Tae Kwon Do

[Mr Nunchaku]

Thanks for the welcome guys. I am in ITF which uses the traditional forms. However, WTF (Olympic style) also has forms. They are not the ones of ITF but they look almost exactly alike.

The lineage of TKD goes way back into the Korean history of martial arts with China and Japan being huge influences. However, as has been said, the incarnation that we learn today is only traditional to a certain degree. This is why we say MODERN day shotokan was founded in the early 1900's.

Dissing TKD, I shouldn't be used to it but I am. Most people are very ignorant of TKD and base assumptions on what little they have seen in the Olympics for instance.

Jeff Liboiron, perhaps by reading this you will learn more about TKD. The tae in tae kwon do is Korean for hands. Make no mistake, TKD is known for its kicks, but in its true form we do not take away from hands one bit. Here is the reason why people think TKD is all kicks. In the Olympics, tae kwon do sparring is a sport. As a sport, you have to get points to win. As the rules will have it, kicks grant you a huge amount of points to fist techniques. Therefore, if one wants to win they must do everything they can to kick. However, this is TKD ONLY in Olympic sparring. As a martial art, and as a means of self defense it is much more than that. For instance, the forms (both ITF and WTF) are mostly hand techniques. TKD incorporates all shotokan hand techniques as well as many kung fu hand techniques (though I question exactly how much kung fu is in it, which is the point of this topic).

I hope I have cleared up the misconception about TKD for you. Most people have the wrong idea about it. Especially when some schools focus so much on winning tournaments and not on self defense. There is nothing wrong by that, mind you, because, they know that they are doing a sport as well as a martial art.

[Mr Nunchaku]

BTW, nice site, Don Bohrer. I like the Dragonman, looks pretty cool. I would show you my school's site, but it is down right now. www.taekwondouniversity.com if it is every up and running again. We might stink at computers but we are pretty good at the martial arts, heh.

[rogue]

Mr N, welcome aboard. I do a variation of ITF TKD.

1. Most of the history for TKD that you read is total BS. Here's a guy who's got it closer to what is possible.
http://www.geocities.com/changhontkd/index.htm

2. You're right it is a direct offshoot from Shotokan. I too do the traditional forms. Most cover the same material as Shotokan but sometimes in a different order.

3. TKD didn't incorporate very much CMA if any at all. But two Korean arts, Hwa Rang Do and Kuk Sool Won seem to have been influenced by Chinese MA, lots of mantis hand.

4. TKD used to have a rep as a bad@ss martial art during the Vietnam war. Somewhere along the way something went very wrong and now we have a rep for being a candy@ss art.

5. We're about 60% hand and 40% leg.

It's good to have another TKD person here. If you want to have fun here just pick on Old Jong and his Wing Chun.

[Mr Nunchaku]

Yep, you hit the nail on the head about TKD. I think the commercialization of TKD is what gave it its bad rep. Too much focus on the sports side of it and it becomes watered down. However, as you know there are plenty of schools that teach TKD the way it was meant to be as a martial art.

[SevenStar]

I would bet that it happened when The ATA came into play. The camoflauge belt, the cheesy clubs, the fact that you progress through like 11 belts in two to two and a half years and can then become a black belt. Also, I was reading about the history of it about a month ago - the founder of ATA decided that TKD too closely resembled JMA, so he added the kicks and limited the hand use in order to give the style a more "korean flavor"

[don bohrer]

Mr Nunchacku

I have a friend in Loveland Colorado that gave me a whole new respect for TKD. He teaches at an excellent school. His kids went to the junior olympics. I didn't realise until working with him that there is some in depth practice drills in TKD to defeat kicks. His wife likes to use a very fast AXE kick to bring your leg down and then kick the snot out of you, OUCH! Any way his school works on all these wonderful kicks againts kicks. Different from what I am used to doing.

[Mr Nunchaku]

Yep, leg defense is just as important as leg offense.

[qeySuS]

When i went to US to compete we stayed at this one kids home, (well his parents home obviously) The kid had been practicing hard from when he was younger but first he was with another school, he showed us some videotape, and what i saw was amazing (bad amazing), it was the worst ever, besides the fact that the teachers wore black doboks. They had both TKD and COMBAT TKD belts (so they could have more belt tests) and they had very bad form.

Now he's been with Master Park for a while and he's soooo much better. I was just amazed at this school because it sucked ass and aparently most of the schools were like this.

That's propably why people have such bad things to say, they've ever fought a ****y black belt from these schools and think that all TKD sucks like that, or have joined up with the school and realized how crappy it was, and hence thought all TKD schools were crappy like that.

[Mr Nunchaku]

Me and my friends from another board have a term for these kinds of schools. We call them McDojo.

McDojo (n.)- A "martial arts school" where the primary concern is to gain money. There are a whole lot of belts for the purpose of having to pay the school more money for testings. No one ever fails the "testings". Everybody gets their black belt in the minimum amount of time.

If your school exhibits one of these characteristics that's nothing to worry too much about (except the part about no one ever failing tests), but any more and you may be looking at a McDojo.

[rogue]

In our school it's rare for someone to fail a belt test, but then it's also common for students not to be invited to test. When I was doing Shaolin Kempo Karate I had some "surprise" on the spot belt tests. Guess that's when the instructor wanted to take his wife out for dinner.

[Mr Nunchaku]

"In our school it's rare for someone to fail a belt test, but then it's also common for students not to be invited to test."

This is an example of why I said it is nothing to worry about if your school has one of the mentioned McDojo characteristics. This is obviously an exception and shows that your school is not concerned about sucking money out of people by testing them all the time.

[Paul]

At one school that I attended the sifu decided to rank test everyone (and I mean everyone) and of course charge money right before he took a trip to china. Kinda made me wonder.

[Black Jack]

Rogue: Freddy V. rules baby...Freddy V. rules!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:

[rogue]

I still find it amazing that I learned something there.

BTW, the January 2002 issue of Tae Kwon Do Times has a short but pretty good article about knife fighting. No not Dog Brothers or Hock style of KF, but what you're likely to face on the street. Don't know where the author got his stats, but he makes some good points. Read it at B&N over a cup of coffee, unless you like looking at pictures of Americans dressed up in PJ's striking strange poses in front of Asian landmarks.

[General Kwan]

Mr Nunchaku and his buddies invented the term McDojo? May I ask what handle he posted by at http://www.e-budo.com ?

I guess the CMA term would be "McKwoon"