Taekwondo as Olympic Sport

[gmtkd]

Would you say it has been good or bad for taekwondo to become an olympic sport?
I guess the same question could be asked about Judo?

I see sometimes that those who practice martial arts that are not in the Olympics are a bit jealous thinking that their art should be included on the world stage. But, once a martial art becomes an international sport, it is changed forever and not all practicioners will be happy with the changes.

[rainesr]

I see sometimes that those who practice martial arts that are not in the Olympics are a bit jealous thinking that their art should be included on the world stage. But, once a martial art becomes an international sport, it is changed forever and not all practicioners will be happy with the changes.

I hope nothing I take ever becomes an Olympic sport. The Olympic version will be distilled to a sliver of the art's potential and then have a huge influence on the art as a whole.

[CEB]

I think Submission Grappling will be an Olympic sport someday. I believe it will fall under FILA governorship. As far as sports go I think it will be well ran.

If the IJF only had their act together as well as FILA Judo would have less issues I think.

[Erik]

I wouldn't mind seeing Judo/BJJ re-integrated.

We used to call it "new sport Judo" (though it's more like a reverting to the original, sort of) when we'd train from standing to submission without pins or timeouts. That was a lot of fun. I liked how it made turtling-up useless (especially since I had a hard time busting my friends' turtles...).

Not sure how audiences would take to it, though. The throws in Judo are better crowd-pleasers than the slow, inch-by-inch battle that gi-grappling can be.

Would be cool to see the original ancient Greek pankration return.

[CEB]

Even Greek Pankration made rule changes in order to increase the excitement of the fights so the is precedence for what the IJF tried to do.

Sostratos of Sikyon, one of the most famous of the Greek fighters and 3 time olymic winner who specialized in breaking his opponents fingers. with their fingers broken the opponents could not grip or punch. It made the fights really boring after a while so there was passed a rule against finger breaking.

[Erik]

There's a self-defense lesson in there, somewhere...

[Webmaster]

Even Greek Pankration made rule changes in order to increase the excitement of the fights so the is precedence for what the IJF tried to do.

Oh God, naked Judo! I won't be able to get that out of my head for a while.

[Jonathan Randall]

I think Taekwondo was already mortally wounded as a hard-core martial art prior to its introduction in the Olympics. Compare the tough instruction provided in the 1960's and 1970's by Korean immigrant instructors and returning American servicemembers in the U.S. and Canada to most of what is available today. A 1960's-era brown belt would probably beat the stuffing out of most 3rd and 4th dans of today. That, earlier, generation has largely retired and been replaced by -- Ronald McDonalds.

[Tripitaka of AA]

Shorinji Kempo is an art from Japan, founded in 1947. Practiced now around the world (30 countries or so), it has a big following in Indonesia, where some high profile politicians have been involved in its development. With some reluctance from the Hombu in Japan, who oppose competition, it has been pushed as a sport across those countries of South East Asia and was included in the SEAGames recently. This was all quite controversial and a big talking point among the Shorinji Kempo instructors and students around the world. It would seem that the consensus outside of Indonesia was that this sort of competition would have been completely against the wishes of the Founder, Doshin So (died 1980). There are clips from the Games on YouTube and the randori part of the competition looks very similar to Taekwondo sparring... to the point where you have to wonder what was the point. There is another part of the competition that has Embu, with pairs competing to show their rehearsed fighting sequences.

[CEB]

When I was younger 70s maybe the late 60s Shorinji Kempo used to have competitions. They wore they cool looking fingered style boxing glove and they used to beat the crap out of each other. When I was young I thought that was cool stuff. Plus the robe things they wore over they standard dogi were cool. When I was 10-15 I would have given anything to do Shorinji. It is the coolest thing ever in Offical Karate or Kick magazine.

Old school Shorinji would put on Bogu and beat the Hell out of each other. It was like the closest looking thing to Sinanju.

[Eliz]

Would you say it has been good or bad for taekwondo to become an olympic sport?
I guess the same question could be asked about Judo?

I see sometimes that those who practice martial arts that are not in the Olympics are a bit jealous thinking that their art should be included on the world stage. But, once a martial art becomes an international sport, it is changed forever and not all practicioners will be happy with the changes.

There are some kids around here who think they take "karoddy" when really they are learning Taekwondo.

In answer to your question: It has put TKD in the public eye but I do not think non-martial artists understand it/have ever heard of it/give a darn about it. At least that is the impression that I get.

As for those of us that are TKD students - what is happening on the world stage is not even close to what happens in the dojang. I enjoy watching the event but I share no particular passion for what is happening.

[Tripitaka of AA]

Old school Shorinji would put on Bogu and beat the Hell out of each other. It was like the closest looking thing to Sinanju.

Just to clarify. There are still bogu, mitts and do, used for randori practice in the typical Shorinji Kempo club. I can't speak to the intensity of the scrapping, but as always there will be some variation from one club to another. The organised competitions between clubs (local, regional or national Taikai) have had the randori element taken out. You sometimes see it done as a display or demo - using proper competitive technique, but without awarding any trophies.

The randori seen in the SEA games would probably be a disappointment for Ed. I'll see if I can find some.

[Jonathan Randall]

There are some kids around here who think they take "karoddy" when really they are learning Taekwondo.

In answer to your question: It has put TKD in the public eye but I do not think non-martial artists understand it/have ever heard of it/give a darn about it. At least that is the impression that I get.

As for those of us that are TKD students - what is happening on the world stage is not even close to what happens in the dojang. I enjoy watching the event but I share no particular passion for what is happening.

I also think the public perception (and the reality, far too often), is shaped more by large commercial schools and their 6 year old "black belts" and students who aren't even old enough to get a driver's license but are preparing for their third degree black belt test and their XMA flying katana routine than it is by the Olympics.

[rainesr]

I also think the public perception (and the reality, far too often), is shaped more by large commercial schools and their 6 year old "black belts" and students who aren't even old enough to get a driver's license but are preparing for their third degree black belt test and their XMA flying katana routine than it is by the Olympics.

I think the popularity TKD gained from the Olympics partially fueled that situation. It became popular enough to be profitable and being part of the Olympics gave it a form of legitimacy in the average person's eyes. All the opportunists came out of the woodwork at that point.


~Rob

[torbjork]

On the other hand, some other arts are just as bad, and actual "Olympic" Taekwondo training is quite hard. The problem lies in poor quality control surrounding the promotion to fourth dan and issuance of teaching licenses, "open" tournament circuits, and seniors turning a blind eye to crap standards of performance further down the line, so long as they get their annual dues. IMHO

[Eliz]

I also think the public perception (and the reality, far too often), is shaped more by large commercial schools and their 6 year old "black belts" ….

Definitely true! That has certainly clouded public perception of the martial art as a whole.

Maybe it is just the non-martial artists that I encounter but their perception seems to be limited to:

“like boxing”
“like Judo”
“like fencing”
“like ‘karoddy’”
And Olympic TKD sparring just does not fit any of those perceptions.

…. the Olympics gave it a form of legitimacy in the average person's eyes. All the opportunists came out of the woodwork at that point.

Although I agree with you, I also feel that the opportunists have been re-defining opportunity as far back as the famed “TWA Promotions.” The Olympic introduction combined with the past success of the Lopez family has definitely fueled a new generation of “Opportunity. “

On the other hand, some other arts are just as bad, and actual "Olympic" Taekwondo training is quite hard. The problem lies in poor quality control surrounding the promotion to fourth dan and issuance of teaching licenses, "open" tournament circuits, and seniors turning a blind eye to crap standards of performance further down the line, so long as they get their annual dues. IMHO

Great post!

[rainesr]

On the other hand, some other arts are just as bad, and actual "Olympic" Taekwondo training is quite hard. The problem lies in poor quality control surrounding the promotion to fourth dan and issuance of teaching licenses, "open" tournament circuits, and seniors turning a blind eye to crap standards of performance further down the line, so long as they get their annual dues. IMHO

There are other arts just as bad, but they are no where near as numerous. I have seven or so TKD schools in my town. I would only recommend one, and I have/do. Those other six are churning out black belts and masters at an alarming rate due to the problems you mentioned. They (it is one organization in particular here) are opening schools with 19 year old masters who have studied maybe four or so years who are promoting new masters in four or so years. The people who are legitimately or properly teaching TKD can't keep up with that. The situation has been similar everywhere I have lived.

I have no doubt training for any Olympic event is hard, but that has absolutely nothing to do with local schools capitalizing on TKD being an Olympic sport, teaching who knows what, just to fatten their wallets. I think any art that became that popular and profitable so fast would have similar issues.

~Rob

[Jonathan Randall]

There are other arts just as bad, but they are no where near as numerous. I have seven or so TKD schools in my town. I would only recommend one, and I have/do. Those other six are churning out black belts and masters at an alarming rate due to the problems you mentioned.

~Rob

I think Kenpo is even worse - far worse, in fact, because many market their art as "street deadly". Of course, we are not talking about good, hardcore schools of either Kenpo or TKD where standards and lineage are maintained.

I do have to say, however, that McDojoism in TKD pre-dates its introduction as an Olympic sport. The TKD dojang down the street from where I lived when I was in high school had 6 year-old blackbelts, tag sparring, mind bogglingly unrealistic 1 step sparring combinations, etc. -- and this was 30 years ago.

[gmtkd]

This may be off the point, but I noticed in this thread that many people have opinions about tkd. Here is something I'd like to ad:
In the 29 years I've been doing tkd, I've learned enough about approximately 20 schools that I feel confident stating an opinion about what they teach.

2 are McDojos
5 are "traditional schools" but the funny thing is that each teaches things quite differerently from any other
13 are modern taekwondo schools that teach olympic sparring, plus whatever else they feel like teaching, and create mostly well mannered competitors who, if nothing else, are generally more physically fit than they were before they joined the dojang.

I know my statistics are skewed, because I generally only have ocassion to interact with other schools at tournaments and, imo, one of the definitions of a mcdojo is that they don't allow their students to compete outside the organizations for money reasons. Of course, "traditional" dojangs either don't compete or compete in "open" tournaments. So, I only know them if they are related to the more traditional training I first received, or ocassionally compete in tournaments I attend.

So, I guess I think the Olympic movement has been good for taekwondo because it sort-of gave instructors a reason to care what other schools teach and work towards standardization.

Still, I have seen never had an influx of students in a past Olympic year, so I don't think it brings many competitors to the sport. I can hope this will happen as we get more TV coverage every Olympics, though

Also, I don't care to follow the politics related to the high levels of the sport. I just care about how I can improve my students lives by teaching them to play it.

[torbjork]

but they are no where near as numerous

I don't disagree, but I'm not so sure this has anything to do with TKD being an Olympic sport.