but only should be used in competition and when I was there, only the BB's used them.
They were never worn in class and you're right, the feet become conditioned to the hard work. The point is, with no protective kit on your sparring becomes much more realistic, your technique doesn't become sloppy, you have to have hands up and be aware how to use them and your timing and accuracy have to be spot-on to avoid serious injury. Destruction practice with the boards and such ensure that you are able to kick through the target when required, to compensate for the "lighter" sparring sessions.

I'm a qualified instructor in both ITF and WTF and mean no disrespect to any of the guys out there practicing in whichever MA. Just giving my two cents worth.

 

Right, Kickcatcher and Poop-Loops if you disagree with each other about Muay Thai vs TKD Kicking save it for the PM's or a new thread on that topic, both of your bantering is going nowhere.

If it appears in this thread again I'll split it myslef. I don't want this thread hijacked by any more by your squabbling. If you want to argue about it do it elswhere it's between you 2 only.

Back to the point,

By sparring full contact with pads and no pads. End of. I do it in my class and it's pretty much everyday occurance in 90% of the blackbelt classes.

BTW I do ITF

BTW I've been smacked around by bare fists/feet a lot.

Don't just assume because TKD is rife with corruption and poor schooling, there are not people that train in the manner that is required. The problem here is that this type of sparring is not really seen until higher grades, the reason?

A) The rest of the syllabus takes away from purely advancing kicking skills to gain a level from control not contact is required first. It's more than just fighting skills.

B) For junior grades the emphasis is on avioding trouble and basic blocking/body conditioning. Too many people assume that high grade coloured belts = talented "sparrers" sure it happens but it's not the TKD syllabus that teaches that.

I didn't start learning how to "fight" until I got my BB.

 

I agree with Helm that WTF is much more brutal than ITF. WTF fighters wears protective gears because of the power of the kicking can cause serious injuries. Even though you wears a protective gear such as the headgear; I assure you that the headgear are not 100% protection to your head.
I saw a competition between two black belts(wearing protective gears of course) and this one guy in the red corner throws a powerful jmping spinning hook kick to the opponent.
The opponent just slammed to the ground and pass out for a moment.
When he wakes up a few minutes later he was in shock.
He starts to mumurred about something and his body starts to get really cold and his face was turning real pale.
Then his body was uncontrallably shakes/trembling. His instructed realised he was getting into shock and tries to calm him down. They sent him to the hospital. One of my friend said (he was the one who sent him to the hospital) he was lucky that our instructor calm him down or it could have been otherwise to him.

Now you see how serious WTF style really is. That's why we wear protective gears Marco. Just imagine if they were no padding at all. Blood will be spilled and in serious cases maybe even death. We wear protective gears to minimise injuries.