Today we held the first of the specific Applied TaeKwon-Do Sessions. A dozen people was a good turnout for a first session on a very wet and rainy June Saturday.
We started with me explaining what brought me to start to develop what I’m calling ‘Applied TaeKwon-Do’: Most TaeKwon-Do as taught everywhere is very similar, it is still a child of the Major General. Many clubs seem to have the focus of the training as a mixture of syllabus work (passing gradings), fitness, or sparring development. Some clubs indeed teach just enough syllabus work to pass gradings and concentrate much more on fitness, flexibility and sparring, making them by any other name, a kickboxing club. Sparring is great, I love sparring, I just feel it is necessary that people must appreciate that sparring is NOT self-defence, the taeKwon-Do I grew up with, much of its focus was on what I now understand to be sparring techniques.
I did not appreciate at the time, that what I was learning was different to self defence. I believed that the kicks, blocks and strikes that I was learning would eventually culminate in me being able to competently defend my self. I now understand that that was just not happening. The time spent on training to low kick, use knees and elbows (techniques excluded from sparring) was much less than the time spent on syllabus set sparring and free sparring techniques. The point being that I was learning to defend myself against TaeKwonDo attackers. In real life conflict situations, people rarely or ever attack you with techniques such as side kicks, hooking kicks, reverse turning kicks, axe kicks or knife hand strikes. They don’t step forwards attacking you with a walking stance front punch from four feet away. I do concede that you may be attacked with rudimentary front and turning kicks.
It’s not that I feel there is anything wrong with the basic TKD syllabus, in my experience, I feel that it produces a very competent, solid, powerful senior grade martial artist. I just feel that at this stage, many individuals are ready for more. Often the traditional “more” is the expectation for the person to kick higher, punch harder, move faster, spar better. To me these do not represent an acquisition of new skills, just the expectation of more athleticism and greater performance. This must be a long term highway to nowhere as the individual attains higher grades, they are getting older, seeing the athleticism of their younger days slowly vanishing. There is more!
It is not that for self defence, basic tkd is inherently ‘pants’, more the fact that a lot of its training is, as said previously, aimed at sport application. If the basic striking skills were trained for self defence application, as opposed to sporting rules, I feel the individual would be more able to defend themselves. By placing a greater emphasis on attacking and kicking low section using knees and elbows and training for power (in sparring we train to ‘touch’ contact only, this can become a nasty habit if you want to be able to defend yourself).
One of the criticisms levelled at tkd is that it has no in close fighting or grappling techniques. However, if you look at any of the manuals written by major general Choi Hong Hi, he has included chapters on escape from grabs, and throwing. TaeKwon-Do throwing! It seems to me that the major generals original conceived tkd system was a more all round martial art. He had kicking for distance work, hand striking as you move closer, in close knees and elbows and when you were grabbed, release moves and/or throws. Other than the fact that ground grappling is not included, this seems an all round, reasonable practical self defence system.
It seems to me, that whether it is the time that has passed and/or the location to a different culture (the western world) the focus of tkd has moved. Looking at other early works on tkd, the books ‘Practical TaeKwon-Do’ by Kim Bok Man and the 1983 manual by the Major General, it is clear that the early focus was more on fighting than on sport.
Please see this link to a YouTube video circa 1973(ish): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGxOekx5_H8
These days, tkd for some people is a ’lifestyle choice’ giving fitness work, motor function skill development and getting out and meeting people. For others, it is an incredibly fun sport, in my opionion the best - I repeat, sparring is the most fun you can have with your clothes on. It is as exciting to watch as it is to practice - beats tennis and football in my opinion! If these are some peoples views of tkd, well that’s cool, because we are all different and not pressed out of the same mould. My association, the TAGB (the best)(and if you don’t think it is, it must be because you’re not a member, and you’re jealous) gives us a syllabus that acts as a basic skeleton for which us as instructors must adhere to, but leaves adequate space for different clubs to go in different directions - sport orientated, fitness orientated or self defence orientated, or indeed a mixture of all.
For me, I feel the need to offer my students supplementary training, focusing on self defence. As I’ve said previously, to do this, we need to shift the focus from sport to practical defence application. The basic tkd skills are great for this.
My own personal interest in martial art is the realistic self defence application, particularly the techniques found within our own tkd patterns. It has been clearly demonstrated to me that our patterns have evolved largely from the Japanese Karate Kata (patterns). These themselves developed from the Okinawan Kata, which themselves are partly developed from Chinese Kung-Fu patterns or are indeed just re-worked Kung-Fu patterns.
I explained to the students that our tkd techniques were in many cases identical or slightly changed techniques from the Karate Katas, I explained that whilst tkd was inaugurated in 1955, the Ch’Ang Hon patterns were not introduced until the early 1960s. There are two distinct streams of Karate; Shurite and Nahate. These distinctively different streams of Karate existed in Korea after the Japanese had been kicked out. Schools from both disciplines were drawn together to become tkd. I have read that the Ch’Ang Hon patterns were created as much for political reasons and to make tkd seemingly more ‘Korean’ and to divorce it from its (hated) Japanese roots as for any practical martial art reason. I’ve also read that there were Korean instructors teaching with TaeKwon-Do written on the back of their doboks whilst still teaching the distinctively different Nahate kata.
From what I have read, when the Major General created our patterns, he did not do so with much of an eye on realistic self defence applications. His martial art culture was that of Japanese Shotokan Karate, Kata and patterns were performed more for fitness, stance and technique development and as a form of moving meditation. I read an article interviewing one of the Major Generals senior students, who was training with him during the shift from performing Karate Kata to the modern tkd (Ch’Ang Hon) patterns, he was asked if applications of the patterns were practised, and he answered, no, we did the patterns, then we got on with sparring.
The tkd I grew up with was almost like two different martial arts, we did all these funky moves in the patterns, and then other than just using very few of the moves in three step or two step, we ourselves just ‘got on’ with sparring!
Having explained this to the students, I went on to tell them that when looking for practical applications of techniques from the tkd patterns, if I couldn’t find something that worked, I would look for the root Karate technique that the tkd technique had evolved from and see if that had workable practical applications, and we would use these.
I next told the students of my own road to this point; obviously a main influence to me is my great friend and respected instructor Master Dew. It was Master Dew who invited Master Willy Lim to take a seminar at the Bristol TaeKwon-Do Academy. At this stage I was a second dan running three tkd clubs professionally full time for a living. I had been learning Wing-Chun Kung Fu as a hobby, I had been doing this on a one on one basis, training once or twice a month with a qualified instructor. Willy Lim completely knocked me off my perch! He demonstrated that the tkd patterns contained what almost seemed like a completely different martial art to that of the punch, kick stuff that I’d been doing so far. Since then, I have pursued what was then known as ‘alternative application’ to the patterns with what has felt like obsession at times (ask the wife!).
I have attended seminars with, bought DVD’s, books, by and trained with such people as Vince Morris, Ian Abernethy and Patrick McCarthy to name a few. These people are of course Karate practitioners. To help understand the roots of our patterns, and to understand what these Karate people were talking about, I have gained a black belt in Shito-Ryu Karate, training with my friend Fred East 5th Dan in Weston Super Mare.
I went on to tell the students that what we’d be doing in the applied tkd sessions would not take us off on a tangent completely away from tkd. The tkd path is a broad one, and we would never lose sight of the middle of the road. What we would be doing is supplementary to their basic tkd training, and not instead of.
Now the physical work started:-
A swift warm up, then into facing partners. Applied tkd is all about partnered work. Individual performance teaches you individual performance, working with another person teaches you how to fight another person.
The first exercise was to try to get behind your partner and get your arms around their waist, either pinning their arms or not. If you can get behind somebody you can defeat them, if somebody can get behind you, you’re in a lot of trouble. This was an exercise I’d picked up at an Ian Abernethy seminar.
The next exercise was similar, the point of the exercise was to get your hand to the back of the opponents neck, forming a hooking hand shape. There are many reasons to get your hand behind your opponents neck. To act as a locater for strikes with the other hand or to pull them onto techniques such as punches and elbows, to increase the power, or as an opening move in a grappling technique such as a choke, strangle or throw.
We next practised blocking hooking/roundhouse punches. This was done using outward blocks with any part of the forearm, the important thing being that the hand is further out than the elbow creating the necessary angle to stop the punch. The person throwing the punch was to throw the punch with level 1 power and escalate up to level 10 (full power) in small increments at the defenders request. Only going harder as the defender was confident in stopping the previously lighter punches. This was successful - I saw the only lady present (approx 9 stone at my guess) stopping a punch from a 16 stone monster (sorry Ryan!).
We next practiced a basic falling technique. This involved squatting down as low as possible before falling back and rolling coming back to a guard position and standing with a guard. The point of the squatting down being to reduce the distance that a person drops when being swept or reaped, and thus not hurt.
The next exercise was with sparring gloves on, the attacker used four half speed punches - upward roundhouse aimed at the ribs with the right hand, then repeat with the left, then right left aimed at the head. The defender stopped the techniques to the ribs with the elbows and blocked the attacks to the head with elbows not unlike wee palkup taerigi (upper elbow strike). Then it was the other persons turn. This repeated. Once they had got the hang of this, the defender counter attacked after either of the high punches with either and outward forearm strike or an inward forearm strike. Performed like a backfist or a ridgehand but striking with the arm. For up close techniques this means there is less chance of missing, it is incredibly powerful and the hand is then behind the head ready to grab.
Next exercise, with gloves on still, the attacker hooked one hand around the back of the opponents neck and attacked with six punches to varying targets with the free hand and then without breaking contact switched hooking controlling hand and attacked with the other hand. This changeover repeated every six punches. The defender had to use forearms and elbows to check the incoming punches. After people got the hang of this the attacker would randomly use a reaping take down to put the defender on the floor. Then roles would change.
The session concluded with the Jappyosul Tae drill. This is a two person drill working through various release moves from grabs which can be practised as an interactive drill or individual techniques can be taken out and expanded to include further counter attacks. The drills and counters largely drawing on techniques taken from the tkd patterns.
Everyone was buzzing with enthusiasm at the end. I had half a dozen other exercises that I had planned on doing in this session - this was only a two hour session. Everyone was readily up for a three hour session next time - some mad buggers suggesting a four hour session. Get a life! My plan is to have another session next month (July) for three hours. We’ll skip August (everyone on holiday) and will start again in September.
Whilst these sessions will not be generally broadcast to everyone (there just isn’t the room) they are open to all senior grade (blue belt and above) students aged sixteen and over from any West of England TAGB clubs. Whilst this is not politically correct, no muppets, no cry babies!
