How on Earth did you draw that conclusion? I just said we'd prefer if you opened up by expressing your own opinion. How do you go from there to "Help! Help! I'm being oppressed!"? That said, let's move past that bit and stick to the topic at hand please.
All this does is toss a grenade into a room full of black powder. This isnt a discussion this is a invitation for people to come in and fight about "real" TKD. To get Jimmies rustled and Panties bunched. Their is only one type of discussion that can be had from that article. TKD'ers coming to violently defend there honor and then everyone that disagrees with TMA methods to come in and argue against them. It wont be a discussion it will be a screaming match, a fight. Nothing good will come of it. The hardest person i ever sparred or trained with while i was in mma was a former KKW 2nd bb. He was the single hardest person to nail down and hit or clinch or anything else unless he was coming in for the attack. His exceptional skill with his legs and skill with kicking made his regular low risk attacks accurate and hard to defend. His ability to control distance and space made dueling him even harder. He was exceptionally hard to keep up with. I found my self chasing him around the octagon more then anything else. I think you sell TKD to short.
Alright. That's enough about how the topic was introduced. I DON'T believe that mdgee was attempting to be incendiary. So let's concentrate on the actual content of the article. Yeah? Thanks.
You are right Oweyn, that's all I wanted right from the beginning. Maybe I could have opened a bit differently but I chose the lead in I used based on the title of the article. I knew some might freak out by the title and I wanted to encourage everyone to read it. Yes, i have an opninion, but I don't have a decent background in TKD and that's why I was asking for your opinions. I wanted to know if others on this forum felt the same as the author? I also was trying to determine why the author, who has a 4th dan in ITF TKD, would continue learning if he feels it to be ineffective. In the end, we're all here to share knowledge and help each other, right? That's how I see this forum. I was already a member of that bullshido forum and left because I didn't like that every post needed to be approved by one of three admins or that all of the admins seemed to be against every martial art in existence but the ones they like. The atmosphere on this website seemed positive and very different from that website and it's why I come back and why I post threads that many of you consider simple.
The article is a bit of nonsense that reads like something written by someone who has never been in a fight, let alone done any self defence training. It focuses on techniques rather than training methodology which is a dead giveaway; "TKD techniques are so deadly" as opposed to "TKD has similar techniques to everything else and you just need to train them properly." The appeal to authority via Krav is just icing on the cake. Now, none of this should be taken as denigrating the early practitioners within the confines of their martial understanding at the time. So when we talk about the guys training in Vietnam (as the article does), we're talking about tough, fit, military personnel who were probably a handful without any training, like many squaddies. I came across some bits of film recently that have some relevance, they show TKD training that looks a lot like karate training (wonder where TKD comes from?) with some white belt sparring and bagwork. I'm not posting this as a "look how good/bad these people are," more as a historical document of what their training was like. Some of these are not TKD to my knowledge, but they serve as useful comparisons. [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zqX3F4p7O4"]ARVN Special Forces trainees learn Tae Kwon Do from two Korean black belt instruc...HD Stock Footage - YouTube[/ame] [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDYSeApuZcA"]Vietnamese Special Forces trainees learn Tae Kwon Do under the supervision of Kor...HD Stock Footage - YouTube[/ame] [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXV_rxc5X5g"]ARVN Special Forces trainees learn Tae Kwon Do at the 5th Special Forces Group ba...HD Stock Footage - YouTube[/ame] [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2ebF1frKSE"]ARVN Special Forces trainees learn and practice hand to hand combat maneuvers in ...HD Stock Footage - YouTube[/ame] [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmgSZqSoZbs"]An ARVN Special Forces instructor teaches hand to hand combat maneuvers to train...HD Stock Footage - YouTube[/ame] [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57w03ASkyco"]A South Vietnamese soldier demonstrates hand-to-hand combat to young cadets at a ...HD Stock Footage - YouTube[/ame] Mitch
I hate it when people start threads like that, without giving out their opinion at the same time. Only thing worse: People linking article or videos - and nothing else, so you can play the guessing-game as to what the OP wants. Anyway, just a minor thing I thought: Maybe (and I'm only guessing here!) he still trains it, because he likes it? Does nobody nowadays train a MA anymore, mainly because it's fun, and not become a killing machine on the street?
Another TDK teacher here in Vegas is Master Gary A. Bosse http://LVTKD.COM He is under the ITF and according to his page, General Choi Hong-HI took Shotokan Karate and Taek-Kyun and made TKD. (paraphrase) I visited his school and have seen videos of his classes. He teaches much more than just Sport TKD. I can find no evidence of cross-training so perhaps his version leans more towards the original art than some of the sport arts being taught today? Video: [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqmpLmen-j0"]Ho Sin Sul ITF Taekwon-Do 3rd Dan Test - YouTube[/ame]
I am no good at them. So here goes. In most of the posts he has replied to (that I have read) he disagrees with who he thinks is young or new to MA. He then agrees with a long time mapper. Even when It contradicts his previous statement. He rarely reads an entire post but replies with such unqualified authority it makes wonder about his true motives. I am sure body Shot is a fine fellow but his communication skills are way worse than mine. I think he is trying to hard. Sorry mods. This is not a personal attack at bodyshot just my opinion. As I stated above I am sure in a real world situation he is a swell guy.
There were some really bad examples of how to act in a self defence situation there, such as: At 0:08, he gets pushed. The attacker then walks away. Defender had no reason to pursue and engage - this is extremely poor self defence because the engagement was already over with no harm done. The fact that a gun was then drawn shows how stupid it could feasibly be to escalate a fight unnecessarily. At 0:14, the gun disarm appears to start with him grabbing the wrist but keeping the gun pointed squarely at his own face. At 0:16, throwing away the gun is almost certainly a huge mistake. This could be a drill for throwing it a lot further, though even that is a bit of an odd idea with a potentially live and loaded firearm. The rest of the first drill descends into what looks like TKD sparring rather than self defence. I suspect that someone who opens with a shove and then draws a gun is unlikely to then start using spin kicks. I'm also surprised to see attempts at punching while bent quite that far backwards - I can't imagine generating power like that is easy! At 0:42, leaping out of the way of a knife like that is unnecessarily stupid. Stepping is quicker and leaves you much better able to handle sudden changes, which is necessary with knife work because of how quick the attacks can be. You can also see that the attack is wildly over-committed and, looking at the footwork of each participant, not even aimed at the defender (looks like the attack is aimed right of the defender's right hip). landing in a stance that doesn't cover the face and neck when a knife is involved is also a no-no in my view. Final attack at 0:52 is again not aimed at the defender from what I can see, and in addition it is wholly unrealistic in terms of the held extension. This allows the defender to make the technique work from completely the wrong distance and engagement strategy. I'm skeptical that the sweep to the leg would work against a resisting opponent, as no effort was made to take the balance in an effective manner, so a solid stance would probably negate the sweep altogether - though the kick to the back of the knee would still probably cause a momentary opening, in all fairness. At 0:54, I have no idea how that disarm was supposed to work, but the weird falling over/collapse away from the attacker was very unusual to say the least! Leaving a downed attacker with a knife isn't ideal, especially after starting in such a dominant position. At 1:00, the attack is slow and held in place long after a sensible opponent would have retracted. Stepping in and sweeping from that position without a very firm control of the knife here is suicide - the attacker can redirect the knife down into the ribs or legs at any point during this throw. It also looks, though I'm not certain because of the angle, like the knife ends up almost in the defender's groin in the landing position - potentially painful and or fatal right there. Again, unsure how that disarm was supposed to work, but I suspect it was just a punch to the hand, which is silly when you can strip the knife and retain control of the weapon. Much the same comments for the sword and staves, with the added comment that blocking a staff strike with a hard block using your hands is really really stupid. Fast-moving wood is much more damaging than the hands can easily withstand. Such blocks require a lot of movement with the direction of the attack if they are to be successful. I'm sure there's more to pick up on, but to be honest this looks like movie-fu, not self defence. It seems to be a demo designed to look cool rather than thinking of the optimum techniques to do against a potentially fatal attack.
Well if I am ever attacked in the future by a bloke wielding a sword or knife then I hope it's the guy in that video.
I didn't say the technique was effective or not, was just showing that there are TKD schools who teach self defense (or try to) and not just point sparring. I was wondering if this the original TKD as it was conceived, leaving today's sport TKD schools perhaps watered down?
There are TKD clubs that teach self defence and do it effectively, there are videos of one in the SD forum in JWT's Sim day threads I think, if not I can post some TKD is just similar techniques to karate or many other arts, how you train it determines how effective it is. What was demonstrated here was scripted and based on unrealistic attacks. That's not unusual for TKD, Kuk Sul, Hapkido, Karate or many other arts, but that doesn't mean the art is bad, just that instructors need to develop their understanding of SD and how to train it. Mitch
this is the problem with "martial arts" in general, in my opinion. guy gives a flashy showy demo that's supposed to lure in students while implicitly teaching them "self defense". after all, he's disarming a guy with a gun and knife. in reality, a completely unrealistic scenario with horrible attacking and defending. and most likely will get the defender either maimed or killed. horrible. when i watch videos like this, it just makes me angry. at the end of the day, a person doing purely sport tkd has a much better shot at defending him/her self than anything i've seen in this supposedly more "self-defense"-y tkd video.
So the writer of the article is a 4th Dan in TKD but can't think of any techniques in TKD that are suitable for subduing Uncle Drunky without fracturing his skull or hospitalising him? So he's conveniently forgetting the whole section of throws in the encyclopedia? Or, you know, the first damn technique you ever learn in TKD (straight punch to the solar plexus)? Or maybe the whole concept of controlled contact so that strikes can be varied in application to get less than lethal effects? He also seems so clueless about violence that he doesn't know people are actually pretty hard to kill and generally die in fights due to actual intent to commit murder, group attacks, weapon use or plain old bad luck (hitting head on floor). The article is dumb and I'd be embarrassed to have written it and I only ever reached 1st Dan in TKD.
Thanks PASmith. I shared this article today with another ITF instructor in Nevada and he told me that it gave him the biggest laugh he has had in years.
KM TKD and civilian SD Hi I thought the article was a bit tedious but correct in some respects. - I do not believe the North and South Korean armies would bother with TKD if it were inefficient. - fighting taught to soldiers is not necessarily all appropriate for the civilian environment. - Modern society with it's desire to teach children, and the popularisation of Olympiic TKD has brought it away from practical fighting. - Krav Maga has a reputation for brutality and punching someone in the throat is too brutal to justify under most circumstances. BUT - if traditional TKD is properly understood it can be adapted for civilian SD. 1, My local WTF TKD club where I earned my first dan included a world youth champion, two national champions, and an Olympian and although these guys trained for sport, if they kicked you in the legs, you were bloody well kicked. 2. The shotokan basis for the poomsae is not to be sniffed at from an SD perspective. AND If you can punch someone in the throat, you can also opt to palm-heel them on the nose, and it is hard to kill someone by kicking them in the nads, so I do not accept at all that KM is not useful for civilian SD. I now have three shotokan black-belts among my KM students and their basic motor skills and the principles of bunkai are adaptable to KM-style SD, with some work on style of movement. I and several ex-taekwondoists have adapted to KM. Some of us have been in fights, none of us have killed anyone.
