The Worst Martial Art You Should Learn
Disclaimer: Everything I say in this article is based on my personal experience and opinions, and your own experience may vary.
It has been just over sixteen months since I attended my first Taekwondo class. And a month ago, I got my blue belt. I feel great. Like my hardwork has paid off. All the effort, the pushing through pain, it wasn’t for nothing. After all, a blue belt is a big deal. It is not only a proof of skill, but of consistent hard work and discipline. I am a certified good martial artist now. Or so I thought.
Over the course of my Taekwondo journey, I have greatly improved upon my flexibility, strength, and stamina. Despite this, if relying upon my Taekwondo skills alone, I were to be put in a real-life fight scenario against a half-decent fighter, I would get my ass kicked in a most humiliating way. Why? Because Taekwondo does not teach fighting.
Taekwondo, in its current state, and the way it’s taught, is so far removed from practical martial arts, that even years of Tkd training has no real bearing upon a person’s fighting skills. We are trained to deliver high, fast, and flashy kicks, but Taekwondo does not teach you how to take hits, which is inevitable in real fights. We rarely train with partners, we hardly ever spar, and when we do it’s laughingly impractical due to the thousand and one rules imposed upon Taekwondo to make it safer, watering it down to the point of being a glorified game of foot-tag.
But then, what’s the point of dedicating time and effort to learning a martial art if it doesn’t equip you with the skills and knowledge necessary to defend yourself in real-life confrontations? What is the point of all these belts if any practitioner of a different skill can wipe the floor with you? Am I just wasting my time with Taekwondo? I posed this question to my teacher, and with a chauvinistic attitude towards Taekwondo, not unlike what most practitioners have towards their own art, he answered — all this theory assists you in being a better fighter. But in a fight, all it comes down to is your courage. Without it, you can’t implement this knowledge, rendering it effectively useless.
He was, in-part, correct. You do need courage. It’s absolutely essential, even. But I strongly believe that courage is not something that you either have or you don’t. Rather, it is something you develop over time. You develop courage and confidence against undeniable proof of your competence. Instincts too, have to be honed. And the way to achieve this is to put yourself in uncomfortable situations and emerge victorious. To prepare for an exam, you not only study the theory, but you solve questions, you take timed tests. Your instincts regarding solving questions improve, and to the extent you see progress in your results, your confidence increases. Similarly, in martial arts, training drills and sparring are crucial in developing the necessary instincts and courage.
Moreover, courage and confidence are far from the only requisites in a fight. You also need the proper tools and techniques in your repertoire to attack and defend against a variety of arts. In Taekwondo there is this implicit delusion that you are only ever going to fight against Taekwondo practitioners, which only holds true if you are learning Taekwondo for sports. In general, this is not the case. Your opponent is not bound by the strict olympic rules that you are adhering to, not in the ring, let alone in a real situation. Your opponent will not be disqualified for catching your kicks, punching your face, or kicking you below the belt. This must be kept in mind while training.
Having realized the ineffectiveness of Taekwondo as a martial-art, I decided to switch to a different art. I considered boxing, kickboxing, and wrestling, but ultimately decided on Muay Thai. I joined a Muay Thai gym about two weeks ago, and I daresay, in these two weeks I have learnt more about real fighting than I did in more than a year of Taekwondo. Muay Thai is one of the four pillars of mixed martial arts, the others being — boxing, wrestling, and Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Unlike Taekwondo, Muay Thai is rooted in reality, and its techniques are designed to inflict serious damage rather than just score points. Its focus is not so much on speed but power and strength and effectiveness.
There is a saying that goes around in the martial-arts community-” It’s not the art, but the practitioner”. I strongly disagree, and I believe as do many other martial artists. It’s not just the practitioner. “Martial arts” is the art of fighting, and if one art makes you an objectively better fighter than another, then that art is superior. Bruce Lee said — Someone training boxing and wrestling for one year will beat someone who has been training martial-arts their whole life. This certainly holds for Taekwondo. Moreover, coming from someone like Bruce Lee, this highlights how important it is that the martial art be practical. Maintaining tradition is important, but so is evolving. And in the case of Taekwondo, I believe it has only evolved backwards.
If this was not convincing enough regarding taekwondo’s ineffectiveness, I implore you to check out some of the top fighters in the most popular fight competitions such as the UFC or the ONE championship, and check their repertoire of skills. You will find that not a single one of them relies primarily on Taekwondo. While they may have some background in it, it is generally assisted by more practical arts such as kickboxing, Muay Thai or bjj.
However, having said all that, Taekwondo may not be an effective martial art on its own, but it certainly is a good first step as it improves flexibility and speed, and thus develops a good foundation for learning other arts. Moreover, coupled with other full-contact martial arts, Taekwondo can be of great utility, and can truly develop a person into a formidable martial artist.
