Giving up

**ttankzero** · Posted On: 8/05/2009 2:54pm

This is how it happens. This is the story of the death of a martial art.

WTMA Tae Kwon Do Tournaments

Previously, the sparring matches were full contact point sparring. Attacks below the belt and punches to the face were illegal. Points would be awarded for attacks which caused your opponent to stagger and stop motion; glances and pushes would not stop motion. The adult sparring matches the decision was often made by submission due to strikes or knockout.

Classes focused a lot on how to stay defensible, especially on how to protect your head from kicks. Standing your ground and being able to punch your attacker to make breathing harder and establish distance were key ideals.

I'd go to WTF full-contact tournaments and get boo'd out of the ring. I didn't understand why. I'd often lose 8-1 without suffering a single attack to my face or body. I'd leave the ring looking confused. My opponent would often leave the ring limping or hunched over and grasping his chest or face.

Hard times have fallen on the WTMA organization. Ohio has lost a lot of jobs, and a lot of families which have suffered lay-offs have quit Tae Kwon Do as a hobby. In order to attract more families, Korean masters have been imported to head every school of the main college in our organization.

They've changed the ruleset. They're actually teaching and competing "Olympic" sparring now. Now that I understand the nature of those competitions, I decided I'd eat hits and hope to score a knockout via kick to the head. However, this must have been a common tactic that the masters noticed among the veteran WTMA Taekwondoin, and so they made all contact to the head illegal. We still had to wear funny looking helmets, and they hadn't made the changes to the official rulesheet they passed out to other schools, though they had told and trained their students accordingly.

Not knowing this, I coached a 15 year old kid to headkick some 28 year old guy when he threw a sloppy turning hook kick. The kick connected, the man spun like an off-axis top and fell to the ground. It was awesome.

The kid got a penalty against him. I was upset.

My friend and training partner Vince also did not get the memo. After taking a beating, Vince' opponent jumped forward to try to bypass Vince's wide spinning back kick. He managed to come in behind the kick, and landed in a crouch. For his effort, he got sidekicked on the button. It would have hit him in the chest had he not crouched. It would have been an easy block had he kept his hands up. But instead he got to take a 20 minute nap, and Vince got disqualified.

I got beat bad since my strategy involved throwing the jab-cross-roundhouse for the knockout or using quick, disorienting feint-to-headkick to set up more powerful kicks. I felt pretty lame trying to repeatedly kick someone's defended chest repeatedly with round kicks.

The grandmaster of my school and the grandmaster of the hosting school got into an argument about the importance of defense at tournaments.

I'd kept in Tae Kwon Do for the hope that we'd dispell the myth that Tae Kwon Do's uses were solely for the sport. But now my organization has taken a turn for the worst, and I think it's finally time to just accept that Tae Kwon Do is no longer meant to have any more fighting aspect than football has to it. This, of course, means I'm going to jump ship.

I like my grand master a lot, and I've been teaching and helping him out in his old age. I don't want to stop supporting him because he's a great guy, but I'm going to get a job out of state. No more KMA for me when that happens. I'm not sad that I'm abandoning Tae Kwon Do, but I am very sad that I've got to abandon someone who still tries to maintain its integrity as a martial art.

But I'm finally going to be able to focus on something I really like and didn't get to practice as much as I wanted to. It's grappling time.

On a side note, anyone belong to the company who has need of a programmer with a degree from a prestigious engineering and research university, and who also has two years of C/++/# experience?

**1point2** · Posted On: 8/05/2009 2:59pm

Good luck with whatever comes next.

I sincerely feel bad that those people wouldn't let you kick those other people hard and in the head.

**johnevans** · Posted On: 8/05/2009 3:04pm

That is a shame. The tournaments that I went to for TKD only allowed headkicks at the blackbelt level, but those fights were fun to watch, and really tested the fighting abilities of the practitioners better than the point sparring that I got to do.

**Kentucky Fried Chokin** · Posted On: 8/05/2009 3:30pm

Whoa now. Lets not go overboard. I think we can agree that football is more practical than Tae Kwon Do.

**Matt Phillips** · Posted On: 8/05/2009 3:35pm

Muaythai beckons...

**DCS** · Posted On: 8/05/2009 3:42pm

Olympic rules without kicks to the head?

Switch to football asap.

**jeff5** · Posted On: 8/05/2009 3:44pm

Originally Posted by War Wheel

Muaythai beckons...

Yes...yes it does...

**ttankzero** · Posted On: 8/05/2009 6:17pm

I've been playing a lot with the idea of switching to Muay Thai and Judo

But seeing as my wife would have a fit if I did both and robbed her precious "us time" from her, I'll probably have to choose one or the other :-(

**Vieux Normand** · Posted On: 8/05/2009 6:54pm

Originally Posted by ttankzero

I've been playing a lot with the idea of switching to Muay Thai and Judo

But seeing as my wife would have a fit if I did both and robbed her precious "us time" from her, I'll probably have to choose one or the other :-(

Then go with Sambo...