Taekwondo Street

TaeKwon-Do as a defensive art is extremely effective, and when taught appropriately and utilized by a proficient practitioner, it will serve very well whether facing a novice fighter or an experienced martial artists.

Unfortunately many on these posts like to knock other arts in which they may have very limited experience or in depth knowledge. That is the nature of asking for opinion on such an open forum.

TaeKwon-Do has its limitations and its flaws, just as every system of defense out there has, and just as every individual fighter has. There is no perfect system. What each individual must seek out is a single art or combination of arts that sepak to them, that they understand and enjoy playing with, and that they are excited about putting in the long hours of training and practice required to make them effective.

I personally like traditional TaeKwon-Do as it employs many of the self-defense principals I believe in and agree with. It focuses on minimum use of energy for maximum effect, concentration of force for maximum impact, limitation of power to the most effective ranges, and a malleable use of distance and technique to utilize the defensive ranges and strenghts of the human body in the most effective and logically sequential way possible.

There are many flaws in the WTF Olympic model of TaeKwon-Do that may inexperienced and poorly trained instructors adopt in its entirety as a comprehensive art. It is not, and anyone in a school that focuses only on Olympic model sparring is unfortunately being short-changed significantly on the whole diversity and range of what true TaeKwon-Do offers.

TaeKwon-do does initially focus on the use of the legs for distance defense and keeping opponents at a safer range. Certainly for the untrained, inexperienced, and ineffective, utilizing such kicking, checking, striking, blocking, and pushing techniques can be fraught with danger. For the experienced and well trained and prepared artist however, these tecniques are executed in the sure and certain knowledge that the opponent will try to grasp them, deflect them, or overbalance the defender; thus all such techniques are executed with a speed, to targets, and with distracting simultaneous movements that will make it difficult for all but the most experienced opponent to achieve their aims.

Contrary to very popular (and entirely wrong) opinion, TaeKwon-Do is not an art of primarily kicking techniques. It is a fully developed, fully matured, comprehensive defensive system which has as many hand, elbow, shoulder, and knee striking techniques as any other hard system I have seen, worked with, or experienced. We also teach falling, rolling, tripping, sweeping, and throwing. Again however, if you look toward the restrictive view of TaeKwon-Do from the WTF Olympic view, then it would be easy to believe we only know how to punch with our fore fist. I can assure you, all of my students, and many other students of TaeKwon-Do I have met know a great deal more than that.

The real crux of your question however does not really come down to the discipline, it comes down to the person using it and their ability to effectively employ whatever techniques from whatever art they have studied. Trainiing is designed to help you overcome some natural human tendencies that are not particulalry conducive to mounting an effective defense. If you train well, have a qualified and experienced instructor, and are mentally prepared should the worst case scenario ever occur, you will have done all you can to provide yoruself with the best opportunity possible.

In such a situation myself, my first line of defense would be my mind to try to talk my way out. My first life of physical defense would be TaeKwon-Do to keep them at a slightly longer distance and if they managed to get inside that range it would be a combination of TaeKwon-Do and HapMoosaKi-Do to strike, debilitate, and control simultaneously.

Interestingly we just held a Freestyle games event on Sat Sep 22 and had TaeKwon-Do, HapMoosaKi-Do, Kickboxing, and Karate practitioners all sparring with each other in a freestyle continuous sparring model. At the black belt level when everyone expects everyone else to be competent and knowledgeable, distance was the key until the odd opening occurred. In junior divisions, the lack of experience and effectiveness often results in messy confrontations with TaeKwon-Do practitioners forgetting to protect their head, HapMoosaKi-Do people wanting to close to quickly against competent kickers, and kickboxers forgetting that TaeKwon-Do people are used to seeing telegraphed kicks and moving away from the while counter-kicking or striking.