How come Taekwondo fighters never keep up their guard?

Question

That question has always plauged me. It was like that when I took Taekwondo. I can go anyhwere on the internet or Youtube to see a Taekwondo fight. None of them ever guard their face. They keep their hands down by there sides.

Answer 1

the guys that just answered first and second are completely wrong.

Maybe it's just the fights you have seen, but whenever I fight, i ALWAYS keep my hands up. Watch the olympics this year, and all of those guys keep their hands up to avoid a kick to the head, because if you land a kick cleanly to the head it is very easy to score a KO. Head shots are legan in olympic TKD btw, dont listem to that guy that answered first.

Answer 2

In Olympic sport TKD you cannot strike the face for some reason.  So in sport TKD you basically use the legs.

Answer 3

Because they aren't trained to.  It sounds simplistic, but TKD is a sport art, so some things just don't happen.

Answer 4

As many have said, its' because of the WTF ruleset. And what a fitting acronym they've chosen to represent them, because when I see their competitions, W-T-F are the first three letters that come to mind -- and I don't mean 'World TaeKwonDo Federation.' I'm sorry, but I just can't take WTF TKD seriously.

There's some kind of rationale behind it, but it's utter BS. Keeping your hands like that is less effective for blocking kicks to the body, as well as the head. It doesn't make you any more or less mobile, and it IS a bad habit that will translate to real fighting.

(I practice in boxing and sanda, which allow full-on punches to the face. Even then, it's hard enough to always keep my hands up. If I was actively encouraged to do otherwise, there's no way I could maintain a fighting stance.)

Internation TaeKwonDo Federation (ITF), however, allows face shots. As such, their fighters keep their hands up.

Answer 5

First of all, you aren't looking hard enough. Search for ITF Tae Kwon Do and you will see PLENTY of guards up; reason being, scoring is vastly different between WTF and ITF competitons. In WTF competition, strikes to the head with the HANDS are illegal, hence less need to keep up a guard to block a punch to the face. Punches to the body are allowed, but are not scored as significantly, and therefore are not employed much, if at all. By keeping the arms down, kicks to the body are more easily deflected, thereby avoiding an opponents scoring with a turning kick/side kick/etc. Kicks to the head ARE allowed, as is full contact.

In ITF competitions, strikes to the head AND body are allowed with the hands, hence the need for a more "traditional" guard stance, i.e., guarding block stance. It is modified somewhat ffrom the technical stance in tuls, but the hands are up nonetheless. Done properly, both the front blocking hand AND the rear blocking hand can be used to deflect hand and foot attacks, and various hand attack techniques can be thrown from this position. You may see a modified guard, with the front hand extended down to guard against lower body kicks, and the rear hand up to guard the face from attacks to the head.

Answer 6

In this stance it's much easier to counter attack. Punch to the face is not allowed in WTF, but kick to the face is perfectly legal and you get more points.

Answer 7

because they normally don't hit in the face.

most of the time in  the body

Answer 8

Olympic WTF style TKD rules emphasize kicks so heavily in the point system that it's generally more beneficial from a competition standpoint to just throw as many kicks as fast as possible instead of worrying about trying to block punches which are rarely if ever scored.

ITF Taekwondo rules allow face punching and score punches highly enough to encourage them, so you see better guards from ITF folks.

So it's not that TKD people don't know they should have their hands up, it's that the rules they are competing under discourages it.

Here is video of Gold Medal winner Stephen Lopez fighting with his hands down in an Olympic TKD match. Are you going to try to tell me he doesn't know the best way to fight for the rules he's under?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFsOHR6H6...