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The little TKD guy should have been learning RKD instead

Jmzero, you're right, this is an old video, and it was an irresponsible matchup. This kind of event thankfully does not happen anymore in modern MMA, at least legally in first-world countries. Modern rulesets would never allow this fight to happen, partially because of weight classes, but mostly because of the sheer incompetence of the TKD guy.

I will, however, say that both fighters knew what they were getting into when they agreed to fight the NHB match, at least in the general sense of "I may be very seriously physically injured".

And Jwray, like I said, Bullock messed up his arm. He didn't have any brain damage.

*edit* Hm, beat to the punch. Well put, Zoinnk.

From what I recall of the follow-up (I may be mistaken), Bullock (the TKD guy) popped or otherwise semi-severely injured his shoulder and was out of commission for months. On finishing his PT, I believe he asked for a rematch and was turned down by the promoter.

First of all, I've never met anybody who thought TKD was created for cage fighting. Hell, no popularly practiced martial was created for cage fighting. Cages in MMA didn't come into use 'til the late 80s. Second of all, forms don't teach you how to fight. Neither does "visualizing 8 opponents".

And try fighting 3 people with anything less than a baseball bat or 1911 .45 ACP and see how far it gets you. No unarmed art is ever going to let you beat up three people in a fight without enormous amounts of luck and/or a very effective weapon. Sorry to burst your bubble, but if you think you actually can handle three guys in a fight you've got another thing coming. Actually, another six things coming.

One common misconception about Tae Kwon Do is that it was designed for some kind of cage fight. Tae Kwon Do is a military dicipline. Whenever I practiced a form in TKD I was told to visualize 8 opponents. (who would presumably be less disciplined.)
The application of any art changes according for the situation. But if 3 people jump you on the street, just try tackling 1 of them Brazilain Jiu-Jitsu style and see how far it gets you.

Intimidation is a big part of winning a fight. If I see a guy twirling a knife or using nunchucks in a proficient way then I'm going to think this guy knows a thing or two about how to use them. At least it would keep you second guessing your chances of taking them down.

I agree intimidation is a big factor, but I guess I just don't see knife-twirling or nunchuck-waving to be very intimidating.

Besides in TKD most of your fight happens in your mind before a punch or kick is even thrown.

Now that...that I really don't buy, unless you're speaking in the most metaphorical of terms, i.e. "if you're not confident, you've already lost". It's a physical competition, man, you can't win just because you think you're going to win. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that most of the fight happens as the fight is happening.

Intimidation is a big part of winning a fight. If I see a guy twirling a knife or using nunchucks in a proficient way then I'm going to think this guy knows a thing or two about how to use them. At least it would keep you second guessing your chances of taking them down. Besides in TKD most of your fight happens in your mind before a punch or kick is even thrown.

Hm. How to say this:

- Kicks work in MMA, even against grappling specialists. The kicker just has to be very good at kicking, takedown defense, and escaping from ground to standing, i.e. be a good sprawl-and-brawler. Kicking has proven to be a very important part of MMA, and anybody who doesn't train to kick and defend against kicks is an incomplete fighter. Anybody who doesn't think so is wrong.
- TKD is an art with many different variations, it's how it's trained that makes the difference. Because most tournament TKD is trained crappily with tippy-tappy kicks not intended for damage, and because no punching is allowed, tournament TKD sucks for self defense. Then again, most Krav Maga sucks for self-defense too because it caters to wimpy civilians who are looking for any easy way out rather than pay the sweat, blood, and pain in training, so who's counting?
- Martial arts are all about fighting. Anybody who's practicing a martial art that isn't about fighting isn't practicing a martial art. That's just my opinion, but I'm right.
- Boards don't hit back. Seems pretty smart to single them out to fight, then, right?

People, just appreciate this for what it is: an amazing example of athleticism and skill intended for crowd-pleasing, board-breaking, kick-flipping action, not for combat ability. I highly doubt anybody would think throwing a tornado kick in a fight is a good idea, and whoever does deserves the surprise that Darwin's got coming for them.

In my time as a TKD student, I came to feel that much of TKD was only practical when facing an opponent who is also using TKD. Other students I know have agreed with me. That's not to say there aren't techniques that can be applied to a 'street fight' situation, but you've got to think differently than you would in one of your sparring matches. Of course it's still good exercise and conditioning.

Perhaps ironically, the worst place to go to learn TKD for use in a combat situation is probably Korea where it has been transformed from its military roots into a sport. It's all about flashy board breaking and rapid, powerless strikes. A landed strike, no matter how insignificant it is, is still a point.

TKD isn't the most effective when it comes to self defense, if your looking for that try Krav Maga. TKD is a discipline and art. It does have some practical use but it's things like this that help develop accuracy and speed when dealing with any situation.

Deathcow, I saw a TKD show when I got the opportunity to visit South Korea. The boards were always held with one side to the audience but as they got prepared and into position, you'd occasionally glimpse the other side and the were little explosive charges attached to ensure a nice break with confetti effects.

This is undoubtedly a hell of an achievement, but I have to wonder - how hard is he hitting the boards? How useful is this stuff in an actual fight? I know martial arts shows have little to do with actual fighting, but I think the moves must still be genuine, otherwise it's basically just ballet.

That's a black belt board break. Don't know which level, TKD for sure.

Looks like TKD to me, just from the gi - *ahem*, I meant to say dobok - style and the fact that the signs are Korean.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'karate, board, break, wow, kick' to 'tkd, board, break, wow, tornado, kick' - edited by rembar

*sigh*.

While it is true that the Gracie family made submission attacks famous by representing Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ) in mixed martial arts (MMA), everything you just posted is - and I almost never say this - completely ignorant of the sport and martial arts as a whole.

Submissions were not brought into "the sport" - and by this, I assume you mean MMA - by the Gracies. The Gracies, as I wrote in my BJJ sift, took the judo/jujitsu taught to them by Mitsuyo Maeda and developed the newaza groundwork into a new system, focused on establishing positional improvement and dominance before the application of submissions. It was this conceptual change from the general judo mindset of throw-and-fall-or-scramble-to-position, rather than the submissions themselves. Judo, for the most part, has all the submission BJJ does, it just generally doesn't train them as much or as well. So really, the submissions were brought into the sport by judo, which was brought into creation by Kano through adaptation of the teachings of jiu-jitsu. If you want to argue about fighters using the submissions, sure Royce Gracie made use of them famously in UFC 1, but the first UFC tournament was set up to ensure no other submission grappling styles, including judo, was entered to make a clearer differentiation of style versus style, among other reasons. When such fighter picking was stopped, submission fighters from many styles sprung up in MMA competition.

If you're not talking about modern MMA, then consider the fact that pankration from Greece in 648 BC was the first Western MMA competition, and chokeholds and joint locks were widely displayed and documented.

Consider that catch wrestling can be traced in nearly every culture, from Lancashire catch-as-catch-can wrestling to the US hook wrestling to the Indian pehlwani.

Or you might even be referencing the infamous gong sau of China, where kung fu masters would challenge each other for the rights to open schools in villages or cities, matching style versus style, starting from millenia ago and continuing to the present day. Of course, dubious as the documentation surrounding those matches were, and as stupid as kwoon-storming is, there have been accounts of Chin na masters defeating other strikers through armbars and rear naked chokes.

As for "ruining the sport", I can only assume you're talking about the present version of MMA, as represented largely by the UFC and Pride FC (which have recently been merged as one organization. The UFC and Pride, as you may know, evolved out of the Vale tudo competitions in Brazil and Japan, which when brought to the US were imitated and televised. Of course, you should also be aware of the fact that vale tudo tournaments were largely organized by Helio Gracie, the original creator of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and his descendants. The UFC was created largely as the brainchild of Rorion Gracie, Helio's eldest son and BJJ black belt, as well as Art Davies, one of Rorion's student. In fact, according to many inside sources who were present for the UFC's founding, it was created in a large part to showcase BJJ for the US, just as Pride FC was created in a a large part to showcase Rickson Gracie, another one of Helio's sons, versus Nobuhiko Takada, a famous Japanese shoot-wrestler and mixed martial artist who also trained in a form of submission wrestling. So how exactly do you figure that modern MMA, which exists largely because the Gracies wanted to showcase the effectiveness of submission fighting versus pure striking styles, is somehow ruined because it did exactly that?

And finally, you have absolutely no idea about submission grappling. If you think getting a submission hold is a "basic skill" that can beat anybody, and the sport now revolves around using and avoiding those holds, then how do you figure that only one of the five current UFC title holders is a well-known submission specialist, and even HE won his title fight two days ago by knockout? If it's such a get-out-of-jail-free card, why doesn't everybody just use those magical subs? How come sprawl-and-brawl and ground-and-pound are becoming such dominant strategies of fighting in MMA fights? Oh, and what did you mean by "strength, skill, stamina or fighting spirit" having no effect on submission grappling? Superior skill, strength, stamina, and fighting spirit is what submission grappling is all about. The fighter with the greatest combination of all four will win, just as with any other art in MMA. Look at Yuki Nakai, the grappler who continued a fight despite being eye-gouged illegally to the point of complete blindness and yet continued on not only win his fight by submission but also fight AGAIN the SAME night against the most feared grappler in the world at the time, Rickson Gracie. Look at Ronaldo de Souza, aka Jacare, who had his arm broken in a fight but continued to fight and win. Heck, look at Rickson Gracie, who is well-known for having an insane cardio routines involving sandy beaches and mountain running. Or any of the MMA athletes at the top of the sport, who train and spar and weight lift and run and work out for hours on end each day and every day so they can become strong and build up endurance and improve their skills, all thanks to their fighting spirit and determination to be the best.

If you doubt me on any of those facts, just get yourself to a real, honest-to-goodness MMA gym, and tell the first MMA fighter you see that submission holds are ruining the sport. Seriously. I'd like to know what happens.

Do you know why I'm annoyed by your comment, Enzoblue? I'm annoyed because training submission grappling is not fucking easy. It is hard, painful work to train. It is expensive as hell, in terms of money as well as time and effort. I am shit-awful at it, and my only goal each day I step on the mat, which is every damn day, is to suck a little less than the day before, and sometimes, like today, I don't feel like that's happened, and I haven't been able to move my neck in certain directions for days because of a neck crank that got cranked on too hard. And yet tomorrow, I'm going to put on my smelly, sweaty gi, get in my friend's carpool, and go roll around on a mat with large, sweaty men who outweigh me by over 50 pounds on average for several hours, and come back tired and sore and cranky. (Hah, pun, get it? It's a joke because my spinal column isn't functioning properly.) And I'm happy with all of that, from the musty gym smell to the same old jokes my friends make about me being gay that they've made for years, because through my training I know I am acquiring a skillset that is not available or acquired in the general public, and yes, I do take pride in what I do because it is a part of my life and part of who I am, and also there's the fact that my training and dedication can and have helped me to choke fools out who are deserving of it, just as those things have saved the lives of friends and acquaintances who were attacked in ghettos and Iraqi villages. And yet here you come to say that I, along with every other MMA competitor who has devoted far larger amounts of their life to perfecting the art of submission grappling, am ruining the beautiful sport of mixed martial arts, a sport that I am, as well as those competitors far above me, dedicated to as well and one that I do my best to represent well in the public eye. No. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to let you say that, because you're wrong.

Consider this: the UFC and modern MMA changed what "one would actually consider fighting". People used to think those flicky, chambered TKD kicks would hurt, or that they could just avoid a takedown attempt with elbows to the spine, or even in later years, they could just fight out of guard. The sport has evolved, and anybody who has a half a brain can see that a good MMA fighter needs to train to fight out of the three ranges that have been established through the test of the fight, standup, clinch, and ground, as well as be able to strike, grapple, and submit from all three ranges if necessary, as well as defend against an opponent's attempts to do so to oneself. Submission grappling is part of the sport out of necessity, not because it's what people (and by that I mean Westerners) think of when they think about fighting, or because it looks pretty - it's in the sport because it works. The skills and abilities trained in sub grappling allow a more skilled fighter to beat a less skilled opponent, given reasonable size comparisons, just as with every other martial art that has been used with success in MMA. The concept of MMA is the extension of Bruce Lee's philosophy of Jeet Kune Do - take what works, and lose what doesn't. So in reality, sub grappling being used to win fights in MMA is really part of the evolution and development of martial arts, in fact it embodies what MMA and the development of effective martial arts is all about. And if that simple fact offends, then perhaps you don't understand quite as much about MMA as you might like to think you do.