Yes, Taekwondo is as effective as any martial art as long as it is taught and learned correctly.

I agree with Shaeeck, any martial arts training is good for self defense, you have to have a legit school,, if you have a good school, they should be teaching you not just punches and kicks, but also elbows, knees, grappling, ground work etc. and optional: flashy kicks, I like the schools that mix between the flashy stuff but also teach the real life application of it. Because they mix in all aspects of the martial art, not just the martial and not just the art(fancy stuff). Flashy stuff can be used in a street fight BUT you have to be super quick so your leg doesnt get caught and they also leave you open, and they take too much time but if you can solve these problems you can use flashy stuff in a fight, but becareful, Its better to stick to basics and maybe a flashy trick or two but remember be quick and do not leave yourself open, DONT use flashy stuff if your up against 2 people or more because one would get knocked down and the other would grab you and might finish you.

TKD isn't a "bad" art. The problem is there are so many bad dojangs that finding good TKD is very very hard. What's so sad is that I've yet to meet anyone who studies TKD that doesn't admit there's a huge problem. I've also yet to find someone who doesn't think their dojang is the exception to the rule. And I've yet to meet anyone who is actively training in TKD who I would say is a good fighter.

Now I'm not saying you're in a bad dojang and that what you're learning isn't useful. I would just say that the odds are stacked against you for your TKD being of a high quality. I agree that some martial arts training is better than nothing, but I worry that bad instruction can be worse than nothing in that it gives people a false sense of security and thoughts that they can fight when they probably can't.

tkd is one of th ose arts that has some good things going for it, but virtually every, and I mean EVERY, singl3 dojang I have seen is a McDojang and it seems to make no difference what the affiliation is.





Also ITF guys like to talk about how good their hands are, but the reality is that their hands are complete garbage. Perhaps compared to WTF guys their hands are decent. But watch any other style like karate, boxing or kickboxing and it becomes quite evident that even the ITF guys suck with their hands.





So I really wouldnt recommend TKD to anyone I like. If you want to practice a system similar that is effectiven, then Id choose kyokushin.

TKD is a great protection art, similar to karate.



The key is to find a good instructor.



Any martial style is as good as the practitioner. No more or less.



Select a place to train by the instruction, not the name of a style, style names are misleading.

I'd say acrobatic kicks are too risky in a crisis. If you are not a expert martial art who trains hours to break your back everyday.

Mystics say fly kicks send people off horse, though it'd be much simple and cost effective to let soldiers tie up ropes and flip horse riders off than risk decades of training that's not reliable. Well trained horse can kick too. I'm not saying it's not true, though it's much more dangerous to fly kick cavalry.

In crisis and adrenaline, the body do freeze. Fine motor skills do decrease although not completely, they decrease...the body actually does this as a fight mechanism to allow gross motor skills to take over and use them to brutally beat down someone.

Kicking high and fly kick is good in a sport contest. Where sometimes it can be as light as to tag someone. However, if your opponent is naturally quick reacting on the street, he just steps a few feet back and you miss. You land in a perfect position for him to charge in.

TKD isn't all about flashy kicks though. Front kick can be useful if you're in a closed space but you have enough room to kick someone with your back to the wall. You're hard to get close that way. The wall stops you from going down. People could naturally parry a kick if extended long enough and charge in. Once they get into in-fighting range. Kicks are as good as useless except stomps.

One of the biggest let downs of kicks especially high kicks is if someone's behind you or you're facing more than one guy, you get tackled and you go down without question. In some urban areas the place can be so small it's near impossible to lift your leg and extend it. Though knee kicks can solve that problem, the dangers of losing balance is till there.

You could trap and kick too. e.g. in karate kata, you may well grab someone's arm and thrust kick them. That works well too.

Though I'd say low kicks are useful as fight ending stuffs. Despite how resilient an adversary might be...if you restrict his mobility, you've won to some degree as you escape faster than he can chase.

TKD is useful. It's much more than kicks when you're in a good school. Plus kicks, grappling, punching, there's no best thing for most solutions. They work in some conditions but fails in others. TKD teach you which one to use and when and where.

Added: This man here's not that bad.www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPK1zQbji3M?

Itf is much better than WTF in my opinion.

If your instructor is making you keep your guard up, great, because a lot of taekwondo schools have their students keep their hands at their belt. Why? Idk, wtf W.T.F.?

The other day I was talking to some people on here about how the Poomsae (I believe the forms have a different name, or at least different poomsae's in ITF) have mainly punches. This is for street defense. That plus kicks makes a well rounded fighter for standup. You will have the best kicks, just like boxers have the best punches.

Anyways, it really depends on your teacher. If your school gives 7th dans for this, then no (there's a reason they disabled comments for this video):