Which Martial Art For Fitness/Flexibilty?

My dad is a 6th dan in ITF, and i trained with him till red belt. I myself do not like all the art side of it but its a very good art for flexibility and is very usuable in real life with the punching and kicking.
 
Liefrich said:
My dad is a 6th dan in ITF, and i trained with him till red belt. I myself do not like all the art side of it but its a very good art for flexibility and is very usuable in real life with the punching and kicking.
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cool, whats his name and what federation is he part of? Does he teach?
 
He is apart of the UKTA , he is in the RAF and is the leader of the services martial art team, he is getting rather old now cough *48* and due to frequent back injuries has stopped teaching it. Maybe when he comes out of the RAF he will set up a civilian club im not to sure..

Grand Master was Rhee Ki Ha has been at my house various times when i was younger.

Anyway i dont know if i should divulge my fathers name but if you really wish to know just pm me.
 
panthro said:
There are quite a lot more differences than the 2 you have mentioned. Im not going to get technical cos I will be here for hours. ITF is well known to be considered the original taekwondo form, as created by General Choi Hong Hi. WTF was created by the South Korean government, when they took Gen. Choi's ideas and capitalised on it by turning it into a sport and showcase for Korea. WTF is now a sport more than a martial art for self defence (which is how it became an olympic sport)....fact.
ITF have hand & foot guards, as well as helmets and a box....how would that weigh you down when in WTF you have to wear bodyguards?? You cant say that WTF have more intense sparring sessions as each club ITF or WTF will have its own training methods. In ITF there are continuous sparring rounds.....in WTF you get stopped after every point you score!

Plus, you should see a physiotherapist about you achilles.....ive been training for years in many different arts and have never had problems, and niether have any of my friends. You should analyse you warm up techniques.

I recommend that if you want to take up tkd, you try several different dojangs both ITF and WTF and see which you prefer.
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trying to keep it simple by only mentioning 2 big differences
ITF wear more padding than WTF - including fist guards as in ITF you can punch to the face but in WTF you can't (you can kick though)
as for the points scoring - no way do you get stopped after every point - I've fought up to and won at british national level and I can tell you for a fact you can score as many points as you want continuously without being stopped - unless the ref stops the fight for being one-sided

as for my achilles - mine are tight naturally, but your reply proves my point in that you should do other sports aswell...I was only doing TKD when I ended up having lots of trouble with mine

not even going to argue over which is the original as that doesn't matter a single bit - what matters is which will give you what you want. personally I think the heavier bias towards fighting in WTF means for fitness and flexibility it is better....but that is my opinion.
 
Liefrich said:
He is apart of the UKTA , he is in the RAF and is the leader of the services martial art team, he is getting rather old now cough *48* and due to frequent back injuries has stopped teaching it. Maybe when he comes out of the RAF he will set up a civilian club im not to sure..

Grand Master was Rhee Ki Ha has been at my house various times when i was younger.

Anyway i dont know if i should divulge my fathers name but if you really wish to know just pm me.
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thats pretty cool.....Grand Master Rhee Ki Ha was one of General Choi's right hand men!! Never met him personally but have attended a few of his seminars. Hope your dads going ok in Iraq and that he comes back safely.
 
Well i was a young kid so wasnt really all that aware of him :P

Anyway even though i naturally would have a bias towards arguing for ITF, WTF would probably ( due to there being more focus on kicking) help you out more flexibility wise.

There are other options, you can simpley just stretch in the comfort of your living room!!
 
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