JohnnyEnglish, In answer to your question...
"My question today is, what is better for SELF-DEFENSE?"
let me ask you some questions.
1. have you been to the Dojang that teaches ITF TaeKwonDo that you seem interested in?
2. have you watched the students sparring, and training for tournaments?
3. If Yes, then when you watched the ITF opponents sparring, do they drop their arms to the side, and almost never punch?
Yes/no
If yes, then they are influenced by the "Kicks give more points then punches" rules of Olympic type TKD.
4. Does training for long periods of time like this have negative consequences?
4b. If you do not train for punching, counterpunching and blocking punches as a TKD practitioner you can develop habits that are not good.
For an example, I will post this:
I will draw your attention to two things in the video. The Karateka pummels with lots of chest punches because this is part of Kumite. Also, the TKD guy doesn't train for knee kicks, and isn't seen using them. What knee kicks that landed on the Karateka, were incomplete full kicks. However, the Karateka definitely uses knee kicks right off the bat.
Now, if the ITF TKD school has people sparring with punches, and kicks, and blocking/counter-punching and counter-kicking, then it would be almost purely what flavor of fighting do you WANT.
5. Now visit your Kickboxing Gym, do they spar with punches, and counter punches?
yes/no
Then the following is true, only by a School/Gym vs School/Gym basis:
If all else is equal, but the punching issue is examined:
If questions 3, and 4 are YES while 5 is YES then ITF TKD < KB.
If questions 3, and 4 are NO while 5 is NO then ITF TKD > KB.
If questions 3, and 4 are NO while 5 is YES then ITF TKD = KB.
If questions 3, and 4 are YES while 5 is NO then ITF TKD = KB.
The fact is you can only fight in self-defense the way you train for a fight.
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