Taegeuk Oh Jang Application for Taekwondo fighter

In his post: "Taekwondo is a long range martial art. Right?" Josh or "Taekwondo fighter" makes an
interesting case on how he views kicks and their function in Taekwondo Poomsae. The blog post is well worth a read and the blog in general is great (I see it as a "sister blog" to my own as me and Josh share many similar thoughts while also disagreeing enough to keep the fun of reading ) so what I am trying to say is that I recommend the blog, the post and all its content :-) Anyway, in the comments to that post I said something along the lines that simply by lowering the height of the kicks most KTA Poomsae kicks will fit in with the medium to short range and I gave a well known sequence to Taegeuk Oh Jang as an example. Josh countered and told me that for it to work you needed to kick with the front leg to make it work, or to evade too much with the parry pass method. Now a form demonstrating what to do if you position yourself too far away is a good thing, but then he would be right and not me:-P So what did I do? I tweaked my original application so it still works as in the form :-P For my unaltered application and his comment that spurred this whole post read his post and then the comment section below it.



High Section Block, Hammer fist strike/Side kick target elbow strike

2 minutes 53 seconds into the clip

Parry pass, distracting strike, low side kick, hammer fist strike target elbow strike


Like in one of the apps for Taegeuk Il Jang I use "The Fence" to limit the choices of the opponent. "The Fence" by Geoff Thompson should be required reading material for all martial artists and I can not recommend it enough. It is a short book but it contains a wealthy amount of valuable content.

The "Fence" is used to limit the choices of the opponent while maintaining distance.

The opponent "jabs" or does a straight shot to my head.
I move to the outside parrying the blow with a shortened "an makki"
(Chamber for high section block)

I pass to the other hand, effectively obstructing his vision and also taking care
to shut down the attack (at least make it harder for him).
"Blocking" on his elbow joint or just above it turns his dangerous hand
away from me and takes his balance a little while also breaking his
structure.
(High Section block)

I grab his arm with the one I just "blocked" with and deliver a distracting strike
to his face/head while also kneeing him on a vital point on the outside thigh.
(This is the chamber for side kick/hammer fist,)

His front foot being displaced by the knee strike, I have a clear shot
to the back leg which I attack with a side kick while delivering the
hammer fist strike to the head. I keep holding on to the arm for balance.
(this is the side kick hammer fist combo) 

I then step down into an ap koobi (long front stance) and deliver an elbow strike
just as in the form. The low side kick would bring down the head so in the form
we do it in the middle section but as I did not go for a knee joint break I do it
high section here.
(the target elbow strike from the form)

Below is from another angle and here the attacker is doing a "reverse punch" instead of a leading punch. Same idea applies though :-)

Move outside and parry

Pass to other hand move in

Grab arm, distracting strike to head while knee strike to vital point on
inside thigh

Attack his rear leg with side kick while delivering
a hammer fist/forearm strike to his face

Step down and deliver an elbow strike (this time I chose the corner of the
jaw as that was open to me)

If you look closely to the video I embedded you will note that the hand when chambering for the hammer fist strike goes to the opposite ear for chamber as in a low block. The distracting strike I do here is an application of this chamber movement. There are some who chamber this way and some who chamber in different ways, but this is how I was taught by my teacher, and in Korea at Chosun University. It was also emphasised in the "Dart fish" DVD`s that came out some years ago.

Play around with it and see if you can make it work for you:-) If you want to be taught applications like these to your Poomsae let me know. I am available for seminars and workshops :-)


If you liked the application and want to see more of this in more Dojang around the world please share this post so as many people as possible can get the chance to see it ;-)

In the comments he also said something about the similar sequence in Taebaek Poomsae? Can you guess which sequence I will write about in the next post?? :-) Stay tuned.

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