WTF president considering making TKD more like UFC

I really like the discussion between Hannibal and Mitlov - I think I see both sides.

When I got started in (WTF) TKD about 18 years ago, the sparring was one of the things I loved and for many years, I would hunt down any broadcasts, tournament videos, local tournaments I could to watch (and sometime compete). For me, the rules were a nice balance of contact and safety - kick a guy anywhere above the waist and punch him in the torso as hard as you want, preferably to win with a KO. There were enough pads and good refs to ensure no one got really hurt. I loved it.

I've seen the rules evolving and I personally don't care for the trend. I fear that the electronic scoring has taken away from the contact level. You can still score without a hard hit, so long as the electronic device catches it (making for light contact to the head). I also feel that there has been a shift in strategies for the athletes to 'play the game' now, run out the clock, go for a light tap for a point and win in a much softer fight.

I'm a guy in a key demographic for the Olympics and for WTF TKD - in my 40s with a background in TKD and some disposable income. I watched some of the matches at the last Olympics and was disappointed. To me, it seemed like too much gaming the system and way too little contact/fighting going on. What would bring me back into the fold?

I already detailed my ideal, with sweeps, throws, low kicks, head punches, etc, but honestly, here is a more simple list of what I would like:

1. Stop worrying about the UFC - we don't need a cage. I could go with a ring, if only to keep guys from running out often

2. Punches should be allowed to the head - it's not a hard shift to adopt helmet/mouthguard/gloves along boxing rules or MMA style rules.

3. Get rid of the electronic scoring and count points based on how hard the hit was (trembling shock - you need to move the body to get a point), If you want to keep the electronic scoring, then increase the threshold for a score - no tippy-tappy points

4. To rid of some of the stalling, I see two solutions - one, put a ring around the action (or a cage, I guess) and two, allow for knee strikes above the waist from the clinch. If the strike can deliver 'trembling shock', count it as a point

5. Keep the doboks and keep the fancy kicks (give a bonus if one scores with trembling shock)

As a TKD instructor, we've already made a kind of 'break'. We are not willing to invest in the electronic scoring equipment and we don't get a lot of students who want to do a 'serious' tournament circuit anyway. We get kids and adults who want to learn patterns, learn the techniques, and then spar in class with a good mix of pads and contact level. Some nights we fight under (older) TKD rules (kicks above the waist, punches to the body, trembling shock) and some nights we open it up more. Guys that we have sent to tournaments have done pretty well with this kind of training. So, I think we'll be happy with that compromise.

 

As for retiring the dobok, I submit this gold-medal match from London 2012:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dj16N2FSjDg"]Jade Jones (GBR) Wins Taekwondo -67kg Gold v Hou Yuzhuo (CHN) - London 2012 Olympics - YouTube[/ame]

If any sport's uniform needs to be adjusted that much during competition, then the uniform isn't well thought out. A sport's uniform should be conducive to participating in that sport; it shouldn't interfere. A taekwondo uniform that (sometimes) needs to be rearranged before you kick is as silly as boxers wearing capes that they need to push back before throwing punches.

 

I think in that case Jade Jones adjusting her dobok is more of a twitch or habit than an actual adjustment.
The other competitor barely touched her equipment (in the few minutes I could steel myself to watch).
And as an aside...what a horrible match.
I mean...that's not a spectator sport. I'm sure it takes great skill and all that jazz but that's horrible to watch.

 

But a lot of Olympic sports are esoteric and technical as opposed to spectator-friendly. It's true of fencing, it's true of Greco-Roman wrestling, it's true of Olympic shooting sports (when compared to something audience-friendly like 3-Gun), etc.

Subjectively, I like watching Olympic taekwondo more than the recent ITF stuff I've seen. It's a technical sport like fencing, not a visceral sport like MMA, but I do enjoy watching it.

 

Indeed. But making it good to watch seems to be a criteria for some of the rule changes doesn't it?
Just saying that if people are fine with a niche technical sport that's what they have.
But they seem to want more than that.
I consider myself a martial artist with a love of good kicking and it's too niche and esoteric even for me.

 

The IOC is encouraging a lot of sports to refine their rules to make the more audience-friendly (examples would be the creation of the passivity rule for epee and the creation of the 15-millisecond-depression rule in foil that decreased the importance of flicks), but I don't see that the IOC is encouraging anyone to scrap the basic rule-set and go back to the drawing board on what the rules of the sport are. I personally don't think that going back to the drawing board on what "Olympic taekwondo" is (i.e., including head punches and grappling) is a good path forward. I think small rule changes can make big differences in excitement of the sport.

Making a more rigorous passivity rule, and changing the mechanism of how kicks are scored to emphasize more combinations, are both good ideas IMO. Adding face-punching and grappling to the sport is "going back to the drawing board" in my opinion and not a good idea for Olympic TKD (once again, just my opinion).

 

Also, I posted the Jade Jones match not because it was the most exciting of London 2012, but because of her constant adjustment of her dobok. It certainly was one of the more technical matches of the games. This one, while still being a technical sport and not "two guys just going at it," was a lot more exciting:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_2rvik7NrY"]Carlo Molfetta Wins Gold - Taekwondo Men +80kg | London 2012 Olympics - YouTube[/ame]

 

As I said I thinks Jones is adjusting out of habit rather than necessity. The way some boxers will touch a glove to their forehead.
Thai's wear about as minimal and lose clothing as you get and yet I've seen plenty continually hitching them up or turning the waistband over.
They've got into the habit of adjusting their clothing to keep their hips clear.

 

Maybe so. Anyway, what'd you think of the 80kg men's gold-medal match?

 

On a kindle fire that won't play the damn thing. Grrrrr.
Sort it out Amazon!
Will watch later.

 

[tangent] I was similarly annoyed by my Kindle Fire. Nice-quality hardware but abominable software. If I were to get another 7" media tablet, it'd be the second-gen Nexus 7.

 

[Joining tangent...me too. I think kindles stopped getting updated for flash? Which is annoying as I was using mine for youtube as much as I was for reading books.]

 

Maybe so, I don't know, because I quit using the Kindle Fire when I got a tablet PC/convertible tablet (a Vaio Duo 11, with PC guts similar to a MacBook Air, but with a slider design that can serve either as a tablet or as a laptop). The Duo 11 has replaced both my media tablet and my laptop.

 

Back on topic, did you ever watch the men's 80kg gold medal bout from page 14 of the thread?

Also, the women's 64kg gold medal bout was pretty fantastic in my opinion. I loved watching it.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1x94IHwuNfA"]Taekwondo Women +67kg Gold Medal Final - France v Serbia Full Replay - London 2012 Olympics - YouTube[/ame]

 

I love WTF TKD, Jade Jones' victory (and the hilarious comments of her coach afterwards) was one of the highlights of the games for me. Having been the first style I ever trained in it is very close to my heart, and I would love to see a little more blood and thunder in competition. That said I would be very sad to see the emphasis on impressive (some might say flashy) kicking in any way diluted. Has there been any talk of trialling any possible changes to see what effect they have on competition?

 

I just tried. Managed about 8 minutes and didn't see anything really combative in nature.
"Fight" the referee kept saying and I had to agree with him. Lot's of looking, lots of bouncing and lots of warnings.
The most pain or damage inflicted was when the Italian kicked the other dudes elbow and hurt his foot.
At least in Judo, wrestling and boxing you can see the combative element.
A standing man is put on the floor.
A punch (with power) is landed.
What happened here?
The gabon fighter moved his leg about a foot in a clumsy crsecent kick as he was off balance and got 3 points for a head kick. If that was a head kick then I'm a monkey's uncle. No one would ever be hurt by that "kick". Well maybe if a toenail went in someone's eye.
At least in the other combat sports some core of combative usefulness is retained.
Do you really think that was a good bout?
Did some massive head kick KO or back and forth striking happen after the 8 minute mark?

 

Well OF COURSE things changed in round three! That's the natural flow of technical sports, whether you're talking fencing, taekwondo, or a 1000m footrace. People are conservative early on, feeling out their opponents. Each slowly tries to build up a lead. In the last half or last third, the high-risk-high-reward tactics come out, particularly from the participant who isn't in the lead. And then you'll see each participant give it everything they've got as the clock winds down to zero (or the finish line nears or whatever). This isn't something unique about taekwondo--it's the natural flow of most Olympic sports, combat sports or otherwise--indeed, most sports. There's a reason you don't see hail mary passes or onsides kicks until the fourth quarter in American football.

That said, if you just want to see teeth on the mat and the proxy of a streetfight, don't watch the Olympics. That has NEVER been the goal of any Olympic sport--even Olympic boxing is very different, and much less "violent," than the boxing you see at the "amateur fight night" at the local casino. You talk about boxing ending up with someone on the ground, like that's the typical ending of a bout, but how many Olympic boxing bouts end with a knockout? Not many.

So if you want to understand taekwondo as an Olympic sport, watch those last two videos again (and all the way through this time), remembering that a lot of "feeling the opponent out" comes in round one, a lot of "jockeying for position" score-wise comes in round two, and "making your move" comes in round three. But if you don't want to look at it as two athletes looking to out-score each other under a competition rule-set; if you're just looking for "a fight"--the Olympics in general isn't where you'll find it.

 

Dunno where you got that idea from.
If I'm watching a combat sport I want to see two people using combative techniques to try and beat each other no matter what the ruleset.
You don't score a punch in am boxing for just touching someone's face with your fist. There has to be impact. Sure it's not the knockout sport of pro boxing but the ethos is very similar. Land telling blows on the other guy without him hitting you.

That first "head kick" from the Gabon fighter just wasn't a combative technique. At all. I'd quite happily let someone kick me in the head with that level of contact.
I've knocked my head harder than that walking into a door frame.
If that fulfills the criteria for being a scoring technique in this sport you might just as well have a "who can touch the other persons bum" competition instead.
You'd still need skill and set ups and feints and tactics to do that. And it would be about as combative.

I take your point about the flow of a match though. That's a good point.

 

Earlier you were contrasting judo with TKD, and there are a lot of throws in judo that score ippon but don't actually result in any sort of injury to the opponent. It's not the actual injury done that determines ippon, but the mechanics (placing X person in Y position).

Watch a couple of Olympic judo bouts at 29:40. The question in the Olympic sport is not whether they're throwing people on the ground with enough force to do real damage to their opponent; the question is whether they're accomplishing putting X in Y position, i.e., satisfying the scoring criteria. Forceful slams into the ground are about as common as head kicks strong enough to ring an Olympic taekwondoin's bell. They happen in both sports; they're not the primary method of winning matches in either.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8PuanlxthY"]Judo - Men - 66kg & - Women - 52kg - London 2012 Olympic Games - YouTube[/ame]

 

Yeah Judo's not as combative as it could be these days either.

But...at least the criteria for winning are combative in nature even if the falling skills, matting and conditioning of the competitors means that throws aren't injurious for the most part.
The purpose of a throw is to put the other person in a disadvantaged position (as it is in wrestling).
That is a combative goal.
And joint locks and chokes certainly are inherently injurious in nature.
So even out of the confines of Judo the goals of it cross over into fighting.

But putting your foot onto someone's head is only going to be combative in nature if it's also travelling at 30mph.

Put it this way...a non judo person thrown by a judo athlete, even on matting has a fair chance of being injured.

No one would be injured by that first 3 point "head kick". It's not a head kick even. It's a head touch. Which is fine if that's the game you want to play. But it's not a combat sport.

My daughter got hit by another kid on a bouncy castle by accident harder than that kick and only cried for a few minutes.