🧵 Tae Kwon Do
Anonymous at Wed, 18 Sep 2024 14:06:55 UTC No. 211263
How do we save this shitheap of a martial art?
All suggestions and general Power Era nostalgia welcome
t. ITF 2nd dan (but not trained in years)
Anonymous at Wed, 18 Sep 2024 15:18:21 UTC No. 211272
>>211263
What does every meme martial art and sport have in common?
Lack of contact sparring and pressure testing. Trying to apply your techniques against a skilled, resisting opponent quickly filters out what's useless. Without it, every martial art degenerates into a showy pantomime full of >2deadly2spar meme moves
Anonymous at Wed, 18 Sep 2024 22:56:03 UTC No. 211295
>>211263
TaeKwonDo is actually a decent martial art all things considered. WT TKD is probably better than ITF because the focus is almost entirely kicking and that is TKD's niche where it shines. People should view TKD as a supplemental art, something to fill in the holes that arts like Boxing and Judo have where kicks aren't taught. Having a kick only environment allows for more improvement in terms of kicks.
>>211272
WT TKD spars more than almost every other art, learn what you're talking about before you make yourself look like a retard.
It's not a lack of sparring that hurts TKD. It's the rule set. In TKD fighters aren't supposed to clinch or shove so when they get into that range they wait for the referee to separate them. That is why TKD struggles against other arts, years this bad habit. If clinching and shoving were allowed the TKD would fix it's main weakness.
Anonymous at Thu, 19 Sep 2024 00:32:05 UTC No. 211305
>>211295
I get the supplemental argument, but some counterpoints;
>TKD is the kicking specialist style, but doesn't teach low kicks (probably the most useful part of kicking in modern combat sports)
>From a time spent -> skill gained standpoint, it doesn't make much sense for someone to have to cross-train boxing and tkd when they could just do Muay Thai or even just boxing (from a da streetz standpoint)
>ruleset
Completely agree on that. I think having something like K-1 rules (with 4oz mma gloves) instead of the existing ITF ruleset would improve it enormously.
Some basic clinching and grappling would be good too. Why have takedowns in your moveset if you can't use them?
Anonymous at Thu, 19 Sep 2024 02:03:21 UTC No. 211307
>>211305
>the existing ITF ruleset
What's the difference between that and other existing TKD rulesets?
Anonymous at Thu, 19 Sep 2024 03:08:56 UTC No. 211308
>>211305
You could add low kicks, takedowns, etc, etc. There comes a point though when you have to ask if the training experience becomes too significantly altered to be worthwhile. I think it's because of the lack of leg kicks and takedowns that TKD has a special place. Those two things are characteristic of MT and both also disincentivize head and jumping kicks. I think it is specifically because TKD is limited that it allows room for people to improve kicks that otherwise would get neglected in a more straightforward ruleset.
Look at Taekkyeon for example. Taekkyeon is supposed to be a kicking art with some mild grappling components, however the national Taekkyeon body in SK took on a very liberal rule set. Competition Taekkyeon just looks like wrestling or judo now.
Anonymous at Thu, 19 Sep 2024 03:16:04 UTC No. 211310
ask yourself if it's even worth saving
maybe the best move is to take any valuable things you learned from it and move past it
Anonymous at Thu, 19 Sep 2024 17:48:16 UTC No. 211334
There is no need to fix tkd
Some martial arts are based on combat and some are based on the arts part
TKD has probably the coolest kicks out of any striking art, backwards kick, head kick, spinning kick and cool combos were you jump on one leg and kick multiple times. It's not made to be le epin ultimate striking art.
Same with say judo. Judo banning leg grabs is fine because the point of judo is cool throws.
Same with BJJ. BJJ is for guys who really like ground grappling and want to do cool sweeps and submissions.
If you want to improve a martial art to make it more combat effective, ask yourself, why not just train MMA? The improvement to the art will just make it MMA lite but worse.
Anonymous at Thu, 19 Sep 2024 18:13:05 UTC No. 211337
>>211295
>>211305
One of the funniest things I remember from back when I was competing MT was when we had a TKD guy come into the gym and start doing his toe tag stuff because they do touch sparing and then getting absolutely crushed and leaving. But later I met a serious kickboxer that also did TKD and some of the kicks he was using threw me off at first because I wasn't used to seeing those in MT. So I think there is value in it if you have a serious foundation in real combat sports.
Anonymous at Thu, 19 Sep 2024 18:51:03 UTC No. 211338
>>211263
Have more people do it like Than Le
Anonymous at Fri, 20 Sep 2024 01:27:31 UTC No. 211344
>>211263
Allow grabs.
Not even clinch/grappling. Just allowing competitors to grab wrists or catch kicks instantly forces them to stop relying on the current point scoring meta and incentivizes them to use other techniques in their arsenal.
Anonymous at Fri, 20 Sep 2024 02:43:42 UTC No. 211348
>>211337
He was likely karate, not TKD. WT TKD requires that you hit your opponents chest guard hard enough to make a slapping noise. Most TKDings will kick hard enough that you'll feel it, even if it's not enough to injure.
>>211344
Catching kicks would ruin the sport but being able to grab or push the chest guard would help alot.
Anonymous at Fri, 20 Sep 2024 19:03:41 UTC No. 211388
>>211348
He was TKD practitioner. Cope more
Anonymous at Sat, 21 Sep 2024 05:29:04 UTC No. 211404
>>211263
There is no point to saving something like tkd or karate when kickboxing already exists. Just do that and then extract the useful techniques that were left behind with the antiquated martial arts.
Anonymous at Mon, 23 Sep 2024 02:38:47 UTC No. 211570
>>211263
- Get rid of the point system, wins whoever pushes the opponent outside first.
- Grabbing the chest plate is allowed but not as a way to win the fight.
Anonymous at Mon, 23 Sep 2024 13:59:31 UTC No. 211600
>>211307
ITF is basically sloppy point karate while WT is full contact foot fencing in a chest guard.
Anonymous at Wed, 25 Sep 2024 12:12:25 UTC No. 211825
TKD is great.
You don't need everything to be le hardcore MMA autismo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKE
normies are more impressed by a tornado 720 kick than defeating a bunch of MMA autismos.
Also, TKD evolved into a cool style for videogame characters.
not everything has to be le hardcore scientific MMA garbage.
Anonymous at Wed, 25 Sep 2024 18:39:35 UTC No. 211854
Anonymous at Wed, 25 Sep 2024 19:14:02 UTC No. 211858
>>211263
There is no world in which Taekwondo is an "extreme sport".
Anonymous at Sun, 29 Sep 2024 05:03:23 UTC No. 212237
>>211263
It's fine as is, it doesn't need to be the same as every other martial art. A lot of people just want to see it turn into MT or Kickboxing, and there's just no need for that.
That said, I would like to see it change a bit. I'd like to see more fluidity and energy in matches. Although at anything but the highest level you still see that a lot.
Anonymous at Tue, 1 Oct 2024 00:40:46 UTC No. 212377
>>211263
Taekwondo (as well as it’s closest relatives, shotokan and tang soo do), was already almost fixed. American kickboxing. It only fell out of relevance because of the above the waist only striking leading to a sidewards stance that muay thai absolutely annihilated.
To bring it back to relevance, simply add low kicks, but keep the WT weighting of points (while keeping the boxing/kickboxing method of scoring). Basically higher, spinning or jumping kicks score more than punches or low kicks. So they’d be prioritised, but low kicks and face punches would exist so the taekwondo guys would be able to deal with them.
A sport that prioritised spinning head kicks would be extremely exciting and popular. Make it a four points of contact system (feet and hands only - “foot fist way”) to justify it’s place between the sweet science and the art of eight limbs, and have them use small gloves (kyokushin should have done this, instead of dropping head punches) and suddenly there’s justification for mma fighters to train it. You’d probably produce a champion eventually.
Anonymous at Thu, 3 Oct 2024 02:03:18 UTC No. 212542
>>212377
K1 rule was still better with catching kicks and knee
Anonymous at Sun, 13 Oct 2024 13:23:00 UTC No. 213375
>>211825
>You don't need everything to be le hardcore MMA autismo.
>normies are impressed
>TKD evolved into a cool style for videogame characters
Have you considered a career managing a TKD splinter federation anon?
The lack of interest in TKD being an effective form of self defence makes you at 7th Dan Grand Master material imo
Anonymous at Sun, 13 Oct 2024 13:29:04 UTC No. 213376
>it's fine
>no need for it to become [effective style]
If it's ineffective for fighting then there is something wrong by definition
Shotokan became ineffective (or had structural flaws) so Kyokushin developed to restore it. KK became less effective so Ashihara/Enshin/Kudo were born. Those will eventually become ineffective too.
Krotty seems to be evolve to keep its core premise intact at the bleeding edge (if not the bulk of practitioners who usually practice devolved styles in mcdojos).
TKD doesn't for some reason. It grew out of early 20thC Shotokan, allegedly with some meh-tier understanding (e.g. the kata application wasn't really understood so when Choi reassembled them some stuff was changed, other stuff was garbled), but never seemed to evolve beyond that.
Shotokan with more shopisticated kicking is a fine idea but it has become the byword for bullshido. It's needs an evolution to survive, on the level of Shotokan -> Kyokushin -> Kudo
Anonymous at Sun, 13 Oct 2024 13:45:04 UTC No. 213378
>>212377
>American kickboxing
This guy fucks, AK is one of the few legit things to grow out of TKD (and karate/kempo, I guess)
K-1's early ruleset (where you could clinch more and grab the head to knee, iirc) was more realistic and made for interesting bouts, but AK is beautiful to watch
I think
>kicks and punches score 1pt
>jumping/spinning scores 2pt
>sweeps and throws score 3 points
Something like that - i.e. remove the disincentive to punch, but keep the incentive to be inventive with kicking. Tbh at long range kicking is already the first line of defence so no need to incentiviise normal kicks
I would also be in favour of
>dropping the standard ITF gloves in favour of normal 4oz MMA gloves
>reintroducing KK-style body hardening (this does still exist in some cases)
>power generation through hip twist instead of sine wave - TAGB still do it the old school way
>strip out the korean history lessons. I know its part of the whole tradition but its not relevant to anyone outside korea
>reduce the number of belts. Like just have white/blue/black or something relatively simple, with black meaning 'master'
>introduce 2-step/3-step-style kata for moves too dangerous to spar with safely. Ditch the patterns and use these instead (like Ashihara does, I believe). These already exist but just restrict it to techniques in the moveset that have to be drilled in a compliant scenario
Tbh this stuff is kind of here already with Karate Combat (or their old ruleset at least) and Kombat TKD, but no one has really attempted to make it another 'style' of TKD so far. There needs to be someone who forms it as a distinct flavour of TKD, competes, and then demonstrates that this works better than the outdated TKD styles (e.g. Gracie Challenge equivalent)
Anonymous at Sun, 13 Oct 2024 13:46:47 UTC No. 213379
>>211334
>It's not made to be le epin ultimate striking art.
It is literally meant to be that though. Like it was Shotokan adapted for Korean military use.
The idea of it being some kind of ebin perfomance art comes from the olympics
Anonymous at Sun, 13 Oct 2024 18:11:09 UTC No. 213403
>>213379
My original instructor taught judo and taekwondo to the US and South Korean militaries for hand to hand combat purposes during the Korean War.
Anonymous at Sun, 13 Oct 2024 23:40:59 UTC No. 213419
you niggers would turn every sport into MMA if you had the chance
Anonymous at Tue, 15 Oct 2024 05:46:00 UTC No. 213534
>>213419
Patterns competitor detected
Anonymous at Tue, 15 Oct 2024 18:25:57 UTC No. 213573
>>211263
total ruleset and drill overhaul. make it like kudo or at least just kickboxing, maybe throw in some unique rules to keep it its own separate thing.
I wouldn't focus as much on changing techniques, after all tkd is basically karate with the serial numbers filed off and knockdown karate is pretty good. its just a matter of how its trained and applied.
This is an unpopular opinion but I also think that some of the traditional aesthetic aspects could be done away with (the dobak, the belts, etc) it really just seems like an unimportant aspect that takes up time that could be better spent elsewhere.
I'd bet you could ease people into it with really long rounds of flow sparring with kickboxing or MMA rules that increase in intensity until people are going like 70% I'd probably use some dutch kick boxing drills to toughen people up without goiing too overboard and teaching regular kickboxing combos. I think you could even ease people into that by teaching some combinations some that incorporate boxing and elbows into preexisting TKD combos.
the big problem is that your students would have to compete in kickboxing rather than TKD so it'd be more of a kickboxing gym with heavy TKD influence than a dojang at that point
Anonymous at Tue, 15 Oct 2024 18:37:58 UTC No. 213575
>>211825
I mean if thats what your priorities are than you'd be better off doing Sport wushu.
You'd be able to do way more cool stuff and you'd end up a way better athlete.
Also, lets not pretend thats the mentality of most TKD practitioners, most people who decide to learn it want to learn how to fight and every taekwondo person I have met think that they can fight, and walk around with false confidence that could easily get them hurt. Most sport Wushu people I've met dont pretend they can fight
If you're goal is to look cool than what sparring taekwondo does do is basically just a waste of your time
Anonymous at Tue, 15 Oct 2024 18:42:36 UTC No. 213576
>>213378
That's pretty simmilar to Sanda's ruleset
Anonymous at Tue, 15 Oct 2024 20:47:35 UTC No. 213583
>>213576
Of everything taught in TKD, about 70% isn't allowed in their sparring ruleset, and thus never gets pressure tested. If you allowed all of it, it would literally be exactly the same as Sanda.
Anonymous at Tue, 15 Oct 2024 22:02:54 UTC No. 213596
>>213583
So be it
Anonymous at Wed, 16 Oct 2024 02:46:05 UTC No. 213610
>>213583
Sanda allows throws. It's a completely different animal
Anonymous at Wed, 16 Oct 2024 02:47:29 UTC No. 213611
>>213610
TKD teaches throws. It's just not allowed in the sport.
Anonymous at Wed, 16 Oct 2024 07:16:15 UTC No. 213637
>>213575
Wrong. Most people who do TKD start it as children because it looks cool or because their friends did it or because their parents wanted them to do a sport but the kid didn't like "ball games."
As adults most people start because their kids are doing it and they want to guide them or because (generally women) they see it as an interesting and dynamic looking fitness experience that isn't filled with angry or horny males like boxing and BJJ are respectively.
TKD isn't meant to be a martial art anymore it's Sport/Tricking/Fitness/DayCare all rolled into a marketable ball of mediocrity. That is where it should stay and other martial artists need to leave it be.
Anonymous at Wed, 16 Oct 2024 12:43:13 UTC No. 213653
>>213567
Da streetz is literally all that matters in a martial art though
Everything else is just cope
Anonymous at Wed, 16 Oct 2024 12:51:42 UTC No. 213655
>>213573
I would definitely redesign the dobok and reduce the number of belts considerably, but personally I like the budo striking thing. Personally I would like to see TKD adopt full contact karate gis (with short sleeves), maybe with a little tasteful black piping if they want. But ditch the current look, it sucks.
But I have always found TKD (or ITF at least) really drills into its students the idea that this is a super dangerous art only to be used for self defence.
This would be fine except what it really translates to in most TKD peoples minds is
>pressure testing our style through combat sports/kickboxing/mma is in some way beneath us so we should never do it
>TKD should only be used in a life or death situation (meaning it never gets used in a live situation, and is just not usable in one because they'll just freeze or throw something dumb)
Replacing that mindset alone would do a lot for TKD
>the big problem is that your students would have to compete in kickboxing rather than TKD so it'd be more of a kickboxing gym with heavy TKD influence than a dojang at that point
I actually don't think that would be very foreign to most TKD people. I remember kickboxing clubs (with some kind of competition-acceptable dobok) would come to our competitions and absolutely rinse everyone, we just couldn't deal with the aggression. Looking back I wish I'd just ditched TKD and joined that club instead. But the point is that they're often already exposed to kickboxers, wouldn't be a big leap to just get them in kickboxing tournaments
When I got to college I joined the kickboxing club and realised it was essentially all ex-TKD people who wanted to strike for real
Anonymous at Wed, 16 Oct 2024 13:12:46 UTC No. 213658
It should really look like this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jx-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7m
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iut
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgG
🗑️ Anonymous at Wed, 16 Oct 2024 14:06:05 UTC No. 213659
>>213658
Now realising that (some?) modern WAKO kickboxing is literally the same as ITF TKD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRZ
>hands down
>point fighting
>that huge stance while waiting for an opening
>bouncing
and then you have this, which just looks like MT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHr
Anonymous at Thu, 17 Oct 2024 00:24:43 UTC No. 213717
>>213610
TKD has takedowns, which are taught (or at least used to be) but as compliant 2-step drills. I think we used to train it live once in a while but its a bit pointless as if you only have occasional exposure to takedowns you'll never really know how to do them
It also has throws via shotokan but despite them being a documented thing, they've become a lost art that survives in garbled form in kata/patterns
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mz1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ST1
e.g. the W-shaped block (santeul makgi) is a good example where Choi thought it was some kind of block but it makes far more sense as a depiction of a takedown
https://footfist-way.blogspot.com/2
Incidentally, the fact that Choi thought pic related was an effective way to block a punch should tell you something about how much he had pressure-tested his own abilities
Anonymous at Thu, 17 Oct 2024 07:37:45 UTC No. 213730
>>213611
the sanda throw syllabus is very extensive for it incorporated heavily from traditional chinese wrestling sports. Throws in tkd is mostly karate trip and hip toss if you're lucky from karate
Anonymous at Thu, 17 Oct 2024 13:28:05 UTC No. 213741
>>213730
TKD's problem isn't that it doesn't have enough throws, its that it doesn't allow you to pressure test them
Like even just knowing a trip and a hip toss would probably be more than adequate for da streetz. But from a contact sports perspective there's no reason not to include all the Funakoshi throws and even hapkido or something too
But yeah Sanda is also breddy good if you can find it
Anonymous at Fri, 18 Oct 2024 04:15:36 UTC No. 213796
TKD actually fucking slams in kickboxing/muay thai
Anonymous at Fri, 18 Oct 2024 15:00:40 UTC No. 213818
>>213796
Just lol
Anonymous at Sat, 19 Oct 2024 16:46:17 UTC No. 213900
Speaking as an ethnic Korean, TKD and TSD are massive copes that post-1945 Koreans did to try and reclaim some ethnic pride after the occupation. Yeah there was a kicking art that historical Koreans did. There's also recorded evidence from Chinese visitors that Koreans engaged in some kind of head-butting, shoulder-rushing martial art too.
But it's well documented that all the founders of nine kwans that would later become Taekwondo and Tang Soo Do trained in Japanese/Okinawan martial arts (and Chinese in TSD's case). Even General Choi blatantly copied Funakoshi's Shotokan book and justified it as Japanese copying Korean culture so it was fair game to do it with karate.
TKD and TSD were Shotokan, Shito Ryu, and Shudokan that they modified with higher kicks and changes in stances. The only time these arts were improved was when they incorporated Muay Thai like Japan did in the 1950's and 1960's. Kun gek do was MT + TKD.
TKD is seen as a "safe" alternative because it doesn't focus on punching as much as karate does so little kiddies having fancy kicks which can only work under certain circumstances. I think it's only in the last 20-30 years that there's TKD books and schools incorporating kicking with the use of the shin and low kicks like Kyokushin and other Japanese knockdown styles do.
TKD and TSD is good as a supplement with something like Boxing, Muay Thai, Sanshou, Japanese knockdown karate, Lethwei, Savate, or Dutch Kickboxing. When you already know how to fight properly, some of those high kicks can be a nifty trick to use.
Anonymous at Sat, 19 Oct 2024 23:00:21 UTC No. 213921
Its really simple, just add full contact like kickboxing half the time, keep the art an art while also shit testing it for actual inefficiencies for full contact.
I think that a kickboxing taekwondo hybrid would really revitalize the art, while also keeping the more difficult and situational kicks for practice or performance and maybe utilizing it at a high enough level.
Modern taekwondo is basically mall karate in my opinion, I really love the kicks, I do, but its so washed down.
Anonymous at Sun, 20 Oct 2024 00:10:38 UTC No. 213926
>>213921
>I think that a kickboxing taekwondo hybrid would really revitalize the art
Kickboxing is a Tae Kwon Do hybrid. The west was getting flooded with Tae Kwon Do, Karate, and Muay Thai and they made a full contact sport around those martial arts. The kickboxers are just too proud to tell you their roots.
>Modern taekwondo is basically mall karate
It always was, see >>213900
Anonymous at Sun, 20 Oct 2024 13:41:11 UTC No. 213961
>>213796
If its someone who is already a proficient striker then it can do
If it's a pure TKD base person then lol no, they get their shit wrecked
Anonymous at Sun, 20 Oct 2024 13:47:44 UTC No. 213962
>>213900
I have personally never heard of TKD incorporating low kicks but if that's happening in Korea then great
I remember reading some blog by a TKD guy who moved to Korea as an English teacher for the purpose of training TKD in the motherland, only to realise it's viewed glorified babysitting for kids in Korea and anyone interested in martial arts just trains MMA
He then trained BJJ in an MMA gym instead before realising there was no point in training meh-quality BJJ in Korea when he could train somewhere much better in the US
Anonymous at Sun, 20 Oct 2024 13:51:56 UTC No. 213963
>>213921
It may be as simple as just getting ITF people to compete in WAKO tournaments rather than ITF tournaments
Like when you're exposed to getting hit for real the changes you need to make become pretty obvious.
E.g. in the 00s I never remember us doing any bagwork. Plenty of padwork, but because TKD is usually done in spaces that aren't designed for martial arts (like a local hall or something) there's no heavy bags to use, despite this being an obvious staple of modern striking
I think a big shift since the rise of MMA has been
>purpose-built gym spaces with bags, showers etc
>training at multiple times during the day so you can train like 2x a day if you want
whereas the TMA model was more like
>training 1-2 times a week in a random hall somewhere
Even just incorporating the MMA gym model would improve it a lot I bet
Anonymous at Mon, 21 Oct 2024 08:24:37 UTC No. 214069
>>213658
What? Daniels looks like a video game character. This is incredible. Is he the best ever?
Anonymous at Mon, 21 Oct 2024 14:07:51 UTC No. 214077
>>213926
Kickboxing sprang up from Karate and then became more and more like MT due to pressure testing. You can see some western boxing influence there too. Tkd is a non factor
Anonymous at Mon, 21 Oct 2024 14:13:14 UTC No. 214078
>>214069
Daniels has a very 'pure' TKD style (despite also having a karate background) thats very entertaining to watch
He's still fighting for Karate Combat. Wouldn't say he's the GOAT or anything but he's definitely a veteran of the sport
Anonymous at Mon, 21 Oct 2024 19:03:31 UTC No. 214114
>>214077
>Kickboxing sprang up from Karate and then became more and more like MT due to pressure testing. You can see some western boxing influence there too. Tkd is a non factor
No kickboxing sprang up from Karate and TKD (TKD sprang up from Karate as well) but the high kicks that kickboxers used to do before the golden age was from TKD (Most Karate outside of Okinawa didn't have high kicks). It wasn't until MT came and showed everyone how bad bladed stances are that the high kicks became rarer.
Anonymous at Mon, 21 Oct 2024 21:58:38 UTC No. 214123
>>214077
>>214114
Depends on which Kickboxing you're talking about.
The original Kickboxing refers to the Japanese combat sport from 1966 that combined Karate, Kenpo, Muay Thai, Boxing, Judo, and Wrestling. The Japanese incorporated the Thai style of kicking with the full twist of the hips and using the shin as the point of impact as well as clinching & neck-wrestling with elbows & knees. They also utilized foot sweeps, hip tosses, headbutts as well as stuff like jumping kicks from karate/kenpo.
The US variant of Kickboxing was originally called "Full-Contact Karate". It only called itself Kickboxing in the 1980's when Japanese Kickboxing died out and the WKA (the World Karate Association) decided to incorporate elements of J-kick like allowing low kicks compared to the above-the-waist rule that the Professional Karate Association had.
And yes there was a lot of overlap between Karate/Kenpo and TKD/Tang Soo Do. Even in the 1950's and 1960's, TKD and TSD were marketed as "Korean Karate" in the US.
And actually high kicks were more common in Japanese karate. It was the Okinawans that favored lower kicks (no higher than the midriff) because they felt it exposed the crotch and favored hard kicks to the midriff and legs with conditioned heels, insteps, toes, ball, and even the shin. Yes there were cut kicks in Okinawan karate but it wasn't popularized just like how toe kicks were only found in a few styles.