Taekwondo practicality question?

If a martial art is taught in the manner it was designed to be used,i.e., as a martial art, it will be effective. But, you must also understand that it isn't the style that is effective or not it is entirely the artist. If you train to use your art for real life use you will be able to use it in real life. The other thing you must ask yourself is whether or not your instructor actually understand how to teach their art for real use. I can tell you from my own experience that if an art is taught as a martial art it will be effective. I have more then enough examples of it. In fact out of my own class (as small as it is) two of my students have used their art for real world use and both were victorious. An old co-worker of mine told me about his nephew that was a TKD guy and he was attacked by three guys and beat the ever loving crap out of them "with" his legs primarily. One of my friends is a master of a Chinese style and has used his art on several occasions to defend himself from unarmed and armed attackers. I don't teach the same arts they do, but as you can see it matters not what style you study but how you train to use it. Find an instructor that will teach you how to use your art and just as importantly learn to make the style your own. There is a lot of hidden meaning in that little tid bit and it was told me by a grandmaster and lineage holder of a Kung-fu style. I pondered it for years and am always learning new things about what it means. Take care, train hard.

Honestly, I really do not think Taekwondo is a realistic self defense martial art. It may be when the person you are trying to save yourself from is unarmed no knife or gun, but what happens when that day comes if someone has a knife in their hand? You are just gonna kick their wrist and hope they drop it. Taekwondo is a great martial art don't get me wrong, but I personally practice the martial arts that could save me if a real life threatening situation would ever occur.

In my view there are 3 main areas in being a fighter: Physical, Mental, and Technical. Physical: Being in shape basically (strenght, speed, height, weight, reach, power, etc.) Mental: Being confident to fight, able to endure a fight, killer instinct, etc. Technical: Having good skills to fight in the different areas of a fight (ground, kicks, punches, throws, etc.). Saying all that, the light contact point sparring style tae kwon do is about "C" level. Physically you can get in good enough shape. It takes some effort on your part at home though by lifting weights, jogging, stretching, etc. You wont' be as good of shape as say your average boxer or kickboxer but, probably decent enought if you take it seriously. Mentally is probably the worst part of light contact point sparring tkd. You see little kids and people that would never be able to handle harder core training (like say boxing or MMA). They are able to survive on the lower level that point sparring tkd provides. I don't know how much confidence you can achieve when the only thing full powered you ever hit in tkd was a heavybag or wooden board. So, the question may be asked in your mind, "how would a full power kick/punch do against another person?" Or other questions may creep in there, "how well can I take a hit?" "would my endurance last in a real fight?" "I am afraid of being KO'd" Different things may creep in there mentally because you aren't be tested in those areas. Look below for some of the technical weakness of tkd. Those technical weaknesses may have you thinking doubts too. The technical strengths of tkd are: kicks, flying strikes (like a jump kick), hanstrikes. The technical weakness of tkd are: the clinch, groundfighting, fighting when knocked to the ground The whole goal of tkd strategy is to be able to outstrike an attacker. Can you accomplish this with light contact point sparring? It is possible but, must be considered. Your strikes are your main weapons. You must really exam whethere they can accomplish stopping an attacker. I think some light contact point sparring tkd fighters can and others will probably be just too weak to do so. I don't think this type of tkd has the ability of say kickboxing or muay thai strikes. But, they dont' have to be quite this quality to be successful. A grappler will always be your worst nightmare. You can't kid yourself and say tkd will teach you how to totally dominate this type of fighter. On the ground you will be dominated horribly. Will your strikes KO them before they get you down? Statistics suggest you are going down. So, this is a BIG weakness of tkd. There is also another type of tkd taught besides the light contact common variety which is full contact WTF Olympic style tkd. This is a tougher, stronger, type of tkd. Your level instead of "C" would be a very solid "B" level. Physically you would be excellent. Mentally you would be a lot stronger because the sparring and competitions test you out a lot better. Technically your kicks and punches would be a lot stronger and quicker. Your main weakness would still be a grappler. But, this is a much higher level of tkd in my opinion. The "self-defense" techniques of tkd are ok. The type of, "if they grab you, you twist there arm, then kick then once, then punch them 3 x's, and yell a big KIAI! at the end" self-defense is alright. But, to me, that full contact kickboxing like WTF style will really serve you better than all these self-defense slow motion precisly rehearsed moves will do. So, tkd has potential. I like it alright. It just would do better if it was say combined with Brazillian Jijujitsu, or some other good grappling art.

Any martial art is effective. Even Taekwondo. Alot of people say its not, but it depends on how effective YOU are not the martial art..

Any MA is practical for self defense depending on the quality of training u recieve.

Honestly, no, it is NOT practical. Street confrontation most probably will end up in the ground, but not always. If that happens, your TKD is useless. It is useful only in distant fighting, meaning you can do your kicks to the head, but if you happen to fight a brawler, you will end up beaten. I've seen street fights where a thug and a 'black belter' TKD fought, and the TKD expert got beat up.

I do taekwondo, and I do believe it's practical for self defense. I'm not going to go out and say claim that it's better than all other martial arts, but I am going to question whether you are already biased against it are not, based on your last sentence. Anyways, what separates taekwondo from other martial arts is: kicking (hand techniques are almost sacrilege), speed, power, and reaction time. Taekwondo is almost exclusively comprised of kicking because the creators felt that the leg was more suited to martial arts because of its greater reach and power. However, I disagree personally in that it's rather dumb not to use your hands when they're right there...traditional taekwondo practitioners will use them only for blocking and distracting opponents. So I guess if you don't like kicking, then taekwondo might not be for you. Speed and power should be characteristics of all martial arts, but taekwondo differs somewhat in this. First of all, due to the specialization in kicking, you'll learn a couple of flashy kicks that aren't really parts of other mainstream martial arts, like kung fu or karate. In particular, it's the spinning motion that I've noticed: the tornado kick (also known as turning roundhouse), the variations of the spinning back kick, and the way you can use spinning motion with any basic kick actually. Spinning develops huge momentum and speed, and if you've practiced sufficiently enough with targets and with sparring, you'll be able to aim them with devastating effect. Reaction time is a bit of a touchy subject. I don't know how far you're willing to go in martial arts, but taekwondo is known to have the fastest reaction times of any martial art (look up the fight science series). In the end, the decision is up to you. To summarize, I don't think TKD is practical for self defense for YOU IF: 1. you dislike kicking/excessive kicking, 2. you don't balance very well, 3. you don't have good speed (TKD is big on explosive offensive combos).

It depends. Traditional style TKD can be very practical (though any good martial artist will tell you that in a self defense situation it's more about the ability of the individual rather than any specific martial art). Olympic style TKD (aka sports style TKD) isn't nearly as effective in a self defense situation because a lot of emphasis is placed on kicking (that's how most points are scored in tournaments). Unfortunately, a lot of schools outside of Korea (particularly in the U.S.) teach Olympic style TKD, so before you start always check to make sure that the school teaches traditional style TKD. If you can't find any such schools in your area, consider a different martial art.

yes it is practical i use taekwondo for street fighting i use mostly legs and throws 50% taekwondo and 50 %street fighting has helped me alot