Transitioning from Tang Soo Do?

[Ed A]

Hi,
Apologies if this post is in the wrong area. My teenage son has been practicing Tang Soo Do for 9 years and is a green belt. We've moved to a new city with no Tang Soo Do dojos but plenty of Tae Kwon Do dojos. I need some advice on whether it is easy or difficult for him to make the transition to Tae Kwon Do. I'm sure he doesn't want to start as a beginner. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Ed.

 

[skribs]

TSD and TKD are like meatloaf and salisbury steak. It should be a fairly easy transition.

 

[Kairu Sukufumidoto]

They are two martial arts that are very similar. If he wants to be fully prepared, he needs to make sure he knows all of the poomsae a green belt should know. It's different to dojang to dojang but up to sa-jang should be fine.

 

[kitkatninja]

...I need some advice on whether it is easy or difficult for him to make the transition to Tae Kwon Do. I'm sure he doesn't want to start as a beginner. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. Ed.

"Transitioning" and "Starting" as a beginner are two different things...

IMO, Transitioning will be as "easy" or as "hard" as he makes it out to be; there are two things that he will have to overcome...
1. His mentality as in he will have to accept that he will have to do things differently and
2. His muscle memory. Doing an art for nine years, the body gets used to doing things a certain way... Depending on the TKD association, they may spar differently (due to their rule sets), they may use the sinewave that alot of TSD don't use. They may do different forms or different variations of forms, etc...

Starting as a beginner, will be down to the association that you/your son moves to as well as your son's acceptance of whether or not the new association will accept his currently grade or, whether or not their requirement is that everyone starts at the beginning.

Which ever way this goes, let us know how he gets on

 

[Tez3]

I would have said that Shotokan or Wado Ryu karate would be an easier match as the hyungs in TSD are simplified versions of those found in these karate styles. I went from Wado to TSD easily but found TKD to be actually quite different.

 

[skribs]

They are two martial arts that are very similar. If he wants to be fully prepared, he needs to make sure he knows all of the poomsae a green belt should know. It's different to dojang to dojang but up to sa-jang should be fine.

That depends on what school. If they're a KKW school, good chance he'll need the Taegeuks. He might not, as some schools do the Palgwes. And some schools do the Palgwes differently than others. And maybe that school does the Taegeuks, but also does the Kibons and the Palgwes (like my old school).

Or he may go to an ATA school and do their forms, or an ITF school and do theirs, or to a school with a less popular federation and have an entirely different set.

 

[WaterGal]

"Transitioning" and "Starting" as a beginner are two different things...

IMO, Transitioning will be as "easy" or as "hard" as he makes it out to be; there are two things that he will have to overcome...
1. His mentality as in he will have to accept that he will have to do things differently

I think this is the biggest thing, by far, when anyone transfers from one school to another. This will be true for the student, and in the case of a minor, for their parent as well. We get some transfers from a chain of TSD schools in this area (I hate the term "McDojo", but, well...), and a lot of them come in with this attitude that they think they already know everything and "that's not how we did XYZ at at my old school". They generally don't do well. The ones that come in with an open mind, interested to learn, do very well.

 

[Jaeimseu]

I think this is the biggest thing, by far, when anyone transfers from one school to another. This will be true for the student, and in the case of a minor, for their parent as well. We get some transfers from a chain of TSD schools in this area (I hate the term "McDojo", but, well...), and a lot of them come in with this attitude that they think they already know everything and "that's not how we did XYZ at at my old school". They generally don't do well. The ones that come in with an open mind, interested to learn, do very well.

This is my experience, as well. IME people tend to take whatever was told to them by their first instructor as gospel unless they have some reason to distrust said instructor. It seems to be a lot like politics. There are a lot of “alternative facts” out there.


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[Dirty Dog]

The ones that come in with an open mind, interested to learn, do very well.

This is the part that matters. Whether they have prior training or not, what really matters is that they WANT to learn.