Revamping mainstream Taekwondo to self defense

Taekwondo is different things to different people, and indeed there are many different reasons why

people practise Taekwondo. Some enjoy the sport of sparring, other the solo performance of its forms, yet others like the "brotherhood" of the Dojang they belong to. If you ask 100 students from the age of 16 and older why they first started though I believe there is a very good chance that the answer is at least partly for the whish to learn self defense skills. Many who reads this blog gets the impression that I am a full time instructor and that I run my own Dojang, but that is a mistaken belief.

I am training in a Dojang that operates out of a school gym with very limited training time as well as equipment. I have for a long time however taken charge of my own development outside the Dojang as well as inside it, so eventhough I only make it to the Dojang twice a week I do some kind of Taekwondo practise every day, and often if you count the small minute sessions I do it several times each and every day. For the most part however I see that most of the students at the Dojang I practise at and I guess based on conversations with other masters, that the "normal" students practises Taekwondo at the Dojang 2 times a week and thats it. When you look at the training time invested coupled with all that Taekwondo encompasses there is no denying that people dont really get their pennies worth when it comes to self defense. It is therefore not strange to observe that other martial arts and "reality based systems" who give more imidiate results gets more popular with the general public. The result is therefore that old students quit after 1-3 years, and new students comes in the door at longer and longer intervals.

This is not a new trend in any way, and I believe the focus on sport that we have seen these last 10-20 years in Taekwondo has been to keep student retention high. After all they come in the door looking for self defense, they get an exciting sport instead. Some quit when they realize they dont really learn self defense (they do, but it takes a couple of years, so I dont think Taekwondo is in any way worse than other arts for self defense, I just think they tackle the self defense portion in a different way than others do), but some stays because of the sport. We have done great this way as a martial art and we have a huge number of participants all over the globe, but with the rise of the MMA we have gotten some serious competition. MMA is also an exciting combat sport (even I as a Taekwondo practisioner much prefer to watch MMA fights than look at the Olympic sparring format), and eventhough it is limited by a ruleset its fighting applications have a larger overlap with the physical components of self defense than Olympic sparring.

I do believe that the solution to the problem (that older students quit and new "older students" dont come to Taekwondo anymore) is rather simple. We simply need to gear everything or as much as possible of our training in to what people want to survive in the current market. If the public whishes for self defense we should give it to them. I am not talking about simply stressing the Ho Sin Sul part of Taekwondo training from day one, rather I am talking about giving the students the key skills for self defense, both soft and hard skills from day one. Most self defense courses are rather short time affairs. They last anywhere from a few evenings, or a weekend to a month course. We on the other hand have about 2 times a week for 6 months for white belts to yellow belts. We should be able to teach those students from day one everything a "normal" self defense course will teach in a more holistic way. Even more so if you structure your syllabus around this goal.

The soft skills of self defense is everything you do to avoid comming into a physical self defense

situation. This is everything from getting good locks on your door, being polite, avoid places that often sees violence, not getting supid drunk in public as well as avoidence, awareness and de-escalation techniques. In many Dojang we teach the tenets and laws of Taekwondo. Linking these to the self defense soft skills is something you can talk about a little each session and then ask the students to write an explanation on this in their own words as part of their written exam for their first grading. Allready they have been given a more thourough understanding of the soft skills than most people practising Taekwondo today get even when they are black belts. This foundation built squarly on the philosophical and ethical foundation we allready teach in traditional taekwondo can be built upon a little by each grade. Lets say that for their next exam in another 6 months they need to explain in their own words the self defense law as it is in their country. Sure they can not be expected to know everything like a lawyer would do, but knowing if he/she is allowed to strike first, what is reasonable force, etc is extremely valuable information. Fast forward another 6 months and have them explain awareness. What are they looking for? Are there times you should be more aware than others? Etc. These are topics you can devote 5 minutes after each class to discuss. They are important topics for sure, but 5 minutes times twice a week for 6 months adds up. According to my simple head it should amount to 4 hours of talking about awareness in total.

Another way of implementing this would be to devote 1 weekend and have lectures every 6 months that were mandatory for the students. It does not even have to take a single minute away from the precious training time is what I am getting at. Following this you can build and build more and more for each rank. Self defense is a huge area and the physical/ hard skills needed is actually just a small drop in the ocean when compared to the "soft" skills.

The hard skills

The beauty of traditional Taekwondo is that all you need for the hard skills of self defense is allready right there in Taekwondo! If you go to a self defense seminar you will learn a handfull of techniques and that would be it. Taekwondo allready have them and train them from day one, but with little to no emphasis on practical application of the techniques. I get that you need to devote a lot of time on "air punching" to get the correct form, but the instructor could demonstrate the application for the technique for everyone to see so they know what they are doing or supposed to do.

The techniques the students learn for a yellow belt in Taekwondo is usually the following:

• Arae Makki (low block)
• Momtong An Makki (inward middle block)
• Eulgeul Makki (Face block)
• Momtong Jireugi (middle section straight punch)
• Ap Chagi Baldeung/Apchuk (front kick with instep and ball of the foot)
• Apchaolligi (Axe kick)
• Ap Seogi (short front stance)
• Ap Koobi (long front stance)
• Joochum Seogi (horse stance)

The stances show how the students move their body weight into the techniques as well as how to avoid attacks. The defensive parries covers every section of the body, and the attacking techniques are pretty much the same as those learned in krav maga, or any other self defense course as beginning techniques (except the Axe kick, but in traditional taekwondo it was described as "limbering up kick. It was seen as a training kick. Only later did it become a technique you could use in a competition context). What Taekwondo instructors should do however is to make it clear to the students that each traditional basic technique is merely a "template" and that depending on the situation you will use part of the whole movement or you will use the complete movement. To teach the students something they can put into use in the shortest amount of time the traditional block kick punch applications are actually a good place to start. Just make sure you are teaching them the reason for the pulling hand and how they should use it actively or not use it at all when punching (attached or unattached punching), how the parries should follow the same trajectory as the complete movement, but be shortened, parry from wherever the hands allready are and use evasion together with the parries.

When this can be done by the students, they can learn how to use their limited library of techniques in many different situations grasping the underlying principles. The front kick can be used to the groin, to the shin, or to the head if you have manipulated the opponent to bend forward at the waist by an armbar. It can be used as an entry technique, a pre-emptive attack, to create an opening, and in different distances. Likewise the punch can be taught like that as well. How to use it preemptively, good places to target, how to use the pulling hand and punch together, using multiple strikes to multiple levels of the body etc.

The students will no doubt be doing most things in the air the first month or so, but then they should be introduced to partner work. In my dojang and in many others this means 3 step and 1 step sparring. These are formal and fixed in the Dojang I belong to, but in my view they are a great starting point for deeper study and more live training. Once the students have been taught how to avoid a straight punch by sidestepping, parry and counter punch in one move, as well as countering with more than one strike and to multiple planes of the body (which they learn in one step 1 and 2 for their first grading) more live drilling can easily be implemented. The first one I would introduce for beginners would be an adaptation of the formal one. Standing in fighting stance the attacker will feed the same attack on the partner but with no signal. Next they can move around freely but still be limited to the

same attack. Then doing it even more live with the attacker deciding on which side the attack will come from (left punch or right punch). Then how to use the same principle (avoid by sidestepping and counterstrike in one move) against various other straight attacks. Attempted grab, push, even a soccer style front kick etc. This is something I can see be realisticly taught and mastered in a short timespan if taught correctly, and little by little. I honestly think that a green belt being taught like this will know much more about self defense than most black belt students do today. I also think that student retention would be very high, because the people are getting what they want from the get go. If people today stick around with Taekwondo they will learn this after many years on their own, but with focused teaching I think it would take a lot less time.

The point I am trying to make is that traditional Taekwondo has so much to offer in terms of self defense, but this potential is often halfhazardly taught with a focus on sport instead of self defense. We allready have the techniques, we have a formal introduction on how to use Our techniques as well as a formal introduction on partner work. We have a philosophical and ethical foundation to build upon.

I hope to provide much more video content to this blog in the future. I have therefore set up a GoFundMe page on www.gofundme.com/traditionaltaekwondoramblings which I hope I can crowdfund a video editing software so I can make good quality videos for the blogs readers. If you want to contribute please visit the link to my GoFundMe page. Every donation helps :-)