Sport or Martial Art?

Question

Do you view Tae Kwon Do as a sport, martial art, or both and why?

Answer 1

Both.

Obviously the sparring is sport oriented. That's a proven area. The martial art aspect of TKD would be the poomse portion of it. It focuses on control, power and economy of motion. The forms are predetermind patterns that don't change. That is the martial part. It is up to the student to make them look good. That is the art portion.

Answer 2

Both. It is a martial art because of the forms that have been taught for 100's of years and a sport because people compete in it.

Answer 3

sport.

like sport fencing and kendo however there are some principles and techniques that can be applied to martial arts.
[EDIT] Most noteably the round house kick, and the control of same. One just needs to modify what is taught and apply it to martial arts. I'm not saying its totally worthless, just that significant modification and a realistic look at what you have learned needs to be done. How much depends on the exact curriculum of your kwoon.

Perhaps there is some kwoon somewhere that teaches it in a more combatative context but your average tkd school teaches more for point sparring and contests under its own ruleset that is not even close to resembling realistic fighting.

EDIT: I'm not saying that tkd has no value, it just needs to be assesed realistically for what will work outside the sportative tkd ruleset and what won't.

EDIT2: I applied my kendo background to training in real sword- not specific techniques but the fact that scoring a "kote" (striking the hands/forearms as targets) is something often overlooked by beginning sword students and learning to protect/be aware of strikes to the hands/forearms, is invaluable in learning any sword system.

Answer 4

Both, theres many form competitions and full contact padded fights as well. It's a martial art, that part is obvious. It can be used for combat, just ask Mirko Filipovic or anyone in K-1 for that matter.

Answer 5

Both, in most schools in America it is little more then sport. In Korea, it is both a sport and a martial art.

Answer 6

It is a sport.
National Sport of South Korea
Olympic Sport

Look at the second sentence on Wickipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tae_Kwon_Do

Answer 7

It depends on the school. Some schools focus on the sport aspect of the art and others focus on the martial aspect.

Answer 8

It is both. It is undoubtedly a true martial art discipline in terms of its origins, focus, concepts, structure, organization, and philosophical and moral aspects. Indeed it was considered as nothing but a martial art until the South Korean Government and their Sports Council decided to adopt it as the National Sport fo South Korea - largely for foreign promotion of Korea.

It is most definately a sport, as all other martial arts systems are also, as it meets all of the criteria by which sport is recognized - whether a team sport or individual sport.

While the World TaeKwon-Do Federation (WTF) considers it a sport and has promoted the sporting aspects of its Olumpic aspirations, the International TaeKwon-Do Federation and many other similar organizations consider it a martial art and shun the sport connotation as they see that as a negative when compared to the esteem of a martial art system.

Personally I see TaeKwon-Do itself as meeting both criteria very well. It is both a martial art discipline and a sport. I believe however that all martial art disciplines are that first, and sport second. The sporting aspect of martial arts is an additional training tool used by competent instructors to expose their students to a variety of stimuli, challenges, and personal growth opportunties.

Note that not all TaeKwon-Do practitioners subscribe to the WTF-Olympic model of competition or tournament rules and procedures. My organization moved away from it as it was too limiting in its use of technique, too unnecessarily violent in its full contact application especially toward youth competitors, and too restrictive in that it segragates the art way too much for our liking.

As such, we developed our own Games model which is multi-disciplinary, non-exclusionery within divisions where such segregation is unnecessary, and our sparring model uses light to medium contact areas and no-contact target areas during a continuous round. We don't stop and start to score points, and indeed our judges simply determine advantage by scoring each player 1 or 0 in each round. The light to medium contact allows players to use all of their techniques to padded areas, to use all of their techniques to non-contact areas, to trap, controlled trip, controlled sweep, attack players on the ground, defend from the ground, and grapple. Our judges are freed from the need to look for and record points and simply make a determination at the end of each round based on overall match management, stragety, and application of effective technique. We find that the system (which has it's limits of course) allows TaeKwon-Do, Wushu, Jiu-Jitsu, Kick-Boxing, and a host of other disciplines to come together and play in a safe, educational, and exciting format.

Ken C
9th Dan HapMoosaKi-Do
8th Dan TaeKwon-Do
7th Dan YongChul-Do

Answer 9

It's really both.

I've been to places that teach it as a sport, but also more traditional places where the senseis think lowly of olympic athletes that participate in it.

Answer 10

It's both, there is professional competition and fighting art.