# how to tell the difference between sport and traditional MA?



## oddball (Dec 3, 2006)

So, how does one tell the difference between traditional and sports MA? (I'm specifically thinking of Karate or Taekwondo...). Are traditional schools full contact and sport are light sparring? Would a traditional Taekwondo school allow strikes with the hands? So I guess, what does it mean to be traditional vs. sport? Thanks for any info.


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## tshadowchaser (Dec 3, 2006)

lets start with this although many may disagree:

traditional schools spar with no pads


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## jks9199 (Dec 3, 2006)

oddball said:


> So, how does one tell the difference between traditional and sports MA? (I'm specifically thinking of Karate or Taekwondo...). Are traditional schools full contact and sport are light sparring? Would a traditional Taekwondo school allow strikes with the hands? So I guess, what does it mean to be traditional vs. sport? Thanks for any info.


I don't totally agree with the "spar with no pads" definition; there's a place for using pads, whether you're traditional, eclectic, or sport.  

I think that a beginner may not be able to tell right away; class activities can look very similar.  A sport oriented school will likely have lots of trophies and tell you how well they do in competition.  You may see them using more pads, or sparring with more rules (but often less structure).  A traditional school is probably going to feature a whole lot more repitition of basics, and probably have a different and more formal structure to the class.


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## oddball (Dec 3, 2006)

I see - thank you!
Another thing that came to mind is - how does one adapt a MA from the sport version to a more traditional version? (Like, reverting back from Olympic TKD, which I think doesn't use hands). Would most instructors be familiar with the techniques?


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## Kacey (Dec 3, 2006)

oddball said:


> I see - thank you!
> Another thing that came to mind is - how does one adapt a MA from the sport version to a more traditional version? (Like, reverting back from Olympic TKD, which I think doesn't use hands). Would most instructors be familiar with the techniques?



I would expect a more traditional teacher to encompass the entire art - and therefore to be familiar with curriculum of the "sport" variation as well as the more traditional variation, which would, in general, encompass more.

As far as traditional TKD allowing hands - I've been in Ch'ang H'on TKD (ITF) for nearly 20 years, and we've always used hands and feet - more feet than hands, true, because that is the nature of the style - but WTF generally allows hands, just not hand strikes to the face.  There may be other variations I'm not familiar with that don't allow hands, but I can't think of any that totally disallow hands at this time - it's the target zones that vary.


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## searcher (Dec 3, 2006)

It depends on how focused the school is on competition.  IMO.


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## PeaceWarrior (Dec 4, 2006)

jks9199 said:


> I don't totally agree with the "spar with no pads" definition; there's a place for using pads, whether you're traditional, eclectic, or sport.
> 
> I think that a beginner may not be able to tell right away; class activities can look very similar. A sport oriented school will likely have lots of trophies and tell you how well they do in competition. You may see them using more pads, or sparring with more rules (but often less structure). A traditional school is probably going to feature a whole lot more repitition of basics, and probably have a different and more formal structure to the class.




^I agree

Pads are very useful as they give you some impact and teach you how to deal with force. Sparring full contact without pads can be dangerous for beginners.  From someone who has been to Traditional (Wing Chun) and "Sport" (TKD) classes, I would have to say that the sport classes dealt a lot with cardio, and most of the teaching was on how to kick and strike, and the rest of the time was spent sparring (with pads).  Emphasis was heavily on "getting points" and yes, there were a lot of trophies...

My traditional class is IMO a much more enriched atmosphere, you really feel like you are in a school. there is a lot to do with self defence, and all those dangerous techniques you dont see in UFC let alone sport karate or TKD. Plus we are learning the art so to speak, learning more about angles of attack, structure, alignment etc..  We do Chi Sau to learn sensitivity and reflexes, basic, plus to strengthen the centerline, and sparring comes out of Chi Sau.  We usually dont spar until more advanced stages. 

Now, dont get me wrong, there is a place for sport classes- I love watching it and its great to participate in, but for me I am drawn more to the Traditional route. And Im not trying to compare all traditional and sport schools, and I think you could probably "walk the line" and be really traditional but also get involved in the sport arena.

Hope this helps

Peace
PW


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## terryl965 (Dec 4, 2006)

Sport Martial Art focus on lighter strike to be able to get your point and get out of there range, as far as traditional Art goes it would be the complete Art focus on proper techniques explaining the meaning of every single movement in your poomsae and being able to ecplain the diferences of baoth aspect.

On a tidbit of mine more traditional style is more adapt to do bodily harm if need be and understanding the consequinces when it does happen.


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## Andrew Green (Dec 4, 2006)

Its a silly way to seperate them when looking for "good" IMO.  There are traditional schools that are crap, and there are sport schools that are crap.  Some sport schools only focus on flashy forms and point fighting, some "traditional" schools focus on a bunch of stuff none of them have ever tried agaisnt resistance and couldn't fight there way out of a paper bag as there chi forces would be muffled by the enclosure...

Then again, there are also really good schools under each banner.

I guess what it comes down to is how focused is the school on the rules around there competitive format?  But there are many competitive formats, some are good, others not.


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## CoryKS (Dec 4, 2006)

oddball said:


> So, how does one tell the difference between traditional and sports MA? (I'm specifically thinking of Karate or Taekwondo...). Are traditional schools full contact and sport are light sparring? Would a traditional Taekwondo school allow strikes with the hands? So I guess, what does it mean to be traditional vs. sport? Thanks for any info.


 
I would guess that one would have more emphasis on rules - what you can or cannot do to your opponent.


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## Grenadier (Dec 4, 2006)

oddball said:


> So, how does one tell the difference between traditional and sports MA? (I'm specifically thinking of Karate or Taekwondo...). Are traditional schools full contact and sport are light sparring? Would a traditional Taekwondo school allow strikes with the hands? So I guess, what does it mean to be traditional vs. sport? Thanks for any info.


 
Howdy to you, old friend...

Different methods for different schools, even within the same system.  

Let's use Karate as an example.  

Shotokan Karate is a traditional Karate system.  They'll do light and medium contact sparring, with pads, for the most part, although I've seen some Shotokan schools that rarely do any free sparring.  

Kyokushin Karate is also a traditional Karate system, but they spar with no pads, and go full contact (controlled, though, no punches to the face).  

There are many other styles of Karate that will vary in terms of what kind of sparring they do.  Even within the same style, there may be one school that does not put a heavy emphasis on tournament competitions, yet another such school in the same style will train heavily for USA-NKF type of tournaments.  

The same holds true for Tae Kwon Do.  Some put a premium on Olympic style competition, others not nearly as much.  Some Tae Kwon Do schools are actually closer to resembling Japanese or Okinawan Karate systems, etc.  It all depends on who is running the school.


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## still learning (Dec 4, 2006)

oddball said:


> So, how does one tell the difference between traditional and sports MA? (I'm specifically thinking of Karate or Taekwondo...). Are traditional schools full contact and sport are light sparring? Would a traditional Taekwondo school allow strikes with the hands? So I guess, what does it mean to be traditional vs. sport? Thanks for any info.


 
Hello, You may want to look into JUDO or Kempo styles too?  both are real close to real fighting styles....just an opinion here! ......Aloha


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## Xue Sheng (Dec 4, 2006)

I have been out of TKD for years so I may be off base here, I was in TKD pre Olympic TKD. 

My teacher separated the class into traditional and sport. Students could train both or just one, it was up to the student.  

Traditional that included various kicks, hand strikes, close in drills, sparring (no pads) and some takedowns. 

Sport started out with no pads but he broke down and bought some and the takedowns were not trained nor were the close in sparing drills. The focus was put on point sparing which at that time included kicks and punches.


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## exile (Dec 4, 2006)

Xue Sheng said:


> I have been out of TKD for years so I may be off base here, I was in TKD pre Olympic TKD.
> 
> My teacher separated the class into traditional and sport. Students could train both or just one, it was up to the student.
> 
> Traditional that included various kicks, hand strikes, close in drills, sparring (no pads) and some takedowns.



Close-in fighting ranges and hand techniques, the use of joint-locks and other `forcing' moves to set up the finishing strike---yeah, that's what I think of as traditional TKD, TKD from the kwan era. I don't think you're off-base at all, XD---this was/is traditional, in the sense that it reflects the earlier more rounded forms of Korean fighting arts, with a heavy input from the Okinawan karate styles as modified and somewhat simplified in Japan, and which were apparently taught, with differing emphases depending on the founder's take on combat, in the early original kwans.


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## Xue Sheng (Dec 4, 2006)

exile said:


> Close-in fighting ranges and hand techniques, the use of joint-locks and other `forcing' moves to set up the finishing strike---yeah, that's what I think of as traditional TKD, TKD from the kwan era. I don't think you're off-base at all, XD---this was/is traditional, in the sense that it reflects the earlier more rounded forms of Korean fighting arts, with a heavy input from the Okinawan karate styles as modified and somewhat simplified in Japan, and which were apparently taught, with differing emphases depending on the founder's take on combat, in the early original kwans.


 
Yes there was some joint locking, finishing strikes and I seem to remember some move that I equate roughly to the same thing you see the guy do on the subways in Japan that pushes the passengers on, but then my TKD days were in the late 70s so I could be wrong about that one. (the memory is the first thing to go you know  ). However I do see a lot of difference in almost all of the TKD schools I come across these days from what I trained way back then.


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## Cryozombie (Dec 4, 2006)

Stand out front.

Look in the Window.

See Lots of Trophys?

Sport.​


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## Xue Sheng (Dec 5, 2006)

Cryozombie said:


> Stand out front.​
> 
> Look in the Window.​
> See Lots of Trophys?​
> Sport.​


 
But what if there bowling trophies? :uhyeah:


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## CoryKS (Dec 5, 2006)

Xue Sheng said:


> But what if there bowling trophies? :uhyeah:


 
NERDS!!!   *ducks*


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## bcbernam777 (Dec 5, 2006)

oddball said:


> So, how does one tell the difference between traditional and sports MA? (I'm specifically thinking of Karate or Taekwondo...). Are traditional schools full contact and sport are light sparring? Would a traditional Taekwondo school allow strikes with the hands? So I guess, what does it mean to be traditional vs. sport? Thanks for any info.



Traditional is where you get the crap beaten out of you, sports is where everyone craps to you about how you could have beaten the crap out of the other guy....if it had been a real fight


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## zDom (Dec 5, 2006)

Cryozombie said:


> Stand out front.
> 
> Look in the Window.
> 
> ...



I disagree.

The TKD school I came up through was focused on traditional aspects but we did attend tournaments and stuck the silly pieces of plastic in the window.

Don't judge books by the covers.

Just because you don't train specifically FOR tournaments doesn't mean that you won't do fairly well.


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## zDom (Dec 5, 2006)

bcbernam777 said:


> Traditional is where you get the crap beaten out of you, sports is where everyone craps to you about how you could have beaten the crap out of the other guy....if it had been a real fight



I am a traditional martial artist and have NEVER got the crap beaten out of me since I started training. I've always given AT LEAST as well as I've taken.

Got several TMA buddies with the same kind of track record.

I've beaten the crap out of a LOT of big, confident mean fellas. Their swaggering and confident demeanor is always gone by the end of the match.

This is a horrible generalization.

Neg rep coming your way from me with no apologies.


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## jks9199 (Dec 5, 2006)

zDom said:


> I disagree.
> 
> The TKD school I came up through was focused on traditional aspects but we did attend tournaments and stuck the silly pieces of plastic in the window.
> 
> ...


More and more today, open tournament competition has become so specialized that to do well, you have to focus your training on it.  Closed/one-style or limited tournaments are still an area that a "traditional" school might excel in without specialized training -- but not the open stuff.  You need to know what judges from multiple styles consider a "good" kata/form, how to catch their eye and so on, and know similar things about the point sparring game.


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## bcbernam777 (Dec 5, 2006)

zDom said:


> I am a traditional martial artist and have NEVER got the crap beaten out of me since I started training. I've always given AT LEAST as well as I've taken.
> 
> Got several TMA buddies with the same kind of track record.
> 
> ...



Oh my God, It was a joke, I study TMA as well

I guess some people do not have a sense of humour


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## bcbernam777 (Dec 5, 2006)

Wait, I just saw my rep comments, you did get the joke after all. Ok now can we be friends


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## zDom (Dec 5, 2006)

bcbernam777 said:


> Oh my God, It was a joke, I study TMA as well
> 
> I guess some people do not have a sense of humour



Ouch &#8212; my bad. There are so many people who actually say that stuff seriously I mistook you and had a knee-jerk reaction.

I'm very sorry. 

(I DO have a sense of humor when I am not being too dense to realize it is a joke or sarcasm )


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## zDom (Dec 5, 2006)

jks9199 said:


> More and more today, open tournament competition has become so specialized that to do well, you have to focus your training on it.  Closed/one-style or limited tournaments are still an area that a "traditional" school might excel in without specialized training -- but not the open stuff.  You need to know what judges from multiple styles consider a "good" kata/form, how to catch their eye and so on, and know similar things about the point sparring game.



Ahhh... Good points.

The trophies we "won" were in "invitational" tournaments, for the most part. We didn't do particulary well in open tournies. Some wins, but a lot of losses when we felt we probably shoulda won.

Usually did OK in the sparring part, but you are spot-on as far as forms.


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