[Amnell]

Originally Posted by Tenchu

There are different types of it, Amnell. Dont generalize. TKD originated from Karate some 50 years ago or something. Neither of the styles have ever been quite so sneaky in ways of taking down the opponent (eye gouges, ball snatching) but it goes without saying; they are designed to hurt someone. It is more common to associate the TKD style with its own sport of armoured practitioners simply trying to touch each other, yet the style is present in kick boxing tournaments.

Do you understand the difference between ametuer and professional fighting? TKD is more common in ametuer, where it is scoring. But the goal of a professional fight is to KO or seriously injure your opponent. The strikes in TKD and Karate are designed to hurt people. The kick I am talking about is present in the style because that is what the people who made the style figured was the best way to perform that kind of kick.

You can call it a sport, and not fighting, but I wouldn't. I am training to KO people, sprain or even break joints from striking, and disable my opponent as quickly and as best I can.

... I dont think you have much experience here...

TKD did not originate from Karate. It has influences from Karate, but its direct parent is a Korean art form that was practiced by armies about a hundred years prior.

They type of TKD I'm talking about is type that your average soccer mom takes her five year old to; the type that teaches you the rules and techniques used by Olympic competitors without teaching you a damn thing about how to survive a lethal encounter on the street. That's the most common form of TKD you can find, at least in the States--and I'm sure in most places, also.

TKD is an Olympic event, yet they score by points for contact. Seems professional enough to me :/ . What you're talking about is whether or not the system is based around hurting the competitors or safeguarding the competitors. MT, boxing, MMA and the like are all based on a system where your goal is to beat the shit out of the other guy more effectively than he does you. Wrestling, TKD, and fencing competitions are typically point based so that you don't have to wail on the guy to get points--instead, you need finesse.

Remember that in English, the word "professional" only means "a person who is paid to perform a service". No where in any definition of "professional" are the words "expert, badass, uber1337," or "hardcore".

If something is performed competitively under controlled conditions, it's usually considered a sport. TKD is a sport art. MT is a sport art. MT is much more combative than TKD because it has been practiced under rules that require you to injure your opponent to win, hence a lot of the super-ninja things that were developed three hundred years ago to kill an opponent quickly are still present. It's still a sport art.

Insofar as competition goes, no, I haven't done a whole lot of that. However, I have trained in TKD for some time and have plenty of experience with it.

Originally Posted by Tenchu

If I believed that, which I mostly dont, I would say you would have broken your foot by now. The MT kick is too powerful to use the foot to strike with. Something I figured out by trial and error. You have to use the shin. The TKD version of the kick flicks the foot, so the power is not delivered in the same way, making it technically an entirly different kick, even though they look so similar. The foot work also has to change a great deal. Given the TKD stance will have you standing both feet in a stright line to your opponent it is impossible to launch the MT round kick from this position. Simply, by swinging your leg from this angle you will have poor balance and loose too much power from it. MT boxers stand more like a boxer than a TKD guy. You can mix the kicks, I do, but involves a lot of thinking about what you can and can not do and what you sacrafice and keep and a lot of adaption of the styles. It is impossible to simply add a single kick into a style in most cases. If you think you can you should record it on video so I can see exactly what you are doing.

Indeed, we did use our shin. I always hated that because I couldn't feel how hard I was hitting and it made me feel like I had no control over my own power :P .

You're mistaken about the stance in TKD. Our stance was not in a straight line. In fact, ANY art that teaches you to stand with your feet in a straight line to the opponent is a REALLY BAD art. The TKD stance is very deep, which allows for larger movement and a stronger base to launch kicks from. The hips more or less face the opponent, though, as with most styles. We also trained to move from Cat Stance a lot, starting with the fourth belt.

To do the MT Thigh Kick, we did have to include a step, though. It wasn’t so much because the kick didn’t work out of that stance as it was that you get a lot more power if you include the step. The step was a V step to your outside (with your front leg) so that you would have momentum already traveling in the direction of your kick and so you could plant your foot in such a way that you wouldn’t twist your ankle around four times in the event that you missed your opponent.

Originally Posted by ”Tenchu”

... ALL TKD kicks are modern... silly... And I dont agree in that. From everything I have learned from TKD it is the transfer of power that is emphasized. I have heard of people doing side kicks and striking with the ball of the foot instead of the heel to add more range, but loose all power, just to score a hit, yet this is not actually the style, just cheating.

In the sense that the art itself hasn’t been around for a whole century yet, sure . When I say “modern”, I mean the way that it is most typically taught today.

That’s an example of the sport taking over the combat. At my school, we were taught to use the blade of our foot to concentrate as much energy in as small an area as possible to deliver the most damage. The self-defense school I go to now also teaches to use the blade of the foot, but their theory is that it’s the best way to kick a person’s knee from the side because the edge of your foot can almost fit in between the bones in that joint and tear tendons without even misaligning the joint itself, or something like that :P. That foot shape wasn’t taught at my TKD school until the eighth belt, when you start learning to break boards. Up to then, the emphasis was placed on your flexibility and your speed.