are people here always really hostile? Wait, forget it i'm just going to get a hostile reply. peace + love,
I'm sorry you feel 'abused' by the UKTA; in my own experience the UKTA have been excellent and are well above their ITF counterparts in terms of organisation, training and overall skill levels. As for being 'forced' into seminars, you are certainly not, at least in my experience. Though if you are a serious student then you should be jumping at the chance to train with a variety of Masters and gain from their experience. Furthermore, the idea that the UKTA has no emphasis on real situations is curious given it is a practical form of self defence and I suggest that your dissatisfaction is either due to lack of understanding or proper training; given your closing statement I feel it may be the later. Back to the thread my choice would be ITF every single time, but be wary of which organisation within the ITF you join, sadly, it's a very mixed bag.
i was with the tagb for 8 years until the club closed and i have now been itf for the past 9 years. to be honest the only difference has been sine wave motion of the itf makes doing the patterns totally different compared to the slightly more rigid tagb style. i think the best thing to do is try all the clubs in your local area as both styles are similar it's more down to the instructor who teaches at the clubs. my old coach was quite traditional in his classes and it was always patterns, sparring, patterns, sparring and people got bored of the classes quite quickly where as when i started teaching i preffered padwork and self defence along with patterns and sparring so it ends up with what is supposed to be the same class is totally different. have a look around and see what you enjoy best
I was only speaking from my experiences, maybe I was unlucky to have instructors that didn't put either organisation in the best light.
