I have a firm belief that in TKD you should teach the
elbow strike before you teach the punch and the knee strike before you teach the
kicks. However, because I always taught for other people, I adhered to their
systems. I never started in class with those moves, at least not at white belt,
but in my private lessons I did.
When I left my school, to which I still remain loyal, I started
teaching private students out of my garage or at a public park. The first upper
body strike I would teach was the elbow and before we moved onto kicks I taught
the knee strike. My reasoning was simple; it was all about the
origination of power.
A proper punch’s power is generated from the stability of
one’s grounding to the present surface plus the rotation of the hip plus the
acceleration of the arm, this will equal the amount of force on contact by the
fist. Now when technique is applied to the punch you can break this down even
further; explaining that the hips rotate, the arm is released from the chamber
and the most applicable direction for the guided fist is followed, with
conviction and commitment. Eventually at a higher level, you divulge to the
student the concept of
clockwork, with in the body movement, and that the body
must move in
unison. They can’t always break the movement down step by step, but eventually they
would merge the pattern into one fluid motion and have a punch formed from it.
However, I always found that instructors were coming up with
kids that had pretty weak looking punching skills. So I broke it down like
this; you are standing on the ground. In this moment you are nothing more than
an inanimate protrusion from the ground in which you stand on. In order to
create power a motion must occur, for this purpose the motion is you’re feet
grasping the solid surface and turning the hips. The rotation of the body is
what is going to propel the upper body; this motion is then coupled by the
positioning of the arm. For this explanation, being from a chambered position,
your upper body transfers that motion to the shoulder then to the elbow, the acceleration
from releasing the chambered upper forearm is…STOP!!!
That is exactly where I would stop. Just when they would
think they were going to learn how to punch I would identify to them the extension
of the hip as being the elbow. (I really believe it’s the shoulder and have had
difficulty teaching the punch with particular students, so I started them even
further back at how to shoulder shrug someone.)
The elbow for all intents and purposes is the first extension
of power. So why would you not teach the elbow first I asked myself, and from
that day on I did. This proved to be a wise move because by the time we were
punching the body movement of each student was so correctly ingrained into them
that their punches rolled out naturally. Ground, to hip, to shoulder, to elbow,
to fist. (Or any hand strike that requires that much force) but it was through
this break down that I was able to ease off of the, later explaining of
clockwork and the body’s movement in unison. I did not have to, they were doing
it naturally because I stopped at the first extension of power.
Kick equation works the same way; Ground, to hip to knee
position to foot. Again, knee would come first so that was what I broke down
first. (Obvious kicks will object to this notion, but that should be self-explanatory)
Now to venture even further I feel I must explain some of my
background. First was TKD, I fought in TKD style tournaments for years, ITF and
WTF style. Then I moved into kickboxing fighting, where I quickly learned I did
not know how to box. I learned boxing in a 4 month training program, just to
understand the basic ideas, which really taught me that I already had great
punching skills, just did not know how to use them. But then I progressed to
fencing, sure there were other things in between there, but they don’t apply to
this article so I will exclude them. It was at this point,
fencing, that I learned
that the sword was merely an extension of the hand. I was a natural to fencing
for more than one reason, but the main reason was because I knew how to use my
hands in combat. TKD taught me distance concepts and angles, and boxing taught
me how to be tricky with my hand skills.
I still fence a little, love it, but for the most part it
just got me thinking even further. The sword was brought to Korea during the
Paekchedynasty, and the first type of sword on record was the ring
pommel sword. Swords
were introduced to the Koreans through trade with Japan just as the gun was
introduced to Japan by the US. Where exactly does that leave us?
This leaves us at the
most recent extension of the hand being the gun, or at least for personal defense,
in the extension of power timeline. Before there were swords, there were
sticks, the sticks were sharpened and then for some modifications occurred that
altered the stick into a new weapon. I.e., the Nunchaku, three dimensional staff,
the bow staff… But now we are at the gun.
My TKD system that I
grew up in introduced a new ancient weapon at every stage of black belt but
they never introduced the gun. This makes since, as most students are juvenile,
but what about for the adults that are old enough for a hand gun license, or
the 18 year olds that can own a rifle. (Based on Texas law) I’m sure at this
point in the article I have taken a turn drastically for the worst. Most readers
are going to argue my points here, I’m sure, but that argument just reminds me
of the movie 3 ninjas. “Real Ninjas don’t use guns”, to heck they don’t, maybe
back then, when they did not have guns, but now we have a further extension of power
and I feel as though it should be taught. Modern day Ninjas, or assassins, use
some pretty high tech guns actually, with silencers. They also use long range
rifles and in some cases even missiles and things we can’t, and shouldn’t
attempt to purchase.
I will leave the
thought at this; first teach the extension of power from its start to its finish,
not the other way around. I promise you a better yielded crop of students, and
secondly get it out of your mind that the only weapons we should embrace are
the ancient ones. The art of TaeKwonDo is not really a weapons based art
anyways it’s for hand to hand combat, or arguably hand to assailant’s weapon
combat.
Just as you would not
teach a student to misuse a sword or a bow staff, you would never imply that
they learn the improper ways to use a hand gun. You don’t have to even teach
them how to use these; you can just explain the concept and let them decide, as
adults, if they want to learn they will. At this point they can get a CHL or take
a shooting lesson. I still find bow shooting fun and not just because of Burt Reynolds.
And by no means would I ever condone sensuously
using these things, but if someone comes breaking into your student’s home, or
family’s home what’s more important, that they used what you taught them or
that they survived?
Everything we do
requires prudence and discernment, but what skill is more acceptable, telling
the Judge that you shot the intruder or that you sliced their knees off with a
sword and let them bleed to death or perhaps decapitated them? One sounds crazy
the other sounds reasonable, you figure out which one that is.
Moreover I must
conclude with this; I hope the situation never arises, or you never put
yourself in the place where anything discussed in the above article is
necessary.
Go in peace.
