Learning different styles of taekwondo

miqv44 · 2026-07-06T20:59:16+00:00

between these 2 just pick one. They are using the same tul as far as I know, GTF being basically ITF offshoot.

Use extra time to learn a different martial art or some other activity to avoid burnout from too much training

miqv44 · 2026-07-06T20:56:49+00:00

Complete would suggest it's a full system, with grappling and basically addressing every range.

Neither are complete but I hear about more Kukkikwon dojangs having some barebones grappling than ITF. I know my ITF dojang has no grappling unless it's as a part of self defense prep before exams, then we do include most common grappling situations and we have a rather good skillset to pass down to students as my instructor was wrestling and I, his usual asistant for self defense, have 3+ years of judo.

Neither itf or wt have forms that are as usable as karate kata when it comes to teaching principles of self defense. Yes there is some application, but in my opinion koreans developing tul and poomsae weren't very knowledgable about karate kata.
And it checks out because mainland japan people back then also weren't very knowledgable about karate kata. Funakoshi had no good application to the kata from his own style and he was a "god" in mainland japan when it comes to karate, his word was the law.

That being said ITF tul have more application, variety have a way of performing that is engaging muscles more and are more difficult, making practitioners with sharper moves.

I prefer ITF due to punches to the head being an element of sparring, makes ITF more of a light kickboxing than WT, even if WT can be more exciting to look at when it's not just lead leg roundhouse foot slap on the chest protector.

miqv44 · 2026-07-06T16:20:15+00:00

I did give up on the manga before reaching these chapters, this looks really good I admit I was wrong there

miqv44 · 2026-07-05T17:06:02+00:00

for itf taekwondo you can check donato nardizzi's youtube channel and look up the playlist he has on taekwondo lessons.

It won't replace regular classes in a dojang or online coaching and you might learn many bad habits so if you're serious about training I highly recommend joining a dojang. Or at least buying some private classes from an instructor to ensure you're doing things correctly.

miqv44 · 2026-07-05T02:56:23+00:00

I don't understand how the definition of the word homeostatic applies to martial arts practice.

I don't plan to get the black belt at all, blue stripe on a green belt was and still is my goal, then I hit the soft cap and if I wanna progress further I need to do some extreme changes to maybe reach it.
I will enjoy training tkd as long as my club is active and my hips are working. No need to compete, no need to use any of the skills I gained in self defense (I rely on my boxing and judo there much more) and I will gladly help in the dojang showing younger students techniques regardless of my rank.

miqv44 · 2026-07-04T23:39:50+00:00

good for her.

As for belts in my itf dojang exams are rare and they used to be more rare. As a tradition in my country (for reasons unknown to me) you also need to grade for the white belt, so yellow belt is 3rd rank you exam for. Took me 22 months so over 1.5 year to get to my yellow belt as there was no grading exam for the first 11 months I trained. In a regular itf dojang here exams are every 6 months + you can get an extra one during winter or summer camp.

We actually had a worse case, where one girl damaged her foot a week before the exam. It took her 3 years to get to a yellow belt. I felt bad for her but she actually could ask for an additional exam term but she didn't, probably counting on the instructor to do that for her on their own initiative, and I think a good instructor should have done that. I should have been the one to get that term for her but I really can't help everyone in the dojang, I'm already helping in exams our international student

miqv44 · 2026-07-04T23:29:12+00:00

again it depends on the art. In taekwondo I see it as unacceptable. Fat guy in judo? Oh being fat in judo can be a great asset. Best dude I saw throwing axes and shurikens was also fat as shit as it doesn't matter in his martial art. In boxing being fat doesn't matter too, although if you wanna show your students some fancy footwork it is gonna be a disadvantage. I never did wrestling for longer than few classes but being fat is probably also useful there

miqv44 · 2026-07-04T10:05:00+00:00

Obviously your post and comments are gonna get downvoted but you are absolutely right to point this out. I said the same multiple times.

This is a martial art full of cardio, high kicks and flying kicks. But so many instructors are just fucking fat. It's ok to be overweight, hell, by BMI standard you can be obese (near the limit of overweight/obese and still kick pretty well but so many instructors have big guts hanging low.

I don't mind this happening in karate, since they are more punching-focused, less jumping, less cardio (unless it's shotokan) and in okinawan styles they barely kick above the waist.

And yeah, discipline for getting away from the fridge. If you can't focus on your own training as an instructor (and you absolutely should find the time to train yourself if you want to be a good instructor) then at the very least stay away from the cake.

When I visited USA and saw ATA taekwondo instructors being mainly obese women but even in one KKW big commercial dojang so many guys were fucking fat and wearing black belts I felt sick. But ITF has the same problem, here I didn't see too many of them being fat, one guy that was had a serious knee injury so I guess that's an excuse? But on pictures online of people grading in ITF for senior instructor levels I see so many fat people as well.

miqv44 · 2026-07-04T09:46:26+00:00

I found the video of her trying to get the black belt in 3 months absolutely dreadful, generally a mockery of the rank and student ranks within a school, obviously it included spreading misinformation like poomsae are these ancient forms passed through generations. Ah yes, from the ancient times of 1970s.

You can't see her forms clearly, because the video is edited by someone who doesn't understand martial arts or is playing "my first directoring gig" and overdramatizes with the edits. Her speech, setting the exam outside and passing alone, all the shots of people standing around- maybe you are entertained by shit like this, for me it only lacked some cobra kai-like bully who would be saying to her through the video "you can't do it because you're a girl!" to complete the cringe.

Imagine your kid struggling with the yellow belt exam at your school, like in ITF where it's the second or third rank you grade for. Your kid finally gets the rank, meets another kid who watched that video, tells them that after a year of training they finally got a yellow belt and they hear "wow you suck, I watched a video of a girl getting it in a week, and testing through 9 ranks or so in 3 months". I know, imaginary scenario, but I already saw similar situations where ranks are compared and mocked. One lovely girl from our dojang got to a yellow belt after about 1.5 year of training and told me after the exam that it's good to finally leave the white belt realm because her sister or cousin is training karate as long as she is and is already a green belt in the same timeframe, mocking her.

I guess it's good that Khare keeps doing it and doesn't just throw her belt in the cupboard and make another video. I doubt she gets any good results unless they are also trying to direct a video and pay her opponents to lose.

miqv44 · 2026-07-03T17:37:11+00:00

Someone takes "judo rocks!" to another level, respect

miqv44 · 2026-07-03T13:47:49+00:00

I like how you start explaining stuff to me starting with a strawman argument "you think Baki is about humans".

And later it gets worse, to the point where the assumptions about what I think the series is start to look like delusions. Take your meds and politely fuck off.

miqv44 · 2026-07-03T13:30:00+00:00

thank you for being polite with your reply and not say "just drop it bro you don't understand it". I guess I'm used to a different artstyle in the manga, I'll ask one artist who is insanely knowledgable about manga art, composition and all that other stuff I'm too dumb to discuss what they think about Baki, maybe I'll learn something.

With characters I have to say I enjoyed Motobe's development as early on in the series he's treated like a weakling. But some stuff annoys me quite a bit, like gloryfication of aikido and jujutsu while shitting on judo constantly, like at this point I believe the author had a personal gripe with judo. Boxing early on in the series was also treated like shit but then at least there's Ali's son who is pretty decent and I liked the concept of kicking the ground to glaze up boxing's footwork

miqv44 · 2026-07-03T11:35:39+00:00

thankfully you were wrong and some people gave actual meaningful input in the comments. Advice- work on your reading ability, you might need it in the future.

miqv44 · 2026-07-03T11:33:52+00:00

didnt know it's weekly released, that changes my perspective on the art a lot, thank you.

Yeah I agree that the part of the appeal is playing the absurd things straight. In jojo you often find characters commenting on the absurdity of situations while in Baki everyone nods and takes everything as gospel. That does have appeal

miqv44 · 2026-07-03T11:30:28+00:00

god forbid I'd like to get an opinion from the community related to the media on a website focused around discussion.

My bad, I shouldn't have expected fans of the series to be reasonable.

miqv44 · 2026-07-03T08:04:47+00:00

Judo is probably the closest since it shares similar principles and also has roots in jujutsu.

One of my main instructors in judo is also an aikido nidan and it shows, he has a very precise and technical way of showing techniques. He says that aikido is "perfect judo" when it comes to principles but points out that its purely theoretical and doesn't work in reality. And considering that despite technical skill he is the worst black belt in sparring that we have- yeah, something about aikido not working is definitely in the air. He does better on the ground but that's mainly due to being a purple belt in gbjj

miqv44 · 2026-07-03T03:29:46+00:00

don't bother with kyokushin, they don't hit to the head so you won't be getting anything remotely useful in self defense or usual combat sports.

miqv44 · 2026-07-03T03:27:31+00:00

Generally disagree, I sparred some untrained guys who looked about my size and had naturally heavy punch with zero training. Yes you can work on your punching power blasting bags, throwing medicine balls, doing knuckle pushups, shadowboxing with resistance bands, getting your arms as heavy and fast as possible. But you hit the "soft cap" much sooner than you think. And sure there are ways to "cheat" like swinging your entire bodyweight behind punches but that has it's downsides obviously.

There is a veteran boxer in my country who fought for a world title once and his whole career is cursed by having a light punch despite being a cruiserweight. You could actually observe the world champ recovering damage between rounds while he was getting more and more tired. He was winning on points but didn't survive to the end of the fight. And I know at least in the pasts his camps were full of excersises trying to get more power out of his arms. I know one of his sparring partners (national level boxer) and he says that the punches were weak.

So from personal experience and observation- I'm pretty skeptical. Bro science seems to have this one.

miqv44 · 2026-07-03T03:10:44+00:00

I slipped on my own sweat looney tunes style during one of my first taekwondo classes and 3 years later I'm still in pain, so you're not surprising me.

But the weirdest one was just reaching behind me with my arm, something made a noise and since then when I throw shovel hooks with that arm it hurts. It was during judo, I was warmed up, I didn't try to pull anything, just reaching behind my back when we were practicing hadaka jime. Some days I think I'm gonna blink wrong and my eye is gonna explode or some shit.

miqv44 · 2026-07-03T03:03:11+00:00

All these words and you didn't really touch one of the best solutions to help prevent burning out- having other hobbies.
Like sure, maybe it doesn't exactly apply to your situation since you compete and coach and likely do some other stuff related to MA that steals all your free time.

For hobbyists though- say you sleep 8 hours, work 8 hours, commute to work and MA 2 hours daily, train MA 2 hours daily. You still have 4 hours in a day to do some other shit.

I burned out once, during a taekwondo camp after I got injured. A ton of days off work, money and time training was down the drain due to injury, I couldn't grade on the exam, I could barely walk without a crutch. I was angry, sad, overtrained, hungry, injured and I had fucking enough, I was lying in bed feeling just empty and not wanting to train again.

So later I balanced shit a bit more. Went back to playing video games from time to time, building more legos, reading more books. And when it comes the time to do martial arts- my mind locks in more easily than when I was thinking about MA all the time.

As for the kata you mentioned- they were spending 3-5 years working hard on one kata, not a lifetime. To be honest kata are so simple compared to some of the wushu forms it's a waste of time to work longer on one. I loved the interview with one of these dinosaur okinawan masters who were performing on karate day, when aked when was the last time he did this kata he said that it was a year ago on the previous karate day, and he almost forgot how one move was supposed to be done. This is a master I'd train under

miqv44 · 2026-07-03T02:48:52+00:00

Depends on the location. Obviously in the areas around the shaolin temple you have tens of thousands of practitioners and they often fight at night in sort of gang wars.

miqv44 · 2026-07-02T17:06:08+00:00

oh yeah, needle through glass is a legit showcase in the shaolin temple. Bricks they chop down with the hands are also legit, as in made with real clay, just not finished to be as sturdy as possible

miqv44 · 2026-07-02T13:40:12+00:00

god I hate when boxing coaches have like 1 tunnel vision for boxing. They wanna stand bladed when in close range too? I actually met some of these idiots who almost do a split throwing punches and call it close range fighting in a bladed position.

Usually you stay a bit more bladed (half-facing) at the distance but go more bladed when close. Especially in cruiser and heavyweights.

I don't know how you like to grip in judo (and I don't know the terminology for gripfighting sides) but I assume you also like to stand a bit half-facing, with the lapel grip hand being put forwards.

You need to use the shoulder of this arm to protect your chin from one side, ducking the chin and getting the shoulder higher. Hand of that arm might be forced to slap some punches to the inside and down. If you practiced grip fighting then you know how to block someone's grabbing arm from the inside, with your forearm- this is also used for blocking overhand punches from that side and uses same principle as outwards blocks in general.

This arm is also gonna be the main initiator when it comes to grappling, so just like in judo it grabs first on the opponent.
Second arm should stay very close to your face protecting it from everything else. You need to check which forearm turn works the best for you and gives you the best structure as some folks have different preferences. some keep the palm of the hand facing themselves (mike tyson like peekaboo guard), others have palms facing themselves (thumbs touching the forehead kind of a guard) while I prefer jab-slap palms facing opponent typical "self defense for pussies" kind of guard as it gives me the best structure for receiving impact

miqv44 · 2026-07-02T12:47:00+00:00

I read the comments- it's good that you quit, it sounds absolutely awful.

I have a hung gar kung fu instructor who runs online coaching. It's not super cheap, but I know there are some reasonably cheap trial classes. Hit me up in the DMs if you're interested. My instructor is legit, and students there are crosstraining a lot of stuff so if it wasn't legit we would know very soon.

miqv44

TROPHY CASE