Olympic Tae Kwon Do

[Antonius]

I can't believe that I forgot about this topic. I must have been distracted by hurricanes and my first week of acupuncture school.

So...did anyone see any of the olympic Tae Kwon Do? I'm curious to hear comments before for I offer my own.

[KungFuJoe]

I saw some. I was actually wondering what you thought of it as per a discussion which occurred in a previous thread.

It's hard for me to judge it since I've never practiced TKD before, and I've never sparred with that much padding either.

My sense is that it really is a "sport" in the context of the Olympics. Most of the major techniques in Shaolin are simply illegal. Plus it is hard to judge the power of strikes that do land. They fight at an unusual range and are not as subtle with feinting as I might have expected.

Stances are not as solid as in Shaolin. I saw lots of hopping like a boxer and less agile stability (but then they may not need it?). There is a wide range of kicking. But there are many kicks in Shaolin that I did not see either.

Basically, what I saw were "point fight style boxing matches" with kicking, but I ony saw a few matches.

What would happen if someone defended against a kick with "Tame Tiger with Beads"? Would it be illegal to try to kick the opponents lead leg? I'm just not sure that Shaolin would work in the context of the "sport".

The obvious extension of this is whether or not some of us could eventually try out for Olympic TKD. I personally think it's possible. Anything is possible. I would think that putting several hours a day into Golden Bridge and one of the Arts of Lightness (I had the pleasure of reading about several of them in The Complete Book of Shaolin). Might be something to have fun with.

Or how about Judo with Tiger Claw?

[Antonius]

It's most definitely a sport, and I think we can even judge it within that context. To judge it as a martial art is a waste of time. It's a sport. My grandmother could beat them in a street fight.

It's hard for me to judge it since I've never practiced TKD before

I've practiced and sparred with some good ones. Well, I thought they were just good. Turns out they're better than good. Turns out they're above Olympic level.

This is the main source of my confusion over the Olympics. Even my parents raised an eyebrow when I said that I've sparred with people of a much higher caliber than anything I saw in the Olympics. "It's the Olympics!" they said. Naturally, we assume that the people at the Olympics are the best in the world. And they were, in everything except TKD.

Until I saw the Olympics (thanks to Tivo) this year, it never occurred to me that I had sparred above an Olympic level. I'm not exaggerating, and I'm not mistaken. I am sure of this. The level of TKD and Karate point sparring that I have experienced is much higher than anything I saw in the Olympics.

For example, throughout the tournament, I couldn't understand why no one was using hook kicks (striking with the heel and bottom of foot). Headshots are worth two points, not to mention the possibility of a knockout. Since the hands are always held below the waist, the head is wide open for high kicks, especially hook kicks.

Finally, in the heavyweight men's match, the big Korean timed a jump-spinning-hook kick to the bigger Greek's chin, knocking him out cold. It was the best thing I saw, and it wasn't even that pretty. The Korean didn't even land on his feet. His timing was decent, but then again the Greek was telegraphing his moves an hour ahead of time.

The guys I sparred with did this kind of thing all the time. I knew a guy who could land a jump-spinning-hook on your face WITHOUT hurting you. He had that much control. If you don't know how hard this is, then trust me -- it's hard. I've only met a few people who can do it (I'm not one of them).

I saw no one in the Olympics with anything even approaching this kind of kicking skill. For example, I saw no one who could throw double kicks (same leg) with power the way Bill "Superfoot" Wallace could. He could throw a middle roundhouse, then throw a high hook kick with the same leg with enough power to knock you out.

We called these kicks "defensive kicks", but they were really just well timed counters. The guys I trained with did it with hook kicks, side kicks, and spinning back kicks, and they did it well enough to stop you in your tracks. Even with padding, these kicks were powerful -- so powerful that you always had to watch out for them. A hook kick (or spinning hook!) to the jaw could be a knockout (as we saw in the Olympics), and a side kick or a spinning back kick to the body could break ribs, even through padding.

What I saw in the Olympics was child's play compared to this. Everything was sloppy, and 90% of the techniques were roundhouse kicks. A few axe kicks. A few weak back kicks. That's about it.

I was shocked.

The obvious extension of this is whether or not some of us could eventually try out for Olympic TKD.

I've thought about it. A while back, in one of the heated grappling discussions I think, someone made fun of me for talking about winning the gold in TKD. Now I have to laugh. Unlike the rest of the Olympics, the level for TKD is pathetically low. I know guys who could have won that tournament easily even without Shaolin training.

(Winning with Shaolin training is easy. Train Iron Fist to a decent level, then use repeated Black Tigers to the completely unprotected chest. Hand shots to the chest count for 1 point if they are powerful, not that you'd know it from the Olympics.)

So. the obvious question is -- why was the level so low? Why weren't there higher caliber people competing for gold?

[drunken boxer]

I think its important to differentiate between sport taekwondo (which is what it is called by the participants themselves) and taekwondo as a martial art.
Some of my friends practise sport taekwondo and are a continual source of amusement to me since one of them explained the rules to me - no punches to the head and no kicks to the legs! They tell me that kicks to the head and body are better, more dangerous etc. Which to me is waste of time, a complete joke, because in kickboxing for example where all taekwondo moves are allowed as well, people heavily rely on kicks to the legs and punches to the head - if spinning, flying kicks were better they would use them! Don't get me wrong, I had a kickboxing teacher who could have beaten me with one kick to the head/chest/stomach/ribs, he was also a karate something-dan blackbelt and very powerful (even when I was holding the kick shield he could floor me with a kick to that). But in sparring I never gave him the space to use the kick, I used the boxing tactic of pinning him against the wall, ropes etc and that gave him a huge problem as he had never trained 'in-fighting' skills. This tactic works well, my boxing teacher always told me let this type of guy (who relies on kicks) throw one kick (a boxer should be able to react to a much faster attack ie a jab, so the kick should be easier to see coming) and block it, or move in before he has thrown it, then get in close and smash him up.
But, before I sound too cocky, that doesn't mean I think I could beat everyone who does those sports/martial arts. If I was confident that I could use my kungfu/boxing skills to succeed at any combat sport, then I would do it, be it judo, kickboxing, K1, UFC, etc. If a guy earns millions of pounds for a fight and I thought I could beat him, you better believe I'd be trying to do it!
But even in the amateur sports I would try, just for the glory/adulation etc!
I suppose this proves that I still haven't conquered my ego. But as for the prize fighting, I would like to do this just so I could earn enough to quit my job and concentrate on taijiquan!
However before I criticise taekwondo too much there is another form of taekwondo. I saw a documentary on this featuring an officer in the korean military, who had trained taekwondo all his life, and used it in real combat situations where it was quite literally kill or be killed. He said he hadn't time to think, the moves just flowed together (which is something we aim for in kungfu, right?) You know how you get an idea if someone is telling the truth? I'm sure he was, he wasn't boastful at all, rather he seemed filled with sorrow at the damage he had done with taekwondo, but grateful that it had kept him alive. I wouldn't fancy any sort of match against this guy!

[KungFuJoe]

I didn't realize that they couldn't actually put their hands above their waste. I was wondering what was going on there.

Now I wonder if you can be deducted for covering your targets? Maybe that's what I was missing. So using a low stance to evade a kick might actually "hide a target" and be illegal. Rolling on the ground and using "Kicking the Golden Bell" would probably be illegal for the same reason.

So here's the thing: are their Master's out there who are going to force their students to train and fight like that? I don't think so. You would have to find someone who trains and teaches TKD as a sport and not as a martial art. Training it like a MA might hurt your chances at gold because you might instinctively mess up (I'd raise my hands above my waiste all the time subconsciously). The "sport" culture is very different from the "traditional martial art culture" and I would bet that any such sport training system or teacher is more "Westenized" than traditional.

In the ten years it might take for a beginning student to reach Olympic standard TKD, very few traditional Masters are going to force their students to train and fight like an Olympic athlete. Keep your hands below your waiste? Don't cover up your vital targets from your opponent?

someone made fun of me for talking about winning the gold in TKD

I remember your comment being greeted with some skepticism. I remember exactly what I thought at the time (bearing in mind that my understanding of an internal artist's training regime is still somewhat limited).

We have a typical amateur TKD athlete who wakes up at 4am, goes for a 10km jog, then lifts weights, stretches and moves through agility exercises. They go to work, come home at night and do kicking drills, two man drills and sparring.

Then we have an internal artist. Wakes up at 4am, taps energy from the cosmos, completes the small universe, then does internal force training for about an hour (various exercises), maybe Sinew Metamorphisis. Goes to work. Comes home, then does drills, Plum flower formation, and sparring.

Five years passes. Who wins? Who has more force? Who is more agile? etc.

I didn't know if what you were saying was true for sure (it is counter intuitive), but I could certainly see how it could be true.

[KungFuJoe]

Whoops. I meant metamorphosis.

[Antonius]

I didn't realize that they couldn't actually put their hands above their waste. I was wondering what was going on there.

No no. There's no actual RULE against blocking despite the fact that it appears to be anathema to the athletes. You can block. You can even punch (just not to the face).

In one of the matches, the guy accidentally put his hands up in a cross type block (lead arm up, rear arm down), thereby mostly absorbing the kick. I know it was an accident because you could see there was no intent in his arms. Nevertheless, it still absorbed enough of the kick that the judges didn't score a point. What kills me is that announcer praised him for his superb blocking skills.

This was the only semblance of a block that I saw in the entire tournament. Why don't they keep their hands up to guard their torso (the area where 90% of the points are scored)? What possible reason could there be for such laziness?

Five years passes. Who wins? Who has more force? Who is more agile? etc.

I think you're misunderstanding me. I'm not talking about Shaolin vs. TKD here. I don't even need to include Shaolin training. I'm saying that, even for TKD and kickboxing, this was still low level.

Olympic athletes are supposed to be a in a different league. If you are a runner, you know how fast the Track & Field athletes are. They are superhuman. The Marathoners run faster for 26 miles than most of us can run for 1. That's my idea of an Olympian.

The TKD people there just weren't of the same caliber. Bill Wallace could probably go in there at age 59 and clean up.

[KungFuJoe]

Nope I understand you completely.

I have no idea though. If they can raise their arms then why not? I don't get it either.

[Frogular]

No no. There's no actual RULE against blocking despite the fact that it appears to be anathema to the athletes. You can block. You can even punch (just not to the face).

That's really interesting. Could it be the way atheletes are selected and groomed to represent a country at the olympics? It's far simpler for track and field - national coaches only need to look at the atheletes' results (a simple, quantitative, numeric result) in smaller competitions and invite the best for tryouts. But how do you begin to look for top TKD people to form a team? With all the different schools, both affilated and non-affilated to national TKD organizations, coaches certainly can't be going to every dojo to select the best, right?

[Chiahua]

Off topic, but would you say the calibre of Olympic Judo was closer to good non-Olympic Judo?

[drunken boxer]

oh no!

Anyone seen any episodes of the program "mind body and kick ass moves"?
I suppose this just applies to the UK guys as I think its only shown on BBC3.
Bear with me its relevant to this thread!
Anyway, I was watching it for the first time the other day, and really enjoying it.
Basically this guy goes around the world and meets various martial arts experts and martial arts movie stars. For example in this episode he met the son of Bruce Lee's famous wing chun master Yip Man.
He also travels around britain demonstrating kungfu techniques to various groups of people, in this episode he showed some nightclub doormen what to do when attacked with various weapons, and showed some women's wrestlers how to add some kungfu techniques into their performance.
His moves looked very good.
At the end of the show he went to the Phillipenes and went to a club where people put on protective gear and fight with each other, it looked like sanshou or kickboxing.
He agreed to take part and I was looking forward to him showing them how it was done, however - the kickboxer pasted him!
And what's worse, he found out afterwards that the guy’s ability came from being a taekwondo competitor at the olympics!
I'm not saying this means kickboxers or taekwondo exponents will beat kungfu exponents, far from it - the other kungfu experts were also too good for him, especially Master Yip Man's son who is 80!
I think they would have beaten the taekwondo guy. I just think the presenter was surpised to be beaten by methods which were so crude compared to his.
I think it’s a case of him having superior techniques but the taekwondo guy having superior skill.

[Grimlock]

I'm sure that everyone has been losing sleep wondering about answers to the questions posed nearly a year ago in this thread , but I stumbled across it and can't help but reply. This is especially because I found the fights I saw boring and the commentators infuriating, and before I found this thread, my only outlet was an email rant to NBC. Ah, at least it amused my friends who read it!

Blocking philosophy
The Olympic style TKD blocking philosophy is much different than that of a self-defense art. Remember, points are only scored if you kick the opponent in the body or head, or you punch him in the body. Either way, you have to hit with enough force to cause what is termed "trembling shock". What that really means is that you have to forceably move them a little with the technique. So in regards to blocking, if you place something (like your arm) between your opponent's kick and your chest, you have "successfully blocked" the attack because his kick hit your arm and not your chest.

When my schoolmates and I fought, we used this blocking principle to our advantage by throwing lots of sidekicks. This was effective partly because it caught people off guard (90% of attacks seem to be round kicks), but mostly because after you take a couple of sidekicks to the upper arm, you don't really want to block it that way anymore! More importantly, you start thinking about that sidekick. Now we could use the sidekick to set up interesting combinations. For instance, throwing a sidekick to the body and flipping it up into a round kick to the head, Superfoot Wallace style.

Punches
Scoring is highly subjective, and since Olympic style TKD is supposed to showcase the pride of Taekwondo -its kicks-, it wouldn't look very good if the best fighters only punched and rarely kicked, would it?

For this reason, the judges consistently de-emphasize punches. My old Taekwondo instructor, who has been around the Olympic TKD world for a long time, told me once that the only time she saw a punch score was when the puncher broke the defender's sternum through the chest protector!

Arms hanging, no guard up
The reason why Olympic style TKD fighters do this is because 90% of the time, the attack they are defending is a round kick to the body. With their arms down, they can block/absorb/deflect these attacks by simply shifting their shoulders.

If it makes you feel any better, when I fought Olympic style, my back hand was always up by my chin.

There, I'm sure you will all be able to sleep better now!