Taekwondo in MMA (from a blackbelt)

[ceezsb]

I know its been discussed a 100 times but I keep seeing some misconceptions about TKD. (like in the TKD vs Muay Thai flamefest) Ive been practicing TKD for 11 years and have lately transitioned into muay thai so I thought I'd clarify some things.

Firstoff, there are 2 versions of TKD: ITF and WTF style. In the discussion they are almost always lumped into 1 but they are so different from each other that they should be seen as 2 different sports.

WTF is the version you see in the olympics, with the large body protectors and hands at their waste: YouTube - Tae Kwon Do fight in Korea
It was developed with the intent to turn taekwondo into more of a sport instead of a martial art to get it accepted in to the olympics.
Personally I feel WTF is more a 'game' then 'fighting' now. Its just fencing with legs. I have no doubt its still a great sport to compete in, but I cant imagine it having any use in 'real' fighting.

If we discuss the use of TKD in the cage or ring we should talk about ITF Taekwondo

ITF Taekwondo is the original martial art.
Competition looks like this: YouTube - Andrey Pasechnyk ITF-EURO 2007 Slovakia

As you can see, it looks a lot more like 'real' fighting. However sparring is still confined to a strict set of rules:
- No takedowns of any kind
- No holding of limbs, head, neck or body allowed
- No legkicks
- No knees
- No kicks or punches to the back
- No heavy contact (all techniques should be applied with restraint)
- No hooks (only straight punches)

On top of that, kicks are awarded more points then punches.

As a result of these rules, what works on the TKD mat, does not nessecerily work outside of the TKD mat.
The truth is that TKD style of fighting just falls apart as soon as these rules are not present (AKA in a muay thai match, boxing match, mma match, street fight, etc.)

Its not all bad though, in my transition to Muay Thai, Judo and Kuyokushin there were definate parts from my TKD background that I could find a use for:
- Kicking technique (transitioning into MT style kicking goes fast with highly developed leg motor skills.)
- Timing and distance judging.
- Work ethic and discipline
- Competition experience

If you want to learn 'Fighting' I would advise Muay Thai over TKD. In my humble oppinion, addition of TKD to your Standup can definately be usefull but your base should be MT or boxing.

That being said, I still LOVE Taekwondo as a sport. If you are looking for a semi contact martial art, it doesnt get any better then ITF taekwondo. Always remember though that it should be seen as a sport and its use in real fighting is limited


Cliffs:
Dont lump all TKD into one. Big difference between ITF style and WTF style TKD. Both still have way too much rules to be effective outside of the TKD dojo.

 

[thirteen]

Very informative post.
Good work.

 

[shinneh]

I agree, good job. I myself came from a tkd itf background. It does transfer into my MT but sometimes destroys my stance and I keep falling back to being an out fighter. Which sucks cause Id fight at 145 at 5'3... I'm too small for that outside shit. I still HATE the teaching of light contact that tkd does...and most tkd guys don't even understand "keep your hands up"!

 

[Doughbelly]

You talk about clearing up misconceptions, yet you perpetuate the same WTF and ITF stereotypes that people have been going on about for the past three and a half decades.

 

[ovenj0ckey]

tkd including olympic style teaches excellent gfootwork, distance, timing

lotta good fundamentals just not a fighting system :icon_neut

 

[strike63]

im a blackbelt too in tkd and agree with all your points there, but one of the guys i have trained with all my life has just made the transition to MMA with TKD being his base stand up training and has had very good success with it so far.

 

[DrunkMonkMeth]

I know its been discussed a 100 times but I keep seeing some misconceptions about TKD. (like in the TKD vs Muay Thai flamefest) Ive been practicing TKD for 11 years and have lately transitioned into muay thai so I thought I'd clarify some things.

Firstoff, there are 2 versions of TKD: ITF and WTF style. In the discussion they are almost always lumped into 1 but they are so different from each other that they should be seen as 2 different sports.

WTF is the version you see in the olympics, with the large body protectors and hands at their waste: YouTube - Tae Kwon Do fight in Korea
It was developed with the intent to turn taekwondo into more of a sport instead of a martial art to get it accepted in to the olympics.
Personally I feel WTF is more a 'game' then 'fighting' now. Its just fencing with legs. I have no doubt its still a great sport to compete in, but I cant imagine it having any use in 'real' fighting.

If we discuss the use of TKD in the cage or ring we should talk about ITF Taekwondo

ITF Taekwondo is the original martial art.
Competition looks like this: YouTube - Andrey Pasechnyk ITF-EURO 2007 Slovakia

As you can see, it looks a lot more like 'real' fighting. However sparring is still confined to a strict set of rules:
- No takedowns of any kind
- No holding of limbs, head, neck or body allowed
- No legkicks
- No knees
- No kicks or punches to the back
- No heavy contact (all techniques should be applied with restraint)
- No hooks (only straight punches)

On top of that, kicks are awarded more points then punches.

As a result of these rules, what works on the TKD mat, does not nessecerily work outside of the TKD mat.
The truth is that TKD style of fighting just falls apart as soon as these rules are not present (AKA in a muay thai match, boxing match, mma match, street fight, etc.)

Its not all bad though, in my transition to Muay Thai, Judo and Kuyokushin there were definate parts from my TKD background that I could find a use for:
- Kicking technique (transitioning into MT style kicking goes fast with highly developed leg motor skills.)
- Timing and distance judging.
- Work ethic and discipline
- Competition experience

If you want to learn 'Fighting' I would advise Muay Thai over TKD. In my humble oppinion, addition of TKD to your Standup can definately be usefull but your base should be MT or boxing.

That being said, I still LOVE Taekwondo as a sport. If you are looking for a semi contact martial art, it doesnt get any better then ITF taekwondo. Always remember though that it should be seen as a sport and its use in real fighting is limited


Cliffs:
Dont lump all TKD into one. Big difference between ITF style and WTF style TKD. Both still have way too much rules to be effective outside of the TKD dojo.

as a young adult who spent age 6-16 doing TKD then transitioning to MT/boxing at 18 and having a 4th degree blackbelt father.. i completely agree with everything you said.. (we are ITF btw)

 

[NjBjj732]

I know its been discussed a 100 times but I keep seeing some misconceptions about TKD. (like in the TKD vs Muay Thai flamefest) Ive been practicing TKD for 11 years and have lately transitioned into muay thai so I thought I'd clarify some things.

Firstoff, there are 2 versions of TKD: ITF and WTF style. In the discussion they are almost always lumped into 1 but they are so different from each other that they should be seen as 2 different sports.

WTF is the version you see in the olympics, with the large body protectors and hands at their waste: YouTube - Tae Kwon Do fight in Korea
It was developed with the intent to turn taekwondo into more of a sport instead of a martial art to get it accepted in to the olympics.
Personally I feel WTF is more a 'game' then 'fighting' now. Its just fencing with legs. I have no doubt its still a great sport to compete in, but I cant imagine it having any use in 'real' fighting.

If we discuss the use of TKD in the cage or ring we should talk about ITF Taekwondo

ITF Taekwondo is the original martial art.
Competition looks like this: YouTube - Andrey Pasechnyk ITF-EURO 2007 Slovakia

As you can see, it looks a lot more like 'real' fighting. However sparring is still confined to a strict set of rules:
- No takedowns of any kind
- No holding of limbs, head, neck or body allowed
- No legkicks
- No knees
- No kicks or punches to the back
- No heavy contact (all techniques should be applied with restraint)
- No hooks (only straight punches)

On top of that, kicks are awarded more points then punches.

As a result of these rules, what works on the TKD mat, does not nessecerily work outside of the TKD mat.
The truth is that TKD style of fighting just falls apart as soon as these rules are not present (AKA in a muay thai match, boxing match, mma match, street fight, etc.)

Its not all bad though, in my transition to Muay Thai, Judo and Kuyokushin there were definate parts from my TKD background that I could find a use for:
- Kicking technique (transitioning into MT style kicking goes fast with highly developed leg motor skills.)
- Timing and distance judging.
- Work ethic and discipline
- Competition experience

If you want to learn 'Fighting' I would advise Muay Thai over TKD. In my humble oppinion, addition of TKD to your Standup can definately be usefull but your base should be MT or boxing.

That being said, I still LOVE Taekwondo as a sport. If you are looking for a semi contact martial art, it doesnt get any better then ITF taekwondo. Always remember though that it should be seen as a sport and its use in real fighting is limited


Cliffs:
Dont lump all TKD into one. Big difference between ITF style and WTF style TKD. Both still have way too much rules to be effective outside of the TKD dojo.

very informative, thanks. i knew there were 2 types of TKD but i never really knew the difference. I am an orange belt in TKD but idk what kind.

 

[Too Defensive**]

You talk about clearing up misconceptions, yet you perpetuate the same WTF and ITF stereotypes that people have been going on about for the past three and a half decades.

lol. Such a smart a$$

 

[Valiss]

Firstoff, there are 2 versions of TKD: ITF and WTF style. In the discussion they are almost always lumped into 1 but they are so different from each other that they should be seen as 2 different sports

This is incorrect. There is also AIMMA. I studied this style many years ago and this style created by Master Cho's is a bit different than both of ITF and WTF.

 

[singdawg]

- Timing and distance judging.
- Work ethic and discipline
- Competition experience
--
asides from your kicking technique which is probably superior to most other peoples kickingstyles (simply because of more practice time devoted to this aspect), all these can be gained from every other martial art.

but while your kicks are going to be really good, you're probably not going to even consider/know how to do things like punching, kneeing, elbowing, headbutting, takedowns, clinching, anything on the ground, if you don't cross train.

 

[DurrutisGhost]

I know this is probably a stupid question, but I was wondering why boxing is very effective in MMA stand up and TKD is not. I mean when you think about it boxing and TKD seem pretty similar, one dimensional stand up styles that have a heavy focus on footwork that have strict rules that you have to work around to be effective in MMA.

 

[singdawg]

I know this is probably a stupid question, but I was wondering why boxing is very effective in MMA stand up and TKD is not. I mean when you think about it boxing and TKD seem pretty similar, one dimensional stand up styles that have a heavy focus on footwork that have strict rules that you have to work around to be effective in MMA.

This is a falsehood, boxers and tkders aren't successful in MMA. mixed martial artists are successful in mma.

 

[DurrutisGhost]

This is a falsehood, boxers and tkders aren't successful in MMA. mixed martial artists are successful in mma.

That's true, but as a standup style boxing is effective.

 

[WDSTK]

Cannot stand lurking on this thread any longer. My training background thru the years was boxing >ITF takewando > Muay Thai > now Shidokan Karate. Some of the ITF students included boxing techniques in their sparring. We even had a friday night fights which was a full contact (kickboxing rules) match between the black belts. In one fight, a guy had a rib broken by a spinning side kick but still wanted the fight to continue even with his rib hanging loosely next to his skin (cop and veteran, my highest respect). I do remember the ridge hand being used during sparring instead of the left hook so I guess the hook was illegal. Although we trained some boxing techniques at the ITF school. We did not have a ring, double end bag, thai pads or speed bag. Did not train on slipping and ring footwork or clinch work hardly at all. Did not use the heavy bag except more for kicking drills. Padwork was pretty much linear drills on a single large pad. My instructor had not trained or competed as a boxer or kickboxer much. Also the training sessions had to incorporate forms, one steps, self defense drills and sometimes board breaking so sparring and sparring drills were condensed. Alot of the ITF training was good and applicable to ring sports as described in this thread. I just think that MMA is still pretty much still a ring sport. Is is not regulated by the same state commissions that regulate boxing, Muay Thai and kick boxing? The boxing and muay thai training just seem more totally oriented and portable to ring competition while taekwando has to be adapted and some parts of the training cannot be used. I have met very competent fighters and people who can handle themselves in a self defense situation at all the different gyms and dojos. Probably stating the obvious, but I think the MT and boxing training are just more oriented to the MMA competitions then other striking arts and what happens is the MMA fighter who has a base in a striking art other than boxing and MT is he starts to incorporate some of those techniques and his base style changes to resemble more of a kickboxer or MT fighter than his original striking art. He still retains and uses some of the techniques from his original art but he has a hybrid style now. My 2 cents worth. I feel alot better now.

 

[aaron_mag]

You talk about clearing up misconceptions, yet you perpetuate the same WTF and ITF stereotypes that people have been going on about for the past three and a half decades.

The first thing ITF and WTF need to do is stop peeing on each others legs. I have had many a transfer guy who was really good. The transition back and forth does not seem overly difficult. That being said itf is probably closer to shotokan than it's Olympic cousin. It is basically modified karate. I will never forget the 1st time I saw a kata demo and realized whole sections of our hyungs had been completely lifted and inserted. Very disheartening!

 

[aaron_mag]

This is incorrect. There is also AIMMA. I studied this style many years ago and this style created by Master Cho's is a bit different than both of ITF and WTF.

Actually Hee Il Cho's style is very similar to ITF. Practically identical. He is, after all, considered one of the big master's of the style and we used to order and watch all his videos all the time (back in the old days).

The thing about Cho was that he really cross-trained boxing long before the whole MMA craze.

 

[quikkick]

It worked here:

YouTube - ProFC-"Union Nation Cup" Stage-4 Adlan Amagov vs Maskhat Akhmetov

 

[KoSubDntMttr]

that is not the difference beteen itf and wtf

it is a huge story involving general choi, north korea, south korea and even canada.


i cant post the whole story or let alone both sides to it but do some research

and not all wtf fighters keeps there hands at there waist. just ignorant

i call b.s on TS' black belt legitimacy/or knowledge of TKD/TKD history

 

[aaron_mag]

A very good book on the subject (history of TKD) is A Killing Art. Does not paint a pretty picture of the history, but does not bash either. Good informative read.