ChocoFace said:
jonnosferatu said:
Come to think of it, in relation to kicks specifically, there was one time back when I did TKD. I was a white belt sparring with a guy who was about to get his black belt (and fully deserved it; he wasn't just some random chump who was getting it under some kind of contract). I guess he must have completely underestimated my coordination, because I feigned in with a straight punch and then hit him in the crotch with a perfect roundhouse. He was fine (cup), but everyone was completely silent for a few seconds afterward.
Don't they give out black belts in Tae Kwan Do way faster than in other martial arts?
But still, underestimation indeed.
I saw a video in youtube where 2 kids fought: one was TKD black belt (the 'cool' guy), the other a WoW nerd (was being picked on). So they started fighting. You'd probably think the TKD won, right? No. The guy ran away.
As noted, he was one of the guys who could actually do things. The vast majority of TKD studios are up there next to Lethalo (google it) as closest thing to total bullshido, but at the time, my place was pretty good.
The basic story:
I start towards the end of 9th grade. Fairly good.
1st black belt round after my start was June of that year. 8 graduates from 5 studios in the organization. All deserved it.
2nd black belt round after that was December of that year. Something like 15 graduates. Generally high-quality, with the highest coming from my studio and the epicly hardcore one down the freeway.
None of the guys from my studio were up for promotion for the June one after my sophomore year, so I've got no idea how the quality was.
So up to this point, we've had badass black belts, tons of heavy pad work and sparring, and forms with very rigorous enforcement.
Start of my junior year, we pick up a family of east coasters who'd spent the last 4-5 years at an ATA studio. The dad was a marine pretty much standing on top of his black belt promotion date before they'd moved; he was basically fine (albeit somewhat too bought in by the whole 'be Korean' thing), but his wife and kids were both very stupid and very useless, and in accommodating their total inability to do anything well, the instructor basically just got lazy over the course of three months. Sparring became a joke, heavy pad work left the curriculum (probably because the "trial" lesson these people had involved one of our heavy guys getting a beastly roundhouse on a pad the wife was holding incorrectly, knocking her on her ass and prompting a brief temper tantrum), all realistic standards for forms went out the window, etc..
My response was to become a total hardass, which wound up driving them out, but the problems never got fixed, and after about a year of dodging class whenever possible, my parents finally relented and told me I could stop going. It was one of the happiest moments of my senior year.
