Is WTF ANY good for self defence

[bignick]

I have to disagree with you, TW, on the crescent kick to a knife, though we practice a similar technique. We practice with a crescent kick to the face from that type of attack (punch, stab)...

If you look at how far your attacker has to be away to hit them in the wrist with the crescent kick they most likely wouldn't be able to hit you with the attack in the first place, they'd be too far away...however if they are close enough to hit you their face is a perfect target for the kick...

Not saying you're wrong, because I don't know exactly how you practice the technique...that's just how we do it...

 

[Adept]

If someone doesn't agree with me about the crescent, come right out and say so instead of pinging me 5 pts. and not signing it. Not too cool.

Just so you know, that wasn't me. I always sign my rep points, both positive and negative.

This is a legitimate defense. I would rather do a quick kick with my leg than get anywhere near with my body or arms.

Fair enough. I dont know how you train it, so I can't realy comment. When I train with a practice knife, crescent kicking is never the most viable option. If you misjudge the distance, you are out of position and have failed to control the weapon. If you are wearing constricting clothes (jeans, evening dress, etc) then it is not an option. It means you are striking at the knife wielder while he is still at very long range. Perhaps pre-empting his strike, but more likley prompting a counter strike.

The street is a very, very different place to the training hall.

If I for some reason got caught off guard and had my hands full at the moment.

I humbly posit that it would be harder to kick when taken by surprise (especially with your hands full) than it would be to simply get out of the way and drop whatever you are carrying. It also speaks of poor situational awareness to let yourself be surprised like that.

If I was dealing with one attacker and I spot a second coming from my side. If he lunges with a weapon or a hand I could use a kick to at least buy me a few seconds to disengage from the first attacker.

Yes indeed. Again, I would severaly question the feasability of aiming at the knife hand in order to do this, or even the idea of standing on one leg, focusing on another opponent, while trying to deal with one right in front of you.

 

[Langdow]

Also, am I correct in saying that you are not allowed to strike towards the face with your feet?

Shujack don't think anyone answered your question so I will

Anything forward of the ears is an open target. That inculdes your face. Hope that clears it up for you.

 

[Shu2jack]

I wasn't saying that the cresant kick would be my first choice, or the best choice, but an option to have.

I humbly posit that it would be harder to kick when taken by surprise (especially with your hands full) than it would be to simply get out of the way and drop whatever you are carrying. It also speaks of poor situational awareness to let yourself be surprised like that.

I agree, it is easier to simply drop what you have in your hands and get out of the way. However, there have been times that I have wandered through the house in the dark late at night when family members suprized me. I was usually holding onto a glass of milk or a blanket and my first reaction was to kick the person who startled me. Of course I didn't know it was a family member at the time, and to drop what I was holding wasn't the first thing to come to mind. The reaction to attack what immediately scared me and I felt was a threat was my first reaction. Right or wrong, my flight or fight reaction kicked in and my reaction was fight.

As for poor situational awareness, yes, it does speak poorly of someone's awareness if they are caught that off guard. I do submit that one can not be totally aware of everything 100% of the time and you could get caught the moment your guard was let down. I got caught while wandering through my house looking for something or just wandering because I couldn't sleep.

Yes indeed. Again, I would severaly question the feasability of aiming at the knife hand in order to do this, or even the idea of standing on one leg, focusing on another opponent, while trying to deal with one right in front of you.

Point taken, but if I was engaged with one attacker and my hands were busy while a second one came at me with a weapon, why wouldn't try the kick if you couldn't disengage at the time? Better than being stuck, doing nothing, and getting hit.

 

[Shu2jack]

Shujack don't think anyone answered your question so I will

Anything forward of the ears is an open target. That inculdes your face. Hope that clears it up for you.

That does clear it up. Crazy I tell you. Crazy.

 

[Miles]

Just out of curosity, if they don't need to block, why do they get hit in the head?

Bad footwork and/or timing!

[/QUOTE]Do you guys find that it is easier to kick with your hands down? Is it a mental thing? I really want to know because now that the ATA has started requiring chest protectors and we started leaning towards olympic sparring I have noticed a lot of people in my division dropping hands and doing things I have not seen before.[/QUOTE]I said "elite competitor", something which I am not. I teach my students to keep their hands up. As far as is it easier to kick with hands down-I don't know, I keep my hands up. I would venture (only to guess though, sorry) that they are preserving energy by not having hands held up. Also, since most kicks are to the hogu, a hand up or down makes no difference-a shift of body will mean the competitor catches the kick in their arm (which really hurts by the way, especially after a lot of pounding)

I have trained with elite competitors and they can make most everyone miss them, by fractions of an inch. Footwork is an art within itself.

[/QUOTE]I have heard that the style of sparring does not allow kicks directly to the front of the face, so does that play a part in it?[/QUOTE]Kicks to the front of the face are scored. The scoring area is the ears forward. Regardless, I don't think that has anything to do with whether someone has their hands up or not.

Shu2jack, is ATA sparring now full-contact? At one time the ATA was moving toward Kukkiwon certification. I have a friend up in Traverse City MI who has an ATA school-super guy and wonderful MA.

Miles

 

[Marginal]

If someone doesn't agree with me about the crescent, come right out and say so instead of pinging me 5 pts. and not signing it. Not too cool.
TW

I didn't ping you, but my instructors tend to discourage the crescent kick in that situation. Their reasoning being it's not too hard to end up with major blood loss if the strike happens to go a little off. They tend to prefer either hand techniques or getting out of dodge, and not in that order...

 

[Teh Tot]

This is a legitimate defense. I would rather do a quick kick with my leg than get anywhere near with my body or arms. TW

I agree. The Crescent kick an excelent defencive tecnique. if someone came up to me with a knife, that would be my first reaction besides trying to talk my way out. I have been told i have long arms but I don't trust that when someone has about 3 more inches on their arm that my arms will be able to get in there before the knife gets me. In a fight the crescent kick is an excellent disarming kick.

 

[MJS]

Question about the kick defense with the knife. What exactly is the process for executing the kick? What I mean is...is the person with the knife just standing there, showing it in a threatening fashion or are they actually taking a stab at your midsection and you're doing the kick?

Mike

 

[Brad Dunne]

As MJS pointed out, what is the knife holder doing? IMO, if the knife/hand is in motion, then counter hand techniques are the order. If stationary - just posing a threat, then the cresent kick may work. Note here** This kick is predicated upon the ability of the person delivering it. There are also 2 ways to execute this kick. 1) The full straight leg hip rotational and 2) The snap angle delivery. For those who may not be familiar with the second type, it's very similar to a front snap kick but there is only a small amount of hip rotation which is caused by snapping the leg from the knee (like the front snap), but it's delivered on a smaller arch (shoulder to shoulder length). It can only be thrown on the outside angle, for that is the natural flexation for the knee. It's very fast and very effective. Again it's based upon the person's abilities, but with a little practice just about everyone can do a credible job on the mechanics. Another way to describe it would be a midget outside cresent. Another aspect, safety wise, is the fact that because it's an outside cresent, the main leg artery (femoral) is not affected if you happen to get cut.

 

[Tgace]

If the guy is inexperienced enought to let you even see the knife, maybe...and if hes dumb enough to leave the knife motionless for even a second......

 

[Zepp]

To address the original topic: It's not the style or the art- it's the instructor!

My complaint regarding the WTF has always been about the epidemic of crappy of instruction. Kukki-TKD has no shortage of skills and techniques that can be used in self-defense, but the problem is that too many instructors don't teach their students the difference between the mat and the real world (or worse, they don't understand the difference themselves).

BTW, I do know that there are good WTF instructors out there. So please, there's no need to become defensive if you're WTF. I have no means of judging you or your school over this forum, and I'm really not trying to.

As far as kicking a weapon out of your opponent's hand goes, being threatened with a weapon before someone uses it on you is a luxury that you can't count on. If you want to train for self-defense against weapons, especially edged weapons, you owe it to yourself, and any students of yours, to educate yourself about how these fights really do happen. For starters, I suggest Darren Laur's article "Edged Weapon Tactics and Counter Tactics," which you can find here: http://www.personalprotectionsystems.ca/safetyarticles.htm. Of course, there's also a shiznit load of material in the Armoury and Self-defense forums...

 

[Shu2jack]

Bad footwork and/or timing!

.....

I have trained with elite competitors and they can make most everyone miss them, by fractions of an inch. Footwork is an art within itself.

I am not disagreeing with you, but someone can have excellent footwork and still get nailed. Afterall, at the highest level the elite competitors with the awesome foot work spar equally elite competitors with equally awesome footwork. They can make each other miss within fractions of a inch, but one of them is going to get hit eventually. Why not keep up the hands to help cover the possiblity of being out-manuvered or just out-kicked?

Shu2jack, is ATA sparring now full-contact? At one time the ATA was moving toward Kukkiwon certification. I have a friend up in Traverse City MI who has an ATA school-super guy and wonderful MA.

No, it isn't full contact. Technically we don't have to make contact to score a point and black belts are allowed to tone it up to "moderate" contact. It is left up to the judges and competitors how hard they want to go at it.

Out of curosity who is the guy in Traverse City? If he is a black belt I probably know him too.

A far as kicking a weapon out of your opponent's hand goes, being threatened with a weapon before someone uses it on you is a luxury that you can't count on. If you want to train for self-defense against weapons, especially edged weapons, you owe it to yourself, and any students of yours, to educate yourself about how these fights really do happens

If the guy is inexperienced enought to let you even see the knife, maybe...and if hes dumb enough to leave the knife motionless for even a second......

Like we have been saying, it is just an option to have. Can we count on it? No, just like we can't count on anything else to work 100%. I know I don't have any of the "real world" experience that you gentleman have, but I have had the misfortune to be assaulted by a knife wielding attacker. Did I try any TKD kicks? No, I tried other things like de-escalating the situation and when that failed and it became physical I relied on hand techniques and movement.

So like we have been saying, we are not teaching students to rely on these kicks for self-defense and go "kung foo kicking" to disarm weapon-wielding attackers. We are giving students tools and options to have that may suit their physical capablities.

 

[Teh Tot]

Question about the kick defense with the knife. What exactly is the process for executing the kick? What I mean is...is the person with the knife just standing there, showing it in a threatening fashion or are they actually taking a stab at your midsection and you're doing the kick?

They Could be doing any number of things, whether or not you use it depends on where the knife is and how high you can get the kick up. If the opportunity came I would back away and not fight. but if I had no choice I would Personally rather get cut on the leg than stabbed in a vital location.

 

[bignick]

Plenty of vital locations on your leg. If you get cut on the femoral artery, you're pretty much out of luck, if your achilles tendon gets severed or any major muscle group or tendon for that matter gets cut you're going to have a heck of a time standing, much less walking, kicking, or running away...

 

[Teh Tot]

True, but you would still be alive, or have a better chance of being alive and recovering. I know that even if you get stabbed in the heart you can still live, but that's a lot more serious than stabbing an artery or cutting tendons or muscles. But the point of the post was that getting away is more important than fighting, although I didn't make it that clear.

 

[bignick]

If you're femoral artery gets cut we're talking maybe minutes tops before you pass out from blood loss if you don't immediately cut off the blood flow (which you aren't probably going to have time to do in an altercation).

And yes...getting way is the optimal solution

 

[Miles]

I am not disagreeing with you, but someone can have excellent footwork and still get nailed. Afterall, at the highest level the elite competitors with the awesome foot work spar equally elite competitors with equally awesome footwork. They can make each other miss within fractions of a inch, but one of them is going to get hit eventually. Why not keep up the hands to help cover the possiblity of being out-manuvered or just out-kicked?

Feel free to disagree! Life is boring if everyone agrees!

Why not keep hands up? I don't know-I am an old-stylist who was taught to keep his hands up-and teach my students to do the same. I will say though that at the Kukkiwon, (during Poomsae, not when we trained with the Samsung and Korean Olympians), we were told to lower our hands since keeping them up raised the center of gravity (picture high block w/left hand in left front stance, right front kick, stepping forward to right middle section punch-fairly common sequence in Korean/Japanese martial arts) which adversely affected balance.

Out of curosity who is the guy in Traverse City? If he is a black belt I probably know him too.

I PM'd this info-do you know him?

Miles

 

[Shu2jack]

Why not keep hands up? I don't know-I am an old-stylist who was taught to keep his hands up-and teach my students to do the same. I will say though that at the Kukkiwon, (during Poomsae, not when we trained with the Samsung and Korean Olympians), we were told to lower our hands since keeping them up raised the center of gravity (picture high block w/left hand in left front stance, right front kick, stepping forward to right middle section punch-fairly common sequence in Korean/Japanese martial arts) which adversely affected balance.

To each their own I guess. I feel out of balance when I drop my hands.

Tomorrow afternoon there is going to be a 2-hour sparring/workout session with students from around Michigan using WTF rules that I plan on attending. I'll see how things go with that.

I PM'd this info-do you know him?

I PM'd you back. I do know the gentleman.

 

[Shu2jack]

I just got your PM back, Milan is the place I am going to. I guess I will see you there! I will be coming there after my 12-hour night work shift and have to go back for another one after that work out. So if I have that stoned look on my face, I am ok and that is not my usual look.

[EDIT] I should identify myself so we can say "Hi". It won't be hard to spot me. I will be the guy wearing the "karate-ish" white uniform as opposed to the shirt/v-neck-type uniform. On the back of my uniform it will say, TAEKWONDO, ATA, Jack Smail.