Follow me on Instagram: ... Video comparison of the North American Taekwondo Championships from 1999 to the +80kg Olympic gold medal bout from Tokyo 2021
@@kendallpeebles7481 people are just really passive and there isn't a sense of combat like it use to be. KOs is some ares get you disqualified and there isn't a insensitive to go hard.
It becuz 90s is hardtime...and ain't taekwondo is about leg?now is like dancing...ik i have no right to judge since i didn't learn taekwondo but still...is it fact that it look like dancing?kick a little then "hugs"...boom referee come, separate them...then continue other...lol
It’s because now a days you don’t have to kick as hard especially with the electronic chest gears. All you have to do is brush it lightly with your foot and then sensors will pick up the magnet and you’ll get a point. But back then you had to kick harder to gain a point but’s it’s mainly up to the judges but they’ll most likely give a point if they hear a pop even if it only makes contact with an arm guard thus encouraging harder kicks. As a side note idk why that ref split them up so early usually they wait a little before they split them up.
Old schooler here. Part of the strategy back then was to hit hard enough to injure the opponent so that he becomes less effective as the fight progresses. Lots of knockouts back then too
@@Kali-8 Anything with the heel is really dangerous. He looked like he threw it pretty respectful with flat foot, but traditionally it's thrown with heel leading into target.
I'm a black belt trained in a karate style fully focused in real fights and self defense. When I watched the olympic karate in 2021 it was just sad. In one of the "fights" a guy got disqualified for excessive use of force after knocking out his opponent.
Why lose spirit when its competitive?? Is not the reason the reason is media, organizers or what shits above the sportsman. They want safe shit and gay stuff rules, they want it to be like tv friendly, boring and shit
This is actually true though and it changed back in the early 00's. I remember watching the Olympics and one girl got no points and was almost disqualified for knocking her Russian opponent on her ass with a head kick. They said that since the helmet FLEW OFF that it meant the kick didn't land clean and therefore was awarded zero points
It's gone from rear leg to front leg focused. With the electric bogu, speed matters over everything. Old school the quality of the hit mattered, so rear leg was used. Way prefer old school over new. It's literally foot fencing now, except fencing has swords, which automatically makes it cooler.
It’s not only the electric chest guards they changed the rules making a hit to the chest with no spins, 2 points, so obviously they’ll most likely try to stack up points by just doing that since it’s a pretty safe option.
Before it was an olympic sport it was a real fighting style. I remember walking into class one night and being told everything had changed, class format, grading structure, new uniforms and pads. Overnight it went from a self defence class to a point sport.
@@justkev1044 my dude, put down the bong, you’re making no sense. Kung fu isn’t really a scoring sport, it’s more like yoga. And back then in martial arts that WERE a competitive sport, they played for knockouts not point count because often times a knockout would come first. Edit: and finally, they’re all fighting styles, just like how flailing, running away, and cowering in the fetal position can all be considered a “fighting style”.
TKD 2021: “damn it, strategy! Points points points!” TKD 1999: “be a man! Stand your ground, and let me send you to oblivion with my Flying Thunder Kamehame Kick!”
Big difference, old school looks like they have come to fight, new school look like they have come to dance. I find watching Taekwondo boring, but I see why now, it's a watered down version of what it used to be. I'd quite enjoy watching the old tournaments.
If you would enjoy the old tournaments just watch kickboxing lol. I could say muay thai as well but you will much more of tkd style kicks in kickboxing
I only took TKD for a very short time as a kid back in the 80's. I still can remember getting kicked in the face so many times, till crying out of frustration. Seeing my dad (RIP) telling me get back in there and keep tying same as my teacher. I was so proud when eventually and finally was able to beat the other kid who also cried in frustration. Tks dad and sensei for not letting me quit and teaching me valuable lesson as a young kid.
I have been teaching Taekwondo for almost 50 years in my career now. Being a formal national-level taekwondo competitor it aches my heart to see how the great and fearsome style has been reduced to some catfight. The other day, a former colleague of mine, who also was a renowned taekwondo instructor during his days was challenged by a young taekwondoin who apparently was the state champion. Guess what, the entire match ended within 30 secs with 2 kicks, the 2nd one being a knock out by my colleague. The kid now doubts if he can even defend himself in a real-life threat situation.
Training and competing in TKD in the late '80s, I was utterly disappointed watching the competition in the 2020 Olympics. I can't believe how much it has devolved. Instead of fast and powerful kicking combinations, it now consists of one-legged fighters with weak, tippy-tappy kicks. I hope it's still practiced on the local levels like it was back in my day
I feel tempted to go to a practice at a local school and kick the real taekwondo into their skulls. I bet these new "fighters" don't even know what having the air kicked out of you feels like
It's the corruption of sport. Martial arts practitioners used to acknowledge that the purpose of the art, philosophy aside, was to learn how to efficiently destroy another human being with your own body while preventing them from doing the same to you. Good instructors would also teach the importance and gravity of knowing when it is and isn't appropriate to do so, self-discipline, and the philosophy of combat but ultimately the techniques are for destruction. Modern coaches teach the idea that what they're doing is sport, ultimately a game, with rules and point systems that just plain don't exist in an actual fight. It's exercise, it's competition, it's belts and trophies, it's *not* fighting. Taekwondo is a serious victim of this "evolution" but it's far from the worst. Among modern martial arts, I'd say judo has probably suffered the worst; ground fighting abandoned to the point that scoring systems now reward throws that land you in bad ground positions, giving up your back for nothing, over-committing to throws to the point of going down with the foe for no good reason, etc. Still better than what's happened to the classics with the growth of noncontact or minimal, controlled contact practices like with various stripes of kung-fu and aikido. On the bright side, I've recently been seeing the beginnings of a martial arts renaissance online. Lots of folks reexamining the old methods, rediscovering the roots of various practices that have been consumed by woo. I think I see the beginning of a bright future ahead.
@@Jackhunter19870 I know. I mentioned TKD for the vid and Judo for being one of the worst victims of it. An exhaustive list might bump up against the YT character limit for comments. 😂
Wrestlers will often give up their back to avoid getting pinned, which is a terrible position to be in a fight, but its still arguably the most crucial skill mma. Boxing is also first a foremost a sport, just with the objective to knock the opponent out. It all ultimately comes down to what the win condition is, but i agree with you general assessment that a lot of these combat sports have gotten soft
I trained in TKD in Korea more than 60 years ago while in the 2nd Infantry Division. We used our hands almost as much as our feet. Full contact and no mercy. Just no punches to the head, no kicks to the ground in tournaments.
@@RGMarcel kickboxing is combination of savate, karate, and Western boxing with small elements of Muay Thai. But it still loses to any combination of Taekwondo (ITF) + Western boxing or Muay Thai
Back then, it was probably more regarded as an active fighting style whereas the new school rather focuses on evasion, defence and saving energy. In my classes in the early 2000s, we were taught that the best method of Taekwondo application isn't fighting but de-escalation. The combat was reserved for the absolute emergency and blocks as well as general fitness and agility were the priority in training. I agree with this style and philosophy for real life, but it's obviously not suitable for tournaments with an audience who want an entertaining spectacle.
jut maters on the fiters personaliry, if they are agressive it can still be lki the 19999s but if they arent it can be like the modern, it never really changed
I remember when the eletric sensors started. There was 2 main companies trying to become standard. One had a harder calibration thus kicks required strenght to score, while the other was more sensitive using mostly touch sensitivity so only speed and precision was needed. Unfortunatelly the second "won" and the "precision" lost the formal technique for score srrategies. Tkd would be completelly different now had the first sensitivity setting became standard
I recall testing the equipment and called bs on the sensitive one. Having that knowledge, i barely wiped my foot a few times on their hogu and scored cheap points. People kept wondering how my score was higher. I said blame the equipment. I was a beta tester so i know the quirks. I carefully exolained to them that Im working within the rules and limitations of the equipment so dont virtue signal.
Wow, did not know this. Back in college our tkd confefence started using pressure sensitive electronic hogus - they’d set different pressure thresholds for each weight class and in order to score you’d have to kick hard enough. I always assumed that became standardized across Olympic Tkd… I guess not
It has recently been confirmed that modern TKD will change the point system because of this. From a point system where you fain point by hitting the opponent and reserving further interaction after doing so(a.k.a playing safe), but a point nerfing system where you hit the opponent as much as you can and lower there points. Favoring the more aggressive side since sitting back and playing safe will do you very little good since you can't secure your points anymore. Almost like a real video game. It's still undergoing tests but I really hope it succeeds.
Personally I wish they'd make it a score card system like MMA. Obviously judges aren't infallible, but I'd rather watch two people actually try to get the better of one another in direct combat
My master told me when he started he would try to hit them hard enough so they would be weaker in the match. He seems to really dislike where Taekwondo has gone. he told me it was originally made to help bring order and help people defend themselves. Now it’s just been made into a foot sport.
@@spidermonk3uVvwy8-2 Clearly you haven't been kicked in your entire life. A kick can graze you and still ends up inflicting devastating damage unlike punches.
It's the same with pretty much all styles that used point scoring instead of full-contact like boxing and MMA. The McDojos are winning the war simply because they're cheaper to operate, take less effort, and churn out more "black belts" by dint of bigger class sizes and lower standards.
Your master told you to hit harder enough to reduce their ability to fight, but he didn't tell you that is all fighers do and it didn't tell you where to hit. Because i know alot of people because i fought in hundreds of matches in competitions during my time that alot of cowards hit you in thigh of the leg wich is not legal. Because if you want to hit someone hard enough in the vest to make them weaker, good luck with that. And then the only place remaining where you can hit them to make them weaker or even end the fight is the head. Your master was obviously not a master but just a coward fighter. Because if he was a master he would know that in fight because of the adrenaline you don't even fell if someone Knocks you out, you feel the pain after the match is ended and your body starts to cool off. This is how cowards think, instead of thinking how to give your best a fight a decent match, fair. Is because of fear, this is a thinking based on fear. The only place where you can legit and legal make your opponent weaker if you hit hard is the head, and for that you need skill. To hit someone in the legal areas hard enough to make them weaker, i think your so called master failed to mention that is really hard. Only maybe if you put a pro against a newb
The Olympics made TKD a joke. I started practicing when I was 5 in the early 90s and only stopped in my late teenage years. I was lucky to have an old timer as master, he taught me how important was the momentum to generate force in a kick and how to let your body flow with the movement. The endurance you end up building is insane and sparring was just so much fun! Being honest, it was fun even when my master knocked me out, and he was using a small fraction of his strength (I was never injured or hurt, just got sore sometimes). Nowadays when I pass in front of a school teaching TKD lessons, is just depressing. I loved those drills in which I could barely lift my legs after 5 minutes of intense kicking and punching...
same and i don't know if it is in your case too or not but i always feeling excited and scared at the same time when it's come to sparring, because back then the sparring sessions are brutal, full on contact just like how it supposed to, right now even the Olympics event looks like a freaking salsa class.
Yea, i get your feelings, when i sparring with my friend, it feel excited and nervous at the same time, but we prohibited punch and we have such a great time, i missed those time
Ditto, started as 5 yr old in 92. Will never forget I had my growth spurt around 14 and started sparring adults in class. Very first fight was against Tony Graf as we trained together in Queens with Peter Bardatsos. Anyway, five seconds into the fight, Tony blasted me in the face with an axe kick and simply said "keep your hands up." I went back to nationals in 2013 and 2014 and ended up tearing my ACL. I wanted to come back but after seeing what it had started to become, I wanted no part bc I wasnt risking another injury for it.
So - I've trained under one of the best Grandmasters in WTF history. Ko Eui Min - mind you, this man taught Kim Se Hyuk, the former Korean National Team coach. Ko Eui Min's current school is in Munich, Germany and he teaches (not sure if Ko Eui Min still teaches) with his son, Ko Young Jae. There was a 3 day seminar where Kim Se Hyuk trained us to be proficient in sparring. Kim Se Hyuk also brought with him some of those from the Korean team that were due to compete in international tournament. We watched replays of many of the finals fights that won Korea gold, especially the 2004 Men's heavy weight in Athens. This was the fight where Moon Dae Sung won Korea gold, it does look a little like "foot fencing". If you watch the video, you'll see Moon Dae Sung climb into the stands and shake hands with several people. One of them, in a red sports coat, is Ko Eui Min. To give SOME explanation as to the stark difference in sparring, watch Moon Dae Sung fight for gold. It does look like foot fencing in a way. A lot of other styles of fighting, MMA, Muay Thai, and Boxing are good examples are judged by either knock out, or score cards. Where as Taekwondo is based upon a point system. Old Taekwondo was, in some cases, a point system. Other cases not so much. Here's how that creates a difference. When it comes to score cards, your objective is to be the most aggressive and dominant fighter on the mat. Period. When you establish that, you will win the fight if it comes to a score card/judge decision. But, when you're fighting for points, it's not as simple. When fighting for points, you're wanting to gain as much as an advantage first, while giving up as little as possible. Hence, "foot fencing". I can vividly remember when training under Ko Eui Min, who certified me for my 3rd Degree black belt that was not scheduled per normal timings, but as a favor, we sparred with a very, lack of better phrasing, controlled violence. What I mean by this is that we would be moving fast, but our kicks would never be to injure. We knew our strengths, and how much damage a full powered kick could do, but we controlled them to never injure. Did we sometimes get bruised? Absolutely, it's to be expected when not sparing with any protective gear. We sparred to learn our strengths, range of motion, explore our technique in sparring, learning fighting IQ. Almost the same as the competitive style, but again with a controlled violence. When I moved back to the US and trained under a drastically different methodology/ideology, people (students, and parents of students) were surprised and wanted to learn from me. I was confused at first, but it made sense. Schools nowadays teach for point advantages, not controlled violence. Thus, when we brought out the big targets where you brace a kick with your body weight, I'd have to constantly tone down the power of my kicks as they were soft foam targets, and a strong kick could easily knock someone back if they're not prepared. TL;DR - My point in all this is that, there is a complete shift of ideology. Old heads, like me (even though I'm only in my 20's) are stuck in the idea of controlled violence, win by a land slide, keep kicking until you can can't kick anymore, style of sparring. Nowadays, the competitive style of sparring is to edge out the opponent, gain points, don't give any points up. I can understand the shift, but man the old style was a lot more fun.
Surely if you are good the first style beats the second right. They stand there and have everything planned out are not used to pain. You might lose some point at star, but they will break. If you go in and just throw wrench into it, it should work, right?
@@oORoOFLOo At one of my first competitions I actually did try to fight with just "brute force". Doesn't necessarily work. Here's why: Everyone is infatuated with head kicks and "foot fencing". So there's some body mechanics that play into this as well. If your body is standing straight up, your leg extending outwards at a 90 degree angle, we'll call the distance your leg can reach "X". If your body is standing straight up, and your leg at a 45 degree angle relative to your upper body, we'll call the distance your leg can reach "Y". However, Y is a shorter distance than X inherently. But knowing this, and knowing how Taekwondo is fought, no one in their right mind fights standing straight up. Thus, when you kick outwards as if your leg was at a 90 degree angle, but your upper body is leaned back by any amount, we'll call the distance you can reach "A". A will reach a longer distance than X. Hands down, period. If your upper body is leaned back, and you were going for a head kick just like Y, we'll call this distance "B". B will reach a longer distance than Y every time. But, since we know X is longer than Y, thus A is longer than B, why does everyone go for head kicks? Because it's clinch city baby. My very first competition I was able to "outclass" some people with just pure speed, and agility. However, the last person I fought against only clinched and went for head kicks. You can, if you're flexible enough, kick someone's head in a clinch by swinging your leg outwards, and pulling it back in, slightly separating from the clinch, and land your foot on their head, and it will count. Did I land, in number, more kicks than him? Yes, but he was more effective at landing head kicks. Mind you, head kicks were 3 points, vs body kicks were 1 point. So you can see the dynamic this sets up. With this point system. The chest guards we use these days are, from what I can feel and think of, very thick and compacted cardboard that doesn't bend very easily. I mean this stuff is extremely tough and durable. And as this was a
I don't do tkd anymore, but I trained when I was in high school in the early 70's when tkd was also called "Korean Karate". That was an "old school" that most people now are not even aware of. We used lots of punches and back fists in addition to the kicks (no padding, btw). The style really reflected the Shotokan influence on the original tkd (General Choi, the "father of tkd" was a nidan in Shotokan, and it was an integral part of the original system). Check out some tkd videos from that era to see how much it has changed.
There's a difference between learning a real Martial Art vs the Sport vs. Just like there is a difference between learning really sword fighting and the Sport of Fencing.
I did 14 years TKD to second Dan BB in the 80s and early 90s and I could not agree more..Even back then I trained against the so called guys looking to go to the Olympics…All being taught how to score points. It was turning to shit even back then..I sat and laughed with my daughter when we watched the TKD at the last Olympics..
2nd dan here. Similar experience though I started in the early 2000s. The change in tournament rules drives this and they've neutered the art of the killing power which was what made the art unique in the first place. The whole reason to specialize in kicking was to take advantage of the range and power. Then they set tournament rules that removed the power. One of my masters called it fighting like "jumping chickens." It's very different from what I learned from my first ROK army-trained master.
@@kma3647 Yes sounds very similar indeed.. My head instructor was trained by General Choi himself and one of the 12 grand masters, 12 masters were all sent around the world. And yes all North Korean military.. technique, Power and speed was the ultimate goal.. We were trained to finish fights fast, eyes, groin throat attacks were all part of our training..50% Shotakan Karate 50% TKD was International TKD Federation (didn’t know that at the time)..Sounds like you were trained the same… Like Joe Rogan says by itself it’s a flawed martial art but take these skills learnt and add boxing and some other mma skills to your repertoire, and your kicks become lethal.. :)
I remember when I was a teenager, I was at a tournament and witnessed these brothers from S. Korea, both black belts, sparred against each other. It was the most amazing bout I ever saw. It was like they both hardly touched the ground. They were aggressive, graceful, and amazing.
My brother used to fight in international taekwondo competitions back in the day. The amount of disgust in his face and dissapointment in his eyes when seeing modern taekwondo fights is priceless... but also sad.
As a skater, it is an absolute joke to have skating in the Olympics. They can only recruit the most boring guys. The ones that are praised as our best would never fit the mold of an Olympian. They are more the gritty and rough around the edges. Real respect comes from the community you are a part of, not from a panel of judges on the other side of the world, that are comprised of old has beens. Skateboarding in the Olympics means nothing to any average skater. It has no credibility and probably never will.
There's a lot of factors, but the main one wasn't really the sport coming to the Olympics but rather the implementation of electronic sensors to score points. The way points are scored now is with sensors on the feet, but a lot of sensor systems give more priority to the surface area of the contact with very little regard to force; thus, it's usually better to save energy and go for fast kicks at weird angles (but not necessarily strong). They also made the ring a lot smaller, so controlling space with cut kicks (the pushing kicks) became a very dominant strategy as it is very low-commitment but with decent reward; basically from the center position if you can push back the opponent 3 times with cut-kick it's usually a ring out, which scores you a point, and they get reset to the edge of the ring and have to deal with that threat again. You basically force your opponent to have to commit to something to take back space, increasing their chance of making mistakes, while you have a lot more options to work with due to controlling the space. This is also why clinching (where the fighters get really close together) is really common, as a lot of the times neither fighter wants the other to cut-kick and be forced to give up space, so they mutually agree to have the judge reset the fight to a neutral position. Before the sensors were implemented, a lot of the strategy of sparring was "selling" the hit to the judges so you had a lot more flamboyant techniques and more forceful hits, and a lot of fighters will do mini "celebrations" after landing a hit (or landing one that they might trick the judges into giving them a point for, even if it was blocked). This older system had its own problems as there were a lot more false positives where hits that were actually blocked were rewarded points. There's still a lot of interesting strategy in modern sparring, but the older system generally lent itself to be a more interesting spectator sport.
20 years later my body is not able to keep with the speed I had during those years competing. But anybody like me who grew up training during those years there is one thing we can do that we will never forget. Close enormous distance in a split second with superior footwork. 👍. Man I miss those days…..thanks for the memories.
I never got good in Taekwondo really, but my instructor was pretty hardcore. He was ex ROK marine officer and instructor. I asked if we could spar, as he had forbidden me from doing so until I could build back my fundamentals (I went to a mcdojo before that). He smiled and said yes after a year of training. It was clear he was pulling his punches, but it was brutal. Brutal as in "I thought juggling was just something that happened in fighting games", but his kicks were so hard and fast, that I might as well have been airborne. Ironically, this was precisely the reason why I ended up stopping later on, as I realized that getting to that point required an already gifted athlete decades of constant training. Something which I could never dedicate. Looking back on it, I sorta regret it.
I’m a third degree black belt and trained with Hong Kong Kim, Dee’s Tae Kwon Do, Kristina Bailey. I had seminars with Juan Moreno and Kay Po. I competed nationally in the early 2000s and man it was thrilling. Such high level talent was a spectacle to witness and be a part of. The sport has gone way down hill.
Back in 2012, i learned self-defense martial art from a teacher near my friend's house, the interesting thing is that the teacher used to train taekwondo for the South Vietnamese army to fight Viet Cong , so he has a very different technique from modern taekwondo , he teach us always put hands to guard ,use punch when get close, control legs when kicking and trained leg muscles to stand firm , always be aggressive when attacking but still keep cold-headed, it was about strength and self discipline. And up into now i have never regretted it.
@@minhxuong1650 Well, obviously, if your attacker is unarmed, being able to use ITF TKD or Power Era WF gives you an enormous advantage. What I’m talking about is an armed attacker.
@@minhxuong1650 Nowadays, not a lot of people are going to go around attacking you with just their fists alone. Even if they didn’t carry anything, they’ll probably pick up a brick nearby or something.
@@dungww2006 well if you encounter an armed attacker just run away from them, life is more important than pride, but if you are confident and manage risk carefully you can beat the attacker
After a tournament back in the early 2000s, a guy I competed against asked me if my style was even TKD. He said it didnt look like TKD. My TKD competition team focused on trying to get knockouts. It really has changed.
It is crazy to think of how different things can be. My TKD instructor has been training in TKD since the early 60's, and he has some wild stories, things like bare handed sparring at tournaments, using sweeps and takedowns (which are far more likely to cause serious injury) and things like that. It is really interesting!
@Emma Brummer I learned tkd in the 90s in wny inner city schools. Once you got to red belt it was gloves, foot pad and mouth guard that's it. No helmet no chest pads, no shin guards. We punched allot and to the face. That's real tkd.
Yeah, electronic sensors destroyed taekwondo. It was harder to tell who kicked first without the technology so they instead had rule where you had to kick hard and you get a point based on the effect. With electric sensor you just have to touch the opponent slightly and it immediately knows who kicked first.
@@notuxnobux I agree, and to add onto that they made a chest hit with no spin 2 points instead of 1 so a lot more people will be trying to stack points that way
I love this because it's so true. There was a time when I thought WTF was a great sport to watch but wathcing it at the Olympics the last few years sucked. So boring and not a lot of combos, chances being taken, or excitement.
You would be surprised to read Funakoshi, the founder of modern karate, writing in 1956 (already), that the technical level of karate dropped after WW2 :'DDD
I love TKD, got in the game late mid 20's. Did it for over 10 years. My master was a little bit older then me but not by much. So I hand the privilege of getting my ass kick by him. I learn so much. Controlling power, distance, spinning Roundhouse kick to the head, Feint kicks, feint punch. I remember I got him good once. but then the look in his eyes, was just pure focus on kicking my ass. Yup, my Will is up to date. Let's Go!!! It took a week to recover , Korean songs are written about this fight. Thank you TKD and Master Peter Your lessons are not wasted on me.
I remember practicing TKD as a kid back in the 90s and when we trained with the national team, they really went all out. They spun a lot to fake turning side kicks and spinning round kicks. They would do non stop bullet kicks, or pull the armor down to do an axe or out-in kick. I distinctly remember one of the guys instructing us not to stop kicking until the referee calls for a break. Fun times.
I'm seeing weird thing where people are saying that 90s tkd hit so hard they break and u should knock out ur opponents and modern tkd is worse while others saying it shouldn't and need to emphasize control or something like that in these comments. while I'm here where people can hit like trucks but not actively trying to badly injure the opponent while also having a point based system but people still go for aggressive strats(cus its time limit based so generally go for as many hits as possible) that look like the fights seen in the video from the 90s(possibly a lower frequency of the flying spin and just flying in general kicks due to it often leaving u open to counters and can't get enough distance to perform them generally tho the ones u mention are still fairly common )
I started TKD 20 odd years ago after years of Karate. The organisation I joined had a Korean master who was attempting to return TKD to its original pre 1950s roots and it was fantastic. Then the inevitable ‘political’ bust up and the group split in two. Unfortunately the half I was in went down the Olympic sport route, need I say more. Totally pointless system after that.
I miss the old days of TKD. I trained under a Korean 9th degree master, we had a sparring group in our dojang. We would go on the weekends to other local schools and spar their fighters. We were feared locally..it was intense fighting too because everyone was trying to represent their dojang, it was hard full contact sparring.
when trained with my 3rd sabeum, i've usually must be do full contacts sparring with some punch and kick shoes like ITF style, once in training. Good ol days
Having competed as part of a travel team within the US in the 00s, Tkd was war. You went in there to kill or be killed. Or at least that’s what Mosquera taught us. Electronic scoring changed it to a sport and it brought a ton of bugs. Lots of weird inconsistencies, people getting caught turning off the sensors/removing batteries/whacky calibrations, etc. Very frustrating as a competitor.
I made a junior olympic run in taekwondo back in 2010. They were just starting the electronic scoring at the time. I went to an olympic qualifier in York PA and we had to use those stupid sensor socks and the electronic chest protector. took like 20 minutes to set up, and the other guy had to kick me like 50 times before it registered. and then they started our bracket. it was so ridiculous. like how is this even a real contest? I was standing still, chest exposed, and he was hitting me pretty hard. he practically had to do a muay thai style round kick like he was hitting the pads, a kick he would NEVER get off in any kind of fighting situation, to finally get the thing to register. of course I beat him 7-0 because there was no way he was gonna score a point like that. it was so annoying. i was looking forward to banging with another heavyweight my age and skill level. instead I get a hollow win that i didn't even want. just score like normal judges.
WHAT I LEARNED UNDER MOSQUERA FOR LIKE 7 YEARS!!!!! It's such a coincidence that I see a mention of him here cuz I was with him for like 7 years till quarantine hit and now I see this on a completely random yt comment section I am literally baffled
I started in the early 90s as a kid and competed for a long time. Went back to nationals in 2013 and 2014, and it had already started the change. I called it quits bc I had no urge to adopt that awful new trash style.
In the 70's, I attended a tournament, during the sparring competition I witnessed a Horseback riding stance punch straight to the solar plex...it knocked the wind out of the opponent. They had to pause the contest. It was done the exact same way we practiced in class. At that point I gained even more respect for the art. Thanks for the post.
I took it as a teenager in the 90's. The sparring in class would get heated. Thankfully, our teacher was a big man who competed in the Olympics and kept things in-check.
@@Bossanova.There's nothing I hate more than people who use wars and other bs arguments like that as an excuse to call modern people weak for no reason. Like dude do you even live in reality or are you straight-up locked in the fckin WW1 trenches of the past? Literally none of what you said makes any sense. Perhaps it's new info to you but most martial arts originated out of *necessity* for self-defense, especially asian ones. Nowadays there's not that much of a need to defend yourself with h2h combat since weapons are widely available and it's overall quite safe out there in most places. In this day and age people often take up martial arts as a fun lil hobby. Getting seriously hurt in such case ain't really allat fun
Imo, all martial arts competitions have been influenced by too many rules and safety stuff, so fighters grow up prepared to follow the rules and not to win a fight. Competitive martial arts (but not all) are becoming more like just sport
If remember correctly Joe Rogan, who used to do TKD in his youth, said that the problem is with modern TKD that it's more about scoring points, rather than having an actual fight
People don’t like “actual fights” anymore these days Last year some dude challenged me to a “bar fight” after *he* spilled *my* damn drink over his _Stone Island_ sweater. Gave him a quick punch to the chest to try and scare him off, but when he saw I was faster than him the fucker pulled a knife instead (insert facepalm)
@@piotrd.4850 One of the security guys walked in right around the time he pulled it out. Decked the idiot from behind and dragged him out without much of a fuss We were regulars there and I know most of the dudes on the security team, so all I got was a light scolding for giving them more work
Been doing Kyokushin since the 80's. Back then we sometimes sparred against TKD guys who trained at the same time in the hall next to us and we were very weary of their fast, brutal kicks. These days, though I'm 30 years older, I don't worry about TKD new practitioners much anymore, it seems to have devolved from a martial art into a point scoring game. Lots of speed but no real power. Yah they hit you but it's like playing tag...
@@samsebin7895 Because (and I'm only speaking for them as I haven't ever fought other TKD practitioners) they seem to have learned to not fully connect their strikes. We do full contact, no padding Kyokoushin. If you're used to that, any kick that's fast but not connecting 100% doesn't do too much. Hence the "tag" comment.
@@samsebin7895 that speed is slowed down like crazy to minimize the time they’re in a vulnerable position. They aim to be able to snap back to their previous stance just as quick.
@@rolib6108 The modern shit they teach in stripmalls or the Shotokan "tag" competitions are indeed useless. But I was thought by an old Okinawan guy, we did 2 knuckle pushups on gravel roads, did stomach crunch scissors with a guy jumping on your stomach. All the stuff Health & Safety would ban thes4 days. Most of our fights would end in knock outs, without head punches. I fought a Muay Thai guy ones and a low kick slug fest ensued ending with him breaking his leg. Saying Karate is powerless is a dumb assertion if you don't know how they have been trained. For every useless karateka I can find you a useless MMA or Muay Thai practicioner.
Coming from and having taught old school. I can say that the skill level was definitely better. But it's more then that. We trained with much more intensity. Pushing ourselves to our highest limits. But that all depends on your instructor. A good instructor, should always push their students to be better then them. So this way Taekwondo becomes better through the years. Unfortunately, too many instructors have such big egos. That they do not want any students to surpass them. And won't push them to become their best. And so, Taekwondo becomes less and less aggressive as years go by. And is slowly but surely becoming a joke to a lot of other martial arts. And because of this. Many do not believe it can be effective in the streets. But I assure you, as an old school trainer and teacher. If used right. It can most surely be effective in Street situations. And why I decided to start up my own UA-cam channel.
Yeah, man. I agree. I went to school with a guy who trained in tang doo do, which I believe is another Korean martial art. (Correct me if I'm wrong) he let me feel his kicking power by holding my hands over my head while he kicked them. It felt like he tried to shatter my palms. If a martial artist lands that kind of kick on the street, the fight is over. The real tae kwon do practitioners should be taken seriously. They can probably kick a person to death.
@@RedPilled-qj9mr it is a Korean martial art other wise known as traditional taekwondo, all the stuff we know of taekwondo amped up with a crap load of practicality 🤘
@@RedPilled-qj9mr Although TaeKwondo and Tang Soo Do have so much in common. They also have some key differences. Both were created out of turmoil in Korea. And later became highly organized martial arts that are practiced by millions. Ok the difference between Taekwondo and Tang Soo Do. Tang Soo Do is a Korean form of Japanese Shotokan Karate. It balances kicking and punching and uses the hips for more powerful kicks. TaeKwonDo comes from the older Korean form Taekkyon. And uses more kicks, and generates its power through a combination of speed and accuracy.
Difference is that if they went head to head, the modern guy might throw more kicks but would be KO'd by the damage the Power Era guy would be dishing out per shot.
i thank god so much for having older teachers who specialise in more traditional sparring for tkd. instead of kid-friendly karate, i got to learn shit that could actually help me get out of a sticky situation
My coach is also an old schooler. He even has a picture with choi hong hi himself (I think that's how it's spelled 😅)As an itf taekwondo martial artist (ITF is the classic one) sparring in my dojo is intense af, especially when no one appears there, I spar with my coach and it's amazing. He doesn't go easy on me at all cuz I have been practicing for like 10 years so its even harder
How old is your coach? because Choi Honghi defected to north korea at the end of the 70s, I am not sure if he still went to taekwondo events after that, but you know, also he died in 2002 in north korea.
The meta change is ultimately a result of rules changing and the competitors adapting to it. As much as spectators want to see an exciting match, the athletes want to win, and if you try to fight in the old-school style in a modern competition, you are decreasing your chances of winning. I know the WTF has tried a lot of rule changes to try to discourage some of the strategies that made it "boring to watch" (like changing the point systems a few times now, penalizing falling, stopping competitors from keeping their lead leg up for an extended period), but it seems like every time they ban one of these boring strategies, a new one is created. FWIW the fights at smaller regional tournaments often look closer to the old-school style because you get larger skill differences and more risk-taking, along with competitors that don't train specifically for competition (and thus aren't practised at, or don't even know, the boring but effective strategies utilised at more competitive tournaments).
As a TKD practitioner that experience the both type of tournaments fighting...I can confirm as such. Back then, we try to kick hard to make sure the vest or the helm of the opponents at least make sound audible enough to be heard by the corner referee to write the points on the score sheet. The emergence of digital input points makes the player kick faster and more snappy for the same reason, sound but less power output to conserve energy as the digital output do help the corner referee to act faster on point input instead then writing it down. And now as the vest itself has sensors...less hard kick to avoid from the sensors to malfunction.
@Artsie I was a practioner of 3 years. Quit when it came time to test for 4th kup. And yes its sad but In my state tournaments there’s no rules against knockouts or full force kicks to the face. So you could fight a person who’s a pussy who fights to outpoint but if you knock them out you win by KO so it’s not that bad. I never showed mercy to my opponents. I didn’t have any honor back then lol
@Artsie tipsie u said if u kick to hard the sensor doesent pick it up?? That explains how I’ve kicked opponents as hard as I could to the head with a roundhouse and system never counted it. I’ve also knocked some opponents over with kicks and hit them with all I’ve got and even those points didn’t count.
Old school practitioner here: I agree with you. Most of us back then didn't wear foot pads to make sure there is a loud sound when hitting the vest or helmet. But man, it really hurts when hitting the elbows :-). Really sad seeing how tkd has become.
My 80 yo taekwondo teacher can literally do 5 kicks in mid air with extreme strengh follow by about 40 push ups (she is an old lady so its very impressive) right after about 100 kicks in a roll without a sweat. Me and My friends cant even do 30 kicks in a roll without getting absurley tired. I think the way they used to teach martial arts was way better and the general health of ppl was better too.
I was one time sparring with my friend in Taekwondo. We both went for a turning kick and kicked both our shins. Class finished and I was changing and lifted up my pant leg to check if my leg okay, and then I was like, "huh, never realized my knee was this low," then I lifted it up more and I was like, "Oh~, there's my knee." A pretty funny memory I'm gonna hold onto for a long time, ngl 🤪
I laughed while reading this bc this happened to me and my friend Tuesday while sparring except I didn't have a huge bump and for whatever reason my instructor decided to make us sparr today and I fought my friends older brother and the same thing happened except he wasn't affected
Fully agree, I started as a child at 4 y/o, eventually got my 3rd Dan at 17 y/o but after going to college and coming back at like 23 I was really disappointed about all the Olympic style fights.
I've been doing ITF TKD for around 15 years now. They phased out chest guards awhile ago and our strikes aren't exactly like 1999 WTF, but the matches look a lot more like 1999 than 2011. I think my school's master would've kicked people out if they went for hugs and threw weak, distant attacks like that lol.
As a kid I trained TKD for about 7 years in the 80's by a pretty hard ass instructor from Korea. After seeing how some of the matches went in the 88 Seoul Olympics it disappointed me no end as a realized the sport side of things were moving it away from being anything close to being an effective combat art. I would imagine things would have only gotten worse since.
Taekwondo de verdade foi até 2010,2011, o resto é só showzinho de perninha levantada...sou Taekwondista desde 2002,a arte que eu aprendi e amei não é essa que hoje temos nos jogos olímpicos...saudade da década de 2000.
@@gabrielzanoni3474 Na verdade o Taekwondo se tornou esporte olímpico em 1988 em Seul na Coréia,somente como esporte de exibição,apenas no jogos de Sidney na Austrália o Taekwondo se tornou um esporte olímpico de combate.
@@bichoestranhocomcaudas6543 Acredito que mudou assim por causa da chegada na tecnologia nos esportes, infelizmente com a chegada dos sensores de captação de impacto nos coletes e capacetes para pontuar,acabou com o Taekwondo raíz que se trocava pancada de verdade,e não esse negócio de ficar com a perninha levantada não,hoje se você encosta no sensor marca o ponto
@@bichoestranhocomcaudas6543 E antes o atleta buscava o nocaute,hoje querem é fazer o máximo de ponto e segurar o resultado...como esporte na minha opinião teve uma decadência significativa,como arte marcial não teve mudança graças a Deus. Abraço
The change in technique with this play safe electronic scoring has destroyed TKD! My daughter is a brawler and when she absolutely beats an opponent up but the opponent out scores her with magnetic socks is absolutely ridiculous. Their kicks are weak and barely brushing the hogu yet they score so easily. It’s embarrassing for the sport!
As someone who competed in the 90s, taking my yellow belt exam was more physical than today's tournaments by the look of it. Not surprised, people are soft like jelly and offended by everything. In another ten years, kids will be walking around in clear hamster balls.
Why taekwondo don't use a punch. And I hear from my dad that punch are ban at Olympic and what the point if you learning a punch 👁️➖👁️ I am still a yellow belt don't expect a lot From me k
Long response incoming to a great question: Punches don't score well in the tkd rule system. You can't punch to the face so that leads you with the body, and for a sport that's always at kicking range, the punch becomes quite redundant as people prefer to shove someone away and land a kick which scores more points. Regarding whether there's a point in learning punching from tkd it depends. If you want tkd just for the sport aspect, you obviously won't need to learn how to box like Mike Tyson. But as a martial art, it makes taekwondo more complete. Will you learn how to punch well in tkd? Sure, you might get decent punching power from board breaking etc. Will you fight with punches (or fight at all for that matter) with tkd? Probably not. Because you don't spar with punches in tkd (WT taekwondo that is), it's hard to apply in a fighting situation. And if you're used to sparring tkd style, well, we know that's not really ideal. Conclusion: if you want to know how to fight with tkd, you'll be investing a lot more time in it than like Muay Thai, MMA boxing. Am I saying don't do taekwondo? No, it's a good martial art in my opinion as long as you're not in a mcdojo. But if you're looking for the "learn how to fight quick" type of martial art, tkd takes a fairly long time for it to start being applicable. However, you can make it work as long as you train your punches (and expand variety) and spar using more complete rulesets, then tkd is pretty great.
Depends on which Taekwondo you're learning/practising. The olympic taekwondo is for looks. While the other taekwondo is for actual combat and teaches punches grappling and how to kill someone
Modern TKD: play it safe, win with points over time
Old school TKD: they can't win if theyre unconscious
😂
🤣🤣👍
I know nothing about the competition world. If you played like you did in 1999 in todays world, how would that play out? Bad with points er?
@@kendallpeebles7481 people are just really passive and there isn't a sense of combat like it use to be. KOs is some ares get you disqualified and there isn't a insensitive to go hard.
@@CPTNJDY That blows.
From a perspective of a person who doesn't do taekwondo. It seems like the 90s taekwondo was literally like fighting with extremely advanced kicks lol
Yup, back then it was like boxing but with the legs
@@yvng_poop_stains7854 yeah lol
Some countries didn’t have that much padding on them either
It becuz 90s is hardtime...and ain't taekwondo is about leg?now is like dancing...ik i have no right to judge since i didn't learn taekwondo but still...is it fact that it look like dancing?kick a little then "hugs"...boom referee come, separate them...then continue other...lol
It’s because now a days you don’t have to kick as hard especially with the electronic chest gears. All you have to do is brush it lightly with your foot and then sensors will pick up the magnet and you’ll get a point. But back then you had to kick harder to gain a point but’s it’s mainly up to the judges but they’ll most likely give a point if they hear a pop even if it only makes contact with an arm guard thus encouraging harder kicks. As a side note idk why that ref split them up so early usually they wait a little before they split them up.
Old schooler here. Part of the strategy back then was to hit hard enough to injure the opponent so that he becomes less effective as the fight progresses. Lots of knockouts back then too
Yes, tremble your opponent. I too am old school TKD (early 90’s) now I am K-1.
This generation made everything so fucking soft and boring.
@@j.e.b9988 Holy fuck I keep forgetting the 90s were over 30 years ago and the fact that I am only 16
What do you think would happen if in modern times someone attempted to do a damaging kick do you think it'll be a K.O or fight stoppage?
@@davids9540 Most likely the guy would get penalised for "attempting to harm" when it's literally the whole point of martial arts
0:13 man literally paused in the air to aim.
That was fricking beautiful
Dude was waiting for the falling momentum and strike down like a damn eagle
Hesitation Savate Kick
@@pjleon8391high risk if they see that coming
A delayed hit is a good strategy when you got your opponent on check
That awkward moment, when our club sparring is more intensed than Olympic TKD.
Yeah same lol😀
Tbh Olympics fighting just generally sucks
@@jacko2244 not wrestling and boxing
@@julianswayze6251 bruh olynpic boxing sucks but wrestling is fun to watch.
@@rozualakawlni2091 not as knowledgeable about boxing but wrestling in the Olympics is the real deal 💯🤝
I'm a simple man, I see 3 rotations followed by an axe kick with doom eternal ost in the background i click the like button.
It not only looks satisfying, its also very dangerous
@@Kali-8 Anything with the heel is really dangerous. He looked like he threw it pretty respectful with flat foot, but traditionally it's thrown with heel leading into target.
That's not very simple. That's very specific and niche
True
@@joshuabrant3487 he didnt say that setup or technique was simple, he said that he himself is a simple man. Slow your reading
Unfortunately it isn't just taekwondo, many martial arts lost their spirits since they became "competitive sports" based on points.
Imagine that the win condition is for knockouts
Hey I’m a complete noob do you think it worse to learn at home
@@angelnum18 I think it would attract a lot more viewers if this is the case
I'm a black belt trained in a karate style fully focused in real fights and self defense. When I watched the olympic karate in 2021 it was just sad. In one of the "fights" a guy got disqualified for excessive use of force after knocking out his opponent.
Why lose spirit when its competitive?? Is not the reason the reason is media, organizers or what shits above the sportsman. They want safe shit and gay stuff rules, they want it to be like tv friendly, boring and shit
Olympic judges be like: "WOAH! No fighting! What the hell do you think you're doing?!"
Remember that dude from Saudi Arabia, the brother, that got disqualified for knocking his opponent out? So lame
Yes that was for the karate unfortunately it was so crap because it put bad image on Karate@@chiarosuburekeni9325
This is actually true though and it changed back in the early 00's. I remember watching the Olympics and one girl got no points and was almost disqualified for knocking her Russian opponent on her ass with a head kick. They said that since the helmet FLEW OFF that it meant the kick didn't land clean and therefore was awarded zero points
@@ekimeno3061wow that's nuts
It's gone from rear leg to front leg focused. With the electric bogu, speed matters over everything. Old school the quality of the hit mattered, so rear leg was used. Way prefer old school over new. It's literally foot fencing now, except fencing has swords, which automatically makes it cooler.
Those 'swords' are not very cool, but those feet are also way less cool than 20 years ago, so ... I seem to agree with you somehow.
Guarantee, the lead leg faster attacks are more effective in a long fight, quicker, point a to be, and just as dangerous when timed properly
It’s not only the electric chest guards they changed the rules making a hit to the chest with no spins, 2 points, so obviously they’ll most likely try to stack up points by just doing that since it’s a pretty safe option.
@@Dash-dd1ro the purpose is just to score points. Modern TKD is just playing tag with your feet. It's become a joke.
I think they should have it be knockdown based
1999: Baek vs. Howrang
2021: Goofy vs. Spongebob
😂
Hwoarang*
Bad take, goofy vs SpongeBob would be way better
Real😅
Kim kaphwan vs baek
99: Kids smashing all the buttons on Street Fighter.
21: What is Streetfighter?
Before it was an olympic sport it was a real fighting style. I remember walking into class one night and being told everything had changed, class format, grading structure, new uniforms and pads. Overnight it went from a self defence class to a point sport.
No the gym you went to just turned to shit.
Must've been devastating.
Ok
youre saying that its not a fighting style anymore?like do people now not do kung fu when scoring points?
@@justkev1044 my dude, put down the bong, you’re making no sense. Kung fu isn’t really a scoring sport, it’s more like yoga. And back then in martial arts that WERE a competitive sport, they played for knockouts not point count because often times a knockout would come first.
Edit: and finally, they’re all fighting styles, just like how flailing, running away, and cowering in the fetal position can all be considered a “fighting style”.
TKD 2021: “damn it, strategy! Points points points!”
TKD 1999: “be a man! Stand your ground, and let me send you to oblivion with my Flying Thunder Kamehame Kick!”
Beautiful wording.
Fact 💯
Victory kick, i think
ok but like you didn't have to make it that cringy with the wording cmon man
@@SuTheory sorry 😅
Big difference, old school looks like they have come to fight, new school look like they have come to dance. I find watching Taekwondo boring, but I see why now, it's a watered down version of what it used to be. I'd quite enjoy watching the old tournaments.
WTF taeknowdo is the issue. ITF TKD is much more interesting.
@@y2thai back then yes, ITF world championships were brutal but it too has been watered down in a way
@@yvng_poop_stains7854 yes, I just checked it. It's pretty bad now. I guess it falls into the category of old school vs modern tkd too.
Dance would be better then the footies slap fight it's become.
If you would enjoy the old tournaments just watch kickboxing lol. I could say muay thai as well but you will much more of tkd style kicks in kickboxing
I only took TKD for a very short time as a kid back in the 80's. I still can remember getting kicked in the face so many times, till crying out of frustration. Seeing my dad (RIP) telling me get back in there and keep tying same as my teacher. I was so proud when eventually and finally was able to beat the other kid who also cried in frustration. Tks dad and sensei for not letting me quit and teaching me valuable lesson as a young kid.
It taught me that noses break and bleed a lot easier than most people realize 😂 It was practically routine.
2021 Slenderman combat
Hi
True,indeed
Then dudes do be kinda lanky 🤔
hhahahahha
lol
I have been teaching Taekwondo for almost 50 years in my career now. Being a formal national-level taekwondo competitor it aches my heart to see how the great and fearsome style has been reduced to some catfight. The other day, a former colleague of mine, who also was a renowned taekwondo instructor during his days was challenged by a young taekwondoin who apparently was the state champion. Guess what, the entire match ended within 30 secs with 2 kicks, the 2nd one being a knock out by my colleague. The kid now doubts if he can even defend himself in a real-life threat situation.
Poor guy
I actually didnt care if i win or lose, I just say something along the lines of "he's more hurt than me thats for sure"
you guys should start a protest campaign for this... Its not ok, something like this is dying
"Taekwondo Player" lol
@@scythianking7315 Well yea ur right, it should be taekwondoin, thanks
Training and competing in TKD in the late '80s, I was utterly disappointed watching the competition in the 2020 Olympics. I can't believe how much it has devolved. Instead of fast and powerful kicking combinations, it now consists of one-legged fighters with weak, tippy-tappy kicks.
I hope it's still practiced on the local levels like it was back in my day
Sadly the things always got worse.
I don't expect anything from the New era.
I feel tempted to go to a practice at a local school and kick the real taekwondo into their skulls. I bet these new "fighters" don't even know what having the air kicked out of you feels like
I can confirm that we still hit hard on the local level. There’s no sensors, so at competitions we’re still trying to kill each other.
Its completely lost its edge in how its taught too.
Nope those old style are gone for good , Kyorugi in competition is all about scoring point .. I am still practising TKD these day ..
I received my Black Belt when I finished Netflix's Kobra Kai.
That thing is basically a romcom😂
It's the corruption of sport.
Martial arts practitioners used to acknowledge that the purpose of the art, philosophy aside, was to learn how to efficiently destroy another human being with your own body while preventing them from doing the same to you. Good instructors would also teach the importance and gravity of knowing when it is and isn't appropriate to do so, self-discipline, and the philosophy of combat but ultimately the techniques are for destruction.
Modern coaches teach the idea that what they're doing is sport, ultimately a game, with rules and point systems that just plain don't exist in an actual fight. It's exercise, it's competition, it's belts and trophies, it's *not* fighting.
Taekwondo is a serious victim of this "evolution" but it's far from the worst. Among modern martial arts, I'd say judo has probably suffered the worst; ground fighting abandoned to the point that scoring systems now reward throws that land you in bad ground positions, giving up your back for nothing, over-committing to throws to the point of going down with the foe for no good reason, etc.
Still better than what's happened to the classics with the growth of noncontact or minimal, controlled contact practices like with various stripes of kung-fu and aikido.
On the bright side, I've recently been seeing the beginnings of a martial arts renaissance online. Lots of folks reexamining the old methods, rediscovering the roots of various practices that have been consumed by woo. I think I see the beginning of a bright future ahead.
Not just taekwondo and judo, almost all the martial arts are watered down and gradually became less effective when it comes to self defense and cqc
@@Jackhunter19870 I know. I mentioned TKD for the vid and Judo for being one of the worst victims of it. An exhaustive list might bump up against the YT character limit for comments. 😂
@@KelbPanthera i see, thanks for explaining it
We can only hope
Wrestlers will often give up their back to avoid getting pinned, which is a terrible position to be in a fight, but its still arguably the most crucial skill mma. Boxing is also first a foremost a sport, just with the objective to knock the opponent out. It all ultimately comes down to what the win condition is, but i agree with you general assessment that a lot of these combat sports have gotten soft
Back when TKD was actually about kicks and defending rather than scoring.
I trained in TKD in Korea more than 60 years ago while in the 2nd Infantry Division. We used our hands almost as much as our feet. Full contact and no mercy. Just no punches to the head, no kicks to the ground in tournaments.
so kickboxing?....
@@RGMarcel Kickboxing is 80% boxing which includes punches to the head
Kyokushin
@@RGMarcel "Wait, so you punch and kick? Then its kickboxing!"
@@RGMarcel kickboxing is combination of savate, karate, and Western boxing with small elements of Muay Thai. But it still loses to any combination of Taekwondo (ITF) + Western boxing or Muay Thai
Back then, it was probably more regarded as an active fighting style whereas the new school rather focuses on evasion, defence and saving energy. In my classes in the early 2000s, we were taught that the best method of Taekwondo application isn't fighting but de-escalation. The combat was reserved for the absolute emergency and blocks as well as general fitness and agility were the priority in training.
I agree with this style and philosophy for real life, but it's obviously not suitable for tournaments with an audience who want an entertaining spectacle.
jut maters on the fiters personaliry, if they are agressive it can still be lki the 19999s but if they arent it can be like the modern, it never really changed
I remember when the eletric sensors started. There was 2 main companies trying to become standard. One had a harder calibration thus kicks required strenght to score, while the other was more sensitive using mostly touch sensitivity so only speed and precision was needed. Unfortunatelly the second "won" and the "precision" lost the formal technique for score srrategies. Tkd would be completelly different now had the first sensitivity setting became standard
I recall testing the equipment and called bs on the sensitive one. Having that knowledge, i barely wiped my foot a few times on their hogu and scored cheap points. People kept wondering how my score was higher. I said blame the equipment. I was a beta tester so i know the quirks. I carefully exolained to them that Im working within the rules and limitations of the equipment so dont virtue signal.
A good example of why all sport sucks.
Just focus on the skills, and stop measuring everything!
Tkd can be regressing but mma isn't.
@@ducodarling competition sucks. playing is great.
Wow, did not know this. Back in college our tkd confefence started using pressure sensitive electronic hogus - they’d set different pressure thresholds for each weight class and in order to score you’d have to kick hard enough. I always assumed that became standardized across Olympic Tkd… I guess not
It has recently been confirmed that modern TKD will change the point system because of this. From a point system where you fain point by hitting the opponent and reserving further interaction after doing so(a.k.a playing safe), but a point nerfing system where you hit the opponent as much as you can and lower there points. Favoring the more aggressive side since sitting back and playing safe will do you very little good since you can't secure your points anymore. Almost like a real video game. It's still undergoing tests but I really hope it succeeds.
Personally I wish they'd make it a score card system like MMA. Obviously judges aren't infallible, but I'd rather watch two people actually try to get the better of one another in direct combat
Based
I don't follow TKD, but from what I see it could benefit from a Kendo style score system, where you need to land a really SOLID hit in order to score
So they essentially have life points lmao
where is the source for this?
2021 - Your 5 year old taps you
1999 - If he dies he dies
What happened? Even their fits look worse. 😂
My master told me when he started he would try to hit them hard enough so they would be weaker in the match. He seems to really dislike where Taekwondo has gone. he told me it was originally made to help bring order and help people defend themselves. Now it’s just been made into a foot sport.
Not even.
It’s more like fancy acrobatics then it is a foot sport.
Because if it was a foot sport then at least there would be some good kicks right?
It looks more like dancing kindergarten children from an asylum
@@spidermonk3uVvwy8-2 Clearly you haven't been kicked in your entire life.
A kick can graze you and still ends up inflicting devastating damage unlike punches.
It's the same with pretty much all styles that used point scoring instead of full-contact like boxing and MMA. The McDojos are winning the war simply because they're cheaper to operate, take less effort, and churn out more "black belts" by dint of bigger class sizes and lower standards.
Your master told you to hit harder enough to reduce their ability to fight, but he didn't tell you that is all fighers do and it didn't tell you where to hit.
Because i know alot of people because i fought in hundreds of matches in competitions during my time that alot of cowards hit you in thigh of the leg wich is not legal.
Because if you want to hit someone hard enough in the vest to make them weaker, good luck with that.
And then the only place remaining where you can hit them to make them weaker or even end the fight is the head.
Your master was obviously not a master but just a coward fighter. Because if he was a master he would know that in fight because of the adrenaline you don't even fell if someone Knocks you out, you feel the pain after the match is ended and your body starts to cool off.
This is how cowards think, instead of thinking how to give your best a fight a decent match, fair.
Is because of fear, this is a thinking based on fear.
The only place where you can legit and legal make your opponent weaker if you hit hard is the head, and for that you need skill.
To hit someone in the legal areas hard enough to make them weaker, i think your so called master failed to mention that is really hard. Only maybe if you put a pro against a newb
The way that guy plunged with a kick to the abdomen looked like a rocket,so cool
The Olympics made TKD a joke. I started practicing when I was 5 in the early 90s and only stopped in my late teenage years. I was lucky to have an old timer as master, he taught me how important was the momentum to generate force in a kick and how to let your body flow with the movement. The endurance you end up building is insane and sparring was just so much fun!
Being honest, it was fun even when my master knocked me out, and he was using a small fraction of his strength (I was never injured or hurt, just got sore sometimes). Nowadays when I pass in front of a school teaching TKD lessons, is just depressing. I loved those drills in which I could barely lift my legs after 5 minutes of intense kicking and punching...
same and i don't know if it is in your case too or not but i always feeling excited and scared at the same time when it's come to sparring, because back then the sparring sessions are brutal, full on contact just like how it supposed to, right now even the Olympics event looks like a freaking salsa class.
Yea, i get your feelings, when i sparring with my friend, it feel excited and nervous at the same time, but we prohibited punch and we have such a great time, i missed those time
Sounds like we had tee same master lol.
Ditto, started as 5 yr old in 92. Will never forget I had my growth spurt around 14 and started sparring adults in class. Very first fight was against Tony Graf as we trained together in Queens with Peter Bardatsos. Anyway, five seconds into the fight, Tony blasted me in the face with an axe kick and simply said "keep your hands up." I went back to nationals in 2013 and 2014 and ended up tearing my ACL. I wanted to come back but after seeing what it had started to become, I wanted no part bc I wasnt risking another injury for it.
Seeing Joe Rogan old school kicks has me convinced that TKD is special. Something indescribable about the way he moves.
So - I've trained under one of the best Grandmasters in WTF history. Ko Eui Min - mind you, this man taught Kim Se Hyuk, the former Korean National Team coach.
Ko Eui Min's current school is in Munich, Germany and he teaches (not sure if Ko Eui Min still teaches) with his son, Ko Young Jae.
There was a 3 day seminar where Kim Se Hyuk trained us to be proficient in sparring. Kim Se Hyuk also brought with him some of those from the Korean team that were due to compete in international tournament. We watched replays of many of the finals fights that won Korea gold, especially the 2004 Men's heavy weight in Athens. This was the fight where Moon Dae Sung won Korea gold, it does look a little like "foot fencing". If you watch the video, you'll see Moon Dae Sung climb into the stands and shake hands with several people. One of them, in a red sports coat, is Ko Eui Min.
To give SOME explanation as to the stark difference in sparring, watch Moon Dae Sung fight for gold. It does look like foot fencing in a way. A lot of other styles of fighting, MMA, Muay Thai, and Boxing are good examples are judged by either knock out, or score cards. Where as Taekwondo is based upon a point system. Old Taekwondo was, in some cases, a point system. Other cases not so much. Here's how that creates a difference. When it comes to score cards, your objective is to be the most aggressive and dominant fighter on the mat. Period. When you establish that, you will win the fight if it comes to a score card/judge decision. But, when you're fighting for points, it's not as simple.
When fighting for points, you're wanting to gain as much as an advantage first, while giving up as little as possible. Hence, "foot fencing". I can vividly remember when training under Ko Eui Min, who certified me for my 3rd Degree black belt that was not scheduled per normal timings, but as a favor, we sparred with a very, lack of better phrasing, controlled violence. What I mean by this is that we would be moving fast, but our kicks would never be to injure. We knew our strengths, and how much damage a full powered kick could do, but we controlled them to never injure. Did we sometimes get bruised? Absolutely, it's to be expected when not sparing with any protective gear. We sparred to learn our strengths, range of motion, explore our technique in sparring, learning fighting IQ. Almost the same as the competitive style, but again with a controlled violence.
When I moved back to the US and trained under a drastically different methodology/ideology, people (students, and parents of students) were surprised and wanted to learn from me. I was confused at first, but it made sense. Schools nowadays teach for point advantages, not controlled violence. Thus, when we brought out the big targets where you brace a kick with your body weight, I'd have to constantly tone down the power of my kicks as they were soft foam targets, and a strong kick could easily knock someone back if they're not prepared.
TL;DR - My point in all this is that, there is a complete shift of ideology. Old heads, like me (even though I'm only in my 20's) are stuck in the idea of controlled violence, win by a land slide, keep kicking until you can can't kick anymore, style of sparring. Nowadays, the competitive style of sparring is to edge out the opponent, gain points, don't give any points up. I can understand the shift, but man the old style was a lot more fun.
I recommend everyone take 5 minutes aside and give this a good read.
Interesting
Surely if you are good the first style beats the second right. They stand there and have everything planned out are not used to pain. You might lose some point at star, but they will break. If you go in and just throw wrench into it, it should work, right?
@@oORoOFLOo At one of my first competitions I actually did try to fight with just "brute force". Doesn't necessarily work.
Here's why: Everyone is infatuated with head kicks and "foot fencing". So there's some body mechanics that play into this as well. If your body is standing straight up, your leg extending outwards at a 90 degree angle, we'll call the distance your leg can reach "X". If your body is standing straight up, and your leg at a 45 degree angle relative to your upper body, we'll call the distance your leg can reach "Y". However, Y is a shorter distance than X inherently. But knowing this, and knowing how Taekwondo is fought, no one in their right mind fights standing straight up. Thus, when you kick outwards as if your leg was at a 90 degree angle, but your upper body is leaned back by any amount, we'll call the distance you can reach "A". A will reach a longer distance than X. Hands down, period. If your upper body is leaned back, and you were going for a head kick just like Y, we'll call this distance "B". B will reach a longer distance than Y every time. But, since we know X is longer than Y, thus A is longer than B, why does everyone go for head kicks? Because it's clinch city baby.
My very first competition I was able to "outclass" some people with just pure speed, and agility. However, the last person I fought against only clinched and went for head kicks. You can, if you're flexible enough, kick someone's head in a clinch by swinging your leg outwards, and pulling it back in, slightly separating from the clinch, and land your foot on their head, and it will count. Did I land, in number, more kicks than him? Yes, but he was more effective at landing head kicks. Mind you, head kicks were 3 points, vs body kicks were 1 point.
So you can see the dynamic this sets up. With this point system. The chest guards we use these days are, from what I can feel and think of, very thick and compacted cardboard that doesn't bend very easily. I mean this stuff is extremely tough and durable. And as this was a
좋은 댓글 감사합니다. 배워갑니다
I don't do tkd anymore, but I trained when I was in high school in the early 70's when tkd was also called "Korean Karate". That was an "old school" that most people now are not even aware of. We used lots of punches and back fists in addition to the kicks (no padding, btw). The style really reflected the Shotokan influence on the original tkd (General Choi, the "father of tkd" was a nidan in Shotokan, and it was an integral part of the original system). Check out some tkd videos from that era to see how much it has changed.
Thanks for the info, I'll check it out.
Sounds a lot like ITF Taekwondo
Seems like that's the better version
Korean kung fu
There's a difference between learning a real Martial Art vs the Sport vs. Just like there is a difference between learning really sword fighting and the Sport of Fencing.
0:34 wtf was that
Two gay men falling in love.
@@madelaki No more gay than you
@@madelakiNo more gay for you
@@SkyREX4LIF3😂😂😂😂😂
I did 14 years TKD to second Dan BB in the 80s and early 90s and I could not agree more..Even back then I trained against the so called guys looking to go to the Olympics…All being taught how to score points. It was turning to shit even back then..I sat and laughed with my daughter when we watched the TKD at the last Olympics..
dang
2nd dan here. Similar experience though I started in the early 2000s. The change in tournament rules drives this and they've neutered the art of the killing power which was what made the art unique in the first place. The whole reason to specialize in kicking was to take advantage of the range and power. Then they set tournament rules that removed the power. One of my masters called it fighting like "jumping chickens." It's very different from what I learned from my first ROK army-trained master.
@@kma3647 Yes sounds very similar indeed.. My head instructor was trained by General Choi himself and one of the 12 grand masters, 12 masters were all sent around the world. And yes all North Korean military.. technique, Power and speed was the ultimate goal.. We were trained to finish fights fast, eyes, groin throat attacks were all part of our training..50% Shotakan Karate 50% TKD was International TKD Federation (didn’t know that at the time)..Sounds like you were trained the same… Like Joe Rogan says by itself it’s a flawed martial art but take these skills learnt and add boxing and some other mma skills to your repertoire, and your kicks become lethal.. :)
Of course they dont kick anymore. Look how tight the pants got
HAHAHAHAHAH
@@someone-dl1rv True...got a laugh from me too
They need short shorts.
Looks like their about to rip
It's not the tightness of the Dobok, it's all the protective gear like groin guards and all that bobbins.
I remember when I was a teenager, I was at a tournament and witnessed these brothers from S. Korea, both black belts, sparred against each other. It was the most amazing bout I ever saw. It was like they both hardly touched the ground. They were aggressive, graceful, and amazing.
My brother used to fight in international taekwondo competitions back in the day. The amount of disgust in his face and dissapointment in his eyes when seeing modern taekwondo fights is priceless... but also sad.
Tkd becoming part of the Olympics killed it. I hope MMA will never be part of it
Idk how mma could be scored at the Olympics without just holding full contact fights like UFC
boxing on olympics are boring as af too
If MMA was ever to be considered it would be so watered down and equipment hampered you would barely recognize it.
As a skater, it is an absolute joke to have skating in the Olympics. They can only recruit the most boring guys. The ones that are praised as our best would never fit the mold of an Olympian. They are more the gritty and rough around the edges. Real respect comes from the community you are a part of, not from a panel of judges on the other side of the world, that are comprised of old has beens. Skateboarding in the Olympics means nothing to any average skater. It has no credibility and probably never will.
There's a lot of factors, but the main one wasn't really the sport coming to the Olympics but rather the implementation of electronic sensors to score points. The way points are scored now is with sensors on the feet, but a lot of sensor systems give more priority to the surface area of the contact with very little regard to force; thus, it's usually better to save energy and go for fast kicks at weird angles (but not necessarily strong). They also made the ring a lot smaller, so controlling space with cut kicks (the pushing kicks) became a very dominant strategy as it is very low-commitment but with decent reward; basically from the center position if you can push back the opponent 3 times with cut-kick it's usually a ring out, which scores you a point, and they get reset to the edge of the ring and have to deal with that threat again. You basically force your opponent to have to commit to something to take back space, increasing their chance of making mistakes, while you have a lot more options to work with due to controlling the space. This is also why clinching (where the fighters get really close together) is really common, as a lot of the times neither fighter wants the other to cut-kick and be forced to give up space, so they mutually agree to have the judge reset the fight to a neutral position.
Before the sensors were implemented, a lot of the strategy of sparring was "selling" the hit to the judges so you had a lot more flamboyant techniques and more forceful hits, and a lot of fighters will do mini "celebrations" after landing a hit (or landing one that they might trick the judges into giving them a point for, even if it was blocked). This older system had its own problems as there were a lot more false positives where hits that were actually blocked were rewarded points.
There's still a lot of interesting strategy in modern sparring, but the older system generally lent itself to be a more interesting spectator sport.
20 years later my body is not able to keep with the speed I had during those years competing. But anybody like me who grew up training during those years there is one thing we can do that we will never forget. Close enormous distance in a split second with superior footwork. 👍. Man I miss those days…..thanks for the memories.
Close enormous distance in a split second with superior footwork. Some of that was unreal to see sometimes
I never got good in Taekwondo really, but my instructor was pretty hardcore.
He was ex ROK marine officer and instructor. I asked if we could spar, as he had forbidden me from doing so until I could build back my fundamentals (I went to a mcdojo before that). He smiled and said yes after a year of training.
It was clear he was pulling his punches, but it was brutal. Brutal as in "I thought juggling was just something that happened in fighting games", but his kicks were so hard and fast, that I might as well have been airborne.
Ironically, this was precisely the reason why I ended up stopping later on, as I realized that getting to that point required an already gifted athlete decades of constant training. Something which I could never dedicate.
Looking back on it, I sorta regret it.
If you regret it, start doing it again. Nothing is stopping you but yourself!
I ain’t reading allat
@@John_Churros don’t expect an idiot to be able to read anyway lmao.
Bro got hit with the Tekken Launch Punish
Fighting someone better than you will make you better over time
I’m a third degree black belt and trained with Hong Kong Kim, Dee’s Tae Kwon Do, Kristina Bailey. I had seminars with Juan Moreno and Kay Po. I competed nationally in the early 2000s and man it was thrilling. Such high level talent was a spectacle to witness and be a part of. The sport has gone way down hill.
Back in 2012, i learned self-defense martial art from a teacher near my friend's house, the interesting thing is that the teacher used to train taekwondo for the South Vietnamese army to fight Viet Cong , so he has a very different technique from modern taekwondo , he teach us always put hands to guard ,use punch when get close, control legs when kicking and trained leg muscles to stand firm , always be aggressive when attacking but still keep cold-headed, it was about strength and self discipline. And up into now i have never regretted it.
Has that come useful in an actual street fight?
@@dungww2006 Yep, if you dont mind hurt the one who attack you 😁😁
@@minhxuong1650
Well, obviously, if your attacker is unarmed, being able to use ITF TKD or Power Era WF gives you an enormous advantage. What I’m talking about is an armed attacker.
@@minhxuong1650
Nowadays, not a lot of people are going to go around attacking you with just their fists alone. Even if they didn’t carry anything, they’ll probably pick up a brick nearby or something.
@@dungww2006 well if you encounter an armed attacker just run away from them, life is more important than pride, but if you are confident and manage risk carefully you can beat the attacker
After a tournament back in the early 2000s, a guy I competed against asked me if my style was even TKD. He said it didnt look like TKD. My TKD competition team focused on trying to get knockouts. It really has changed.
Man... the difference. It's reflective of their respective times if we're being real.
It is crazy to think of how different things can be. My TKD instructor has been training in TKD since the early 60's, and he has some wild stories, things like bare handed sparring at tournaments, using sweeps and takedowns (which are far more likely to cause serious injury) and things like that. It is really interesting!
Yes what a time
We live in a society
@Emma Brummer I learned tkd in the 90s in wny inner city schools. Once you got to red belt it was gloves, foot pad and mouth guard that's it. No helmet no chest pads, no shin guards. We punched allot and to the face. That's real tkd.
Yeah, electronic sensors destroyed taekwondo. It was harder to tell who kicked first without the technology so they instead had rule where you had to kick hard and you get a point based on the effect. With electric sensor you just have to touch the opponent slightly and it immediately knows who kicked first.
@@notuxnobux I agree, and to add onto that they made a chest hit with no spin 2 points instead of 1 so a lot more people will be trying to stack points that way
Me and my friends spar at the school library doing old school tkd. Surprisingly, we haven’t got caught yet lol
I love this because it's so true. There was a time when I thought WTF was a great sport to watch but wathcing it at the Olympics the last few years sucked. So boring and not a lot of combos, chances being taken, or excitement.
As a 90s kid I took one of those axe kicks to the nose.
I "won" the round .
But immediately took up chess as my new hobby.
True story
Lol, don't give up. Use those chess skills into fighting
@@lifer7741 this man’s a Tekken character in the making. I deadass can see his Unblockable be called “Queen’s Gambit”
Went from getting 540 hooked kicked in the jaw and being sent 10 feet into the sky, to softly tapping the gear to score a point🗿
Nineties taekwondo looks like people doing their best imitation of rock lee.
I love it
i did tournaments in taekwondo in 1997, back then we considered old school taekwondo as the ones from 1988 lol.
You would be surprised to read Funakoshi, the founder of modern karate, writing in 1956 (already), that the technical level of karate dropped after WW2 :'DDD
@@sassuki i believe it, not sure if it’s because it became more of a sport instead of self defense or maybe people mellowed out after ww2 lol
The old footage is not even professional level, that shit used to be so crazy and inspiring. And all we have now are stare competitions
I didn't even know that tkd had gotten so bad. I practiced the old TKD.
Same, ive trained from 2006 to 2011, it felt like old school and agressive
-kempo
@@Dragonfly491 Hey same here! I didn't realize it was the Olympics until I finished watching the video. That's just sad
Everybody expecting TKD in the 90's Olympic Games: 😬😳 😮 👍 💪👏👏👏
Present TKD in the Olympic Games: 💅 😟 🙄
I love TKD, got in the game late mid 20's. Did it for over 10 years. My master was a little bit older then me but not by much. So I hand the privilege of getting my ass kick by him. I learn so much. Controlling power, distance, spinning Roundhouse kick to the head, Feint kicks, feint punch.
I remember I got him good once. but then the look in his eyes, was just pure focus on kicking my ass. Yup, my Will is up to date. Let's Go!!!
It took a week to recover , Korean songs are written about this fight.
Thank you TKD and Master Peter
Your lessons are not wasted on me.
I remember practicing TKD as a kid back in the 90s and when we trained with the national team, they really went all out. They spun a lot to fake turning side kicks and spinning round kicks. They would do non stop bullet kicks, or pull the armor down to do an axe or out-in kick.
I distinctly remember one of the guys instructing us not to stop kicking until the referee calls for a break. Fun times.
I'm seeing weird thing where people are saying that 90s tkd hit so hard they break and u should knock out ur opponents and modern tkd is worse while others saying it shouldn't and need to emphasize control or something like that in these comments.
while I'm here where people can hit like trucks but not actively trying to badly injure the opponent while also having a point based system but people still go for aggressive strats(cus its time limit based so generally go for as many hits as possible) that look like the fights seen in the video from the 90s(possibly a lower frequency of the flying spin and just flying in general kicks due to it often leaving u open to counters and can't get enough distance to perform them generally tho the ones u mention are still fairly common )
I've seen the same comparison with shotokan and judo. The olympics is not very good for the art, but good for the popularity.
Tkd today: meh
Tkd back then: kick kick kick kick kick kick kick
I started TKD 20 odd years ago after years of Karate.
The organisation I joined had a Korean master who was attempting to return TKD to its original pre 1950s roots and it was fantastic.
Then the inevitable ‘political’ bust up and the group split in two.
Unfortunately the half I was in went down the Olympic sport route, need I say more. Totally pointless system after that.
Point system made for a pointless system.
I miss the old days of TKD. I trained under a Korean 9th degree master, we had a sparring group in our dojang. We would go on the weekends to other local schools and spar their fighters. We were feared locally..it was intense fighting too because everyone was trying to represent their dojang, it was hard full contact sparring.
when trained with my 3rd sabeum, i've usually must be do full contacts sparring with some punch and kick shoes like ITF style, once in training. Good ol days
Having competed as part of a travel team within the US in the 00s, Tkd was war. You went in there to kill or be killed. Or at least that’s what Mosquera taught us.
Electronic scoring changed it to a sport and it brought a ton of bugs.
Lots of weird inconsistencies, people getting caught turning off the sensors/removing batteries/whacky calibrations, etc.
Very frustrating as a competitor.
I just left a comment of Master Mosquera in Miami FL. Back in the 90’s and early 2000’s the black belt class felt like a gladiator school. FTC!
I made a junior olympic run in taekwondo back in 2010. They were just starting the electronic scoring at the time. I went to an olympic qualifier in York PA and we had to use those stupid sensor socks and the electronic chest protector. took like 20 minutes to set up, and the other guy had to kick me like 50 times before it registered. and then they started our bracket. it was so ridiculous. like how is this even a real contest? I was standing still, chest exposed, and he was hitting me pretty hard. he practically had to do a muay thai style round kick like he was hitting the pads, a kick he would NEVER get off in any kind of fighting situation, to finally get the thing to register. of course I beat him 7-0 because there was no way he was gonna score a point like that. it was so annoying. i was looking forward to banging with another heavyweight my age and skill level. instead I get a hollow win that i didn't even want. just score like normal judges.
WHAT I LEARNED UNDER MOSQUERA FOR LIKE 7 YEARS!!!!! It's such a coincidence that I see a mention of him here cuz I was with him for like 7 years till quarantine hit and now I see this on a completely random yt comment section I am literally baffled
I started in the early 90s as a kid and competed for a long time. Went back to nationals in 2013 and 2014, and it had already started the change. I called it quits bc I had no urge to adopt that awful new trash style.
0:14 Jeeesus Christ that man got teleported 😂 Bro chambered the kick and everything, man was *ready*
I'm a simple man - I see a KwonKicker quote, I click subscribe. Great vid man!
In the 70's, I attended a tournament, during the sparring competition I witnessed a
Horseback riding stance punch straight to the solar plex...it knocked the wind out of the opponent. They had to pause the contest. It was done the exact same way we practiced in class. At that point I gained even more respect for the art.
Thanks for the post.
It's weird when someone calls 1999 'old school.' I'm just gonna pretend it wasn't 23 years ago.
I felt old when my first thought was “since when was 1999 old school?”
Old school: kobra kai
New: Karate kid remake with Jaiden Smith
I took it as a teenager in the 90's. The sparring in class would get heated. Thankfully, our teacher was a big man who competed in the Olympics and kept things in-check.
It's like fencing now. They're only kicking to score points.
The Olympics ruined Taekwondo, it’s all about points and not about actually fighting.
@@Bossanova.There's nothing I hate more than people who use wars and other bs arguments like that as an excuse to call modern people weak for no reason. Like dude do you even live in reality or are you straight-up locked in the fckin WW1 trenches of the past? Literally none of what you said makes any sense. Perhaps it's new info to you but most martial arts originated out of *necessity* for self-defense, especially asian ones. Nowadays there's not that much of a need to defend yourself with h2h combat since weapons are widely available and it's overall quite safe out there in most places. In this day and age people often take up martial arts as a fun lil hobby. Getting seriously hurt in such case ain't really allat fun
Imo, all martial arts competitions have been influenced by too many rules and safety stuff, so fighters grow up prepared to follow the rules and not to win a fight. Competitive martial arts (but not all) are becoming more like just sport
This is more tho because instead of trying to knock your opponent out, they just try to score as many points as possible.
Reflective of this soft generation.
Dont worry your grandfather generation thought your generation is soft as well.
If remember correctly Joe Rogan, who used to do TKD in his youth, said that the problem is with modern TKD that it's more about scoring points, rather than having an actual fight
People don’t like “actual fights” anymore these days
Last year some dude challenged me to a “bar fight” after *he* spilled *my* damn drink over his _Stone Island_ sweater. Gave him a quick punch to the chest to try and scare him off, but when he saw I was faster than him the fucker pulled a knife instead (insert facepalm)
@@dylannix4289 and...?
@@piotrd.4850 One of the security guys walked in right around the time he pulled it out. Decked the idiot from behind and dragged him out without much of a fuss
We were regulars there and I know most of the dudes on the security team, so all I got was a light scolding for giving them more work
Been doing Kyokushin since the 80's. Back then we sometimes sparred against TKD guys who trained at the same time in the hall next to us and we were very weary of their fast, brutal kicks. These days, though I'm 30 years older, I don't worry about TKD new practitioners much anymore, it seems to have devolved from a martial art into a point scoring game. Lots of speed but no real power. Yah they hit you but it's like playing tag...
From the equation, force= mass * acceleration then how come their attacks are ineffective?
@@samsebin7895 Because (and I'm only speaking for them as I haven't ever fought other TKD practitioners) they seem to have learned to not fully connect their strikes. We do full contact, no padding Kyokoushin. If you're used to that, any kick that's fast but not connecting 100% doesn't do too much. Hence the "tag" comment.
@@samsebin7895 that speed is slowed down like crazy to minimize the time they’re in a vulnerable position. They aim to be able to snap back to their previous stance just as quick.
@@soupfork2105 karate has no power either lol. You should worry about Muay thai and MMA practicioners
@@rolib6108 The modern shit they teach in stripmalls or the Shotokan "tag" competitions are indeed useless. But I was thought by an old Okinawan guy, we did 2 knuckle pushups on gravel roads, did stomach crunch scissors with a guy jumping on your stomach. All the stuff Health & Safety would ban thes4 days. Most of our fights would end in knock outs, without head punches. I fought a Muay Thai guy ones and a low kick slug fest ensued ending with him breaking his leg. Saying Karate is powerless is a dumb assertion if you don't know how they have been trained. For every useless karateka I can find you a useless MMA or Muay Thai practicioner.
In street fighting and MMA, TKD would drastically fail and lose.
Coming from and having taught old school. I can say that the skill level was definitely better. But it's more then that. We trained with much more intensity. Pushing ourselves to our highest limits.
But that all depends on your instructor. A good instructor, should always push their students to be better then them. So this way Taekwondo becomes better through the years.
Unfortunately, too many instructors have such big egos. That they do not want any students to surpass them. And won't push them to become their best.
And so, Taekwondo becomes less and less aggressive as years go by. And is slowly but surely becoming a joke to a lot of other martial arts. And because of this. Many do not believe it can be effective in the streets.
But I assure you, as an old school trainer and teacher. If used right. It can most surely be effective in Street situations. And why I decided to start up my own UA-cam channel.
Agreed!
More power to ya man 👍
Yeah, man. I agree. I went to school with a guy who trained in tang doo do, which I believe is another Korean martial art. (Correct me if I'm wrong) he let me feel his kicking power by holding my hands over my head while he kicked them. It felt like he tried to shatter my palms. If a martial artist lands that kind of kick on the street, the fight is over. The real tae kwon do practitioners should be taken seriously. They can probably kick a person to death.
@@RedPilled-qj9mr it is a Korean martial art other wise known as traditional taekwondo, all the stuff we know of taekwondo amped up with a crap load of practicality 🤘
@@RedPilled-qj9mr Although TaeKwondo and Tang Soo Do have so much in common. They also have some key differences. Both were created out of turmoil in Korea. And later became highly organized martial arts that are practiced by millions.
Ok the difference between Taekwondo and Tang Soo Do. Tang Soo Do is a Korean form of Japanese Shotokan Karate. It balances kicking and punching and uses the hips for more powerful kicks. TaeKwonDo comes from the older Korean form Taekkyon. And uses more kicks, and generates its power through a combination of speed and accuracy.
Difference is that if they went head to head, the modern guy might throw more kicks but would be KO'd by the damage the Power Era guy would be dishing out per shot.
i thank god so much for having older teachers who specialise in more traditional sparring for tkd. instead of kid-friendly karate, i got to learn shit that could actually help me get out of a sticky situation
Everything was better in the 90s.
1999: Hardcore Jackie Chan fans
2021: Actors of very bad action movies
The 90s footage had some gorgeous jump spin kicks.
My coach is also an old schooler. He even has a picture with choi hong hi himself (I think that's how it's spelled 😅)As an itf taekwondo martial artist (ITF is the classic one) sparring in my dojo is intense af, especially when no one appears there, I spar with my coach and it's amazing. He doesn't go easy on me at all cuz I have been practicing for like 10 years so its even harder
Old school itf.
I envy your coach. having a picture with Choi Hong-Hi is legendary!
How old is your coach? because Choi Honghi defected to north korea at the end of the 70s, I am not sure if he still went to taekwondo events after that, but you know, also he died in 2002 in north korea.
The meta change is ultimately a result of rules changing and the competitors adapting to it. As much as spectators want to see an exciting match, the athletes want to win, and if you try to fight in the old-school style in a modern competition, you are decreasing your chances of winning. I know the WTF has tried a lot of rule changes to try to discourage some of the strategies that made it "boring to watch" (like changing the point systems a few times now, penalizing falling, stopping competitors from keeping their lead leg up for an extended period), but it seems like every time they ban one of these boring strategies, a new one is created. FWIW the fights at smaller regional tournaments often look closer to the old-school style because you get larger skill differences and more risk-taking, along with competitors that don't train specifically for competition (and thus aren't practised at, or don't even know, the boring but effective strategies utilised at more competitive tournaments).
As a TKD practitioner that experience the both type of tournaments fighting...I can confirm as such. Back then, we try to kick hard to make sure the vest or the helm of the opponents at least make sound audible enough to be heard by the corner referee to write the points on the score sheet. The emergence of digital input points makes the player kick faster and more snappy for the same reason, sound but less power output to conserve energy as the digital output do help the corner referee to act faster on point input instead then writing it down. And now as the vest itself has sensors...less hard kick to avoid from the sensors to malfunction.
@Artsie I was a practioner of 3 years. Quit when it came time to test for 4th kup. And yes its sad but In my state tournaments there’s no rules against knockouts or full force kicks to the face. So you could fight a person who’s a pussy who fights to outpoint but if you knock them out you win by KO so it’s not that bad. I never showed mercy to my opponents. I didn’t have any honor back then lol
@@thotslayer9922 Me too. Elbow blocks all day.
@Artsie tipsie u said if u kick to hard the sensor doesent pick it up?? That explains how I’ve kicked opponents as hard as I could to the head with a roundhouse and system never counted it. I’ve also knocked some opponents over with kicks and hit them with all I’ve got and even those points didn’t count.
Old school practitioner here: I agree with you. Most of us back then didn't wear foot pads to make sure there is a loud sound when hitting the vest or helmet. But man, it really hurts when hitting the elbows :-). Really sad seeing how tkd has become.
My 80 yo taekwondo teacher can literally do 5 kicks in mid air with extreme strengh follow by about 40 push ups (she is an old lady so its very impressive) right after about 100 kicks in a roll without a sweat. Me and My friends cant even do 30 kicks in a roll without getting absurley tired. I think the way they used to teach martial arts was way better and the general health of ppl was better too.
true old school tkd rocks
This isn't martial art anymore this is some kind of spin-off tag
I was one time sparring with my friend in Taekwondo. We both went for a turning kick and kicked both our shins. Class finished and I was changing and lifted up my pant leg to check if my leg okay, and then I was like, "huh, never realized my knee was this low," then I lifted it up more and I was like, "Oh~, there's my knee." A pretty funny memory I'm gonna hold onto for a long time, ngl 🤪
Wait a minute, did you get fractured?
@@AmberRathour366 Probably a big bump from the impact similar how you bump your head and get a knot lol hematoma is the medical fancy term.
I laughed while reading this bc this happened to me and my friend Tuesday while sparring except I didn't have a huge bump and for whatever reason my instructor decided to make us sparr today and I fought my friends older brother and the same thing happened except he wasn't affected
When me and my brother who was in a higher weight class sparred and our shins connected I would always go limp as a fish 😂. Good ol days
Fully agree, I started as a child at 4 y/o, eventually got my 3rd Dan at 17 y/o but after going to college and coming back at like 23 I was really disappointed about all the Olympic style fights.
90' fighting for life
21' fighting for money
So basically old school TKD was kick combos from street fighter. Pretty cool.
I remember doing it as a kid through the 90's was the best part of my childhood
As grandpa simpson would say: "people were tougher back in those days."
I've been doing ITF TKD for around 15 years now. They phased out chest guards awhile ago and our strikes aren't exactly like 1999 WTF, but the matches look a lot more like 1999 than 2011. I think my school's master would've kicked people out if they went for hugs and threw weak, distant attacks like that lol.
Old = Omniman
New = Princess Waifu
As a kid I trained TKD for about 7 years in the 80's by a pretty hard ass instructor from Korea. After seeing how some of the matches went in the 88 Seoul Olympics it disappointed me no end as a realized the sport side of things were moving it away from being anything close to being an effective combat art. I would imagine things would have only gotten worse since.
thank you for the unbiased presentation and comparison!!!
Are you sarcasting? Because I can't tell
Taekwondo de verdade foi até 2010,2011, o resto é só showzinho de perninha levantada...sou Taekwondista desde 2002,a arte que eu aprendi e amei não é essa que hoje temos nos jogos olímpicos...saudade da década de 2000.
Bom,se vc tiver tempo tem como deixar uma explicação do pq teve essa mudança tão radical?
@@bichoestranhocomcaudas6543 acho que s quantidade grande de mcdojos e a inclusão como esporte olímpico
@@gabrielzanoni3474
Na verdade o Taekwondo se tornou esporte olímpico em 1988 em Seul na Coréia,somente como esporte de exibição,apenas no jogos de Sidney na Austrália o Taekwondo se tornou um esporte olímpico de combate.
@@bichoestranhocomcaudas6543
Acredito que mudou assim por causa da chegada na tecnologia nos esportes, infelizmente com a chegada dos sensores de captação de impacto nos coletes e capacetes para pontuar,acabou com o Taekwondo raíz que se trocava pancada de verdade,e não esse negócio de ficar com a perninha levantada não,hoje se você encosta no sensor marca o ponto
@@bichoestranhocomcaudas6543
E antes o atleta buscava o nocaute,hoje querem é fazer o máximo de ponto e segurar o resultado...como esporte na minha opinião teve uma decadência significativa,como arte marcial não teve mudança graças a Deus.
Abraço
I am from 2024 amazing how Taekwondo looked so strange nowadays
The change in technique with this play safe electronic scoring has destroyed TKD! My daughter is a brawler and when she absolutely beats an opponent up but the opponent out scores her with magnetic socks is absolutely ridiculous. Their kicks are weak and barely brushing the hogu yet they score so easily. It’s embarrassing for the sport!
Bro that jump kick💀
Too many rules and restrictions over the years resulted to this. I do understand that we need to prevent injuries, though.
As someone who competed in the 90s, taking my yellow belt exam was more physical than today's tournaments by the look of it. Not surprised, people are soft like jelly and offended by everything. In another ten years, kids will be walking around in clear hamster balls.
Why taekwondo don't use a punch.
And I hear from my dad that punch are ban at Olympic and what the point if you learning a punch
👁️➖👁️ I am still a yellow belt don't expect a lot From me k
Long response incoming to a great question:
Punches don't score well in the tkd rule system. You can't punch to the face so that leads you with the body, and for a sport that's always at kicking range, the punch becomes quite redundant as people prefer to shove someone away and land a kick which scores more points.
Regarding whether there's a point in learning punching from tkd it depends. If you want tkd just for the sport aspect, you obviously won't need to learn how to box like Mike Tyson. But as a martial art, it makes taekwondo more complete.
Will you learn how to punch well in tkd? Sure, you might get decent punching power from board breaking etc.
Will you fight with punches (or fight at all for that matter) with tkd?
Probably not. Because you don't spar with punches in tkd (WT taekwondo that is), it's hard to apply in a fighting situation. And if you're used to sparring tkd style, well, we know that's not really ideal.
Conclusion: if you want to know how to fight with tkd, you'll be investing a lot more time in it than like Muay Thai, MMA boxing. Am I saying don't do taekwondo? No, it's a good martial art in my opinion as long as you're not in a mcdojo. But if you're looking for the "learn how to fight quick" type of martial art, tkd takes a fairly long time for it to start being applicable. However, you can make it work as long as you train your punches (and expand variety) and spar using more complete rulesets, then tkd is pretty great.
@@wii_music_intensifies9023 I see,punch give a low score, right,
It's a hard to use on a certain situation since mostly tkd used kicking. 👍😆
@@lithoK see perfect, you understand already. Best yellow belt in the business haha
@@wii_music_intensifies9023 Honestly, that response summarizes taekwondo really well. You really understand martial arts as a whole well.
Depends on which Taekwondo you're learning/practising. The olympic taekwondo is for looks. While the other taekwondo is for actual combat and teaches punches grappling and how to kill someone