Post 3: The discrepancy between training, sparring and self-defence in Taekwondo
1. Taekwondo- only well known for its kicks?
Taekwondo (TKD) is well known for its advanced, acrobatic and sometimes flashy kicks. One may assume that such a leg centric, acrobatic martial art would be hardly practical in a live self-defence situation and certainly not in another competition format like under UFC MMA rules. And there are a lot of people out there believing that. Despite that I touched on the matter of modern Taekwondo being an effective and practical Martial Art for self-defence in one of my last posts. To rephrase my statement from earlier.
I believe it can be an effective self-defence system when taught correctly.
The Martial Art of Taekwondo offers the subject of self-defence named hosinsul (literally self-defence in Korean) but the methods are often times developed poorly without an organized system behind it or copied from other martial arts lacking its contexts and therefore taught in a vacuum. Of course this is a generalization and in some places one can surely learn some valuable skills in hosinsul nowadays and there are probably a lot of people out there being taught and using it that way but I want to discuss another topic today.
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| (1) Typical competition sparring scene |
2. The problem how Taekwondo is taught nowadays
Have you ever wondered why we do poomsae? One instructor of mine once responded to that question that they were for self-defence. However we don't use any of those movement patterns either in hosinsul nor in sparring. Further there is nearly zero overlap between the 'subjects' of taekwondo. We do poomsae differently from hosinsul, differently from sparring (kyorugi) and certainly from the fundamental line drills and one step sparring. Nowadays 'being good' in one step sparring looks different than 'being good' in hosinsul or sparring etc.. But shouldn't the individual parts of a system inform the whole system? There is of course an argument to be made for soft skills (e.g. alignment, breathing, body control, bio mechanics etc.) one can acquire through the practice of those individually. But isn't it more efficient and in particular didactically more appropriate to learn those 'soft skills' directly through an explicit exercise or drill?
I want the Taekwondo community (especially WT Kukkiwon-style Taekwondo) to notice that there is a considerable gap between what is taught in the 'subjects' of it, especially in forms (poomsae) and what actually is applied in sparring and self-defence.
What do I mean by that? Most combat sports have different specific methods to acquire a specific skill. Still the overall method of acquiring skill is universal- be it in martial arts, sports, cooking, academics or life in general. Imitate- Innovate- Invent (keyword shu-ha-ri- I will do an article about it in the future). E.g. in boxing you learn a jab cross combo by firstly correctly copying the shape of the movement from an instructor. Then you practice it on pads for the soft skill of timing and precision and later on a heavy bag for the skill of power and finally with a living breathing training partner live under stress to pressure test the technique. There can be in-between steps here too e.g. task sparring, light sparing etc.. This was a short condensed overview but one can see the progression of the specific skill acquired by training those attributes explicitly and with intention. That is in my opinion the core problem Taekwondo is lacking nowadays if it wants to call itself a complete Martial Art system. The intentionality of its individual parts.
3. How I think it ought to be
However I believe there is already a systematic way for learning self-defence skills integrated in the martial art of taekwondo since its inception but it was forgotten in the sands of time. Of course I am speaking of the poomsae- the prearranged forms one have to perform to progress through ranks.
Traditional Martial Arts like Taekwondo, Karate and various Kung-Fu styles have solo exercises where a sequence of different movements are performed in a specific order. Those are called forms (or kata/poomsae/taolu depending of the culture tehy are derived from). Those are performed on the one hand on a very high technical level on the other hand totally separated from the reality of combat and foremost without a concrete and explicit connection to the goal of combative proficiency. That can be seen for example by some interpretation of the forms as one being attacked by multiple attackers. This was never the case and intention- a form is designed to deal with one adversary and that was stated by multiple old masters (citation needed but I think Mabuni said it in one of his letters).
It has not always been like that. The old masters intended the forms as one puzzle piece- a tool for the goal to make one proficient in the physical part of self defence. The individual parts of the training informs the greater goal. Hence first doing the fundamentals body movements (e.g. line drilling) to copy exactly the technique (which represents an idea- a/one solution to a combative problem based on a principle). Then one should do partner drills for distance management (e.g. padwork or one-step sparring) and timing etc. and then free sparring (kyorugi) to pressure test the technique. At the end the combative lessons and principles (- I explicitly don't state techniques but principles (!)- principles are universal and can be applied to many situations- techniques aren't) are put together to a form. In this regard the form is kind of a mnemonic device (in the old days they didn't have videos or youtube). Nowadays we have it backwards. We learn the form first but we don't extract the principle the forms teaches. We only reenact the form without sense- kind of like a dance. This was a condensed summary of the poomsae process and there can be steps in between but I will discuss the matter of the poomsae process in another article. But these specific steps were forgotten in the sands of time.
Gichin Funakoshi (Founder of Shotokan Karate and Master and instructor of various TKD pioneers), Kenwa Mabuni (Founder of Shito Ryu Karate), Choi Hong Hi (“Father” of TKD) and several other Martial Artists who where directly or indirectly responsible for TKD’s conception stated time and time again that the forms exist for the application in combat (I may do a more thorough research and discussion on this matter in the future).
To them the forms hold the martial knowledge of our arts.
So why is it that the sparring and competition of WT Kukkiwon-style TKD looks completely different to the forms? Shouldn't we apply the techniques learnt in those other 'subjects' freely in sparring to test them under pressure? Even worse the self-defence techniques learnt in hosinsul often do not correspond to the movements learnt in the forms at all. In many cases they are lifted from a different Martial Art because the curriculum, the syllabus of techniques in Taekwondo, is deemed incomplete or inefficient. I therefore conclude that we are doing extra work by learning our forms- the poomsae AND a completely different way to spar AND a completely different way to handle self-defence. Is it not much more efficient to learn the movements and their underlying principles via the form and then apply them to sparring/self-defence when they are well understood? I argue that that was the way it was intended to be. Further I think that if the form doesn’t have meaning like often stated (even by some of my instructors) we are just doing rhythmic movement without meaning which basically is dancing or figure skating. (I don’t hate on dancing etc. It is just an example I even like some kind of dancing) And to be honest if I want to dance I rather go to a dance club then do it with TKD movements.
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| (2) Ap-Chagi/Front kick in the form/poomsae Taegeuk Il- Chang |
Of course there is the matter of doing the form because you like to do the movement and it feels good doing those movements. I have no objection to this- more power to you! There is a lot of fun to get from it and at least you have a specific goal in mind- being good at that specific form- and have a clear path to it! But in my opinion there is more to a Martial Art. In my opinion everybody who studies the Martial Arts should at least learn the basics of self defence (physical and non physical- keyword law, alertness etc.) before moving on to the more fun part of his or her journey be it doing patterns, foot fencing, strangling or other things.
'Does having a book about Astrophysics in your shelf make you a Physicist?'
So I stated that forms contain our martial knowledge. But what use does it have to learn the form and not understanding it hence taking the lessons learned and applying them in a different context? I doesn’t make any sense and it doesn’t make you a martial artist if you can only perform the form. To quote Iain Abernathy. 'Does having a book about Astro Physics in your shelf make you a Physicist? -Of course not you have to study it and make it your own'” But most taekwondoin nowadays stop at this point. They have the book in their shelf but never read it!
4. Giving credit were credit is due
But not everything Taekwondo is terrible and doomed beyond help. The current kicking centric rule set of WT’s competition (jayu daeryeon/gyeorugi) and the athletes' resulting specialization in kicking often leads to one’s kicking ability being honed to a very high level. Especially in comparison to other martial artist with a similar amount/time of training. There is a discussion to be have about the use of kicks- especially high kicks- in self defence situation. But that is for another time. In my opinion a strong, reliable kick is a viable tool to have in a self-defence situation. There is no other technique that is more pressure tested than the basic Taekwondo kicks e.g. side kick and roundhouse kick- especially how it is taught and honed.
In my opinion a strong, reliable kick is a viable tool to have in a self-defence situation.
On the other side of the spectrum Taekwondoin have also implemented modern TKD competion strategies and techniques in other combat formats like the UFC. (MMA does NOT equal self defence) People who brought TKD to the octagon include Anthony Pettis, Bas Rutten, Anderson Silva or the legendary Cung Le to name a few. Of course the development of the new rules set and the eHogu discourage 'full power kicking' which is what made TKD so useful in the octagon (that is another discussion for the future) and of course in self- defence. But the fact still stands. Taekwondo produces a lot of good kicker.
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