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Muay Thai or TKD

51K views 274 replies 71 participants last post by  Spirion1 
#1 ·
I'm having an arguement with a guy on youtube who thinks Muay Thai sucks compared to tae kwon do. I think that the simple lack of protecting your face in TKD says it all. Tell me what you think is better
 
#230 · (Edited)
I've always had the same question about TKD. Everytime I talk to someone that does TKD they tell me they do it then immediately say "but my school is not like the ones you hear about...it's hardcore and they only teach stuff that works in the real world". Now with that being said...I have heard this from literally every single person that I have ever come across that does TKD, so if all the TKD schools out there are "real fight schools" then where are all the McDojo's?

On a side note when I was doing Muay-Thai for a few years a long time ago my instructor passed away and I had to find another place to train. At the time there were no other MT schools around so I started going to TKD and Karate schools just for some sparring. They would always get mad because I refused to learn forms and test, but I did get in some matches with lots of TKD guys. I have to say that I didn't find one school where I'm from that was for real. They were riddled with guys who thought TKD was the most effective striking art on the face of the earth (thanks to their instructors), then comes along a descent MT kickboxer who's tearing them apart, which coupled with the fact I refused to test and learn forms got me kicked out of several TKD schools.

From my experience in most TKD schools I went too they only did point sparring and the ones that did "free" sparring only did light contact to the body and only punched to the head (light contact). I for the life of me could not figure out how to get someone to fight me light contact on the street so I wrote it off as pretty useless.

I don't have anything against TKD. As a matter of fact I have several good friends who have their own TKD schools and are pretty high ranking black belts. They are down to earth guys for the most part, but some of them think they are Jean-Claude Van Damme. One TKD instructor that I'm friends with (5th black) has a son that's 1st black under him. I was joking around with him one day saying "hey man, when we gonna spar?" and his dad looked at him and said "son, he did MT kickboxing for a long time...unless you want to be walking around on crutches from getting kicked in the legs I wouldn't suggest it".

I'm not trying to start a fight about any of this. I'm simply speaking from my experience. I think there are some salvagable things in TKD, but I feel for the most part if you are gonna talk about street effectiveness there is no comparisson between MT and TKD. TKD is a point sport for the most part while MT is a fight sport.
 
#231 ·
Muay Thai is for men and women who desire to be badasses.

TKD is for little girls who desire to kick and look pretty while doing it.

There is always the exceptional TKD school which is decent and the shittiest school claiming to teach MT who blows, but generally MT hands down as the superior fighting style.
 
#233 ·
Pretty doesn't always win fights.

If I have a choice between being pretty and being effective I'm choosing effective.

Like I said though, there are some things that can be taken from TKD and used effectively. You just have to sort through it and remove all the jumping and spinning stuff, teach them how to keep their hands up, and no throw their hands wide open every time they throw a strike.
 
#234 ·
Pretty doesn't always win fights.
Actually, I've made a point of telling the guys I train with the inverse:

Ugly wins fights.
I mean, Gracie Jiu-Jitsu is effective, but it's not flashy. It's minimalism, simplicity and effectiveness. Those three things are enough.

Even in boxing, some of the most effective fighters don't have flashy styles. Calzaghe was incredibly effective, not that flashy. Tyson was a minimalist, but his power was so devastating that even using the basic bob-and-weave-to-bolo was enough to destroy his opponents.

Muay thai has some stuff that's not combat effective. TKD has some stuff that's not combat effective. The difference is, the core of muay thai is full contact, and the basics of muay thai work in full contact fights. The basics of TKD don't.
 
#235 ·
Jab, cross, staight, hook, uppercut, elbows, knees, roundhouse, sidekick, front kick... Pretty sure those are TKD basics and they seem to be pretty common in MMA.

Gracie Jiu-Jitsu may be minimal, simple, and effective but that's not enough if the fight doesn't go to the ground. GJJ is not the MMA solution any more than any other style of martial art.

I'm tired of people not understanding there is a functional side to TKD and an artistic side. TKD is a martial art and any martial art requires adjustments to be an effictive fighting method.
 
#236 ·
I am not sure about your experience with TKD, but I went to a lot of different schools in my area and my experience was always the same.

I spent a lot of time doing Muay-Thai before I started going to TKD gyms so I was a pretty descent boxer. Just about every class I went too I would use good technique on jabs, crosses, uppercuts, hooks, etc...I would always get corrected and told "this is how we do it in TKD". It was always less effecient and flashier ways of doing it IMO.

Another thing I would get corrected on quite often was I love kicking the legs. Every class I went too I was told immediately "no leg kicks". How are you going to learn how to defend or use leg kicks when you don't use them??

Several of the schools I went too (not all of them) taught to roundhouse kick with the foot and not the shin. Some had adapted using the shin; although I'm not sure which is more traditional. To me kicking with the foot is stupid...what happens when you break your foot? Then you are in the middle of a fight and can't stand.

Most of the schools as well did not allow strikes to the face. Same as leg kicks...how are you going to learn how to defend or strike to the face if you can't do it training? You can't.

From what I saw of the stances, most of them were pretty useless. To me the stances were set up more for point sparring and not street fighting. Some big leg stance isn't going to win fights on the street or against kickboxers. If you don't believe that just take a look at Machida and how he got his leg kicked to death last week.

Kata was the all time worse thing I saw. I did Karate (got a black belt in Shorin-Ryu Karate) and I never agreed with kata. Some people say it's useful for something...what I don't know. This isn't the Karate Kid, nobody is gonna stand there in awe while you do some stupid form...you are gonna start doing it and they are gonna kick the crap out of you.

My biggest gripe with Karate and TKD is the belt test and the fact that they give belts out for money. When I got my black belt I paid about $1500 to get it. I have seen schools that charge more than that. When I got my belts in BJJ I paid nothing, I went into class one day and they handed me a belt and told me "you earned this".
 
#237 ·
TKD doesn't really start until the black belt level and then it becomes what you make of it. When I was kickboxing I used TKD as my base and it worked very well. I've cleaned it up and it is still my base for MMA striking. Obviously I'm the exception and not the rule but the reality is that the art is fine, it is the business of TKD that gives so many people these 'buy-a-belt' experiences.
 
#239 ·
I'm having a little trouble understanding what you mean by "TKD doesn't really start until the black belt level". Are you saying that you don't do forms and all that junk after black belt? Do all the techniques suddenly change after you get your black belt? Are there some kind of new fighting tricks they teach you once you get your black belt?

The way I'm taking it you are saying that once you get your black belt you can pretty much take what you learned and change it to what you want. If that's the case and you take things FROM TKD and make them "your own" and make them work for you, then you are not actually doing that art anymore, you are changing it to something else that's not TKD. One of the biggest fallings in styles like Karate and TKD is that it's pretty well written in stone...this is the style, bottom line. That's why I love BJJ so much...if someone comes up with a new move or something that works it's incorporated and next thing you know just about every school across the country is doing it, but you don't see that diversity in TKD and Karate....it is what it is.
 
#238 ·
I have always hated belt tests and still do. It doesn't measure how good you are in that discipline as much as it should, it's more about whether you're a good test-taker.

I wish teachers made it known that they would give out the belt at random when they felt you'd earned it, that way everyone would work harder all the time.
 
#243 ·
Dan Hardy, Mike Swick, Ben Henderson are 3 top level MMA fighters with Tae Kwon Do backgrounds that spring to mind.
Dan Hardy did do TKD no argument there, but he switched and started training Muay Thai and using that as his striking base. If TKD was so good why would he switch to Muay-Thai??

Mike Swick trains out of American Kickboxing Academy which does BJJ, Judo, and kickboxing. As far as I’m aware there is no one there teaching TKD. If you know of a TKD instructor that is teaching TKD at AKA then please share your information.

Ben Henderson is a wrestler. He does have a black belt in TKD, but that’s not that hard since most schools pretty much give them out. If you go look at where he trains and how he trains he relies on his wrestling more than anything.

There's always been a stigma attached to combat sports in the traditional martial arts. The more committed a practitioner was to their art, the less likely they were to fight in front of a crowd for money,
So you are saying that the guys who do compete in combat sports, in front of crowds, for money are less dedicated to martial arts than people who don’t? I would think just the opposite actually…

in many cases, doing so would get them kicked out of their school.
I have been to many TKD schools and most of them didn’t want any of their students competing anywhere. A couple of them told me they didn’t want them competing against any other martial art except TKD so I lied and told them I had done TKD before. In all cases of those schools I found out real fast why they didn’t not want them going out competing, especially against other martial arts…because they would have immediately left and went elsewhere. As a matter of fact there was one school I went too that was issued an invitation to a local Shotokan Karate club tournament. The instructor at the TKD school told his students that anyone who went would be kicked out…I wondered why. A few of the students didn’t care and went anyhow…they got their asses handed to them.

I’m not trying to say that all schools that tell you not to compete suck, but a lot of them don’t want people competing for the strict fact that they want to retain students and keep them from going to better schools/arts.

For example, the TKD school I used to train and teach at is also an ATT certified MMA school.
You were at a TKD school that was certified by American Top Team??? I am going to have to call b.s. on that my friend. What was the name of the school and I’ll ask Liborio personally if the school was certified under ATT.
 
#245 · (Edited)
Dan Hardy did do TKD no argument there, but he switched and started training Muay Thai and using that as his striking base. If TKD was so good why would he switch to Muay-Thai??
Read his own comments on TKD again if you need to. I can't speak for him.

Mike Swick trains out of American Kickboxing Academy which does BJJ, Judo, and kickboxing. As far as I’m aware there is no one there teaching TKD. If you know of a TKD instructor that is teaching TKD at AKA then please share your information.
You seem to be moving the goalpost here. Swick has a TKD background, as I said. I did not say he trained TKD instead of MMA today.

Ben Henderson is a wrestler. He does have a black belt in TKD, but that’s not that hard since most schools pretty much give them out. If you go look at where he trains and how he trains he relies on his wrestling more than anything.
Again, not particularly relevant to what you asked for. Henderson has a TKD background, and both he and announcers have acknowledged the difference in his kicks and footwork due to that training.


So you are saying that the guys who do compete in combat sports, in front of crowds, for money are less dedicated to martial arts than people who don’t? I would think just the opposite actually…
I certainly didn't say that. I did however, acknowledge the stigma that exists in traditional martial arts and its role in keeping the best representatives of those art from professional fighting. Acknowledging something isn't agreeing with it.

I have been to many TKD schools and most of them didn’t want any of their students competing anywhere. A couple of them told me they didn’t want them competing against any other martial art except TKD
Yes, that's what I said was the case.
so I lied and told them I had done TKD before.
Are you lying now? :)
In all cases of those schools I found out real fast why they didn’t not want them going out competing, especially against other martial arts…because they would have immediately left and went elsewhere. As a matter of fact there was one school I went too that was issued an invitation to a local Shotokan Karate club tournament. The instructor at the TKD school told his students that anyone who went would be kicked out…I wondered why. A few of the students didn’t care and went anyhow…they got their asses handed to them.
Obviously, no TKD schools or practitioners could ever be any different than what you, personally, have experienced, so forget everything I've said.

I’m not trying to say that all schools that tell you not to compete suck, but a lot of them don’t want people competing for the strict fact that they want to retain students and keep them from going to better schools/arts.
I believe I acknowledged that element in my first comment a few posts back.

You were at a TKD school that was certified by American Top Team??? I am going to have to call b.s. on that my friend. What was the name of the school and I’ll ask Liborio personally if the school was certified under ATT.
It seems there are currently 8 ATT certified TKD schools. I can only vouch for Southeast Texas TKD, though:
http://www.americantopteam.com/locations.php
 
#244 ·
Keep in mind Shaun, that TKD is a relatively new sport in this country, only having been practiced for about 60-70 years. In the grand scheme of martial arts developing, this is the blink of an eye.

My hope is that schools like the one I trained at, which taught boxing and ground fighting along with TKD, and focused more on techniques which better lent themselves to combat, are the shape of things to come.
 
#248 ·
Just a general programming reminder, I'm not arguing that TKD is a superior art to Muay Thai.
 
#247 · (Edited)
Fly me up a MT instructor then, because the Western kickboxing class I take, while it is related, does not cover the finer points of MT.

Since I have broadened my study of martial arts, I have been trying to develop a more trained eye with regard to which techniques are more useful for combat. It is harder and more subjective than I thought it would be.
 
#253 · (Edited)
From the link in question:
Here is the contact information for our Headquarters, our ATT Locations, and our Level 1 Certified MMA Academies:
But hey, if, as you claim, ATT is running a 'buy an MMA certification' program, then, by all means, let's strike that line from the record. I certainly don't want to ruin TKD's good name by having it associated with disreputable MMA schools running scams.
 
#254 ·
I'm not saying it's buying a certification. What I get out of it is that it's basically just an affiliation. You can say you are affiliated with ATT, but you aren't actually any part of ATT.

Is there anyone from ATT teaching at these schools? If there is then I could see how it would be a "certified" school as far as what I'm getting from you. Our school is affiliated with ATT, but we have an ATT brown belt straight from Liborio teaching at our school.
 
#255 ·
I'm not saying it's buying a certification.

What I get out of it is that it's basically just an affiliation. You can say you are affiliated with ATT, but you aren't actually any part of ATT.

Is there anyone from ATT teaching at these schools? If there is then I could see how it would be a "certified" school as far as what I'm getting from you. Our school is affiliated with ATT, but we have an ATT brown belt straight from Liborio teaching at our school.
ATT claims they have certified these schools. If you want to argue about their definition of 'certified', you'll need to do it with them.
 
#259 ·
It is very hard to throw spinning kicks after your legs get kicked it from under you. The way tkd guys stand they were get their legs destroyed.

Sent from my Desire HD using VerticalSports.Com App
 
#260 ·
He has a little bit of a point, a lot of traditional Muay Thai fighters fail to protect the body well, but honestly....there mental they will be in on you smashing you up in no time, and there front kicks make it very hard to deal with them at range.

Pure TKD guys get destroyed by Muay Thai fighters 9 times out of 10.
 
#263 ·
It takes someone with exceptional talent/skill to use TKD and be effective with it. Muay Thai is much better all the way around.

At our dojo they teach a variety of stand up skills for street defense and mma.

They teach the dempsey crouch (boxing) stance and strikes, karate stance and strikes, judo stance clinch and strikes, muay thai stance clinch and strikes, wrestling takedowns whatever is effective but no TKD...
 
#264 ·
TKD can be effective. Imagine a 100% focused and much younger Cung Le in the UFC now. At the same time, it's only real purpose is to add to your style. Anderson Silva messed around with it and it will serve him with his front kicks or whatever. As a pure TKD fighter, you're probably not going to have as much luck against a pure Muay Thai fighter, but it definently has it's purposes.
 
#265 ·
Hahah I posted on this thread 5 years ago on the 4th page. I was seventeen at the time and just beginning my journey into MMA and competitive fighting. Either way, my opinion on it has changed considerably, since gaining more experience with real fighters.

Training methods are more important than techniques. A guy who practices Aikido in a live, non-compliant environment has a better chance of successfully using those techniques than someone who solo-drills BJJ moves.

Similarly, someone who trains full contact TKD (even dumb WTF stuff) will likely beat a MT practitioner who's never sparred.

The only way to get better at fighting is to fight. Styles that allow for heavy or full contact sparring are better for fighting than styles that don't. What's just as important as the level of contact/resistance, however, is how realistic the ruleset is. If I were preparing for a fight, I'd rather do light-contact kickboxing to prepare than full contact point sparring.

Long story short: the training methods and the rulesets of Muay Thai are superior to TKD if you're trying to prepare someone for an actual fight. To top it off, Muay Thai fighters are much better conditioned to take punishment and to continue fighting. Pads, no leg kicks, and no head contact makes it pretty hard to get as tough as a nakmuay.

And on that note, before someone says "well that's just competition, sometimes people allow those things in sparring." Yeah, sure, that's true. There are TKD guys who do a few rounds of realistic sparring once in a while. But it's a side thing for them. It's not enough to make up for lost ground, when comparing them to someone who does that sh** all the time.
 
#266 ·
Fully agree. I do two martial arts now. One I won't say because it's on the small side, but it boasts "no rules", while the other one is karate. In karate, we spar. It's not uncommon to get a black eye or a cut or something (especially when you're shit at karate and slug it out like me haha), but the other one does "X step sparring", where you take turns of using techniques with no contact. Karate isn't effective in a real fight situation, while this one teaches techniques that are, but I know for a fact that my experience in karate is the only thing that will accomodate me in a fight because it's the only one I'm able to put into practise through sparring. You have to get the ability to put your training to practise because without it you don't have the natrual instinct to use the moves when the time comes.
 
#267 ·
PART 2:

The above-listed facts aside, Tae Kwon Do that is well-adapted to real fighting can be DANGEROUS!

There's a kid on my MMA team that has been cross training and he can be a handful. It's really hard to land any kicks on him because he's so mobile. He's put a lot of guys down with his spinning back kicks and front kicks. (Now, he's honestly not that hard to handle for any of the good strikers, but let's be real here... Most MMA guys suck at striking.)

Where he runs into real trouble is when he's paired up with someone that's got good hands. For all of TKD's strength in its unpredictable kicks, it's got absolutely nothing going for it in the hands department. He's absolutely ****ed when he goes against someone with solid boxing/decent kick defense.

That said, if the TKD guy crosstrains in boxing, he can be SERIOUSLY dangerous. I had sparred with this one guy who had a blackbelt in TKD and 80 Golden Glove boxing matches to his name. From the outside, he would pelt you with all sorts of kicks. On the inside, he would light you up with hands. One time he KO'd me with a spinning back kick to the neck.

TKD, like many traditional martial arts, can be very effective supplements if you've got the basic combat sports acumen to back it up.
 
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