Posted by: TeK9
TKD, tricks. and exercise drills - 02/22/10 09:01 AM
Whether you practice three steps, one steps, self defense, sparring combinations, and escape drills. All these little scenario drill trainings are known as tricks. For instance when a school has a demo team and the team puts on a show they are performing a bunch of tricks. Prearranged attacks, counters and escapes to attacks.
Now a days schools can have from a few basic dozen to several hundreds if not thousands of these things.
Much like forms training to the casual observer these drills or self perfection drills look very impressive. And and to the intermediate student these drills can instill false confidence.
But these exercises did not always exist. From what I have been able to discern these new fancy/flashy drills are basically around fifty years old give or take.
Many of the Real based self defense(RBSD) arts focus on just these very drills. If you've ever seen the Israeli style Krav Maga, they are basically a scenario based art. And although they have an abundance of techniques and drills, they tend to focus on the most basic and lethal of tools in their arsenal. But can they pull it off in sparring?
Much of these drills are based on a specific attack and the follow up often concurs with the response of the assailant after you delivered the first blow. If you have trained over and over to perform a set of prearranged counters in a specific order, can you compensate for an attacker who does not follow your prearranged set of moves?
If you read about traditional hardcore karate/TKD training you never hear about the unlimited tricks they did. You hear about the constant drilling of the basics. The most essential tools from the art that will work either to hurt, restrain, or escape from an attack.
Back in the day a one step drill would probably contain no more than 3 movements. A block, a counter attack, and a take down.
Or maybe another formula a block, and a attack (death blow).
Now a day's these one steps can have up to 12 follow up attacks.
Students are constantly drilling and practicing these same techniques over and over.
But are these drills intended to be memorized for real life self defense? For me the answer is yes and no.
These self perfection drills are meant to teach attributes such as proper techniques, body mechanics, line familiarization, economy of motion. They are meant to be examples, blue prints of a much bigger puzzle. They are meant to be broken down and used in a limitless array of combination's.
However, one should consider if by practicing these drills alone are they reaching their full potential?
The best way of seeing if you are actually learning something is by testing your skill in sparring. Can you actually pull of these techniques/combination's in sparring practice? Sparring is the closest thing there is to live combat so the majority of your tools should be put into play, and you should be able to use them. If not, then it is most likely you will not be able to properly defend yourself when the time comes.
Sparring for sport and sparring for real life combat is physically no different. The techniques applied in one are interchangeable. And if you want to apply these tricks or one steps...what ever you want to call them. You must learn to spar and use your sparring as a vehicle in order to get you in position to apply the appropriate response.
For instance in a self defense situation where you are immeditely grabbed, you have the element of surprise on your side, you can pull off some sort of escape drill. However, in a scenario from which you are fully aware you are going to be attacked and connot avoid the situation. What will you do? The element of surprise is no longer yours to exploit. How are you going to get this person within range to pull off those fancy drills you practiced in class?
What if this person never throws a rear punch but decides to only throw jabs?
Will you be able to compensate for the change? Or will you just stand there and eat every jab this person hits you with? I mean how dare he, doesn't he know he is supposed to lead with a reverse punch? doesn't he know we are TKDist and not boxers...why is he throwing these jabs...time out let me take a boxing class.
I hope you guys get what I'm saying.
Now a days schools can have from a few basic dozen to several hundreds if not thousands of these things.
Much like forms training to the casual observer these drills or self perfection drills look very impressive. And and to the intermediate student these drills can instill false confidence.
But these exercises did not always exist. From what I have been able to discern these new fancy/flashy drills are basically around fifty years old give or take.
Many of the Real based self defense(RBSD) arts focus on just these very drills. If you've ever seen the Israeli style Krav Maga, they are basically a scenario based art. And although they have an abundance of techniques and drills, they tend to focus on the most basic and lethal of tools in their arsenal. But can they pull it off in sparring?
Much of these drills are based on a specific attack and the follow up often concurs with the response of the assailant after you delivered the first blow. If you have trained over and over to perform a set of prearranged counters in a specific order, can you compensate for an attacker who does not follow your prearranged set of moves?
If you read about traditional hardcore karate/TKD training you never hear about the unlimited tricks they did. You hear about the constant drilling of the basics. The most essential tools from the art that will work either to hurt, restrain, or escape from an attack.
Back in the day a one step drill would probably contain no more than 3 movements. A block, a counter attack, and a take down.
Or maybe another formula a block, and a attack (death blow).
Now a day's these one steps can have up to 12 follow up attacks.
Students are constantly drilling and practicing these same techniques over and over.
But are these drills intended to be memorized for real life self defense? For me the answer is yes and no.
These self perfection drills are meant to teach attributes such as proper techniques, body mechanics, line familiarization, economy of motion. They are meant to be examples, blue prints of a much bigger puzzle. They are meant to be broken down and used in a limitless array of combination's.
However, one should consider if by practicing these drills alone are they reaching their full potential?
The best way of seeing if you are actually learning something is by testing your skill in sparring. Can you actually pull of these techniques/combination's in sparring practice? Sparring is the closest thing there is to live combat so the majority of your tools should be put into play, and you should be able to use them. If not, then it is most likely you will not be able to properly defend yourself when the time comes.
Sparring for sport and sparring for real life combat is physically no different. The techniques applied in one are interchangeable. And if you want to apply these tricks or one steps...what ever you want to call them. You must learn to spar and use your sparring as a vehicle in order to get you in position to apply the appropriate response.
For instance in a self defense situation where you are immeditely grabbed, you have the element of surprise on your side, you can pull off some sort of escape drill. However, in a scenario from which you are fully aware you are going to be attacked and connot avoid the situation. What will you do? The element of surprise is no longer yours to exploit. How are you going to get this person within range to pull off those fancy drills you practiced in class?
What if this person never throws a rear punch but decides to only throw jabs?
Will you be able to compensate for the change? Or will you just stand there and eat every jab this person hits you with? I mean how dare he, doesn't he know he is supposed to lead with a reverse punch? doesn't he know we are TKDist and not boxers...why is he throwing these jabs...time out let me take a boxing class.
I hope you guys get what I'm saying.