Grandmaster Ken MacKenzie - Taekwondo Times

By Ste
teph
en
DiL
iLeo
The student
mounts the
“Bob” bag in
the same fashion
he would
mount an opponent.
Student is free
to rain down
strikes with full
power. Student
learns how to
generate force
without the use
of his hips.
Where is it written that striking arts must
remain standing? That is a common misconception.
Somewhere along the way, the martial arts
community ordained standup as the world of strikers
and the ground as the exclusive domain of grapplers.
However, nothing could be further from the
truth!
The first recorded Olympic wrestling match
occurred in 708 B.C., but wrestling as an art may
have existed over 4,000 years ago in China. The
history of standup striking is also quite lengthy;
as early as 50 B.C., Koreans were practicing the
ancient striking art of Taek Kyon, which is the
forerunner to modern day Tae Kwon Do. The
fact is that determining which art was first may be
impossible, but more importantly, it may be irrelevant.
To ancient warriors, whether the fight was
decided by blows or by grappling was most certainly
not as important as winning the fight, which
at that time, meant surviving to fight another
day. The evolution of martial arts is about selfdefense,
a fact often lost in the hype of modern-day
competition. Based on that premise, fighters today
should be no less concerned about survival than
warriors of the past. Martial artists should not isolate
their thinking to any preconceived restrictions
about their particular style; in self-defense there are
no rules about which techniques to use and where
to use them.
Generally, standup styles like TKD limit their
training to striking only when on their feet. While
it is not true that all fights either go to the ground
or remain standing, it is true that all fights have the
possibility of either circumstance. Why would any
instructor or student want to gamble with their
life? In fact, Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fighters
have proven that striking on the ground can
be extremely devastating. Consider the number
of matches that end in a knockout resulting from
“ground ‘n pound” tactics. With just a little adjustment
in technique and a big adjustment in strategy,
standup arts like TKD can be very effective on the
ground.
At first, when strikers hit the ground, a strange
spell comes over them and they forget to use all of
their hard-earned skills—knees, elbows, punches,
etc. Mr. Jim Del Real, chief instructor of the
Penn State Korean Karate club, suggests that the
most difficult challenge for students or instructors
is mental, not physical. Del Real is a former
Professional Karate Association (PKA) full-contact
fighter and he knows only too well the effects of
employing powerful strikes on the ground. Strikers
need to go back to their roots and remember that
the quality of techniques, not quantity, has more to
do with the outcome of a fight.
According to Del Real, the greatest challenge
students and instructors face is to let go of their
pride and accept that no single art is perfect or has
70 November 2009 / taekwondotimes.com