Olympic disappointments

[SueEllen]

That's why I joined my local gun club.

You are probably the perfect age for it.

Well it's that or equestrian.........

[Doggy Styles]

Yes in my glorious youth I did proper North Korean style ITF TaeKwonDo. It is spectator friendly imho but not sport friendly, where it's all about points scoring. In my first major tournament as a junior I was beaten up by a girl pretty bad. The next time I was too lazy to lose weight so ended up fighting seniors. Dislocated one guys jaw with the best sidekick you've ever seen. Then won the final as my opponent was disqualified for punching me in the back of the head, knocking me unconscious.

Some years later I retired to the pub, more of a danger to myself than anyone else. Quite a disappointment, much like this thread, whose pun is pretty lame I admit but hey, it's Friday.

Yes, ITF promotes traditional taekwondo and its subsequent developments, which General Choi formalised. I'm an ITF student and still train with my club today, but I haven't competed or graded for several years.

[d000hg]

The brand of taekwondo used in the Olympics is not proper taekwondo, in which you can throw hand techniques as well. It's hard to kick someone hard in the head who is well-trained in defending against it, but bring hands into the equation and defence is harder. Remember that it is taught to all Korean soldiers as a method of disabling or killing people.

Unfortunately, proper taekwondo is not so spectator friendly, which could result in it going the same way as Karate (i.e. disappear from the games).

There's not really such a thing as 'proper taekwondo' any more than there is 'proper karate'... although Olympic TK is clearly quite different from what most people would be learning in clubs around the world, these things are always in flux. Olympic boxing is different from 'proper' boxing, etc.

I admit I find the TK a bit dull, considering how good these guys are supposed to be it looks a bit messy. But on the other hand the Judo makes TK look wonderful - such a boring sport to watch.

[escapeUK]

There's not really such a thing as 'proper taekwondo' any more than there is 'proper karate'... although Olympic TK is clearly quite different from what most people would be learning in clubs around the world, these things are always in flux. Olympic boxing is different from 'proper' boxing, etc.

I admit I find the TK a bit dull, considering how good these guys are supposed to be it looks a bit messy. But on the other hand the Judo makes TK look wonderful - such a boring sport to watch.

MMA all the way. Which is pretty good to watch, except when they are cuddling on the floor for half the match.

[Doggy Styles]

There's not really such a thing as 'proper taekwondo' any more than there is 'proper karate'... although Olympic TK is clearly quite different from what most people would be learning in clubs around the world, these things are always in flux. Olympic boxing is different from 'proper' boxing, etc.

I admit I find the TK a bit dull, considering how good these guys are supposed to be it looks a bit messy. But on the other hand the Judo makes TK look wonderful - such a boring sport to watch.

That is not true about proper Taekwondo. Proper taekwondo, or if you like 'traditional' taekwondo, is the form invented and formalised originally to teach the Korean army. The ITF now teach it worldwide. There was no taekwondo before that.

It includes a lot more than you see in the Olympics, which is but a small part chosen for spectator entertainment (and competitor safety). There is no debate within the art about which is which.

I too find Judo boring to watch.

[d000hg]

TK was invented from various other martial arts, there is nothing special about it - as with most martial arts they stole things they liked and built a system around it.

Having been to TK classes, I find it most impractical and doubt very much this is exactly what they teach soldiers... practical fighting requires knowledge of wrestling and grappling and dirty tricks.

[Gentile]

I lost a lot of respect for TKD seeing how impractical it is in real life. E.g., have a look at this clip from the 2008 Olympics, where Cuban 80Kg TKD fighter Ángel Matos sucker kicks the referee in the face because he didn't agree with a decision he'd made. Leaving the unsportsmanly behaviour to one side, if you're a black belt in a heavyweight class, an Olympic champion no less, and you still can't drop somebody by sucker kicking them in the face when they're not looking, that doesn't say much for your technique. The ref only received a cut lip in that case (whilst Ángel Matos and his coach rightly received a ban for life).

There aren't a lot of MMA guys that come from a TKD background, because even when your technique is effective (unlike Ángel Matos's there), once it goes to ground it's all over for anyone that only knows how to kick and punch.

[Gentile]

Actually, I've changed my mind about TKD. These two are too cute.

[EternalOptimist]

TK was invented from various other martial arts, there is nothing special about it - as with most martial arts they stole things they liked and built a system around it.

Having been to TK classes, I find it most impractical and doubt very much this is exactly what they teach soldiers... practical fighting requires knowledge of wrestling and grappling and dirty tricks.

Practical fighting relies on sticking the guy down within half a second. If it goes on longer than that, you need either strength, aggression, numbers, fitness, moral ascendancy, body mass, or a massive amount of skill.
Skill, sadly, is the least useful attribute in real hand to hand combat

[Doggy Styles]

TK was invented from various other martial arts, there is nothing special about it - as with most martial arts they stole things they liked and built a system around it.

Having been to TK classes, I find it most impractical and doubt very much this is exactly what they teach soldiers... practical fighting requires knowledge of wrestling and grappling and dirty tricks.

You probably didn't do it for very long then.

They are wary about teaching the nastier stuff to joe public until you prove yourself responsible enough not to misuse it, generally after you achieve your black belt, and even then... As someone else said on here a while ago in the context of martial arts, the human body is a fragile thing.

It is true they adopted useful techniques from other fighting forms, they would be silly not to, but they formalised it into a standard form for the military and you are completely wrong about that. You can find this out on any website.

Perhaps your teacher didn't know much about it because we were taught its history, formation and uses very early.

What grade did you achieve?