Taekwondoists experience at IKO Kyokushin dojo

Hey guys,

LONG READ!

This is my first post on this forum so hi to all! Ok, so back to topic. I come from a WTF (generally) dojang that got 9th in the world at 2004's Hanmadang...out of 50 or so countries I believe. For those of you who know what that is, you know what I'm talking about. We have students that have taken gold at the state/national level and the U.S. Open. Mind you this is not to brag aobut the fortunate opportunity I have to study at this school! I'm putting all of this up front so you know what kind of Taekwondo backround I have.

As it happens to most of us at one point in our martial arts, we start to feel unchallenged with the usual routine and I seriously hit a plateau after 5 years. The more I watched full contact sports, the less olympic taekwondo appealed to me. This began a quest for a full contact style while maintaing the traditionality and usual standards of oriental martial arts which after a lot of searching led me to Kyokushin Karate.

I happened to find 1 of 3 IKO Kyokushin dojos here in Florida not too far from my home. I picked a night after work to speak with the instructor about my interests in Kyokushin. I let him know up front that I actively study Taekwondo and I'm here to see what kyokushin is all about.

He gave me a gi, I put on my white belt and lined up with the rest of the students. Everythings very similar when class starts. We bow in, stretch, etc. But once we started the core excersizes, I noticed they do a lot more hand work. Punches are crossed between western style boxing and eastern chambered punches. After hands we went on to kicking drills and kicking punching combinations. I have to say they're very well balanced in both. We cool off with some self defence, bow out..class over.

Next class is kumite night. Lots of black belts show up for this class as everyone gets to turn on the pain. We all match up and Senpai tells me to spar up with him. I try not to come off as a black belt and remind myself I'm learning something new, as familiar as it feels, and to keep an open mind. To just gauge Senpai and gauge my skills against his. Hey, we're both black belts, right??

This is when my world turned upside down...

We continued 5 full contact rounds about 2 minutes each. To win you either knock someone out or damage them until they're unable to continue to fight. My taekwondo held up pretty well but the kicking to the legs and the brutal barrage of punching added a completely new dimension to what I was used to. Nothing fancy. Just blast through your opponent as quickly as possible using the techniques you've learned.

After my 2 week trial I let senpai know that due to finances I wont be able to continue at least for a few months. "OSU", he said.


Purpose of this thread is to spark a discussion between you fellow taekwondoist reguarding how you feel your school would fair against full contact fighter. For me this was an eye opener and now I know why taekwondo gets the bad rap it does. I'm a 1st dan and the kyokushin instructor was only a nidan. Am I that bad? Certainly not. I encourage you guys to challenge yourself outside of your 'comfort zones' and HOW YOU TRAIN!


"The strongest steel is forged from the hottest flames."

- Mas Oyama

Bin - wind your neck in immediately. Personal attacks are not tolerated, and you will be banned if you do it again.

Pad,

Not all TKD is as you have experienced it..and not all karate strives for the same intensity as Kyokushin.

There's a lot of good out there....and an inordinate amount of bad....in many styles.

I am glad you enjoy what you enjoy and if you thought Kyokushin was tough...well it is. I am sure there are many TKD schools which hit hard too. You just have to find them.

-B

The Kyokushin people are my homes, baby. Too much KO isn't good for you though, I'd never intentionally spar to KO.

Hey whats up padawanneo000.

Good to have some people with fresh ideas. This site is a really great site, I've been posting a lil over a month and there are some people with real good insight, and then again there are those with not much to offer as you will see.

You your creditentials your schools is very sports orientated so I can guess you place an emphasis on sparring. I myself have had the liberty of testing my Olynpic style sparring skills vs a kenpo, Uechi ryu, and Gracie Jujitsu stylist.

I think for the most part TKD does okay at least I did in my experience. Um not sure how you practice but I notice we dont focus a lot on punches at my school, but at home I have a punching bag, so I practice similar to kick boxers on my own time. I really think this helps to balance hands and feet. I mean everyone has had some opportunity to view boxing.

Againts the kenpo stylist we sparred as if we were in an open tournament, we wore hand pads, head gear, and foot pads. Punching to the head was aloud. I notice my hands were not as quick with the combinations as my friend, so I kept it basic only thrwoing the back fist, I guess I was just superior than he was because I used my kicks to keep him at bay. And I scored basically when I would do those TKD combination kicks which we are famous for.

When I sparred with my Gracie jujitsu stylist friend. We practiced the way he did, very similar to UFC style fighting only we didnt go full contact light contact using boxing thin hand pads and nothing eles. This one was tricky he wasn't very good with his hands or feet, he would hit me with some leg kicks though, he basically kept bringing me to the ground. So I guess if it was a stand up fight I would win, if he took me to the ground, he was much superior than I was.

When I was able to spar vs some Uechi Ryu stylists I found it very intersting. These guys basicaly have 2 kicks in their art that they use. Front snap kick and round kick. The kicks were executed quickly with a snap. They have some very linear punches and it was kind of funny the way they sparred, they were not lose at all, they were very stiff and kept cat stances. I was able to get around their linear attacks with my foot work and spinning kicks. Although this style is great with self defense thay have incredible circular blocks but as far as sparring they just seemed to stiff. Uechi ryu doesnt use any sparring equipment and they use light contact. I felt because they were so traditional that they lacked experience sparring other styles. It's as if they never practiced to block a kick to the head.

When I fought the Brazillian jujitsu stylist he was just waiting for me to kick high, I had to throw some feint low fake high kicks on him, to keep him on gaurd.

The kenpo guys they aren't much kickers, and if the sparring match isn't controlled it basically turns into a boxing match. Not much power in the kicks usually my friend would stick his lead leg out to do a pushing side kick.

I know exactly what you mean when you say you've had your fill with olympic style sparring. I'd like try some kick boxing like sparring so I can incorporate my hands more. However I love my combination kicking ability. It's the one aspect I will keep with me forever if I decide to swith to another style some day.

For instance if I took up kenpo I'd merge kenpo's quick open hand techniques with TKDs fast attack kicking combinations. That would cover mid range and long range fighting, maybe throw in a little judo for that in close range, finish it off with a sweep or some kind of throw.

Okay now I'm just babbleing. Like I said it's good to have a new member welcome and enjoy the posts.

-TeK

"Do or do not...there is no try" -Yoda

Quote:

---

My taekwondo held up pretty well but the kicking to the legs and the brutal barrage of punching added a completely new dimension to what I was used to. Nothing fancy. Just blast through your opponent as quickly as possible using the techniques you've learned.

For me this was an eye opener and now I know why taekwondo gets the bad rap it does. - Mas Oyama

---

what´s so special about that?
it is just natural, that you have to get used to different styles. You knew before that those guys are kicking low and doing a lot of punching to the body.

What if they would sparr our rules. They would also be suprised, because they would not be able to disturb you with low kicks and you are in a big advantage.

I find nothing special about your mail. It is just the way i thougth it would sound like.

you fight WTF-rules and that is what you are trained on