Quote Originally Posted by zhubin
As a black belt in Taekwondo i can honestly say it is one of the worst martial arts, in it's current form, to be used in a street fight. Tkd has become more of a sport and less of martial art in the last several years. BUT...that is actually to it detriment. Sport tkd, has heavy D has mentioned, is point sparring. Almost all tkd competitors today spar with their hand completely down...which in a real fight is a HUGE no-no. Tkd is certainly challenging and many of it's kicks are as difficult and graceful as any martial art. However, by itself, it is a highly ineffective tool for an actual fight.
As Van said, great honesty. cc.

I admire the sport of it vry much. To be able to do all that acrobatic stuff, amazing. But in reality, all those high flying kicks are useless in close quarters. But in a fight, I'll admit, I wouldn't want to take one above the knee from a TKD expert.

there's a kid who boxes at our gym one in while and I was asking him about all those kicks... he said, "it's just for show. The one you want to land is the knee kick."