Taekwondo = defense?

[CuongNhuka]

taekwondo and judo are both stlyes that can be either sport, art, or self defense. alone either style will get you by, but neither is really going to be very, very effective. at anouther place i put that no one style is better then the other. still true. but in the long run to defend your self you should learn all of the following:

1. the ablitly to kick

2. the ablitly to punch

3. the abltily to grapple (judo/wrestling stuff)

4. the usige of comen weapons used by street thugs (knives, guns, chains and so forth) and a weapon called a "pockette stick"

5. the ablilty to defend against the abouve mentioned weapons

6. the abliltly to talk your way out of a threating stituation

7. the ablitly to run

8. knowing when to talk, when to run, when it is acceptible to fight, when it is is acceptible to criple, and (most grimly) when it is accepltable to kill

know rember that an art is not a sport, a sport is not an art, and neither will save your life against 10 detirmened pot heads with guns. what ever you do should include my abouve mentioned 8 items and combine art, sport, and self defense. if it doesn't while you will be skilled in some way to show at a tournament, give yourself a path and save your life you still truely need the rest.

o.k. so i have got your attention (well probly not i'm not done ranting so shut up and listen). why those items. well people who have strong, flexible legs will be able to capitiles on that. even if not, a well place and some what strong kick to the side of the knee will break it and your oppenent wont what to play that much any more. what about punching? well if your like me and don't have very srong legs, you can always punch. and a good punch on either the floating rib or solar peluxus will knock the wind out of them, or possbly break their rib. once again they wont want to play that much anymore. and grappling. keep in mind that appernitly 95% of fights end up going to the ground. and a good pin or joint lock will make your opponent immobile, and the he or she will have to stop.
now if your opponent decides not to play fair and uses a weapon or a group and you don't know how to disarm someone, well you can find out first hand wether or not you have been praying to the right god. and then what, stand their looking pritie??? no you cut his guts out if he takes a one more step towards you. what is a pockette stick is probly your next question. a pockette stick (yawarra or one of two other names i cann't quite rember) is a japanese weapon that is used to pound into your opponent. it is about the lingth of a pin (and that is amazingly the appilcation) any hammering strike can, with little to no twicking, become a pockette stick strike.
if you know when it is best, and how to talk you can go on your merry on the same path, with no punches thrown. if you know when, and how to run you can go on your living your happy, not bruised or brocken life. if you know when to fight you, well know when it would be pointless to run or talk. crippling is a major taboo now adays, but if you have to, well. and killing, also a major taboo. but if you have to.
any ways, thats my rant.

sweet Bright bless your blade

john

ohh and if you haven't yet, read that thing about canada outlawing martial arts

 

[Mark Lynn]

In regards to the eye techniques.

What generally happened was that when someone would go to grapple or take you down, You generally would get fingers pressing on the forehead or a hand stuck in your face, generally we excepted OK you got me, I'm blinded.

It wasn't as if we were striking at the eyes, but rather you got them when it went from sparring (hitting and kicking mode) to the grappling. Just like the knee kicks, we didn't kick the knees, rather we'd kick at them with control and pull them. Again you could tell when it would have been nailed and you respected the other person getting inside your defenses.

But must schools would never let you get away with techniques like that.

Mark

 

[Jerry]

Interesting points in your post, the taking a punch at each other without warning is the sort of thing we do sometimes in my class, its a different feeling when you arent setting up the technique then running through it time and again but just going with what happens. Nice feeling when you surprise yourself with a technique too that you didn't know you were going to do!

It seems like really bad training to me. Learning to bring down your surprise response because it's your buddy surprising you seems something of a disservice when the real sucker-punch is coming.

I know one of the worse things that happened to my reactions was when I had a co-worker who liked to play around. Didn't want to deck him and so untrained some rather deliberately trained violent responses. I finally had to sit and have a chat with him to stop.

 

[CuongNhuka]

o.k. i forgot somethings. first of all a tackle. in some circles a tackle that is used as an attack is sometimes called a "bull rush". the best way to defend against a bull rush is taught in wrestling. basicly, lunge done on them. you land on topin what looks like, well their is no real good (and still moreditly appropet). and if you ask your teacher to teach you something he/she wouldn't normaly teach, well proceede with caution. some will explode all over you and you'll being cleaning the embarsment off for years. others will probly be like 'o.k. just let me find some stuff to teach you'.as for weapons in taekwondo, well the translation should tell you not to expect it. you know"the way of hands and feet", not "the way of hands, feet and weapons". orginally taekwon do didn't have weapons, sop most of the time if you find a taekwondoka doing a weapon set, it's not tradtional taekwondo. i beleivie that taekwon, and hrangdo teach weapons, but i don't know. and don't look to hard for either styles, i thinkthat they are really only taught now adays, in N.Korea.

sweet Bright bless your blade

John

 

[swiftpete]

It seems like really bad training to me. Learning to bring down your surprise response because it's your buddy surprising you seems something of a disservice when the real sucker-punch is coming.

I know one of the worse things that happened to my reactions was when I had a co-worker who liked to play around. Didn't want to deck him and so untrained some rather deliberately trained violent responses. I finally had to sit and have a chat with him to stop.

Oh no i didn't mean like that. I didn't mean we'd walk in and throw surprise punches at each other. I mean actually during training when you're partnered up, the other person throws an attack at you and you defend, you know they're going to throw one, just not exactly when and where. I also agree that playfighting style punches thrown around are really annoying and totally pointless!
My friend did throw one at me a few weeks ago in a club, coming at me from the side, i hadn't noticed him coming and i caught the fist and put a wrist lock on without realising, that was quite cool, but all my friends know that i hate random playfighting and random punches thrown and generally don't do it to me!

 

[ave_turuta]

Pretty gay that students with several yrs training in martial arts hadn't encountered a knee kick before.
I'm sure lots of dojos do teach that sort of thing but not that one! I didn't go back. Anyway now i'm a hardcore super rock ninja i don't need to worry about shopping for different martial arts classes..!

With all due respect, can you clarify your use of the words "pretty gay" in the above sentence?

On the other hand, and with regards to what you encountered at that particular school, it was your obligation as a student to know both the philosophy of the school as well as their training method and abide by the rules. If you come into a class you are not familiar with and start throwing kicks and punches around as you darn please, don't be surprised if people either refuse to spar with you or deride you. It is disrespectful, to say the least. I know if you came to my school and started to throw kicks to the knees, you would be warned once, only to be asked to leave if/when you refused to comply. It is only fair to the other students, who perhaps do not wish to be flying ninjas.

I know in my school you woudl get a good, rounded education that included both Olympic-style sparring as well as serious self-defense techniques, including punches to the face, knees, and other areas that are off-limits in competition TKD. Equally, a BB test in our school can last anywhere from 7 to an unknown number of hours (last test lasted from 3 pm until 1:30 am): all aspiring belts MUST spar everybody else in the room: full contact, no excuses or you don't finish the test. After doing techniques and forms for several hours, one steps and self defense techniques, combination kicks, sparring everybody in the room, then you get to do breaking. So yeah, some schools actually care about providing people with a rounded TKD education.

Peace,
A.T.

 

[swiftpete]

I wasn't throwing them 'as i darned pleased' as you put it, we were sparring, i obviously wasn't putting them in with any intent to cause real damage, just contact with the area. I wasn't training in ninjutsu at the time and i certainly hadn't gone into the class to show off or prove myself, I don't believe in that sort of thing in martial arts, if i ever go into another class i'm always respectful to the instructor. We were just training. At the time I had relatively limited experience in martial arts, was looking for a style/class and didn't find that the class was effectively non contact til after i'd been training, nowadays I would find out what sort of a class it was before I started.

Yeah i was surprised that knee kicks dumbfounded the class as I had expected that all martial arts practitioners would have defense against basic attacks like that, i was just sparring in the way i had sparred in the martial arts classes i had taken up to that point. The people in the class were high level martial artists, for their class anyhow, which was why i didn't think that i had to restrict my techniques in that way.
I'm happy for you that your school teaches a rounded curriculum and all that, I never said that all TKD schools were like this, there are different schools of different quality all over the world.
People like different things from their training, some prefer contact and others don't. This was a class for people that didn't, not what i was after.
So don't make out that I think of myself as some super powered ninja power ranger type, that's not the case at all.

But a question I do have to ask..
Why wouldn't people want to be a flying ninja?!!

 

[ave_turuta]

The people in the class were high level martial artists, for their class anyhow, which was why i didn't think that i had to restrict my techniques in that way.

But a question I do have to ask..
Why wouldn't people want to be a flying ninja?!!

Granted, but I still don't understand why you would throw below the belt kicks while sparring at a TKD school, specially if you are not familiar with what is that particular school!

Even if you are not aiming to hurt (I didn't think you were) it sort of throws people off. We have some folks in our school who came from schools where there was little to no contact, and at first they seemed worried but got quickly used to kicking hard...

As for the flying ninja... hehehe. I guess I would like to fly, but at this point in my life, I think I would look more like a flying potato sack than anything else being just a beginner

Take care,
A.T.

 

[Marginal]

Same thing happened to me when i was sparring against some TKD people at a school i went to. I was only really training kickboxing at the time but was trying out the class. Knee kicks and sweeps just seem natural to me and always have, i thought the high grades would be doing them/defending as well but after a while i was approached by the teacher and told to stop as they 'didn't do that sort of thing here' Pretty gay that students with several yrs training in martial arts hadn't encountered a knee kick before.

It's stupid to to into a new class and enter a sparring situation without asking about what rules they operate under.

Usually it's not, "White belt gets to make up whatever rules they please!"

 

[TigerWoman]

Sparring rules are different than self defense. We use knees and do sweeps, but not in sparring. You would be warned then barred from sparring if you continued to try to use knees and sweep.

We once had a young Indonesian transfer student who at first in sparring would throw up a knee defense and try to catch your kick. He learned real fast there were reasons not to try to catch kicks in TKD. After a warning from catching a kick from a newbie and making them fall, he sparred a higher belt who kicked him into the wall. Couldn't catch that one. He was then asked to sit down. TW

 

[CuongNhuka]

in coung nhuwe teach alot of sweeps and leg catches (called shovel blocks). you cann't use them though, until you get a brown belt (two ranks from black), then you can use them against other brown belts and folks with more rank then you. so yes it is pretty hilarious to watch black belts spar because they normally end up falling ontop of one anouther. we may teach how to grapple and how to fall, but that doesn't mean we rember how (lol).

sweet Brighit bless your blade

John

 

[ave_turuta]

in coung nhuwe teach alot of sweeps and leg catches (called shovel blocks). you cann't use them though, until you get a brown belt (two ranks from black), then you can use them against other brown belts and folks with more rank then you. so yes it is pretty hilarious to watch black belts spar because they normally end up falling ontop of one anouther. we may teach how to grapple and how to fall, but that doesn't mean we rember how (lol).

sweet Brighit bless your blade

John

Different arts, different rules!

Peace,
A.T.

 

[FearlessFreep]

Back to the topic of Taekwondo and defense....

One thing I've been talking about with my instructor is that in our self-defense training, we work a lot on evasions, traps, pressure points, SJM, and takedowns. Pretty much not 'taekwondo' types of moves. I asked him that, since we spend a lot of our time working on punches and kicks that our self-defense should be based around those techniques, since we repeat them so many times and practice them for power and speed, etc...He didn't directly answer that, but he did have us come up with scenarios and work out different ways to defend against different kinds of attacks. One thing I picked up from it, which I'm assuming was intentional, was that a strike, an elbow to the face or sidekick to the stomach or roundhouse kick to the knee, is a fairly violent response, a fairly high level of esculation. A lot of the things we work on for traps, SJM, and takedowns is to try to control the encounter before it comes to the point of breaking limbs and crushing faces.

I think there is a difference between 'self-defense' and 'street fight', in terms of mentality in terms of what you are trying to accomplish. I think 'fighting' should be a part of self-defense, but it's just a part...maybe the last part, the part that maybe you hope you don't get to.

So, we incorporate some hand techniques, etc..into our self-defense because in a lot of ways it seems to me that Taekwondo is really designed not to 'stop' a opponent, but to 'beat' an opponent. Or as my instructor explained, it takes a high level of control and precision to use strikes as a control measure.

Anyway, just some thoughts. I think sometimes there is a mentality that 'self-defense' means 'beating up on the guy who comes at you' and I think that's just a part of the whole picture. Especially in today's litigous society, being able to go through an encounter with the proper level of response is important, everything from the verbal diffusing of the encounter to having the peace of mind and confidence to walk away to being able to control them without damaging them to being able to get them to back down with different levels of pain up to exchanging blows.

I shouldn't sell TKD short because there is a lot in there that I think applies, if you consider it and train for it. Starting with simply using your footwork and your balance to maintain your own control. Judging distance to keep yourself at a safe distance. Blocks are obvious but blocks can also be traps if you put the hand motion in. A trap with some sjm becomes a way of controlling an opponent, making it difficult for them to move and can allow you to add pressure as needed to let them know you *can* hurt them if they don't back down. A inner block into the elbow causes damage, but an inner block or knifehand strike into he tricep with the same motion just hurts a lot and make it hard to use that arm. Just some examples but I think that Taekwondo has, within it. the motions and movements and techniques that can be used to control a person without beating the snot out of them. A lot of it is sorta hidden in there...it's not in the sparring but you can see it in the poomse if you look for it. There is a lot that can be done before you get to the point of sidekicks to the jaw...or rather, there is a lot that *should* be done before you get to that point.


Anyway, just some random thoughts on taekwondo, self-defense, street fighting, and how it all works together

 

[FearlessFreep]

Just curious but how do people define 'sweep' as I can think of a few different usages of the term

1) One motion we use that I call the 'step behind' is simply as you move into an opponent, you place your leg behind their leg. From here there are two possible motions. One is that you hook back with your knee so that the back of your lower leg strikes the back of their knee, causing their knee to bend and they lose balance. The other motion is that you place your toes on the ground pretty close to their heel. Then, as you straighten your leg and drive your heel down, it causes their knee to bend again and they lose support on that leg. Either way, the goal is the same, to cause a lose of balance in one leg. This is usually accompanied by some upper body motion as part of a takedown (the sweep unbalances the opponent to the takedown is easier)

2) Kicking from the side. A roundhouse kick into the side of the leg, either at the knee or the lower leg, to get the opponents leg off the ground and unbalance them. Done to the knee, it can break the knee.

3) Kicking from behind. A roundhouse kick to the back of the knee to get the knee to bend and, again, lose balance on that leg

 

[Adept]

Jay, you've got the right idea there about self defense. We don't want to be punching and kicking people if we can avoid it (heck, we don't even want to have to use our SD techniqies if we can avoid it). One of the first things I tell people when I teach them SD is that if they have to use the techniques I'm showing them, they've already failed. Situational awareness, basic common sense and verbal judo should, ideally, eliminate the need for a physical confrontation.

In terms of using SJM and other things: An important part of SD training is scenario training. Pad both participants up (and make sure they have a reasonable level of control. Redman suits and their equivalent are a good tool, but expensive) and have the attacker come at the defender, full on. Screaming, shouting abuse, swinging wild, full power haymakers, pushing and shoving, etc. Put some background into it. "You're in a bar, and this guy thinks you been coming on to his girlfriend." or "A bum asks you for change, and becomes aggresive and violent when you refuse." This is also a good time to incorporate the old rubber knife. Try and make it as realistic as possible, so you have experience trying to use those techniques in a fast-moving adrenaline-pumping scenario.

 

[swiftpete]

It's stupid to to into a new class and enter a sparring situation without asking about what rules they operate under.

Usually it's not, "White belt gets to make up whatever rules they please!"

Yeah I know what you're saying, nowadays I would clarify it first, I have lots more martial arts experience now, understand how classes work etc..but at the time i was young and just loved to kick!

 

[Mark Lynn]

Back to the topic of Taekwondo and defense....

I think there is a difference between 'self-defense' and 'street fight', in terms of mentality in terms of what you are trying to accomplish. I think 'fighting' should be a part of self-defense, but it's just a part...maybe the last part, the part that maybe you hope you don't get to.

Fearless
I agre with you here. But I think the streetfighting aspect is a small part, of the whole issue of SD. I think it's a myth that people will be sparring or fighting in the street. Rather you are attacked and its chaos and you have to deal with it.

You made some excellent points in your post.

On your posts about the sweeps

On your first example another way to get the leg bent is to also strike or kick the leg. Same motions you describe.

On sweeping from the side you can kick along side of the foot in a motion across the body (when the weight is off of it) as a sweep.

Or from the front you can step back with your leg on the inside of your opponent's leg (as if your were stepping back into a front stance) and sweep their leg to the rear. This works real well if you have an arm bar and you want to control him to the ground.

Mark

 

[ave_turuta]

Situational awareness, basic common sense and verbal judo should, ideally, eliminate the need for a physical confrontation.

I absolutely agree. The other day we were at the mall and, for some bizarre reason and with no warning (it could be that my partner and I were holding hands or that this person didn't like the shoes I was wearing, for all I know) this girl came on to us and started yelling and screaming at us (my partner, in complete shock). She lifted her arm as if to punch my partner. Almost instinctively, I immediately put my body between her and my girlfriend and with a very adamant hand gesture aimed at her face (not a punch, just a gesture) and stern tone of voice asked her to leave. What I noticed was that the minute I created a semblance of a physical barrier between us, she immediately withdrew, turned around, and kept screaming, but this time in the opposite direction. It was all a matter of seconds. I know I would have certainly responded to her forthcoming attack, but I am glad I reacted the way I did and saved us some trouble. It is different however when we walk in our neighborhood... then we must be really aware of our surroundings, especially since we don't have a car

and there are plenty of guys who seem to have taken harrassment up as some kind of a sport.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think that the situations that men and women face in terms of attacks, etc. etc. are very different in nature and generally require different ways of responding... but ever since I started practicing TKD even my partner says she's noticed how much more secure I seem every time I feel threatened by something or someone around me.

I know what you're thinking: guys fight in bars, girls fight in malls???

 

[Adept]

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think that the situations that men and women face in terms of attacks, etc. etc. are very different in nature and generally require different ways of responding.

Absolutely. In fact, I think women face much more serious danger in terms of attacks. Most of the time, a guy will get into a blue because someones ego has been damaged and they feel a punch-on is the best way to regain that lost 'face'. These sorts of situations are relatively easy to avoid and de-escalate.

Whereas when a man attacks a woman, it's often for much more sinister reasons, and much harder to avoid. The physical nature of the attacks often involves much more grappling and grabbing than does a confrontation between men. This is where it comes back to realistic live training, and making full use of scenario drills.