Tae Kwon Do is a very impressive looking
martial art. Its tendency towards
kicks over other
strikes is largely due to the fact that it was created as a martial art to be used by
soldiers, whose hands would be full, with a
spear or other
weapon in one, and a
shield in another. Kicks look
cool, and a lot of kicks in rapid succession look even cooler.
It is this
coolness however that has rapidly become Tae Kwon Do's
downfall. People want to do things that look cool, and the cooler something looks, the more they'll want to do it. This is a bad thing for Tae Kwon Do as a whole, for various reasons. The first reason is that people who choose a martial art solely on its
appearance are not the sort of people you want passing the martial art on to future generations. These people will concentrate on improving the
superficial areas of it, at the expense of
discipline and
functionality. Due to its sudden rise in
popularity in recent years, Tae Kwon Do has drifted steadily away from the realm of martial arts, becoming more a
sport than anything else. A cool looking and
athletic sport, but a sport nonetheless. You have
black belt tests as
spectator events,
tournament sparring requiring kicks to specific
targets, and serious
gaps in all around
combat ability. Most
practitioners of Tae Kwon Do that I have sparred with have had serious problems dealing with things like
sweeps,
punches, and
blocks.
I don't doubt that there is still true, more or less un
corrupted Tae Kwon Do out there. Its just not nearly as prevalent as the
mainstream bastardization that is becoming an
Olympic sport.