TKD Guys in MMA

Maybe one concussion too many if you can't remember how old you are?

 

Lol, 34 this year

 

I hear you there! Teaching is a huge sacrifice. You don't have a choice...you have to be there. Weekend road trips where the wife and I take a bunch of students to a tournament. All the while I'm wondering if I'm screwing my own kid out of her time with me while I'm working my butt off for other kids to have a good experience.

All that then you have a bunch of 15 year old MMA fans on the internet telling you what a crook you are and how you are misleading people with your 'lies' while getting rich off them. Ha ha...hey if there is any money in this why the heck am I working all this around a 'real job'?

It is enough to make you jaded! Hence the reason for me going off on poor tim_M (who seems a nice enough young man). Luckily the actual students appreciate it. Even the ones who quit that you run into on the streets say, "I'd like to get back into it. I just got X, Y, and Z keeping me back."

Let me reiterate I have no problem with MMA. But the old dojang is a good thing. I was one of those kids who spent evenings there and it was a positive place. All schools don't need to become carbon copies of a MMA model.

 

That’s pretty vague dude! Do you simply mean not these new guys? Do you mean people who have been training for a certain length of time? How long?

Stuart,

No you’re right, that’s isn’t the same level of pure boxing in a MMA match as there would be in a boxing match, in the same way as there isn’t the same level as pure wrestling or grappling. Partially I think that is just the nature of the game, a person will look like a much better boxer when they are just doing boxing sparring than they would when doing MMA sparring. Second reason is simply time, MMA fighter has a lot more to train, a boxer can just work boxing all day every day, MMA is a much wider skill set.

Of course.

When I guy throw a jab at me last Wednesday in training and it missed! Jabs don’t work! Omaplata is a technique you are only lightely to see every now and again in MMA really.

Oh I know that, I wasn’t implying that you were one of them!! It’s just a frame of reference that we both have as both of us posted there. It’s better IMO than me giving an example where you don’t know who I’m talking about.

Yes it’s quite common on MMA forums alright and same points I made about it here would apply there. Some MMA folk lump anything that isn’t Thai, wrestling, or BJJ as TMA, again a pretty useless term. In a way labeling someone as a MMA guy, can be just as meaningless. The way for example that Aaron uses it (correct me if I am wrong) is the young 20 something jock who’s just itching to hop in a cage. That is probably his experience of people using the term so that’s how he sees it. I would see it very differently, and it would mean something very different. A lot of the training partners I have had are 30+, some of them have some amateur MMA but more than likely none of them will do pro MMA. In fact out of all the people who trained in that group over the past few years only two have done pro MMA. Strangely enough they were the two mid 20’s athlete ones. Most of the younger people I've coached (college students) have only been hobbyist too.

Common terms without a common meaning leads to a lot of misunderstanding on forums.

Oh, I’ll PM you now about that training we’ve been talking about.

Aaron,

When this ‘going off’ happen? Can’t say I remember it! LOL at nice enough young man, could you be anymore condescending?

 

Ha ha....I'm condescending?

Here is a quote from you discussing Stuart's grading vid. A vid, btw, that contained some good quality stuff.

And here is me 'going off':

Tim....many of your posts are extremely condescending. You often assume you are shedding light on 'new ideas' that those of us who have been around the block for awhile have never even thought of.

But that isn't the case. There are good and well thought out reasons for much of the training we do. You advocate a style and a mentality that is great for athletic young men (such as yourself). Great! But that does not fit everyone.

An example...there is a pleasant young woman in her early 20s (ha ha...doing it on purpose now) who is in our TKD class. She heard I cross-trained in grappling and was interested. So she came and watched. The whole 'men laying on top of her while she had her legs wrapped around them' turned her off the idea. She later picked up an aikido class to add to her TKD.

And it is fine. One size doesn't fit all. Those wrist locks can really control someone if they gain the element of surprise.

Back to TKD. I had a go with MT/Kickboxing when I was your age. The transition was NOT that bad from TKD. I think you even said you transitioned fairly well. People that don't transition well typically have athletic issues more than a TKD problem. I'll admit, however, that there is some transition.

But rather than turning me off from TKD I started seeing the wisdom of the way we train. Case in point there were no older people doing MT/Kickboxing. It wears on the body (heck even what we do in TKD wears on the body). I realized if I still wanted to be doing this stuff into my 50s TKD was where it was at. Even in something like grappling I'm going to have to tell people, "Don't even THINK about putting a neck crank on me" as I get older.

So I'm sorry if I sound a bit condescending as I defend the way we train from people in their prime athletic years who want to deliver a 'revelation' on training. Understand it isn't necessarily stuff that is new to us.

And I wouldn't mind so much if it weren't delivered in such a arrogant black/white way. As if the training we actually makes you WORSE at defending yourself and we'd all be better sitting on the couch.

 

There have been more times than I care to recall where I've read people saying just that on other forums. It's just another reason not to care about what people on the Internet have to say about your training....

 

Haven't read the whole thread but Zelg Galesic didn't look very TKD like in his recent fight at Pride 34

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5oDpWeo9cM"]YouTube[/ame]

 

Oh come on.
The thing he did was throw two high section turning kicks.
He then went on to get beaten on the ground by a guy half his size.
what says TKD more than that?

 

Zelg has a TKD background, these days he does MMA. End of. Fair play to him for getting as far as Pride.

AAron.

Just gave my honest opinion along with the reasons for those opinions. Now Stuart obviously wouldn’t agree with a lot of what I might but that’s cool, that’s why it’s interesting.

That is your assumption, not mine.

Well I don’t know what you do in training and haven’t made any comments about your specific training.

Common misconception. The style of training I advocate is suitable for anyone who is of reasonable fitness. It’s all about training smart. Like I said in my last post, plenty of the guys I’ve trained with are well into their thirties. Anyone who could do the TKD classes I used to run could do the training I’d do with them now.

Fair enough, grappling isn’t for everyone. We’ve had a share of girls training grappling with us, but you are right, a lot of time aren’t interested.

Again it’s all about the intensity of training. Unless I’m doing fight preparation training then the training I do isn’t really much hardier on my body than TKD was. Getting ready for a fight of course is a different thing but that’s only for a few and is not the type of training I’m talking about.

Grappling can be very light on the body, again it just depends on the intensity. If you do ‘hard man’ rough and tumble grappling then it is obviously, but you don’t have to train that way. If you train it smart then there is no reason older people shouldn’t do it.

I said condescending in jest really, I wasn’t offended by what you said.

I never said anything like that. I don’t know much about your training, but it doesn’t really sound hugely different to what I do.

 

What about us old farts that are "well into" our Forties!!

I'm just messing with you, no reply is needed unless you feel it's warranted. I know I'm an old man in a young man's game, and I know my limitations. I'm not going to pick a fight with Crocop nor am I going to pick a fight with an 20 year old TKD BB.

My son, who's 19 and a 1st Dan is a perfect example. He can easily kick to my head without any warm-up, whereas I can easily recall the era of Disco.

 

Exactly, but it doesn't stop you training! I don't think TKD style training is any easier on an older body than MMA style training need be. It's got to be easier to throw low kicks than spinning back kicks! It's easier to work on light grappling or boxing than throwing lots of kicks and kicking and punching air a lot, which is quite hard on joints.

 

One of the problems with the internet. I thought you were being serious.

I do ITF style training. I do the hyungs, I do the continuous point style sparring, I do the breaking while yelling 'KIA!' , I even work on tornado kicks and 360 degree sidekicks. Our school has five heavy bags set up so we also do 'rounds on the bag' a couple times a week. Pretty much the same class I grew up with over 20 years ago.

Twice a week I do Sambo. We wear the kurtka. Class divided between position work/positional wrestling then submissions/submission sparring. The guy who teaches me has the grappling equivalency of around a purple in BJJ (from what I've observed from when we've grappled with BJJ guys). His instructor (who comes for seminars) is easily black.

I have one friend who does small shows in MMA. Through him I've met others (one of whom is jumping up to a pretty large show). They get together every saturday morning early with a focus on ground work (sometimes some standup). I join them occasionally, but not as often as I like to keep the family peace (my wife gets sick of me being away from home).

Knowing what I know from my extracurricular training I'd never argue that TKD (ITF or otherwise) is all you need to be successful in MMA. But I will passionately argue with anyone who claims it does not give you a good place to start from.

Ha ha....I suppose I'm a TKDophile at heart. When someone says something bad about it is like someone picking on a member of my family. I get combative!

 

Heh heh...

Zelg is a stud. The sad thing is that he didn't get taken down. He voluntarily went to the ground. I don't know why he did that. We all know Zelg has great ground skills, but he should have just let the guy stand up. Zelg was owning him standing. It was only a matter of time before he got the KO.

But of course that is easy to say from the safety of my armchair!

 

Tone can get lost, I should have just a -->

Gi top and shorts right? There's a cool clip out there of Fedor and his brother competing in Sambo.

That varies hugely depending on the individual and where/how they train.

That is quite common, people get over emotional about the topic and the argument becomes about a person defending their style no matter what instead of just debating points. I think is a actually a major problem in martial arts, people (not talking about you!) are often so emotionaly attached to doing things they way they do them that they never stop and actually analyse what they are doing. People get stuck doing the same old same old for years without ever really trying to improve how they train.

 

A kurtka is slightly different than a gi top...but that is basically it. I've seen the clip of Fedor and his brother. The one that starts with the fake handshake, right?

Fedor's neck and shoulders are so damn flexible. He basically just squirms out of side control and right into back control if I remember correctly. Sort of like his armbar of Coleman...both were just beautiful.

My escapes from bottom more closely resemble a turtle on his back trying to flip over.

Sambo in Russia does not allow chokes, but in the US the Freestyle rules allow them (and we practice them). Originally they were trying to differentiate it from Judo (due to the war with Japan). But they pretty much had to become more BJJ like in the U.S. if they wanted people to show up to the tournaments.

 

That's the one!

Do you get a lot of BJJ guys? I'd imagine the rules for competition would be pretty close to BJJ?

 

We haven't had a Sambo tournament on the west coast yet. They are held annually on the east coast and Canada. I imagine they get a lot of BJJ guys also competing out there.

Some of the guys do BJJ tournaments and do fairly well. I've only been doing Sambo for about a year and haven't been to a grappling tournament yet. I'd like to, but it is tough with a family. On the nights where I do TKD and then Sambo I'm not back home till like 10:00 at night. Hard to then tell the wife, "Yeah...I'll be gone all day Saturday. Take care of the kid..."

With a year under my belt I'm at the stage where the senior guys are always saying, "You're getting a lot better." And I'm like, "Yeah but you still fricken tapped me. It is just taking longer!!!"

Whenever a new guy comes in those of us with less experience get to have some fun but new people usually don't last more than a class. We even had a big guy with 3 years of MMA experience (had been in small shows even) and I felt like some kind of ground wizard against him. But the senior guys...well lets just say I have a new mountain to climb in martial arts.

In the original sport Sambo there is no chokes and I believe closed guard is also not allowed. A perfect throw also ends the match. It was basically like Judo with leg locks, but minus chokes. I think there is a time-limit to groundwork.

Here in the US BJJ is the king of submission grappling. So it makes sense that freestyle Sambo is evolving towards BJJ here as it tries to find its foothold.

 

An interesting development in MMA will be seeing what happens to practioners in say 20 years time? I worry that in a few years lots of athletic & talented people will be a real mess through MMA (I'm using my Definition of MMA as UFC type competition fighting). Look to boxing for any number of boxers who took lots of hefty headshots with much more substantial gloves than used in MMA, Mohammed Ali anyone?

I have trained WTF Taekwondo for 15+ years, If I had been "grounded, Pounded and choked out" for the last 15 years i'm not sure how well I would be able to defend myself on this "Street" that people keep telling me about. (it's one rough street!) And i'd probably be even more ugly than I am today!

For the record I think the MMA guys are extremely tough and I for one would not want to fight any of them - please don't misunderstand it's not a pop at MMA, there is plenty of room for all of us.

 

We're already starting to see it somewhat. Bas Rutten was recently suspended for six months because he had too many prescription pain killers in his system. He has also stated he won't be competing because his knee is 'not good'. I'm a huge Bas fan, btw, and own multiple of his products. This is not a knock against Bas, but more a comment on how hard on the body that type of competition is.

Lets see...Mark Kerr got addicted to pain meds as shown in his documentary 'The Smashing Machine'. Guy Mezger supposedly had some sort of stroke due to that whole Vioxx (pain meds) scandal where they didn't report the long term damage that could happen over prolonged use.

These are just three cases that come to mind. This is why I'm a big fan 'TMA' style training. Even in my Sambo class the head guy calls it very 'traditional' and tells us to 'tap early and tap often' to save the body.

I totally agree with you. I'm 36 years old. If I still want to be doing this stuff in 5+ years I have to train smart. Can't have some 20 something year old pounding on me...