Why do you no longer train TKD?

**thorthe power** · Posted On: 11/24/2009 1:05pm

TeaKwondo served me well, I'm still very flexable from it (for an old fat ass) but I did train/spar hard with it. I began cross training in Jiu-Jitsu (whatever kind I could get my hands on) and began boxing again. I'm glad I trained it over all.

**stinkykickvt** · Posted On: 11/28/2009 8:22pm

I still train it. I'm going to give this whole 'aliveness' thing a crack. My club spars, with heavy contact at the higher belt levels. Unfortunately, most of the training and prep work is done in a dead fashion (line drills, forms, stationary target hitting, canned self defense, etc). When I was coming up in the club, we had a lot of talented blackbelts from outside the club who could really mix things up when they taught. The underbelts these days mostly just get the dead curriculum, which prepares them little for sparring.

I've fallen in love with some of the focus mitt vids posted on this site. The training in them can be so dynamic. It looks like you can work just about anything you want with a little creativity. There are a few people at the club interested in working on these things with me. Hopefully I'll be able to bridge the gap between our technique training and our sparring.

**Daniel Sullivan** · Posted On: 11/30/2009 1:01pm

I still train in it, but it has very much taken a back seat to hapkido and kumdo. I still have friends in the class and I still enjoy poomsae, so why not.

Daniel

**CaptainMorgan** · Posted On: 11/30/2009 6:59pm

You know I see a ton of people who bad mouth TKD on these forums but a lot of it seems to stem from bad personal experiences. I trained TKD for around 5 years and to be honest it has served me very well. I continue to actively drill TKD because I think it adds a totally different dynamic for my mma training, and if you can find a way to work some TKD attacks into your overall style it tends to ad a lot of quick reflexive kicks to your arsenal.
I know Omega was one of the first to bash this but even he has seen how effectively I have been able to incorporate TKD into my style. I still have a long way to go as a fighter but so far I havent found a good reason to just give up on TKD.

**It is Fake** · Posted On: 11/30/2009 7:04pm

Originally Posted by CaptainMorgan

You know I see a ton of people who bad mouth TKD on these forums but a lot of it seems to stem from bad personal experiences. I trained TKD for around 5 years and to be honest it has served me very well. I continue to actively drill TKD because I think it adds a totally different dynamic for my mma training, and if you can find a way to work some TKD attacks into your overall style it tends to ad a lot of quick reflexive kicks to your arsenal.
I know Omega was one of the first to bash this but even he has seen how effectively I have been able to incorporate TKD into my style. I still have a long way to go as a fighter but so far I havent found a good reason to just give up on TKD.

You do know that is the issue right? When a large majority of people have bad experiences, it moves from the individual to the cause of the problems right?

When that gets fixed then the issue goes away.

**CaptainMorgan** · Posted On: 11/30/2009 7:09pm

Well so what are you saying is the cause of the problem?

Ive been to more than a few TKD studios and ive never had an instructor work to teach me how to be a douchebag. It isnt the nature of TKD to have bad people associated with it thats just the rap it tends to get.

And how would you foresee this "issue" going away?

**It is Fake** · Posted On: 11/30/2009 7:50pm

Originally Posted by CaptainMorgan

Well so what are you saying is the cause of the problem?

It has been discussed in many a thread. This is a thread about why people quit TKD.

Ive been to more than a few TKD studios and ive never had an instructor work to teach me how to be a douchebag.

Who said anything about douchebag? I know YOU have never been to a bad school. People all over the world have. At some point, the blame inevitably passes to the art.

It isnt the nature of TKD to have bad people associated with it thats just the rap it tends to get.

I didn't say anything about the nature of TKD. The nature of TKD is to be an effective Korean Martial art. That is the nature of all arts, IMO, even the crappy ones that are made up like Yellow Bamboo.

Rap? We will get into a semantics debate on that one we'll just have to disagree.

And how would you foresee this "issue" going away?

I don't. What you are trying to debate with me, is the same debate I had 20 odd years ago.

Then again who knows? 20 years ago I would have laughed in your face if, you said there would be a Black president.

***battlefields*** · Posted On: 11/30/2009 11:26pm

I quit TKD while on a training hiatus that was forced upon me due to a severe injury. During this time I found Bullshido.net and my critical analysis went into overdrive.
Now I am about 6 months in BJJ and about to go back to muay Thai. Every cloud...

**Daniel Sullivan** · Posted On: 12/02/2009 1:11pm

Originally Posted by CaptainMorgan

Well so what are you saying is the cause of the problem?

Ive been to more than a few TKD studios and ive never had an instructor work to teach me how to be a douchebag. It isnt the nature of TKD to have bad people associated with it thats just the rap it tends to get.

And how would you foresee this "issue" going away?

Good question.

Really, the major issue is the popularity of taekwondo.

The largest number of schools means the largest number of bad schools.

Most popular art means most commonly hijacked by opportunistic entrepreneurs who have turned likely the majority of taekwondo schools into slick money making operations that are light on practical training and heavy on fees.

That in turn makes the percentage of bad schools in taekwondo higher than in many other arts, which results in a majority of people having bad experiences.

The problem goes away when:
A. Profitability is based on performance and quality.
B. Martial Arts as an entreprenurial opportunity tanks.
C. Another art becomes the most popular and the entrepreneurial rats abandon the sinking ship and go to sink another one.

In any case, it would take a good deal of time to get across the board quality up to, say the level that BJJ schools currently are, and much longer to finally overcome the current perception.

Daniel

**ZenOfAnger** · Posted On: 12/02/2009 2:08pm

Hey! I remember this thread from last year! I shall elaborate more on my current situation.

Why I Quit TKD:

So last year I finally said goodbye to tkd, not because of bs politics or high prices, but because I wanted more out of what I put into my training (this is of course, excluding my migraine issues at the time). As I climbed higher in the ranks, I became more interested in learning other styles as well, judo being one of the big ones. Also, tkd was becoming boring as hell!

I swear I spent a good half of the class from brown belt and up until I quit doing the same material as the lower belts and not learning much of anything new to keep me going. When we did learn new material, we tended to spend little time on it, as my teacher seemed to me more geared towards getting people test-ready or tournament-ready. Luckily we had advanced classes on Wednesdays, and the last 30-45 minutes was spent learning non-tkd material, unless a test or tourney was coming up soon, then there was more tkd to pracrice.

We did everything from kali/escrima drills to basic hapkido, wrestling, fencing, and boxing padwork (no sparring with boxing rules, which sucked). It was a lot of fun as well, especially when we did stickfighting (with rattan sticks covered with those water noodle foam thingys). I even learned to do basic sprawling one night when one of my instructor's former black belts came in for a visit.

There was only a few problems with the advanced classes:

Only once a week.
Very few people to train with (very few people my age or rank, the rest of the students were kiddies).
Got set to the side when people were testing soon, or going to a tourney for more tkd.

The biggest thing for me however was the advanced classes turned out to be the only thing making me come back to the tkd class, due to more emphasis on realistic training (learning to sprawl, basic position holding on the ground, padwork, etc.) When I finally realized that tkd was not the reason I was showing up for training, I started going less and less until I dropped out completely. I figured I could just spend more time doing another art that emphasized the training I was getting in the advanced tkd classes.

So I thought I would be best to focus on my judo and hapkido, as my heart would be in the training, but a few things happened within the next year up until now that are keeping me from training:

My migraines got more frequent, and I missed a ton of school days (can't go to school, can't do fun stuff like martial arts)
Found out the truth of my judo training and the legitimacy of my judo coach.
Have been trying to finish up school.
Paid a ****-load out of my bank account for my brother's car.

Most importantly, my migraine issues were resolved with surgury, and I did not go back to train with the judo guy after learning about how crap it was, so my main focus has been finishing up school, so no time to train.

When I finally do get back into training, it will most likely be legit judo or another grappling art I can make regular classes to. I would go back to tkd, only if there were more places that offered more realistic training as part of the curriculum, and as most of you know, most tkd places are bullshido or mcdojo.

I would also feel awkward going back to tkd, because even though it was the art that got me interested in learning martial arts in the first place, it seems to no longer serve as an inspiration to train anymore now that I am more aware of what I want out of training (realism pressure testing, etc.), which most tkd schools tend to lack.

It feels good to get that all off my chest.

Sincerely,

ZoA, aka, ZoCP