Is Taekwondo good for self defence?
If you search online there are lots of discussions about whether Taekwondo is good for self-defence and as a martial artist, I want to bring up this discussion here and want to see what people think about the art, especially for people who study it. The first martial art I studied was Wing Chun, I then went onto studying Boxing and now I am doing Taekwondo. I enjoy reading up topics on different types of martial arts and when I search for Taekwondo, there are very mixed opinions; some people say Taekwondo is good, while others say it is absolutely useless for self-defence. In a Wing Chun perspective, Taekwondo would be considered inadequate due to the emphasis on high kicks. Wing Chun focuses on punches with the support of low kicks and high kicks are generally avoided because missing a high kick can leave you in a vulnerable position and someone may grab your leg if you kick high. Once they grabbed your leg, there is little you can do to defend or attack.
My Taekwondo experience is mainly based on WTF (World Taekwondo Federation) and ITF (International Taekwondo Federation) as I have only tried out these two types of taekwondo and they are probably the most popular as well. There are also other types such as ATA (American Taekwondo Federation) but I will only discuss about ITF and WTF since I only studied the two and everything I say later on is just my personal opinion.
When I first started Taekwondo many years ago, I went to the Taekwondo class at my University which does WTF Taekwondo. I have to say that I didn’t enjoy the class. Firstly, the Taekwondo instructor was very bad who can’t really teach but I won’t go into that today since that is not the aim of today’s discussion. Coming from a Wing Chun and Boxing background, I just simply cannot kick well but the good thing was that I am a pretty flexible person so I do some pretty decent kicks for a beginner in a kicking art. I left the club after 7 lessons as the instructor was bad and I disliked the WTF style. In the 7 classes we did around 3 drills that requires using your hands but the thing that annoyed me the most was that you can’t punch during sparring. Well, you could but apparently it doesn’t earn you any points. Talking about points annoys me even more, I went to a martial arts class to study self-defence and not to compete in competitions. WTF Taekwondo focuses way too much on competing and 80% of the time the technique they use are optimal for taekwondo competitions but absolutely useless for self-defence. When I was sparring, I used a chain punch learned from my Wing Chun class so the person who I sparred raised up the point about multiple punches to the instructor. The instructor then said that you shouldn’t punch like that as it gives you no points. Instead, you should use a backwards fist as you can get 1 point if your backwards fist drops the opponent to the ground. Maybe it is good for sparring but using a backwards fist can leave your arm vulnerable to an arm break so it is a very bad move to use during a self-defence situation. From then onwards, I knew WTF taekwondo wasn’t for me.
WTF Taekwondo is an Olympics sports so I understand the emphasis on sparring but I really think that it isn’t optimal for self-defence. If you want to compete, this is a good option but for self-defence, it is a big NO from me.
After doing a bit of research, I found out that you can punch in sparring in ITF Taekwondo and I knew this was exactly what I was looking for. Therefore, I joined an ITF Taekwondo Club and I do enjoy it so much more. The club has a similar structure to the one at my University but there is much more emphasis on hand techniques and that is exactly what I wanted. I prefer using punches over kicks any day and the reason why I train in a kicking art is just to make sure I can punch and kick at the same time and I use my kicks as a supportive system for my Wing Chun and Boxing. Being able to use my Wing Chun and Boxing in my taekwondo sparring allowed to put the two arts together and this really helped me improved my martial arts skills.
Now that I talked a bit about my Taekwondo experience, this leads onto the most important point on whether Taekwondo is good for self-defence. The main problem with Taekwondo is its high kicks. A good Taekwondo kick requires high speed and power because if you lack one of the two, your kick can be easily caught and you can be taken down to the floor which leaves you in a vulnerable position considering the lack of groundwork. You may do some groundwork in your taekwondo class but it probably won’t be enough to save you in a self-defence situation. Personally, I think a good taekwondo practitioner can use taekwondo for effective self-defence. However, by “good” I mean black belts. Taekwondo is a very hard art to get good at and if you are not good at it, it isn’t very effective for self-defence due to its nature. On the other hand, when you compare it to something like Wing Chun, it teaches you to fight in a very short period of time so you can look to be able to defend yourself in around 6 months. However, with Taekwondo, it will take so much longer. By Black Belt, I do not mean a belt from McDojangs that promise black belts in 1 year; it must be from a decent Dojang and you must have studied the art for at least 3-5 years training 1-3 times a week and practising at home.
The main problem with Taekwondo is that kicking requires too much energy compared to punching. Punching is more simply and direct but taekwondo has way too many flashy kicks which is not effective if you need to defend yourself. I’m sure there was the time when you got hit in the face and you turned around or closed your eyes and then your instructor tells you not to do that as you won’t see your opponent when you do that leaving you vulnerable to another attack. This is exactly why kicks like the 360 turning kicks are ineffective in street fights. Sparring in taekwondo is also slightly unrealistic because you can’t grab the other person’s legs; you don’t realise how easy it is to grab the other personas leg, I have done it multiple times by accident. WTF Taekwondo is just super unrealistic so I am not even going to talk about it. Taekwondo is definitely a good workout though but it can definitely be improved if you train to defend against the other person trying to grab your leg and focus more on punching effectively. Even though in ITF taekwondo, you can punch in sparring, the actually classes don’t prepare you very well for delivering effective punches and most taekwondo practitioners at the lower grades can’t punch effectively in a sparring situation. The most common taekwondo mistake is probably leaving your guard low when you kick. It seems like everyone does it and even when the instructor emphasises that you should keep your guard up, everyone still drops it when they kick (me included). This is a great example of what I mean:
Even though this is Taekwondo vs Karate, you can see that both practitioners had a very low guard which makes them vulnerable to a fast head shot. I have sparred boxers in a Taekwondo class and it is so hard to go past their guard and they have good punches and kicks. This just shows how effective doing both Taekwondo and Boxing can be.
Skip to 1:30 to see the punching.
This above video shows you how Taekwondo punches and it is just unrealistic. You leave half of your body open for an attack and bringing your hand back to your waist makes it take longer for you to deliver punches. You don’t even punch like that when you spar so why learn to punch like this. When it comes to hand techniques, there are some good technique for individual situations like getting out of a wrist grab and strangles but you get those in any styles and when it comes to taekwondo punches, it is not on par with any other punching styles like Wing Chun and Boxing. Taekwondo means “the way of the foot and fist” and I would say in ITF Taekwondo we spend 50% of the time doing hand and kick techniques but the best techniques come from the kicks in Taekwondo so if you are looking to learn good punches Taekwondo isn’t really the art for you.
I hate it when people say that the style doesn’t matter and it is all about the individual and the instructor. This is only true for top martial artists who have 5+ years experience under their belt. The style you do does matter because there are styles that are better than others and different martial arts are better for different situations. For example, Wing Chun and Taekwondo is useless when you are on the ground. I haven’t got enough martial arts experience to say which styles are better than others but this is just simply a true fact. Traditional martial arts like Wing Chun and Taekwondo are considered less siutable in 21st century street fights due to some out dated moves that don’t work well due to the evolution of martial arts. The style you do only matters less when you are good because as a top martial artist you shouldn’t be bounded by the style you do. Talking about instructors as you all probably know, I had a very bad instructor when I did Taekwondo at University and yes a bad instructor can harm your progression but after all it is about yourself to judge whether your instructor is teaching you well and if you are like me, then you would probably learn moves online on top of your classes. If you have a bad instructor, just leave. Your instructor can only teach you drills/moves and theory but it is about you to understand what you are doing and ask for help when you need it. Learning martial arts is about taking initiative so don’t say it’s not about your style and it’s about your instructor. It’s about you, your style and your instructor but at the end of the day, you pick your instructor and you pick your style so, it’s all about you. I have seen many very famous instructors who teach students who are not dedicated and the student can’t even do a simply drill properly after 1 year of studying so it is all about you when it comes to martial arts.
I have been saying lots of negative things about Taekwondo in this post but you might be thinking why I am still taking it? It is simply. It is because I use Taekwondo as a supportive system to develop my kicks and use it to cover the flaws in other systems I do. Taekwondo is not perfect, Wing Chun is not perfect and Boxing is not perfect but doing them all gives me a well-rounded skill set. With traditional martial arts like Taekwondo and Wing Chun, there are moves that aren’t as useful today but it still has its merits. Many famous people such as Donnie Yen and Chuck Norris study Taekwondo but something that is quite interesting is that they also study other styles. Maybe that tells you something?
I have said so much so let me conclude about my thoughts. All this is just my personal opinion and I am happy for you to come to disagree with me and share your experience and thoughts. WTF Taekwondo is useless for self-defence but is a decent option if you are looking to compete. However, my personal recommendation is that you should go with ITF even if you want to compete in WTF competitions because you pretty much learn the same kicks in ITF but you are better at the self-defence aspect. However, for self-defence I wouldn’t recommend Taekwondo because it takes too long to be proficient enough at it to defend yourself without exposing vulnerabilities. If you are like me and want to cross-train to cover the flaws in traditional systems, then something like Boxing and ITF Taekwondo is a very good combination. If you are just looking to study one system, then I wouldn’t recommend Taekwondo. Muay Thai is quite a good option if you don’t mind getting punched and elbowed in the face.
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