Self defense

Taekwondo self-defense is known as hosinsul and it forms one of the four main principles of the art. The self-defense applications would be difficult to score in sparring as they are designed primarily to cause injury or quickly incapacitate an adversary.
In competition, self-defense techniques take the format of a demonstration event, much like poomsae. One person is usually designated the part of the Taekwondo practitioner, while several team mates take the role of common street aggressors who attack from various angles with punches, kicks and grabs common to street brawlers. Weapons may also be used, as Taekwondo has specific techniques for dealing with armed adversaries.
Taekwondo self-defense competition provides an opportunity for students to display their understanding of Taekwondo self-defense applications and the ability to put together their own team choreography. Self-defense routines are often performed as displays for the public, in which case there are no judges present. Many Taekwondo clubs include self-defense in their daily routine in both WTF and ITF.
There are two main concepts in Taekwondo self-defense. For real life combat situations, an experienced Taekwondo practitioner is versed in the following:

• Linear (or hard) techniques
• Circular (or soft) techniques

Linear Techniques
These include mostly punching, kicking, headbutts and other striking maneuvers. Force is countered with force and all limbs are involved in stopping an adversary. Taekwondo kicks have a wide reach that keeps the adversary at a distance. With proper execution opponents may be incapacitated with a single blow, which lessens the number of attacks in encounters with multiple people.
Circular techniques
These emphasize redirection and manipulation rather than strength. The adversary can be manipulated into a position whereby a lock, stranglehold and/or finishing move can be applied. Grappling techniques are used both as a means of securing an adversary and escaping from an adversary's grip. Soft self-defense techniques like the stranglehold or joint lock can be used to subdue the attacker, avoiding dealing permanent injury.
Taekwondo self-defense techniques demonstrated in competition may include:

• Pressure point applications.^[2] In Taekwondo philosophy, the body has many sensitive areas that are susceptible to precise attack. These are known as pressure points or ji ap sul. There are three types of pressure point that can induce one or a combination of the following: pain, paralysis, or death. These can be targeted with gripping and/or striking in order to immobilize or cause substantial pain to submit the opponent.
• Throws. Known as too sul, Taekwondo practitioners can divert the opponent's force to their own advantage and throw him to the ground. Once on the ground the practitioner has greater control over his adversary and can follow up with subsequent controlling or finishing techniques.
• Joint Locks. Otherwise known as kwan jyel sul in Taekwondo, these can be useful against armed attackers. Typically the attacking limb is grabbed and then manipulated to cause immense pain in the adversary. Joint locks can be applied on any joint in the body and are particularly useful for controlling an opponent who has been thrown to the ground.
• Termination techniques. These are a range of strikes applied to an opponent downed by a previous throw or strike. Powerful downward traveling kicks and hand strikes are used to make sure the opponent stays down.
• Choking techniques. In Chil sik sul, the idea of applying a stranglehold is to deprive the attacker's brain of either oxygenated blood through the carotid artery and/or oxygen for the lungs through the trachea. The Taekwondo practitioner uses leverage from his arm and sometimes involves the attackers clothing in applying pressure to the sensitive neck area. Choke holds are particularly dangerous and only taught to higher level Taekwondo students, as over exertion can crush the trachea or cause sudden death.
• Freeing techniques. Paegi are taught to Taekwondo students so that they can quickly free themselves and neutralise the danger of being grabbed by an attacker. Competition demonstrations frequently involve one student grabbing another from behind. The science of Taekwondo is equally concerned with defense as attack so proper freeing techniques must be learnt.

Like other Taekwondo competition events, self-defense is marked by a panel of judges. When scoring they are looking at the following factors:

• Aliveness. How realistic is the Taekwondo students demonstration? Does he move with the requisite urgency and do his techniques have the emotional content to make the judges believe in their power?
• Technique. Are the Taekwondo techniques being demonstrated precisely? Are the kicks clean, fast and strong? Are joint locks and throws being performed accurately? Does the student have control over his adversaries or are they making it easy for him?
• Variety. What is the range of the Taekwondo practitioners knowledge? Is he showing his understanding of liner and direct counter-attacks? Has he performed a practical finishing technique after each throw or lock?
• Difficulty. More difficult Taekwondo techniques score higher than simple ones if performed correctly. However, a poorly executed technique will always score lower than a simple, effective technique performed well; students should not be demonstrating techniques that they have not mastered.

List of Taekwondo techniques Taekwondo techniques vary between schools and level and not all techniques are included. Techniques often combined into longer set Tul or Hyeong, again these vary from school to school.
Stances (Sogi) Hand attacks Kicks (Chagi) Blocks (Makgi) Patterns, Poomsae, Hyung, Tul Self defense BreakingEdit Breaking, the discipline of destroying inanimate materials such as wooden boards, bats, ice or bricks is a feature common to several Asian martial arts. It can be seen in its oldest form within some branches of Chinese Kung Fu such as Iron Shirt Chi Gung, where iron bars are smashed off the bare heads of martial arts experts, typically Shaolin monks.
In Taekwondo breaking competitions, the idea is to demonstrate power, speed and technique. The preferred object is commonly wooden boards of varying thicknesses, advanced students break several boards stacked one on top of the other. In Taekwondo, the hardness of the object to be broken is usually subjugated to the difficulty of the technique to be employed. Thus various body parts are used, such as the ridge of the hand, the knuckles or even the fingertips. Headbutts, knee strikes, elbow strikes and various parts of the foot are also used to break boards. A single board or stack of boards may be broken or, alternatively, a series of boards may be broken in a pre-set sequence utilizing a variety of strikes. Advanced competitors may even break several boards in a single jump with multiple kicks before landing.
In ITF Taekwondo sparring competitions, using maximum force is not allowed. Furthermore, at advanced levels it would be seriously injurious and possibly fatal. Breaking boards or bricks is therefore the only safe way to test the real power of any martial arts technique (except with fairly high-tech scientific equipment). Taekwondo competition breaking may be roughly divided into two main categories:
Power breaking. The power of a technique is measured by breaking single or multiple stacked boards. Stacked boards are commonly placed on raised supports on the ground. Speed breaking. A single board is held lightly between the fingertips of an assistant, at advanced levels the board is tossed into the air. Regardless of the power of a technique, if the board is not hit with the requisite speed in the correct places it will not break. Starting with coloured belts Taekwondo students must learn breaking. As they progress through the ranks, the breaks they perform increase in difficulty as do the number of boards. As time goes on, the Taekwondo student's hands and bones become accustomed to breaking boards - repeated practice hardens bones, skin and tendons. Wolff's law states that the human skeleton will adapt to the stress it is put under, therefore the bones actually become stronger as a Taekwondo student advances in his martial arts career.
ReferencesEdit Taekwondo Forms http://www.wtf.org/wtf_eng/site/about_taekwondo/poomsae.html http://www.kukkiwon.or.kr/viewfront/eng/data/technique_trunk2.jsp Self Defense Pressure Points Further readingEdit Modern Taekwondo:The Official Training Manual, Soon Man Lee and Gaetane Ricke;Sterling Publishing Company, Inc., New York, NY;copyright 1999 Traditional Taekwondo:Core Techniques, History, and Philosophy, Master Doug Cook;YMAA Publication Center, Inc.;Boston, Massachusetts;copyright 2006 Forces of Tae Kwon Do, Edward B Sell and Brenda J Sell;U.S. Chung Do Kwan Association, Lakeland, Florida;copyright 2004 Read in another language Last modified 10 days ago Wikipedia ® Mobile‌Desktop Content is available under CC BY-SA 3.0 unless otherwise noted. Privacy