How much TKd in Jeet KUne do

[Vash]

Five (wasted) years of ATA.

Two exceptionally well-spent years of TKD (no affiliated organization) / pre-MMA stuff.

No ego - just experience enough to tell between fact and fiction.

[Jason Martell]

Did the students at your school mainly rely on round kicks, or push kicks? Did you sparr all the time? Most schools produce students who are very good at forms, but not real good at sparring. It's been severely commercialized in the last few decades. When sparring did they stand sideways to their opponent, or chest facing their opponent? They all make a big difference. I'm not saying TKD doenst' have weaknesses, but it has something to offer. That's why I asked the question, as to how much of it was used in Jeet Kune do, and then I found out Bruce Lee used a ton of it, and he is considered to be one of the most revolutionary fighters of all time.

Yes ATA does suck. And most TKD schools in America are ATA and the majority of the other schools in America can somehow be traced back to it. A student studies ATA then opens a school somewhere and ditches the name ATA. It will take a while to break the bad habits picked up at an ATA school as well.

[Jason Martell]

So you are saying that if I stand there and let you dictate the fight and the range it takes place in that you could kill me? If so maybe you're right.

BTW Jason, I was a ITF TKD student for a good long while.

No I'm not saying that. If a TKD practicioner is forced to begin a fight with the other person right up on them, they will lose. I know that. But the style does have a lot to offer. If your on the street, and somebody is walking across the street towards you and you know they are going to hurt you, wouldn't you like to knock them out before they get with 6 feet of you? That way you don't have to worry about getting stabbed while your busy in close throwing a bunch of punches or trying to take them to the ground?

How good somebody is at TKD will depend greatly on how fast and athletic they are. It's a style for athletic people.

[rogue]

While I agree that TKD has much to offer it's mostly broken as a self defense system. WTF is not a self defense system but an excellent sport, ITF is better but still has a focus on broken hyung/kata and dojang sparring. I would leave the WTF alone because it's fine for what it is, but the ITF can be easily fixed for effective high percentage self defense but I doubt that it will happen.

If your on the street, and somebody is walking across the street towards you and you know they are going to hurt you, wouldn't you like to knock them out before they get with 6 feet of you? That way you don't have to worry about getting stabbed while your busy in close throwing a bunch of punches or trying to take them to the ground?

While I have no issue with kicking first I find mobility to be the more effective tactic when it comes to self defense. If someone is within 6 feet of me and still moving I have less than a second to act. I have no guarentee that I will knock them out, that I won't be knocked off balance just by their inertia and no guarentee that they won't accidently cut the femoral aterery. If your school is selling you on the defense you described I suggest you look into other schools and forget what they are telling you ASAP.

[Jason Martell]

Well I wont really disagree with what you said. I know that TKD is horribly incomplete. It has one strength which is very strong, and then a ton of weakness which are severe.
One of my instructors told me about the time, he was in a bar and his friend always wanted to see him in action, so he broke a beer bottle over this guys' head. The guy was a college football player with a whole bunch teammates there with him. After his friend hit the guy with the bottle, my instructor didn't want to see his friend get whipped so he jumped in. He said he took out three people right away, but then he got taken to the ground and they beat him up pretty good.
Personally I wouldn't have jumped in to help the guy after he was so stupid to pick a fight with those guys, for such a stupid reason.

[rogue]

Jason I don't think TKD is as incomplete as you say, and it has more than one strength. My kicks for a TKD person are kind of bad but I use them all the time during self defense training, I just keep them low and I keep them targeted and they work just fine. I always relied on my hands, always keep my kicks low and chambers short. I learned this from my old school TKD master. So that's why I laugh when people say that TKD does this or TKD does that.

I don't think your instructor lost that one because of lack of skill but just the number of opponents.

[Jason Martell]

Well of course the number of opponents was one of the major reasons, but I'm assuming that being in a bar had something to do with it as well. Bars tend to be crowded with chairs and pool tables and there isn't much room to maneuver or move around, sometimes it's hard to kick when there is stuff everywhere in the way. I wasn't there so I didn't see it, but I'm just assuming.

I remember this one guy that was in my class who was a 2nd degree BB, and he was real tall and really really fat, and he told us that he took out 8 people, by only going for groins and knees. However nobody believed him. I didn't either. That guy was slow, and all he ever did were crescent kicks. And he didn't even land them, he just used them to push your kicks out of the way, which was against the rules, but he did it anyways. Nobody admitted they didn't believe him, but you could tell everybody was thinking yeah right.

[rfbrown3]

Yes ATA does suck. And most TKD schools in America are ATA and the majority of the other schools in America can somehow be traced back to it.

HUH?

The largest affiliation in this country, and for that matter in the world, is the WTF.

I too was in the ITF for a couple of years. ITF TKD is unique in that it utilizes what is called the "sine-wave" into all of their techniques.

Have you ever noticed that the way TKD is written out is different with different organizations?
ITF - Taekwon-Do
WTF and ATA - Taekwondo
Independent and generic- Tae Kwon Do

Even the Korean name for forms (or patterns as we called them in the ITF) are different.
ITF- Tuls
WTF- Poomses
Independent and generic - hyungs

RFB