Royce Gracie opinion about Taekwondo
In the last 15 years or more, the Korean martial art Taekwondo was criticized a lot from many people in the martial arts community, because many fundamental changes were made and changed the image of Taekwondo.
That is when we started to hear terms as ballet to describe Taekwondo practice or fencing to describe sparring.
With respect to all sports but Taekwondo is Taekwondo, but the competition such as the Olympics or the World championships forced the schools and clubs to follow certain ways of training to help their athletes to win fights. We rarely see knockouts in Taekwondo nowadays, which means that scoring is winning.
We have seen a comment of someone well respected in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and we thought to share that with you.
The comment concerns the star of BJJ Royce Gracie, Let's introduce him first for those who do not know him.
Royce Gracie is a Brazilian retired professional mixed martial artist, born12 December 1966 (age 56) Rio de Janeiro, Brazila UFC Hall of Famer, and a Gracie Jiu-Jitsu practitioner. A member of the Gracie family, he is considered to be one of the most influential figures in the history of mixed martial arts.
He has a record of 20 fights in the mixed martial arts competition, He won 15, He lost 2 and 3 draws.
He said that Taekwondo is not the same as it was before, Royce said that Taekwondo was created to rip off heads, but nowadays, the taekwondo athletes should only score points and be called Olympic champions
In the comments on the video one man says that the Taekwondo championship nowadays is Nutella.
We do know that many of our reader would agree and also others would dislike this opinion from someone who practice a different style, but let's be honest and say that Taekwondo is not the same as it was before!
Let's watch the video :)
.jpg)
totally agree, tkd is a slapping competition and boring nowadays
ReplyDeleteHe isn't wrong. I'm proud of my Taekwondo belt and my school. I train the kids and adults to kick hard. It's self defense. We've gone to tournaments where swatting a fly is considered excessive and we've gotten scolded for in their eyes being too rough... like really? Yet your club. Charges more then mine!
ReplyDeletethat's right
ReplyDeleteI watched jiujitsu tournaments. Boring like hell, I teach Tae Kwon Do for over 35 years.My students can hurt anyone with their kicks. I respect jiu Jit Su style and can’t call it martial arts. It’s a sport.
ReplyDeleteI'm a 1st Dan in TKD. Trained under An Lee out of Winnipeg. Got my Dan in 1982. Modern TKD is a joke. Gracie style Jiu Jitsu is part sport part martial art. The Gracie's have proven it on real street fights.
DeleteMy TKD master was on Koreas national team when he was younger and was only in the U.S for a year or so when I started in 1987. There were no pads, no headgear then. We literally beat the crap out of each when we sparred each other. He kept it traditional, but there is definitely a difference now. Not saying that it’s bad. It still takes the strategy and speed to score points.
ReplyDeleteI remember it began to change when Korea hosted the Olympics. I really enjoy watching the videos of the young athletes now
Tae Kwon do is a Art form. It takes years to Master those kicks. Yet it does provide a discipline for the kids. I think today to be considered black belt one must learn to mix styles for combat purposes.
ReplyDeleteI am an old school taekwondo jin. For laughs me and my old training buddies will peek into the new taekwondo dojangs and we just have good laughs at the comedy show circuses we see.
ReplyDeleteTkd isn't tkd. There are mainly 2 styles. The famous one is what you see in olympic games. That's the boring style. Look at the traditional style.
ReplyDeleteold-school taekwondo is the real taekwondo! I'm proud to be one old-school 3th degree blackbelt. back then your first blackbelt required a break of 4 brick without spacers, and that was just the start. A day training ended full of bruises and after couple months hands and foots full of calluses. Old taekwondo poomse the hyeongs,taught us the self-defense movements and one step and three step sparring made them fluent. Those where the core teachings in our dojang lot of discipline . I'm thankful of my Korean grandmaster he taught us well.
ReplyDeleteTKD definitely has changed from when I practiced it in the 90s - seems more like "tap-score" than before. Too much emphasis on scoring points and fighting within the (WTF) rules. To be fair, even in the 90s, I could see a bit of the focus on the sport side too in both drills and sparring. I'll always be proud of the blood, sweat and tears I put in to my black belt. However, after the 1st dan, it just seemed like not a whole lot was left besides new poomsae and just refining what you've already to come to learn while paying a whole bunch for your next dan test. But, I understand this "evolution". If you're the one training, why put so much emphasis in your training only to lose at tournaments?
ReplyDeleteAfter 6 years of practicing TKD, I started to try other disciplines such as kendo, escrima, MMA, wing chun, wushu, but predominantly Muay Thai and BJJ. I can say that TKD isn't the only martial art that's changed like this though. If there are rules in combat sports, practitioners are going to try their best to excel within the rules, doesn't matter what martial art it is.
I'm also old school TKD. I recieved my 1 st Dan in 1982. Tournaments were rough and tumble. I also moved onto BJJ and Muay Thai. But my heart is still with my first martial art. Modern TKD is embarrassing to me. The scary part is kids training this way and believing they can defend themselves with these flicky kicks. They'd get destroyed.
Delete