When Taekwondo Meets a Little Kung Fu

Last night in the beginner’s class Sabum had us running new attack/counter sparring drills. In fact, after the warm-up we spent most of our time on that. This new one was good because it had a series of steps for both the attacker and defender. It also forced me to do something I don’t normally do on a fully chambered round kick during sparring: Step back after kicking.

My fully chambered kicks are generally too slow for sparring so I rarely use them. Even on a WTF-style knee pointing at target my opponents seem to evade or block and evade so again I rarely step back. Once I get on the attack I tend to keep pressing. I also tend to use front leg rounds to set up other techniques. Now Sabum #1 was very effective with rear leg rounds even in sparring. I know many people are. However, it’s just not my game. Anyhow, the exercise was good because it made me do something I don’t normally do. Past that we worked on teaching the low belts some new one-steps and self-defense then closed class.

In the advanced class the Monday night cross training in boxing and kung fu continued. The only new drill to report from kung fu was a leg trap: This one is different from TKD in that you purposely step into your opponent to get in close. Most of our TKD self-defense seems to have you stepping back (probably to keep in kicking range) or blocking then attacking. I’m still having what I call “kung fu flashbacks” and remembered this one on Sunday while preparing my lesson for Monday. Here’s the trap:

1. Attacker throws right round kick to mid-section
2. Defender steps forward in what I’d call a right walking stance
3. While stepping into the kick you wrap your left arm around their knee (or below the knee), and your right hand comes across your belly palm blocking the kick.
4. At this point their foot is behind you so most of the energy is already gone. The rest is caught on your palm block. You also have their leg trapped.
5. From here you can sweep them if their legs are short, you can attack the knee joint with a palm, or you can strike their groin. (You can also attack the throat, face, or solar plexus too)

Upon learning this one sabum combined a step from taekwondo to something I learned in kung fu. In several of our grab defenses (belt, lapel, hand, etc.) we often use a 180 degree pivot step to unbalance the attacker. Well sabum added that to the leg trap. Essentially from the trap you step back and pivot to your left 180 degrees. Doing so dumps the person and you can still keep their leg when they hit the ground.

So, that little example there is the value of cross-training. It forces you to look at your own art as well as what you are learning.

We closed with some live boxing. Granted, we went light contact and I was purposely leaving myself open so sabum could have a live dummy to practice on. Because of TKD she’s really good at taking a shot on her forearms or deflecting with her forearms. So, most of what I had her work on is slipping a punch and stepping in then countering. Again, it goes against TKD which tries to maintain some range. Still, several times she slipped under and tagged me where I was open. She also earned two legit punches that I totally missed defending: One below my right eye and one dead-center on my chin. On that second one if she was punching full power I would have at least been stunned and maybe knocked on butt. That’s also the one we closed the drill on. It’s always good to end on a high note!

It’s funny but as I went “live” with the boxing some of my old skills from over 10 years ago were coming back. I have enough to give a non-boxer a challenge but against someone who is practicing boxing as much as I practice taekwondo, I’d get murdered.

~BCP