Wait, this guy has years of experience in South Korea. You respond with a questionable link, essentially calling him a liar. Nice. Real nice. If you were worth it, that’d be pit-worthy.
Fidel weighs in with a characteristically temperate and well-reasoned reaction.
Loud noises and cursing might also help against people untrained in martial arts.
If the best you can say is that it helps against people who don’t know what they are doing, I’m not sure you’re convincing anyone of it’s martial soundness.
The element of surprise, my friend. Read The Art of War.
Any grappler would have taken those guys down.
Cisco is right TKD is pretty low-tier for martial arts. I’m sad that Wu Shu or Taiji were not put in this Olympics.
The focus of Tae Kwan Do makes it simply not a very effective Fighting style. I’d be interested to see a Tae Kwan Do practitioner go up against a Capoeira practitioner. If they are of about equal levels of training for some reason I believe the Capoeirista would mop the floor with him. I’ve studied both minimally, a bit longer with TKD. From my limited experience, I am by no means a badass, Capoeira is the most effective spin-kick style I have seen.
Bottom line though is if you are going into combat, you’re best served with something like Jujitsu, Pankration or Krav Maga where the emphasis is put on tearing your enemy apart with the minimum amount of movement.
It takes a lot more training to be good at Tae Kwan Do than Krav Maga, but you’ll be positively lethal within a few months of Krav Maga whereas it takes years to master those spin kicks. With Capoeira it only takes like three or four classes to be able to do pretty much all of the moves.
I’ve also heard a bit about Tae Kwan Do wreaking havoc on the joints. I can certainly see why that would be a possibility.
Don’t look at TKD competitions to see what TKD people fight like. If you want to see that, go pick a fight in Korea with someone in the 18-24 range. It’s going to look a lot like Muay Thai for a little bit, with people trying to break legs and knees, then with someone ending up on the ground and the other person sitting on them punching their head in.
TKD competition fighting looks the way it looks because of the scoring system. The goal is to push someone back with sufficient force, not to merely make contact with the scoring area. Competitors get an extra point for knocking someone down, which is way easier to do with a kick. You don’t see a lot of punching because punching to the face is illegal, and is too easy to really hurt someone with those little pads (to the face). Kicking also has the reach advantage, and can more easily produce the sufficient force than a punch. Additionally, it’s extremely easy to set up fakes, with the end result being a punch to the head. Remember, TKD is also supposed to be an art, even though they do teach a lot of locks, joint breaking and dislocating.
Even though I think Capoeira is ridiculous, neither fighter is going to go for a “lottery kick” (any combination of spin kicks which hits is akin to winning the lottery). As soon as someone turns their back to the other, the other person is going to tackle them or kick them in the back. Even the school I visited, which put emphasis on dance in their “fights” (I use that term loosely) would not fight like that in a real fight. Like MMA, any real fight is going to break down to what you see in a ring, though with much more what is considered to be illegal maneuvers. Any fighter going in with just one style is going to get killed.
In my admittedly small experience with the types of guys who get in fights on the streets or at a bar, the odds are pretty high.
Guys that get really into MMA tend to be much more aggressive and prone to fightin than TMA guys, imo.
I didn’t call him anything. I provided a cite for my claim.
I love your passive-aggressive “if you were worth it” bullshit. If I wasn’t worth it, you wouldn’t have said anything at all.
Be honest. The reason you didn’t Pit me is because you’d get fifty responses calling it the weakest Pitting ever. But go ahead if you like.
I’m just hoping that a moderator doesn’t come in here to referee this conflict between DudleyGarrett and Really Not All That Bright and, you know, get kicked in the face or something.
You better watch yourself too.
Sigh.
It’s not the style. It’s the student.
I’ve seen TKD folks beat MMA; I’ve seen MMA beat TKD. It doesn’t matter a bit what the style is. What matters is how skilled the practioner is in their given style.
Good observation.
Even better!
And that’s why TKD is a sport, not a fighting style. Anyone fighting even a minimally trained opponent with their hands down around their waist is going to get crucified, no matter how high or hard they can kick.
TKD is no more a sport than boxing, wrestling, wu shu, judo, muay thai, kickboxing, and I’m sure a whole bunch of others. TKD is no more a fighting style than boxing, wrestling, wu shu, judo, muay thai, kicking boxing and I’m sure a whole bunch of others.
I’m NOT dissing TKD, or those that practice it, or their skill, ability or dedication to the sport in the least, but it is what it is, and an effective method of opposing another person in a physical confrontation it is not.
Is this your opinion or do you have a cite? “It is what it is” does not pertain to a high level of scrutiny.
Like judo, wu shu, wing chun, various forms of karate, TKD’s method of opposing others is not showcased. What they teach in the dojung is not competition sparring. That’s usually a separate class. If you’ve taken both, then you would know that there is a distinct difference. Unlike kickboxing, or Muay Thai, what you see in the arena is what you see on the street. I’ve taken many forms of self-defense, and ultimately, they all teach you about the same thing. There are schools of tai chi, that teach nothing but self-defense. Chances are if you see a tai chi practitioner, he is not really a fighter, because most practitioners I have met emphasize art over its martial application. This is not the case with TKD schools or any other style that has a sport element to it.
There’s a reason you never see practitioners of TKD in any open combat tournament like MMA mazinger_z. Again, I’m NOT maligning the art, I sure as hell can’t do it, and the grace and balance TKD practitioners demonstrate, coupled with the power of those kicks is impressive as hell, but any fighting style that leaves the head completely open to strikes is a disaster waiting to happen in a real fight (as opposed to a sporting event with rules both people agree to follow). TKD people realize this, which is why they teach, as you put it, a different “method of opposing others”, which is not pure TKD but more of a TKD based MMA style.
I don’t think your remarks of TKD are disparaging, just not accurate. You don’t see any pure style (sport or otherwise) out in MMA. Why? Because it’s mixed martial arts. Name one fighter that does just one style that doesn’t get creamed. A real fighter in TKD is not going to leave his hands down. But, he will in tournament sparring. Even Randy Couture acknowledges the existence of TKD in MMA. How well has pure boxing done in MMA? Do you disagree with Clothahump? It all depends on the fighter. Mark Weir, Lukasz “Juras” Jurkowski and Keiji ozaki are some TKD practitioners in MMA. Bas Rutten has a 2nd degree blackbelt in TKD. This TKD practitioner who beat a Muay Thai guy could easily get just as killed by any other superior fighter no matter what the style. Btw, I would be arguing the same thing if you had said that capoeira would get owned in MMA, or was not an effective style (as I had said before, I think capoeira is ridiculous), because I’m sure a real fight involving a capoeira practitioner is not going to involve any sort of dance.
sigh
It was going so well until Cuba decided to invade the Judge’s face.