A TKD story was teased in the opening minute of Good Morning America this morning. I can’t find an online link for the story, but it had to do with “new rules” that “encourage kicking to the head”. They were concerned with all the kids who take TKD and whether or not this was too dangerous.
My thoughts…
First, it is obvious that to the world Taekwondo = Olympic/WTF Taekwondo. There is no general knowledge that there are other types of TKD or other organizations. (Frankly, most probably haven’t heard of the WTF either, but the point is, when they think of TKD they are picturing WTF TKD.) Kind of makes a pathetic joke of the whole “T3H G3NERAL CHOI is t3h founderzz of TKD!!11!!” attitude prevalent in the ITF, not to mention the General’s own beliefe that “his art” had become the most popular in the whole world.
Second, what, if any effect is this going to have on other combat sports? I mean, of all the full contact sport arts, Olympic TKD has to be the least hard core. If people are worried about TKD being dangerous, what will they think of MMA? Or will not affect anything else since MMA (and kickboxing, etc.) doesn’t have the high number of children participating?
I think it will be a while until MMA goes mainstream here. People think it’s just brawling. Kickboxing though, through K-1 USA is getting more popular, but I don’t think we’ll see UFC on ESPN for a while.
And sadly, when I did WTF I had no other idea other TKD existed. It’s not like our instructors said “there is only WTF!” But I didn’t bother to get myself informed. And then I found Bullshido…
I think MMA is the reason TKD is getting a little more contact orientated. Knockdowns and headkicks are more exciting, and you have to give the blood thirsty mob what they want.
(Of course, it goes without saying that TKD still sucks ass)
You will probably never see UFC on ESPN, but they are making progress, Standard Kickboxing, Thai boxing, San Shou, and ISKA Karate are making regular appearances now on ESPN2 and occasionally creep onto the mothership.
That said, I watch the olympics when it come son, and I don’t remember the last time I actually saw TKD of Judo on there.
they r changing the rules because kids training outside of the US do practice sparring with full contact shots to the head, and at the international level the US is losing their edge in the sport in the junior divisions, didnt think abc would really take notice though. This probably wouldnt really impact the mma community since there really is hardly any children training in full contact MMA fights.
as for whether its safe for kids to have head contact i think it’s probably good to leave it till they are older than 14 at least, contrary to popular belief, WTF taekwondo does have a fairly high concussive rate, looking at the following article:
“A comparison of injury rates in competition for taekwondo and in various intercollegiate sports shows that taekwondo has among the highest time-loss injury rates, exceeded only by football and wrestling [5]. However, when looking specifically at cerebral concussion rates, the situation becomes of more concern. The total concussion rate for collegiate football games is 1.7/1,000 athlete-exposures or 0.14/1,000 min of exposure [6]. College football generally has been considered to have one of the highest concussion rates in American sports, yet the concussion rate for taekwondo competition is 3.1 times higher based on number of athlete-exposures, and 7.9 times that seen in college football games when based on minutes of exposure. This becomes of major concern when considering the cumulative effects of concussion.”
. We would have a 75% reduction in mcdojo storys.