martial_artists: Olympic Rules Taekwondo sparring

jungsun86 (

jungsun86) wrote in

martial_artists,
@ 2008-03-28 13:35:00

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Olympic Rules Taekwondo sparring
I have heard a lot of negativity about the state of kyorugi (free sparring) in Taekwondo. I also tend to believe that things have gone too far in the name of competition. The rules of competition, and the way it is scored, have begun to change the nature of the martial art. They have begun to ignore the finer points of the athletic kicks Taekwondo is known for, and have begun to make it about three kicks: round kick, back kick, and front leg fast kick. Martial arts have always been about the basics. If you can master the fundamentals, you can truly appreciate the deeper part of the martial art, but the "mastery" of these techniques has been for the sole purpose of winning in the realm of sport. I thought this was a sort of disgrace, but the deeper I thought about it, the more I realized, this is the nature of Korean martial arts.

The history of Korea is complicated by war and hostility, and this is what bore the natural competitive nature of Korean martial arts. In the early periods of Korean history, the best warrior was chosen to be the king. This is not uncommon, but the tradition in Korea lasted for an extremely long time. Those with the greatest physical prowess were the ones chosen to be ruler, because they could protect the kingdom. This has extended itself into the world of Taekwondo.

Kyorugi literally means, "To see who is the best," and it cannot be applied to anything but Taekwondo competition. This upholds the grand tradition of competition that has always been present in Korean martial arts. This focus on discovering who is the best fighter is what distinguishes Korean martial arts from the others. This is their signature if you will. There is a perfection of mind, body, and spirit, but this is always tested in high level competition. This is a necessary part of Taekwondo. It is not a necessary part of Karate, nor is it a necessary part of modern Kung fu. You can practice these martial arts, and never concentrate on competition. This is not possible if you are to be a true practitioner of Taekwondo. You must fight. It is the nature of the martial art. The Olympic competition has simply become an extension of a greater past that most fighters do not realize. Although the kyorugi seems impractical by modern standards, it is an essential part of the Taekwondo identity, and in turn the Korean identity of Taekwondo.

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kowboy
2008-03-28 07:49 pm UTC (link)

This is a necessary part of Taekwondo. It is not a necessary part of Karate, nor is it a necessary part of modern Kung fu. You can practice these martial arts, and never concentrate on competition.

You really shouldn't make blanket statements like this without an "in my opinion" disclaimer of some kind. Sparring is integral to both Kung Fu and Karate, often more brutal than that practiced in Tae Kwon Do. For instance in Kuoshu and Sanshou, the kung fu competitors usually do not wear any body protection as in Tae Kwon Do. They instead rely on head and groin protection exclusively. Kuoshu (or "Lei Tai" as it was first practiced) furthermore allows multiple simultaneous strikes to the same target which is usually banned due to the extreme risk of permanent injury. Even the internal styles of Kung Fu (eg: Xing Yi Quan, Tai Chi, Ba Gua Zhang, etc) stress actual competition in order to improve skill and training.

In short, you can practice any martial art (even western boxing or fencing) and never compete in any sort of sparring match. It's all about what you want to get out of it.

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jungsun86
2008-03-28 08:04 pm UTC (link)

I think anything one posts on the internet is of course their opinion. I don't find it necessary to always preface statements with an in my opinion statement. And, I think you misunderstand my statement. I have done Kyokushin style competition, and I have seen many Lei tai bouts. I am not saying that sparring does not happen in other martial arts. It is obviously part of them, and a very important part. The competition aspect is more what I am referring to. While other martial arts may stress the importance of sparring and even competition, there is not the same focus on it as there exists in Taekwondo. For most Korean schools, at least in my experience in Korea, the purpose is to enter high competition. It is almost never about simply taking something from the martial art. It is about competing at a high level and winning. This is a similar notion in Kyokushin, but there again the founder is Korean. It seems to be Korea's ethnic identifier for their martial arts.

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	gojiraeight 2008-03-28 08:09 pm UTC (link)
	In my experience the focus of competition has more to do with the actual school than the style itself. Culture is also important. I have friends who train in china and they are expected to enter san shou tournaments as a part of their kung fu training (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

jungsun86
2008-03-28 08:15 pm UTC (link)

They may be expected to enter competition, but in Korea I saw students who were forced to leave the school if they refused to compete. This may be because the master was someone who had previously won an All-Korea championship and expected the same of his students, but I have heard it is not an uncommon practice. I do know that Koreans tend to put such a stress on competition that it is almost to an undesirable extreme.

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gojiraeight
2008-03-28 08:07 pm UTC (link)

"This is a necessary part of Taekwondo. It is not a necessary part of Karate, nor is it a necessary part of modern Kung fu"

having practiced korean, japanese, and chinese martial arts I'd have to completely disagree with this.

Karate has 3 necessary forms of practice; kata, kihon, and kumite (sparring).

Kung fu has san shou one of the fastest growing competitive sports in the world. Even if you are a tai chi practitioner it is expected that you focus on push hands, eventually working up to freestyle pushhands sparring.

I started my training in the korean arts and have a black belt in hapkido and I love the korean arts. So I am not trying to detract from what you say about them, you are correct about that. However, what you point out about the korean arts is true of most other martial arts.

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jungsun86
2008-03-28 08:12 pm UTC (link)

Once again, I have also studied Karate for a very long time (17 years this August), and I have studied kung fu as well. In karate, the focus was always on basics and kata. There was a competition aspect for those that wanted it, but it could be left alone to an extent. I chose the rather harder path of competing in a more Kyokushin-style environment, but that is for later. In kung fu that I studied, competition was not necessary or looked upon well. This is not to say that is true of every school, but it is my experience. When I was in Korea, and even the US, the focus has always been on competition. In Korea, they realize that some aren't cut out for competition, but then it became a question of why you were doing Taekwondo. You were to focus on becoming the best, the toughest, the most decorated. It wasn't necessarily about just improving yourself as a person, but bringing honor to your house and your master by winning. Sparring is an important part of any martial art, but the intensity of the focus is not the same. This is something I have not found in Karate, nor in Kung fu. This is my experience however. Any one else's will be different of course.

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	kowboy 2008-03-28 09:15 pm UTC (link)
	So you've been studying Karates continually since you were five and also managed to work in at least one kung fu style in addition to Tae Kwon Do in Korea? Impressive. I know some MMA fighters who haven't managed to do that much training. (Reply to this)(Parent)

blkchrrybard
2008-03-28 09:34 pm UTC (link)

Historically speaking, Tae Kwon Do is a martial sport and was designed as such. Therefore it is competition based, and the ultimate goal is to win, or score points. It was invented expressly to put Korea on the world Olympic stage in the 1950's.

My own teacher fled Korea during the formation years of Tae Kwon Do, as the South Korean government was closing non Tae Kwon Do schools or converting them into TKD schools. He taught Chang Mu Kwon, and Hapkido and Jujitsu...Okinawan Karate....so he came here so he could continue to teach martial arts. All of them, not just the new national sport.

Now this is what he has imparted to us first hand.
Even though we preserve the older Palgue forms from TKD in our system, for posterity, as they are disappearing and Grandmaster Kim Soo believes in the preservation of the history of the arts.

We're a non competiton based system. So I don't really have any opinion on the rules of TKD, other than I am glad we do not compete. My journey in martial arts is mostly an internal one first, and a physical one second.
I am very much into the art aspect of the martial arts.

That's my two cents. That and $5 will buy a cup of coffee some places. :)

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strang_er
2008-03-29 07:43 am UTC (link)

From my point of view, sporting competition is only one aspect of taekwondo, but unfortunately that side has been pushed so hard that the term 'taekwondo' now applies to both the competition sparring style and the martial art that spawned it, to the extent that there are schools of 'taekwondo' that only practise the one area that constitues the sport, with forms etc only done, at best, to pass gradings so you can compete as a balck belt. For that reason i'd much rather they used another term for the sport ('Olympic Sparring'? 'Sport Kyorugi'?) so the two could be distinguished.

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kymus
2008-03-29 02:13 pm UTC (link)

this is interesting. I've known quite a few TKD practitioners - some of them advanced ranks even - and it seems that none of them (I believe) have known/heard/understood that TKD was - as you said - a martial sport. I originally read about this in the Journal of Asian Martial arts probably back in 2003. That article said that the government of Korea wanted to compete (so to speak) with Judo (and perhaps Wushu or San Shou as well) and so they got a number of masters from Korea's other more traditional arts (Tang Soo Do, Mu Duk Kwon, etc) had them formulate this art and then they were forced to teach this new sport art. I found your comment interesting since it seems to directly coincide with what I read long ago (and it's seemed to me that this aspect of TKD's history is not well known).

I guess now we've got 4 cents ;)

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Yes and here's an article of interest out of my system on that topic, as well...

blkchrrybard
2008-03-29 05:22 pm UTC (link)

Black Belt Magazine (Jan. 2008) - Exclusive Interview
"Korean Martial Arts History: Black Belt's Former Korean Corresopndent Kim Soo Lifts the Veil of Secrecy"
By Robert McLain

Grandmaster was the first Korean correspondant for Black Belt magazine back in the 1960's, and in this interview he explains how Tae Kwon Do came about, the parent styles it was derived from and a bit about Korean indigenous martial arts history. There's also an interesting article on the Chayon-Ryu website that Grandmaster wrote for the TKD times (and he was recently inducted into the TKD hall of fame and a zillion other halls of fame), discussing the Nationalism in the martial arts:
http://www.kimsookarate.com/articles/closed-arts.html
as well as two other articles he published on Korean Martial Arts History:
http://www.kimsookarate.com/articles/history1.html

Grandmaster is a student of Grandmaster Yoon Byung In, who founded Chang Mu Kwon.

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	strang_er 2008-03-29 07:46 am UTC (link)
	"This focus on discovering who is the best fighter is what distinguishes Korean martial arts from the others. This is their signature if you will." The first thing to enter my mind here were the words 'Muay Thai' as another example. Perhaps it's something to do with a martial art that's also a national sport in its home country. (Reply to this)

lottie88
2008-03-29 08:51 pm UTC (link)

This may be the case for Tae Kwon Do, but I've trained for years in Tang Soo Do, which is often called the traditional form of TKD, and can't honestly say TSD is a competitive sport, I see it more of a "way of life".

TSD is a traditional Korean martial art, and I have never felt compelled to be the "best" noone is perfect. There are competitions, but all are voluntary, and not regular and there is a big emphasis on training for oneself, not to win medals and the like. Why does TKD seem to have more of a competitive attitude compared to the other Korean martial arts? I've been told many a time, that TKD is the sport version of TSD. Is this the case? Didn't the two arts evolve in different ways? What kind of reputation does Tang Soo Do hold in your eyes?

I trained a little in TKD, and even their "Traditional TKD Assoc" seemed focused on tournaments, but then again, I assume that this depends on which school you attend, and their attitudes to the martial art in question.

What do you all think?

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	kymus 2008-03-30 01:54 pm UTC (link)
	some of the answers to your questions can be found a few posts up :) (Reply to this)(Parent)

my 2c

strang_er
2008-03-31 02:26 am UTC (link)

What do you all think?

I started writing a post about my thoughts on using competition as a tool for self-development, but it was getting really wordy and taking forever, so i might change tack and say this:

When what happens in the dojang is about preparing you for the competition mat, that's sport. When what happens in the dojang (and, optionally, the mat) is about preparing you to face an assault, that's self-defence training. When what happens in the dojang/mat is about improving your body, that's a fitness programme. When what happens in the dojang/mat is about improving you as a person, that's 'do'. What mix of the above makes a 'martial art'? That's up to you.

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	Re: my 2c lottie88 2008-03-31 10:31 am UTC (link)
	Thats great thanks :) To me, therefore Tang Soo Do would be about self defense training, and improving you as a person, the things I was looking for in a martial art. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: my 2c strang_er 2008-04-01 02:39 am UTC (link)
	(Believe it or not, there are still people in Tae Kwon Do who are looking for the same things) :) (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: my 2c lottie88 2008-04-01 01:17 pm UTC (link)
	I'm sure there are, and I'm sure there are styles of Tae Kwon Do which teach these ideas! Unfortunately, I am yet to find the right TKD school in Nottingham, as my style of Tang Soo Do doesnt run a club in there! (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Re: my 2c

tao_gone_blue
2008-04-01 08:46 pm UTC (link)

In a sense, I would agree. In many ways TKD does still attempt to encompass the history and traditions of 'classic' martial arts styles and a number of students seek more than just the competition mat. But, TKD was built specifically to be a competitive sport; it is one, and it shows. It makes logical sense that it's style of sparring (and attitude of the schools as a whole) would become a homogenized form of the necessities.

I'm a life-long student of TSD who's been lucky enough to have the opportunities to train in a large number of styles. Because of my background, I've been in and trained with a number of TKD students. What I find most notable, is that 'the competition' is the biggest thing. Internal growth is emphasized, but The 'King of the Mountain' syndrome seems to be a lot more prevalent and accepted as a whole, especially if a student can back it up with speed, accuracy, trophies, whatever.

None of this is inherently flawed, as MMA can be accused of the same things, but the difference is that when it came to practical application and actual fight scenarios - the TKD students were lacking because they spent more time focusing on sport applications. Students who were fast, accurate and amazingly good at sparring - couldn't take a hit to save their lives and had a terrible tendency to pull punches/kicks, use incorrect/ineffective techniques, be nervous, skittish, confused, etc - whenever a full-contact situation came along. The actual intention of 'seeing who is best' became flawed in my eyes because the 'best' at sparring is not necessarily the 'best' fighter most fit to rule and run a country. Now, this is speaking from an American/American School point of view. I know things are different elsewhere.

On a slightly separate note - as an above poster said, 'Muy Thai' does encompass a lot of these same 'competitive' elements, but despite it becoming a national sport, it's original intention was as a system of physical defense. From its very origin, TKD has and (probably) always will be a means of competitive sport.

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