Page 44 - Martial Science Magazine Dec/2014 #6

A Travelling Ronin

Tae Kwon Do: Warriors
Martial Arts Club:
South Chicago, IL

By: Martin “Travelling Ronin” Fransham

BACKGROUND: Tae Kwon Do is one of the Pettis, Benson Henderson, etc... are just a few of
most recognised Martial Arts in North America. the many MMA fighters that have trained in the
It came flooding into the continent after the end art and employed the devastating kicks,
of the Korean War. Similar to the way that Karate
was brought to North America by veterans after
the end of World War II Tae Kwon Do was wit-
nessed by many of the soldiers stationed in South
Korea. Given the strong military military presence
after the end of the Korean War which has conti-
nued to this day, it is no wonder Tae Kwon Do is
so popular.

It is also one of the two Asian Martial Arts to be We start working on some basic strikes.
an Olympic Sport. With competitors coming from I met Instructor David Pugh at a seminar on gun
almost every country the influence that Tae Kwon disarms. Throughout the evening we ended up
Do has had on modern Martial Arts is unde- working together and I developed a great respect
niable. A quick search on Youtube will turn up for him. At the end of the night I found out that
dozens of videos featuring wicked knockouts and he was teaching Tae Kwon Do on the south side of
vicious kicks. Of course someone will also point Chicago and knew I had to go check out his class.
out that there is a lot of videos of absolutely awful WHAT DID I LEARN: I have spent a lot of time
Tae Kwon Do as well. In my opinion, by having around fight camps and one thing that always
so many practitioners you will see both good and amazes me is the ability for fighters to tweak te-
bad. I choose to spend my time learning and wor- chniques to offer a new twist on them. As a bigger
king on the best aspects of an art not pointing out Martial Artist I have seen the power that spinning
a Youtube failure. techniques can generate. Twisting your body

Tae Kwon Do is well known for its spinning
techniques. Watching fighters fire off spinning
back kicks or hook kicks is fantastic. Many cri-
ticisms were leveled against Tae Kwon Do in the
early days of Mixed Martial Arts. However, today
Tae Kwon Do has become an piece of many high
profile fighters’ game. Anderson Silva, Anthony
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