How do we save this shitheap of a martial art? All suggestions and general Power Era nostalgia welcomet. ITF 2nd dan (but not trained in years)
>>211263What 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
>>211263TaeKwonDo 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.>>211272WT 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.
>>211295I 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)>rulesetCompletely 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?
>>211305>the existing ITF rulesetWhat's the difference between that and other existing TKD rulesets?
>>211305You 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.
ask yourself if it's even worth savingmaybe the best move is to take any valuable things you learned from it and move past it
There is no need to fix tkdSome martial arts are based on combat and some are based on the arts partTKD 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.
>>211295>>211305One 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.
>>211263Have more people do it like Than Le
>>211263Allow 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.
>>211337He 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.>>211344Catching kicks would ruin the sport but being able to grab or push the chest guard would help alot.
>>211348He was TKD practitioner. Cope more
>>211263There 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.
>>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.
>>211307ITF is basically sloppy point karate while WT is full contact foot fencing in a chest guard.
TKD is great.You don't need everything to be le hardcore MMA autismo.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKEbws4QhEknormies 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.
>>211686>>211687>And this is why we cut our toenails kids
>>211263There is no world in which Taekwondo is an "extreme sport".
>>211263It'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.
>>211263Taekwondo (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.
>>212377K1 rule was still better with catching kicks and knee
>>211825>You don't need everything to be le hardcore MMA autismo.>normies are impressed>TKD evolved into a cool style for videogame charactersHave 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
>it's fine>no need for it to become [effective style]If it's ineffective for fighting then there is something wrong by definitionShotokan 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
>>212377>American kickboxingThis 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 watchI think >kicks and punches score 1pt>jumping/spinning scores 2pt>sweeps and throws score 3 pointsSomething 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 kicksI 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 scenarioTbh 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)
>>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
>>213379My original instructor taught judo and taekwondo to the US and South Korean militaries for hand to hand combat purposes during the Korean War.
you niggers would turn every sport into MMA if you had the chance
>>213419Patterns competitor detected
>>213534da streetz
>>211263total 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
>>211825I 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 fightIf you're goal is to look cool than what sparring taekwondo does do is basically just a waste of your time
>>213378That's pretty simmilar to Sanda's ruleset
>>213576Of 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.
>>213583So be it
>>213583Sanda allows throws. It's a completely different animal
>>213610TKD teaches throws. It's just not allowed in the sport.
>>213575Wrong. 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.
>>213567Da streetz is literally all that matters in a martial art thoughEverything else is just cope
>>213573I 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 pointI 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 tournamentsWhen I got to college I joined the kickboxing club and realised it was essentially all ex-TKD people who wanted to strike for real
It should really look like thishttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jx-azIH8C_Ihttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7mpJMncT7Ihttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IutSNHF0tHMhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgGTP5Cevrs
>>213610TKD 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 themIt 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/patternshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mz1_PZwgWMghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ST1mPcBwebke.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 takedownhttps://footfist-way.blogspot.com/2017/04/toi-gye-whats-with-w-blocks.htmlIncidentally, 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
>>213611the 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
>>213730TKD's problem isn't that it doesn't have enough throws, its that it doesn't allow you to pressure test themLike 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 tooBut yeah Sanda is also breddy good if you can find it
TKD actually fucking slams in kickboxing/muay thai
>>213796Just lol
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.
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.
>>213921>I think that a kickboxing taekwondo hybrid would really revitalize the artKickboxing 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 karateIt always was, see >>213900
>>213796If its someone who is already a proficient striker then it can doIf it's a pure TKD base person then lol no, they get their shit wrecked
>>213900I have personally never heard of TKD incorporating low kicks but if that's happening in Korea then greatI 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 MMAHe 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
>>213921It may be as simple as just getting ITF people to compete in WAKO tournaments rather than ITF tournamentsLike 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 strikingI 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 wantwhereas the TMA model was more like>training 1-2 times a week in a random hall somewhereEven just incorporating the MMA gym model would improve it a lot I bet
>>213658What? Daniels looks like a video game character. This is incredible. Is he the best ever?
>>213926Kickboxing 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
>>214069Daniels 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
>>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 factorNo 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.
>>214077>>214114Depends 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.
>>211263Are you kidding, this is what Cobra Kai uses. If you have training in Tae Kwon Do and the right mindset you can put someone in a coma
>>212237>>211404You guys know kickboxing is karate/tae kwon do, right?
>>211263>How do we save this shitheap of a martial art?abandon ship, id much rather have started kickboxing or muaythai than taekwondo lmaoig its cool ik how to do fancy kicks and am good at only that but eh
Many champions do well without high kicks. But how many fighters get really good high kicks? High kicks as effortless and controlled as a jab? This level: https://youtu.be/EWbUSmxWzUs?si=SjO8E3I0EhBjcjmwI think few fighters do. I think they know what to focus on, they're fighters after all. Just an observation.
>>214394The actors use TSD in Cobra Kai iirc, not TKDThe action in the show is also not reflective of how TKD or TSD are applied in practice either, they're not just trained that way>If you have training in Tae Kwon Do and the right mindset you can put someone in a comaAs someone who did TKD for 13 years I can tell you this is very unlikely. Read through the thread and you will see plenty of reasons whyGood sport but it it's an ineffective martial art for many reasons, primarily the competition ruleset towards which all sparring training is usually geared. MMA changed the landscape for martial arts, TKD did not evolve with this change and fossilised
>>214498Potayto, potatoh
>>214498Tang Soo Do has some Northern Chinese influence along with Japanese/Okinawan in comparison to TKD. They're very similar but it's a bit like the Karate/Kenpo divide.
One big thing I see on reddit is americans who grew up with WT assuming that ITF is this promised land where TKD is actually knockdown karate or somethingI can tell you from experience that ITF is pretty much identical to modern Shotokan point sparring, it sucks for self-defence. Again this is 100% how it's trained.The style itself (i.e. the moveset) is fine but the ruleset its geared towards is garbage. Train it for a ruleset like>K-1>Shootboxing>MMA>Any kind of kickboxing + throws + sweeps rulesetAnd everything else should fall into place. But until that kind of ruleset becomes the norm it will never evolve and will remain a devolved sport for kids
>TKD started coming together in the 20s/30s from Shotokan students in Korea>became TKD proper in the 50s>Power Era was 80s/90sWhen was TKD actually good for full-contact fighting?Like did it start out great and decline or was it just always meh?What was TKD like in the 60s?
>>214997TKD became good when US practitioners put on gloves and joined the Full-Contact (later American Kickboxing rules with long pants, PKA allowed high kicks only, WKA allowed low kicks). This was transmitted back to South Korea and it was popular.
>>214997Before it got big enough to have dedicated competitions leading to an incestuous degretation of technique. Once upon a time they were pretty successful in open/karate tournaments.
How about training at a kickboxing gym that also teaches tkd classes, or at least has an instructor (or multiple) with a background in it? There's bound to be some crossover.For example, kickboxers would be more proficient at high kicks and the more advanced kicks you see in tkd, and taekwondoists would have decent low kicks and could take a punch to the head (and defend against it).It's not like such gyms don't already exist.
>>211263>How do we save this shitheap of a martial art?Incorporate it into a better one. But that would mean keeping a handful of useful bits and discarding the rest, anyway.
The addition of KPNP/Daedo systems made what used to be an incredibly brutal martial art into a far more passive one. I haven't met anyone who runs a school or trains and remembers the days before all that high tech high cost bullshit when judges scored points at local tournaments and for high level competitions we had video replay to contest rulings.The "Game" Of Taekwondo quickly became a point system like any other and utterly retarded things like monkey kicks and cancelling became the focus over the basic moves, hitting with power, etc.Someone mentioned earlier that refs will pull apart black belt fights every 10 seconds because they get into a clinch from which nothing happens. They do that to get some air after a rapid exchange usually, its not a flaw it's a feature of the meta that arose in the past 10-15 years or so.I do sparring, poomsae, judging, referee work and coaching and I've seen some impressive fights, but when I was younger I remember a lot more knockout level fights and brutal kicks that made the sport look like a fight rather than a laid back fencing style.
>>215896Tbf ITF has zero technology of any sort except for judges eyeballing the fight (unless that's changed since like 2009) and the style still turned into useless point tag shitI think changing this is literally as simple as making the sparring ruleset closer to K-1 or MT. But no TKD schools seem to be willing to make that leap
>>213962There are modern TKD books that show photos and instructions on using the shin to block and check kicks. That's something pre-21st century TKD/TSD videos and books never addressed.
