Tae Kwon Do

[Ed Miller]

Watching it for the first time in the Olympics. It's cool. I didn't realize that it was almost 100% kicking. It kind of reminds me of the scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail where the Black Knight gets his arms chopped off and resorts to kicking at Arthur.

[ThaSaltCracka]

I have heard that Tae Kwon Do is th easiest martial arts to learn.

[Duke]

[ QUOTE ]
I have heard that Tae Kwon Do is th easiest martial arts to learn.

[/ QUOTE ]

I know for sure that your mom is the easiest to 'know.'

BAM!

~D

[Duke]

Yeah Tae Kwon Do is a lot of kicking. It's easy to advance seemingly far depending on your school because they tend to be belt factories. I studied a very similar martial art for about 7 years, but it wasn't so kickcentric. They shared common forms, though.

If you wanna learn how to kick the [censored] out of people "as seen on TV" I could get you started on the basics. The important part is the training. The techniques make sense so I'm pretty sure an MIT guy could pick them up rather quickly. It's not as seemingly complex as Aikido or Judo or whatever, since there isn't as much emphasis on 2-body problems.

~D

[ThaSaltCracka]

but were talking srticlty martial arts, and my momma doen't know any /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[Duke]

/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

~D

[ThaSaltCracka]

thats right /images/graemlins/cool.gif

[Duke]

OOH. Just remembered a story from my youth that is loosely related to poker.

So I had finished my part of a tournament, I was maybe 8, and had gotten second place in fighting and a first in forms. I was watching my dad in the adult division fighting. He had to win 2 more matches to win the tournament.

Anyhow, the guy he was fighting first was, in poker terms, a donk. He didn't really rely on strategies or techniques at all, unless you called rushing the opponent and flailing as if he were auditioning for a new Exorcist movie a strategy. It was point fighting so any contact that he'd get would be a point, so against a bad opponent he'd probably do alright. Kinda how a maniac donk at a poker table can make inexperienced guys fold too much and take down a lot of pots.

So it starts, and the guy rushes to get a point. My dad is like... what the hell? This guy's just rushing me like an idiot and that's not what this is supposed to be about. They explain that the guy scored a legit point. 5 points and he'll win. The guy scores another point quickly when they resume. They stop after each point and have the guys restart.

So down 2-0 my dad is kinda pissed, since he doesn't understand how anyone can be that dumb. So on the restart he takes half a step back, and punches the guy one time in the chest. The guy runs right into it since that's his whole strategy. As you can imagine, there was severe contact since there was a lot of motion between the 2 colliding bodies, some of it coming from the victim's idiotic lunge.

After they carried the guy out on a stretcher (he just had a couple broken ribs and had the wind knocked completely out of him) my dad had to fight one more guy. It was obvious to all the judges that the contact was self-inflicted and my dad wasn't really to blame for what happened, so he won that one kinda by default. He lost the next one because he felt like an [censored] for damn near killing the other guy and really let up in every way.

The best part was when our instructor came over (it was a biggish open tournament) and loudly told my dad that he needed to exercise more control, and as soon as they were relatively alone he says: "Nice."

~D

[turnipmonster]

all very true. I studied it for a long time when I was younger, and after a while I decided to branch out and study wing chun as well. I was shocked at how practical wing chun is in comparison. Tae Kwon Do does have some practical application, but is more geared towards sport and less towards street fighting. from my relatively limited experience, wing chun is completely the opposite.

by the same token, Tae Kwon Do is nice because there's lots of tournaments and stuff like that to train for.

--turnipmonster

[Duke]

[ QUOTE ]
but is more geared towards sport and less towards street fighting.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, I'll agree about the kicks. But at least in my "spinoff" style (Tang Soo Do) there were a lot of other aspects that were there to be studied, though, and one could become pretty proficient at anything from taking minimal damage in a serious altercation, to maming and killing attackers fairly quickly with some level of ability and practice.

The best defense is usually to run away. Seriously. It's not "being a pussy" to be saving yourself from any possibility of damage, and sparing the future health of your would-be assailant. When that's TRULY not an option, you're probably in a spot to mame or kill anyhow.

And if they have a gun and aren't in striking distance, you're usually [censored] unless they don't know how to aim. /images/graemlins/laugh.gif

~D

[nothumb]

I agree, Duke. People forget that, in most fighting situations, if you are hitting someone back you are guilty of assault as well. If you are a trained martial artist they are even less likely to spare you when you smoke his punk ass. Sad but true.

I have a friend who runs a TKD school that is very real-world fighting oriented, lots of holds, throws, and close techniques to go with the kicks. Best of both worlds if you ask me.

NT

[sfer]

My people rule. We teach people how to kick the air hella hard.