Traditional Korean Arts?

No, I would not attempt to kick a knife from someone's hand. The point is not how TKD deals with a knife (I don't know yet; as I said, I'm a beginner) nor how MT deals with a knife. The point is that you can take any technique out of the context in which it works and then say "see? It doesn't work." I believe in the axe kicks I've been trying so inadequately to perform so far. I may not use them in a fight, but I believe in the flexibility that training them gives me, and I believe in improving my balance and my leg strength. To put it another way, your option of running would probably not work for me, because to put it delicately, I am disgustingly fat. Dunlop and all. Since I started TKD I'm already lighter on my feet and more energetic. I will lose the weight and I will be faster than I've been in a long time, making running an option. Right now, it is not.

Your point about "they could, but they don't is well taken. However, it doesn't invalidate the philosophy I put forward above. The point is, if the big difference is the shin, then when I've mastered the art of throwing a roundhouse with speed, power, accuracy and no telegraph I'll just start throwing them with my shin. If it works better for me, fine. But for right now, it would be silly for me to pester my instructors with questions about esoteric differences like this when I can't even perform a roundhouse properly in their style.
The problem is that I am NOT a martial artist by any stretch of the imagination. I am not able to throw even one really good roundhouse kick yet. It would be a lot more productive for me to shut up and train in my TKD sessions than to be looking for the door so I can go out and learn Muay Thai. I believe that mindset would lead to leaving Muay Thai before long in order to study Jiu-Jitsu, and leaving that to study JKD, etc. etc.

I don't want that. I want to put my head down and train balls to the wall until I am strong, agile, fast and accurate. A strong, agile, fast, accurate man who applies TKD with a warrior mindset should be just fine. If I need Muay Thai principles, or boxing, or whatever at that point, then I'll go out and find them. But I have to believe that it's easier for a master of one art to borrow from others because he will understand his weaknesses much better.
Right now, all I have are weaknesses.
 
Polish lancers could have all the elan, bravery and "combat mindset" of super-duper warriors, but could not overcome German Grenadiers or Panzers in 1939. Why?
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Good point. 40-ton tanks tend to give a bit of an edge against horse-cavalry. However, one tends to opine that the difference is the same as the difference between a muay thai stylist and a man with a scoped .300 magnum at 400 yards. In other words a bit of a non-sequitor in a discussion regarding hand-to-hand combat styles.

What if "someone who trains and dedicates himself to MT, takes it with a warrior mindset, and learns" and fights the above guy you cited? Who wins?
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Who wins? The man who wants it the most.

Having, during my Wandering Through Life, gone toe-to-toe with Emotionally Disturbed Persons having no/nada/zero/zilch training in the finer points of CQC but having an intense and fervent desire to put my fuzzy little butt in the hurt locker; and

Having done the Adrenaline Tango with house-mousey mothers protecting their children; and

Having the occasional opportunity to Protect the Public by putting under arrest the off-paw random critter who has fried his/her cerebral cortex on meth/crystal cat/formaldehyde/PCP --

It is my studied and firm conviction that in the field of mano-a-mano tussling: style takes a distant third place behind 1)the rabid single-minded desire to stomp a mud puddle in someones butt before walking it dry; and 2) training mindset.

Just my two centavos, YMMV.

LawDog
 
Lawdog is always worth listening to, and he and Skor have probably lived in more places around the world than any other 10 TFLers together.

Ian is being a bit modest, though. He is the only person I know who has been toe-to-toe with a killer robot assassin and lived to tell the tale. :D
 
Don Gwinn:

I am in NO WAY knocking your initiation into TKD. In fact, I want to say "good for you" in the loudest way possible. TKD has many benefits and build excellent attributes, and it seems, from what you write, that you will benefit from them.

My contention has been with the idea that TKD teaches "powerful striking techniques." Obviously that is a relative statement as, naturally, some systems have more powerful striking techniques than others, but in no way was I suggesting that TKD was useless.

One specific point, however:
The point is, if the big difference is the shin, then when I've mastered the art of throwing a roundhouse with speed, power, accuracy and no telegraph I'll just start throwing them with my shin.
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It wouldn't be enough to just switch later on. For one thing, muscle memory will force you to kick with your foot even if you intend to switch (a problem that I went through when I started Thai) and require quite a bit of unlearning. For another, your shin won't have the same attribute as someone who has callused it through repeated kicks with it. Not everyone can have baseball bats broken over his shin.

LawDog:
Good point. 40-ton tanks tend to give a bit of an edge against horse-cavalry. However, one tends to opine that the difference is the same as the difference between a muay thai stylist and a man with a scoped .300 magnum at 400 yards. In other words a bit of a non-sequitor in a discussion regarding hand-to-hand combat styles.
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That's why I said "German Grenadiers" as well as tanks. Many historians would argue that Poles would have lost even if they had possessed technological parity because of outdated doctrine (operational technique). The Allies of 1940 arguably had technological parity, if not superiority, and certainly they had numerical superiority, but they still lost due mainly to outdated operational art (again, technique). Techniques do matter, and matter mightily.

Not all "martial arts" are the same. Not all have same techniques. Not all of them are equally effective (particularly in different contexts). They aren't simply the "same thing" with different nomenclature.

A martial art that trains its students to participate in point competitions, form competitions or even highly constrained "full-contact" competitions is unlikely to train its students to effect "powerful" dynamic striking techniques as another that trains its students to survive in a brutal ring match that allows free flowing elbows, knees, punches to the face and kicks to the back of the neck.

Certainly I agree with you that fighting spirit is a sine quo non of any kind of fighting, but a body that is full of spirit, but devoid of physical attributes and techniques would be useless, just as technique that is devoid of any physical attribute (let alone spirit, desire, "combat mindset," etc.) would be useless.

Don Gwinn (again):
...he and Skor have probably lived in more places around the world than any other 10 TFLers together.
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Only ten?
:)

Skorzeny
 
lawdog.....I read your stories....having spent a good part of my life in Texas (not so much the panhandle) I can really enjoy them.....I think you have a style that combines the best of Hunter S. Thompson and Willaim Faulkner........with just a bit of Tim Wilson thown in to get the "good 'ol boy character down pat. Make a book......I'll buy it!
 
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