Compulsory Poomsae at Olympics

[IcemanSK]

The question is - why do we want TKD in the Olympics, and what do we want people to see? The original hope was that more people would take TKD - but what they see in the Olympics is so far from what is done in most classes as to be meaningless, and has been gone over in numerous threads, most people see Olympic sparring as being less than realistic for self-defense. From that perspective, making forms compulsory for competition might change the public's perspective - but as exile notes, it might also further reduce the amount of TV time that TKD gets, which would certainly not help further the spread of TKD.

If we want people to see what TKD is like for most people (or any other sport, for that matter), then the Olympics is not the venue through which to do so, I don't think. But I don't know what the answer is about how to change that.

The question of why it's an Olympic sport, or how does it benefit us folks who train on the corner of Oak & Main Streets. They're good questions & I'm not sure they do help the Art that many of us desire to teach.

My hope (& it's a reach, I realize) is that Olympic TKD will be a gateway to the kind of TKD that teaches the Art. I realize that way of thinking is a reverse of what, say, gymnastics does. They have every little girl in the gym buying outfits, bags memberships, etc. that say "USA Gymnastics" on them selling the "idea of the Olympics" for each of them. I hope the "glory of Olympic gold" that folks see in TKD on tv, encourages folks to my doorstep (& yours) to learn the Art. However, I think it's more likely that the resurgence of "The Karate Kid" movie will encourage folks who want to learn the Art.

 

[exile]

Actually Exile if you ever go to the Kukiwon and do a Poomsae seminar there you will find it is more about the Art, the WTF is all about the sport. Sorry the Kukkiwon has some talented people there with a different view than most of the people with the WTF.

Interesting, Terry... I've tended to think of the KKW as the 'technical arm' of the WTF, promoting the same general point of view....

OK, so then, here's my question—if the KKW is really separate and on its own page, why aren't they more actively interested in the SD side of the TKD picture than they seem to be?

 

[terryl965]

Interesting, Terry... I've tended to think of the KKW as the 'technical arm' of the WTF, promoting the same general point of view....

OK, so then, here's my question—if the KKW is really separate and on its own page, why aren't they more actively interested in the SD side of the TKD picture than they seem to be?

I can only answer from my point of view here and it comes down to perseption, Just like when people on Boards chat or people come to my school and use to terms ( I have aWTF certification pr my school is a WTF charter school). We all know that there is no WTF Certificates that they mean Kukkiwon and we know when they say WTF charter school they mean they only do sport TKD, if you go back twenty year Kukkiwon was a big player in SD principle and still out but with anything else if they majority wants this then that is what is giving. I know Miles and a few others have gone though the instructor course like me and it is one of the best experience one could ever have. This is why I tell people I'm a KKW BB and get so pessy when people say they are the same. I cannot change the world view I can only say what is facts and what is not base on my own experiences.

Exile one day you and me need to make atrip there for a week together and see whay I mean.

Even on the KKW website they go though the SD princeple and what each acyual tech. is suppose to be.

 

[IcemanSK]

There was a time in the mid 80's when the WTF did give out certificates. My first dan was from the WTF.

There is a deliniation (sp?) between the WTF & the KKW as Terry pointed out. Many masters & GM's want to have nothing to do with being associated with the WTF over the "sport" issue. That is why they refer to themselves as being credentialed by the Kukkiwon, & usually don't mention the WTF. GM Uhm, Woon Kyu, the president of the Kukkiwon, is very much an old school SD advocate.

 

[terryl965]

There was a time in the mid 80's when the WTF did give out certificates. My first dan was from the WTF.

There is a deliniation (sp?) between the WTF & the KKW as Terry pointed out. Many masters & GM's want to have nothing to do with being associated with the WTF over the "sport" issue. That is why they refer to themselves as being credentialed by the Kukkiwon, & usually don't mention the WTF. GM Uhm, Woon Kyu, the president of the Kukkiwon, is very much an old school SD advocate.

Actually Iceman they did it one year in rthe early eighties I believe but that was all and Yes GM Uhm, Woon Kyu is all about SD principles.

 

[Steel Tiger]

I actually like this idea better than the idea for poomsae. Demonstration of effective power delivery is a very good bet—it ensures that practitioners aren't just throwing their legs around to get to places with their feet that most people would have trouble reaching with their hands, but that that movement is completely controlled, focused, and backed with a lot of power. Acrobatics is one thing, but an acrobatic pile-driver is something else completely.

The only problem I can see with this is that people from outside the martial arts view breaking as a sort of trick done with weak, easily broken materials. Its inclusion in the Olympics would not improve TKD's image because the vast majority of those viewing would not understand there was actual power involved in the breaking.

Exactly, and let's face it, Olympic TKD has a reputation for being a "wussy" sport, reflecting poorly on the art. Most people think its light-contact point sparring, and don't recognize that its a full contact sport. Anything done to the sport that makes it look stronger can only be good for the art.

Olympic TKD's "wussy" sport reputation is something that one finds only inside martial art circles. To non-martial artists people in armour kicking each other is a demonstration of toughness. I remember the interviews with Lauren Burns in 2000 after she won Australia's first TKD gold medal. There was no mention of weak reputation just continual references to how hard and tough it looked. And that is what counts for most of the viewers, how hard it looks, not how hard, or not, it actually is.


Figure-skating had its compulsory elements removed because they were too technical for the viewing audience to understand so nobody went to watch them. The Olympics is becoming more and more about spectacle. Would the performance of poomsae add to the spectacle? I actually think it would to a degree. It would also show that there was an actual difference between TKD and Boxing (apart from the foot thing).

The interesting thing is an inclusion of poomsae would open up the field to such things as modern Wushu, which the Chinese government is pushing hard for inclusion, and I think that would actually be a bad thing. Strange isn't it?

 

[terryl965]

All I know it will take to teams one for Poomsae and the other for Sparring because the Olympic athletes just do not practice the poomsae aspect as they should.

 

[exile]

The only problem I can see with this is that people from outside the martial arts view breaking as a sort of trick done with weak, easily broken materials. Its inclusion in the Olympics would not improve TKD's image because the vast majority of those viewing would not understand there was actual power involved in the breaking.

Interesting point. It's very possible that if you haven't done breaking yourself, you'd imagine the people breaking these stacks of boards or bricks to be using pre-scored or otherwise suspect materials.

For me, breaking was always the most awe-inspiring part of MAs when I was a kid and didn't know anything at all about it. I found it almost unbelievable, but I credited it fully. But my view of the MAs was always positive from the outset; it wouldn't have occurred to me that anything about them was a kind of parlor-trick. But that was back at the end of the 1950s! At this point, after enough wire-levitated action sequences and obviously choreographed one-against-twenty-and-wins combat segments in MA movies, it's probably very, very different with the public at large.

The Olympics is becoming more and more about spectacle.... The interesting thing is an inclusion of poomsae would open up the field to such things as modern Wushu, which the Chinese government is pushing hard for inclusion, and I think that would actually be a bad thing. Strange isn't it?

I agree. XMA is the transition from martial sport to martial spectacle, and that is going to be, unequivocally, a bad thing so far as the image of the activity is concerned. As far as the actual practice of the arts amongst dedicated students, it won't make much difference... but in terms of popular perception, the last thing we need is another level of dilution in the combat content of the art.

This leads me to think of another angle on the whole business, that again suggests a lesson to be learned from the figure-skating compulsories. The spectacular nature of the free programs probably made the viewing audience seriously impatient with the meticulous, grueling but totally unspectacular compulsory figure programs, leading to their elimination by the figure skating directorate at the behest of the TV network bean-counters looking at rating stats for those segments. In the same way, if you have forms competitions where Chloe Bruce-style quasi wushu poomse-acrobatics become the norm of competition—a course we seem to be set on—then the 'compulsory' poomse will wind up being of utterly marginal interest and will get axed for exactly the same reason. For an audience that wants to see quadruple (and quintiple, within a decade, I prophesy) Lutzes, the meticulous performances necessary to win in the compulsories became completely pointless; and for an audience that wants to see multiple backflips in forms—and I've actually seen these in kata competitions in tournaments :uhohh:—a flawless performance of Koryo is going to be a signal that it's OK to go to the fridge for more beer now, nothing important is happening. At that point, you can be pretty sure the compulsory poomse will be quietly ax(-kick)ed.

 

[Steel Tiger]

I have just been sitting here thinking about some of the problems the Olympic movement has at the moment and two really standout. Professionalism and drug-use. While they are related they can be addressed as separate issues.

Professionalism and the associated money is going to contribute to changes designed to improve viewing numbers. The IOC has decided not to increase the number of events, its about 240 and 10 000 competitors, so any new events displace others. This means there is no chance to increase viewing numbers by increasing the number of events. The effect of this is that the represented events must become more watchable. Unfortunately, those events that we, as martial artists, are most interested in (TKD, Judo, Fencing, Shooting) are considered some of the dullest and don't get much coverage. This means that anything like poomsae will lead to the situation Exile outlined above, just like figure-skating.

But on the other side. The inclusion of compulsory poomsae in TKD presents an event that is not assisted by drugs. Being bigger does not help with forms (I suppose a valium might keep you rock steady, but it is easy to detect as well). As such poomsae would lend TKD a level of legitimate cleaness that is not really present in many Olympic events these days. Especially if it was compulsory and required for all those wishing to compete in sparring.


Ultimately, I think it is unlikely even though TKD is one of the powerhouses of Olympic sport. As long as the IOC continues to focus on swimming, track & field and gymnastics, other sports, even very popular ones, are simply not going to be considered powerful enough draw cards to consider increasing their associated number of events.

 

[terryl965]

Ultimately, I think it is unlikely even though TKD is one of the powerhouses of Olympic sport. As long as the IOC continues to focus on swimming, track & field and gymnastics, other sports, even very popular ones, are simply not going to be considered powerful enough draw cards to consider increasing their associated number of events.


This is so true

 

[exile]

But on the other side. The inclusion of compulsory poomsae in TKD presents an event that is not assisted by drugs. Being bigger does not help with forms (I suppose a valium might keep you rock steady, but it is easy to detect as well). As such poomsae would lend TKD a level of legitimate cleaness that is not really present in many Olympic events these days. Especially if it was compulsory and required for all those wishing to compete in sparring.

But on the other side, there's another issue with compulsory poomse that the figure-skating events can shed some light on: the subjectivism of judging. Remember that huge blowup a couple of Games back when the French judge was revealed to have penalized one of the very strongest performances because of a deal with the Russian delegation? She subsequently was dropped as an Olympic judge, there was a tremendous outcry and the victims of her dishonesty—Canadian, I think?—were co-awarded a gold medal along with whoever it was who had been the paper winner as a result of that cheating deal. It led to a still-ongoing debate about how to ensure minimal reliance on judge's subjective preferences, given that the victory should, in principle, go to those whose performance is in some absolute sense 'superior'. Sure, we know how almost self-contradictory that ideal is, but in most cases, the commentators can explain what it was that makes one of the peformances better than another. The problems arise in the 'grey areas', where everyone is technically so good that the only differences wind up being matters of personal interpretation. What's the point of a gold medal that you won sheerly on the basis of Dominique Langlois of Belgium's (or whoever's) preference for the way you let your free arm trail in your death-spiral at the end of your pairs routine?

The compulsory poomses would have that quality in spades, I think. Unlike the figure-skating compulsories, there wouldn't be an actual track in the ice that could be inspected after the event (as I've seen happen) to determine how well the necessary components were satisfied. So while the drug problem would be a non-issue, the subjectivity of the judging, another big can of worms, would be wide open...

Ultimately, I think it is unlikely even though TKD is one of the powerhouses of Olympic sport. As long as the IOC continues to focus on swimming, track & field and gymnastics, other sports, even very popular ones, are simply not going to be considered powerful enough draw cards to consider increasing their associated number of events.

I think this is right. Viewership rules the Olympics. In the end, the IOC will almost certainly decide that there isn't enough viewership for compulsory poomses to warrant adding them to the roster. And you can bet that China and other countries with MA hopes for the Olympics someday won't be putting pressure on the IOC to accomodate the South Koreans, eh?

The Olympics are an extension of war by other means (apologies to Clausewitz)... and these days, mostly a war on big corporations' advertising budgets...

 

[Steel Tiger]

...The compulsory poomses would have that quality in spades, I think. Unlike the figure-skating compulsories, there wouldn't be an actual track in the ice that could be inspected after the event (as I've seen happen) to determine how well the necessary components were satisfied. So while the drug problem would be a non-issue, the subjectivity of the judging, another big can of worms, would be wide open...

It might be that such a performance would need to be covered by rules similar to those in Gymnastics where there is a base score of 10 and then all the elements of the routine add up to an addition score. The final score for the routine being determined by a subtraction of points for not executing elements of the stated routine. It would be very interesting with set movement structures like forms (though Gymnastic competitions do have compulsory routines as well).

I think that in a poomsae/sparring situation in TKD compared to a compulsory/free routine in figure-skating, the poomsae would equate to the free routine and the sparring to the compulsories. This would be for the simple reason you state, judging subjectivity. The sparring, Olympic TKD as it is now, has a more quantifiable scoring system which can be significantly improved by wiring up the competitors ala Fencing (the are some obvious problems with this, but it will happen). So we would see a reversal of what would seem to be the logical parallels between the two sports.

 

[Laurentkd]

But on the other side, there's another issue with compulsory poomse that the figure-skating events can shed some light on: the subjectivism of judging. Remember that huge blowup a couple of Games back when the French judge was revealed to have penalized one of the very strongest performances because of a deal with the Russian delegation? She subsequently was dropped as an Olympic judge, there was a tremendous outcry and the victims of her dishonesty—Canadian, I think?—were co-awarded a gold medal along with whoever it was who had been the paper winner as a result of that cheating deal. It led to a still-ongoing debate about how to ensure minimal reliance on judge's subjective preferences, given that the victory should, in principle, go to those whose performance is in some absolute sense 'superior'. Sure, we know how almost self-contradictory that ideal is, but in most cases, the commentators can explain what it was that makes one of the peformances better than another. The problems arise in the 'grey areas', where everyone is technically so good that the only differences wind up being matters of personal interpretation. What's the point of a gold medal that you won sheerly on the basis of Dominique Langlois of Belgium's (or whoever's) preference for the way you let your free arm trail in your death-spiral at the end of your pairs routine?

hmmm. I see your point. There were times when I knew I either won or lost a forms compeition only because of the judges present (did or did not like long stances, did or did not like fast paced form, etc). Just like a dog show. Certain judges like certain things. All of which is just personal preference.

I wonder if instead of adding forms we added breaking then (in our perfect made up Olympics). I know there was the argument that people would think the breaking material was fake or scored and what not. But if guy A broke 10 pieces of any type of breaking material with a dropping palm heel strike and guy B broke 12 of the same material with the same technique, it would be pretty cut and dry who the winner was. You wouldn't even really need judges.

 

[exile]

hmmm. I see your point. There were times when I knew I either won or lost a forms compeition only because of the judges present (did or did not like long stances, did or did not like fast paced form, etc). Just like a dog show. Certain judges like certain things. All of which is just personal preference

Exactly. So if the whole outcome were taken to be, OK, that's what the judges liked—in the same way that vanilla will beat chocolate with one 'panel of judges' and vice versa with another—then fine. But the Olympic gold medal is widely interpreted as being a badge of qualitative superiority: you were—at least, that day—the best in the world. Not, the judges liked you better, but, you were indeed the best

I wonder if instead of adding forms we added breaking then (in our perfect made up Olympics). I know there was the argument that people would think the breaking material was fake or scored and what not. But if guy A broke 10 pieces of any type of breaking material with a dropping palm heel strike and guy B broke 12 of the same material with the same technique, it would be pretty cut and dry who the winner was. You wouldn't even really need judges.

That's true, Lauren.

But what if one broke six boards with a palm heel strike and the other one broke three boards with a double finger strike—the way some of these break-competition loonies can do. Who would the winner be?

I'm not saying this couldn't be worked out (you'd have to restrict the options so it didn't again become a matter of subjective judgement as to which was 'harder'). And S_T's point about perception of the nature of the whole activity would still have to be addressed, though if conditions were held constant, as in your scenario, that would go a long way to eliminating that factor.

 

[Laurentkd]

But what if one broke six boards with a palm heel strike and the other one broke three boards with a double finger strike—the way some of these break-competition loonies can do. Who would the winner be?

I hate this aspect when I participate, and even more so when I judge, in a breaking competition. In the past I have been at tournaments where judges just give you a score as they see it (which can be as bad as poomsae judging) and where there is a posted list of techniques, each one being a different point value depending on the complexity of the technique. (But even that gets funny because how does a six board sliding side kick compare to a three board spin hook kick?)
I think you would have to set the exact guidelines of what everyone breaks. If I ever run a breaking competition I would say everyone does a step spin back kick and that is it. You have three attempts. Most broken boards (or concrete maybe) in any single attempt wins. Now I just have to get me a spot on the IOC!

As far as the ease (or authenticy) of the breaking material, I would think it would be irrelevent as everyone is obviously on a level playing field, which is all that would really matter (in my opinion at least).

 

[exile]

I hate this aspect when I participate, and even more so when I judge, in a breaking competition. In the past I have been at tournaments where judges just give you a score as they see it (which can be as bad as poomsae judging) and where there is a posted list of techniques, each one being a different point value depending on the complexity of the technique. (But even that gets funny because how does a six board sliding side kick compare to a three board spin hook kick?)
I think you would have to set the exact guidelines of what everyone breaks. If I ever run a breaking competition I would say everyone does a step spin back kick and that is it. You have three attempts. Most broken boards (or concrete maybe) in any single attempt wins. Now I just have to get me a spot on the IOC!

Yes—I can't see any other way to do it, if it were going to be done.

As far as the ease (or authenticy) of the breaking material, I would think it would be irrelevent as everyone is obviously on a level playing field, which is all that would really matter (in my opinion at least).

This is true. I'm sure someone would figure out a way to complain that the conditions aren't truly equal for all competitors... but something along those lines would cut way down on the griping.

So the next question is—strictly in terms of the IOC's take on the marketability of their product in terms of broadcast revenues—would enough people be interested in watching this kind of breaking, people with no other connection to the MAs? It's hard for us to tell of course, but... what do you think?

 

[Steel Tiger]

So the next question is—strictly in terms of the IOC's take on the marketability of their product in terms of broadcast revenues—would enough people be interested in watching this kind of breaking, people with no other connection to the MAs? It's hard for us to tell of course, but... what do you think?

The interesting thing about breaking is that it fits well with the Olympic motto, "Swifter, Higher, Stronger". In terms of marketability, it has got to be about the same as weightlifting. I don't know about you guys, but weightlifting gets plenty of coverage down here.

Breaking could even be done in the same venue. Actually, weightlifting present a good model for such contests. The techniques used are very limited (two), there are very specific guidelines as to what constitutes a success, and the competitors only get six goes (three with each technique).

As much as I would like to see something like poomsae or breaking in the Olympics, something representative of the broader nature of the martial arts, I don't think it is going to happen anytime soon, if ever. Its a bit sad that events like synchronised swimming and diving continue to survive even though they are not as popular as other sports. Even so, the martial arts community is, and always has been, well represented at the Olympics with about seven events. But they are not popular with the marketing gurus who decide what will get the TV coverage.