Kung Fu vs Taekwondo

I was browsing YouTube to look at TKD in the 2008 Olympics. I'm sure it's a fun sport for them but tournament TKD is not my cup of tea. To see folks facing off with their hands down and using only kicks is just not that appealing. So as a distraction, I following the videos and for some unknown reason I started looking at variations of TKD versus some other martial art. Usually the style versus style videos suck: Either one guy dominates or somehow they somehow manage to make martial arts boring.

The grappling versus striking videos are usually terrible because they usually have a striker (who's lousy at grappling) versus some decent grappler. Where are the videos of a grappler (who's lousy at striking) versus some decent striker? It happens in the UFC. Even videos that have supposedly similar arts like Kyokushin karate versus TKD aren't that interesting because the former trains with unprotected body blows while the other does not.

Anyhow after looking at over a dozen of these TKD versus videos, I finally found one that was interesting. The "kung fu" guy or guy in red is much better but both are strikers (kickers in particular) throwing hi speed, hi energy techniques, with sincerity. A nice display of timing and distance, and judicious use of which techniques applied when. Judgement that comes out of understanding and experience.

To make up for all the horrible videos I've had to watch, I watched the pair of matches between Royce Gracie (Brazilian jiujutsu) and Hidehiko Yoshida (judo). The first match (Judo vs Jujitsu [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pj8EkOPLjYQ]) was actually more interesting since it was almost pure ne waza/grappling and hence a fair fight, where as the second match (Royce GRACIE vs yoshida [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1QO6fgsypk]) allowed striking making it an MMA match and not Yoshida's realm.

Page Modified: (Auto noted: 2011-11-05 02:44:45Z)