On the subject of Tae Kwon Do, I have recently an interesting experience with that art.
I'm currently in a self-defense school that teaches pretty much the same methods and theories that our local police and sheriff departments use. It seems to be nothing more than things that have been tried and proven through trial and error over years of collective experience, rather than a certain style that has its roots in Asian Country X. If I likened the system to anything else, I'd say Kenpo is the closest.
Before that, I had almost three years of TKD training.
This last tuesday was a sparring night, and, well, I kicked ass (if I say so myself
) .
What highlighted the session, though, was sparring against my instructor, who's never been outside of the system that this school teaches. We stayed at kicking range because that's where I'm comfortable and he wasn't pushing me because he doesn't know me very well yet.
So we're trading kicks back and forth. I realized that any time I just throw a regular ol' kick at him, he blocks it and closes distance (but couldn't pummel me when close because I'm VERY good at jumping away ^_^; ). So I went back to my sparring experiences from TKD for my next move.
I threw a jumping straight kick at him. He saw me move, of course, and went to block... my left leg. My left leg was only launching me into the air. My right foot was unobstructed all the way to his chest and BAM! Surprise!!! He stepped away real fast and seemed a little confused until he realized where the kick came from.
The moral of the story is this:
No matter what anyone says about TKD not being a combative art, always know that a good TKD fighter CAN do a thing or two that'll turn the fight. TKD is not "useless" by any means.
Having said that, I still would not pick TKD as my art if I were looking for one to use for SD.