Please allow me to jump in. I started TKD back in 1982 in what would be considered today a "traditional" Jidokwan school (forms, one step sparring based in part on techniques in the forms, free sparring allowing punches to the face, sweeps and, for 3rd gup on up, controlled takedowns and throws to pressure test the one step sparring technique allowable under this rule set) and have witnessed the devolution of TKD into its sport oriented form. I have trained at a variety of dojang since my first Jidokwan school, some more sport oriented than others, and have tended to try to find the most "traditional" that I could within the WTF umbrella.

To a large extent, I agree with Abe that for grappling, cross training is a better approach than crappling. The last TKD school I trained and taught at, we also had seperate Judo and Hapkido classes (the founder of the school was an 8th dan Judoka as well as a 9th dan in TKD). The Gracie Jiu Jitsu school I go to now also has classes in Muay Thai and MMA. I think that in order to learn good grappling or good striking skills, it is important to get a good foundation in each of them seperately, otherwise you run the risk of learn shitriking and crappling.

While I applaud Oldman for his desire to (re-)introduce more self-defense into his TKD curriculum, but I think we don't think we can divorce the tournament rule set from this discussion. It all comes down to the purpose of sparring in the dojang and ultimately what the purpose of learning TKD is. If the purpose of sparring, is to pressure test your techniques in a controlled setting, then are you sparring to develop your techniques for WTF competition or for SD applications? We can all see the problem with the tournament rule set in terms of SD in terms of no punches to the face, sweeps or takedowns (never mind no grappling, knees, elbow or leg kicks - thats a whole other can of worms - the other techniques listed were all allowed under the "traditional" rule set that I started learning TKD under). The problem with not altering this rule set while trying to implement more SD into one's curriculum is that to be competitive under the WTF rule set, one develops bad habits for SD (e.g. hopping around too much, too high of a stance, dropping the hands, over reliance on evasion over blocking, etc). So, we have three choices with regards to sparring:

1) don't use the WTF rule set and either create your own or use one of the more "traditional" rule sets used by the old kwans;

2) change the WTF rule set;

3) teach both styles of sparring on different days.

The problem with 1) is that some students may want to compete in tournaments and not training under the WTF rule set will make them less competive. You can always say "tough luck, we don't train for WTF tournaments here," but that may cut back on enrollment. Yeah, I know, we shouldn't be concerned with enrollment, but having been on the business management side of a dojang, I can tell you that its awul hard to keep a school running without a fairly large number of paying students.

2) is a hard row to hoe, but not completely implausible now witht the ever more likely WTF-ITF merger. The ITF rule set allows punches to the head, and I think sweeps (not sure about takedowns) and from what I've read, the North Koreans are demanding substantial changes in the tournament rule set, and we may likely see at the inclusion of punches to the face in Oly sparring sometime in the future (from what I've read, they may also move to a circular ring and score kicks to the head as three points to encourage more kicking). Maybe a little grass roots pressure from disgruntled TKDists could help this process along?

3) seem like a pretty good comprimise, but the problem is that students would have to increase the amount of time they train to get profficient in both styles and you run the risk of confusing newbies, resulting in shitriking.

I must admit, this is something that I go back and forth and round and round on. I'm currently applying for academic teaching positions and one of the "bonuses" that I've included in my cover letters is the possibiltiy that I could also start a TKD program at the colleges and universities that I have appliec to. The dilema would be "what kind of TKD program"? I'm worried that colleges and universities would be more interested in a sport style TKD program that could compete against other college and university teams that they would be in a "traditional" TKD program.

Just a note...I got that backwards...the comps I was used to DON'T score punches to the head, but DO score to the body (but most of the time only reverse punches)

I agree. From what I've seen it's all WTF comps that don't score punches to the body. I don't know much at all about ITF comps.

This is also something that has evolved a bit over the last twenty years. When I first started competing, reffing, and judging at TKD competitions, any closed fist technique to the body was scored as long as it had power. Of course, the problem is that judging power from a corner seat can be somewhat subjective, especially when competitors are wearing hogu and the judges at most local tournaments (and even a lot of state and regional level tournaments) tend to be instructors from the schools the competitors come from. Then the standard became "trembling shock" - i.e. the guy on the recieving end has to be either knocked back, doubled over, or stopped cold in his tracks when advancing. There were no real restricitions on what kind of hand technique could be used to create this "trembling shock," but over time it came to be pretty much restricted in the judges eyes to reverse punches.

Hey panther...do you have any video of this type of sparring? Im not saying I dont believe you, I just want to see it for myself, so I can understand it better.

I am looking to change the curriculum (by hook or crook) at my school. Very soon there will be an opportune time to try and implement my plan. I want to be ready.

*edit* grasshopper lol

I'm sorry, but I don't have video. I have some digital pix taken at our brown belt exam though. One of my daughters was working with a girl preparing for her BB exam in the HKD moves. Her performance was the best of all five of my family members. Her reactions to the attackers was very intuitive and that's when I first realized that you don't really get anything out of TKD until you train for your BB. That's my perception of my school's training, which is USTKD and WTF.

When you do 2 on 1 sparring, you can do the throws at about 1/2 speed, faster if you know your moves very well.


Huh? Does that mean during sparring they only attack half speed? What the danger of a full speed throw, doesn't your dojang teach how to fall?

95 % of fights end on the ground.


This number gets bigger with every retelling. The original number was closer to 60 or 70% and came from a police report in LA about how many scuffles where the officer was trying to arrest a suspect went to the ground.

If you are going to spit out numbers , source please.

To a large extent, I agree with Abe that for grappling, cross training is a better approach than crappling. The last TKD school I trained and taught at, we also had seperate Judo and Hapkido classes (the founder of the school was an 8th dan Judoka as well as a 9th dan in TKD). The Gracie Jiu Jitsu school I go to now also has classes in Muay Thai and MMA. I think that in order to learn good grappling or good striking skills, it is important to get a good foundation in each of them seperately, otherwise you run the risk of learn shitriking and crappling.

Im not advocating teaching grappling, as I have said, I am NOT qualified to teach it. So, it would most definitely be crappling.

I am looking for a return to the SD aspects of TKD. Simply allowing the knees, elbows, low kicks and takedowns that seem to be present in the forms.

The only ground fighting (for lack of a better phrase) that would be taught is just plain old, how to get up stuff. It would just to help someone be less likely to freak out when they end up on the ground.

As they say "It aint somewhere, you havent been before "



While I applaud Oldman for his desire to (re-)introduce more self-defense into his TKD curriculum, but I think we don't think we can divorce the tournament rule set from this discussion. It all comes down to the purpose of sparring in the dojang and ultimately what the purpose of learning TKD is. If the purpose of sparring, is to pressure test your techniques in a controlled setting, then are you sparring to develop your techniques for WTF competition or for SD applications?

The purpose would be to develop SD skills.



We can all see the problem with the tournament rule set in terms of SD in terms of no punches to the face, sweeps or takedowns (never mind no grappling, knees, elbow or leg kicks - thats a whole other can of worms - the other techniques listed were all allowed under the "traditional" rule set that I started learning TKD under). The problem with not altering this rule set while trying to implement more SD into one's curriculum is that to be competitive under the WTF rule set, one develops bad habits for SD (e.g. hopping around too much, too high of a stance, dropping the hands, over reliance on evasion over blocking, etc).



Im not worried about the point sparring, competition ruleset. Either people will see the value of the reintroduced techniques, and change competition rules to better fit the SD curriculum (of course, sweeps would be allowed) or they will learn the current ruleset, and abide by that during competition.

Im not advocating teaching grappling, as I have said, I am NOT qualified to teach it. So, it would most definitely be crappling.

My comments were more directed at the post saying that you needed to included grappling to make it r34l.


I am looking for a return to the SD aspects of TKD. Simply allowing the knees, elbows, low kicks and takedowns that seem to be present in the forms.

The only ground fighting (for lack of a better phrase) that would be taught is just plain old, how to get up stuff. It would just to help someone be less likely to freak out when they end up on the ground.

As they say "It aint somewhere, you havent been before "



The purpose would be to develop SD skills.



Im not worried about the point sparring, competition ruleset. Either people will see the value of the reintroduced techniques, and change competition rules to better fit the SD curriculum (of course, sweeps would be allowed) or they will learn the current ruleset, and abide by that during competition.

I think we're on the same page here.

FWIW, at the last dojang where I trained/taught (USMAI), a lot of our black belts and a few of our lower ranks cross trained TKD-Judo, TKD-HKD, HKD-Judo, etc (not many did all three on any regular basis). But in the last year before the demise of the dojang over financial/management problems, we did start to integrate all three into sparring (more on that in a bit).

In our TKD classes, we practiced lots of self-defense techniques that involved throws, takedowns, low kicks, elbows and knees in a one-step sparring manner, but not a whole lot of training that was "alive." Motly it was done in a compliant to semi-compliant manner (i.e. after your partner had practiced it slowly a few times with no resisance, you gradually increase resistance so that if you're partner isn't doing the technique right, you don't just go along with it, but try and counter it) On occasion, we'd do a bit of more "alive" training after doing the compiant/semi-compiant partner drills by having the attacker use one of the attacks we'd been drilling to defend against at random and the defender would have to use one of the defenses we'd drilled at random.

After I'd been there a couple of years and started teaching the sparring classes, I tried to get more participation from the Judo and Hapkido students by modifying our sparring rule set. If I had two gup level students sparring, I'd have them spar under WTF rules. If it was two TKD black belt level students or TKD black belt level students and any upper level (i.e. third gup and up) HKD student or black belt, they'd have the option of sparring under my "traditional" rule set (i.e. punches to the face with about 50% power, sweeps and controlled takedowns and throws). For sparring with Judoka 3rd gup and up (TKD students enrolled in the Judo class with at least a 3rd gup in one or the other), we allowed the fight to go to the ground for up to one minute, trying to either get a dominant position for GnP or a submission.

Now that USMAI is defunct, a couple of the TKD black belts have gone on and started their own dojang. I went by a couple of months ago to see how things were going. Because only a couple of their adult students had any interest in competing in tournaments, they were thinking of adopting the type of sparring that we'd done at USMAI in the last year before its demise. Moreover, although they didn't have the black belts from the Hapkido and Judo classes there to teach those arts, they do have a third stripe blue belt in Gracie-Bara Jiu-Jitsu teaching a grappling class twice a week in exchange for free TKD lessons. The've even added a requirement that to get a black belt in TKD in their school that you need at least three months of BJJ. I'm not sure how wise it is to have a blue belt teaching BJJ, but at least I think they are heading in the right direction.

My comments were more directed at the post saying that you needed to included grappling to make it r34l.

Im not sure where I said that. Could you quote it for me. I may need to clarify my thoughts, if that is how it is being interpreted.

2) is a hard row to hoe, but not completely implausible now witht the ever more likely WTF-ITF merger. The ITF rule set allows punches to the head, and I think sweeps (not sure about takedowns) and from what I've read, the North Koreans are demanding substantial changes in the tournament rule set, and we may likely see at the inclusion of punches to the face in Oly sparring sometime in the future (from what I've read, they may also move to a circular ring and score kicks to the head as three points to encourage more kicking). Maybe a little grass roots pressure from disgruntled TKDists could help this process along?

In ITF competition sparring punches to the face are allowed, but no sweeps and takedowns. All hand technique are allowed as long as you hit with the glove and you don't knockout your opponent. In my school at around 2nd gup we start doing sparring with sweeps and takedowns, but they aren't allowed in tournaments.

Im not sure where I said that. Could you quote it for me. I may need to clarify my thoughts, if that is how it is being interpreted.

Sorry for the confusion. I didn't mean a post by you, but a post by someone else earlier in the thread (biomed - post #15).


you must add grappling to your curriculum. 95 % of fights end on the ground. Therefore if you can't fight on the ground you can't fight.

Blues-man, thanks for the clarification. I don't know how we'd be able to get sweeps, takedowns and throws into competition, then. And if you don't have them in competition, most schools aren't going to train them, then. At least it looks like punches may be allowed to the head, though.

Sorry for the confusion. I didn't mean a post by you, but a post by someone else earlier in the thread (biomed - post #15).

Damn you... I spent 10 minutes going back through and looking for it. :)



Blues-man, thanks for the clarification. I don't know how we'd be able to get sweeps, takedowns and throws into competition, then. And if you don't have them in competition, most schools aren't going to train them, then. At least it looks like punches may be allowed to the head, though.

You have a point here. Ultimately point competition is the devil that I am fighting in TKD.

You have a point here. Ultimately point competition is the devil that I am fighting in TKD.

You mean point sparring as in one guy gets a point and they stop and restart at the center of the ring ala Karate point sparring, or as in the judges awarding points for hits in a continuous action bout ala Oly sparring? Boxing, kick boxing, Judo and even BJJ tournaments and the UFC award points for successful techniques, too. Sans a KO or submission, its the ony way to determine a winner in a competition. They all also have techniques that are allowed and disallowed in competition, which provides a degree of safety to the competitors.

I think points could be awarded for throws and takedowns in TKD the same as in Judo comps, but the ref would step in a break up the competitors if they stayed in the clinch for too long like in boxing and would stand them back up again if the person throwing wasn't able to establish dominant position in a fairly short amount of time.

While I don't think competition is the be-all-end-all of MA training, I do think that it has its part in terms of pressure testing your techniques outside of your own school and as a means of QA to weed out McDojo. As such, there needs to be a uniform rule set that everyone can play by that is as least restrictive as possible, while maintaining a degree of safety for the competitors (e.g. how do you allow a safe knifehand strike to the throat, knee to the groin or kicks to the knee - all of which are in the forms and one-steps, but would cause serious injuries in the ring?).

When it comes to training for SD, there are some techniques that are difficult to practice safely (if not impossible) with full speed against a fully resisting opponent. I know that the "too d34dly for t3h st33t" is a big Bullshido taboo, but the fact is that if you did use some SD techniques in sparring or competition, people would get seriously fucked up. The hard part is establishing a ballance in your training and curriculum. If most if your training is in SD techniques that are too dangerous to use full speed against a fulling resisting opponent, then your training is going to be crap. On the other hand, I think its important to learn these techniques as well as the ones that are safer to use in sparring and competition. You never know when they might come in handy and the skills that you develop in sparring should enable you to employ these more dangerous techniques with full speed and power against somone whose safety you are not concerned about (e.g. if I can hit you in the jaw with a backfist in sparring, I have a pretty good chance of landing a knifehand strike to the throat of some douchebag if I need to).

You mean point sparring as in one guy gets a point and they stop and restart at the center

Yep. Thats the point sparring I hate.

As for the rest of your post. I agree 1 bazilion million %.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5q-OeU9Vh0

this is how all sparring should be in TKD and HKD

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5q-OeU9Vh0

this is how all sparring should be in TKD and HKD

To be honest it doesn't look particularly amazing. Maybe it's just the crap editing.