I'm 42 years old, fairly flexible and athletic, purple belt in BJJ and got a brown belt in isshinryu karate years ago. Have also trained in Kyokushin, Muay Thai, and boxing. I haven't trained any striking arts in a long time, though I've been thinking about doing a karate style just for fun. Tae Kwon Do looks like it might be fun, anybody have experience with that?
I studied for a little while (like 90% of the population, it seems)...
It's great IF you REALLY like doing a lot of kicks of all sorts.You are always learning new kicks. Not necessarily "good" kicks in terms of practicallity, but some are very fun.
It's also great cardio if you go to a half-way decent school. Good for flexibility certainly.
But the kata bunkai is pretty terrible; the forms are just not very interesting.
Thanks guys. I enjoyed the kicks most of all when i did karate, specially kicking pads and the heavy bag. Maybe this will be a good fit.
what about capoeira? i've done tkd in the past, and would have rather taken that to maintain natural fluidity. or taekyon for that matter, although i don' think it's offered here. at the very least, i'd recommend wtf over itf in that there is less stiffness and more circular movements.
I depends on your school and instructors mainly. If they are old, old school where TKD and hapkido kind of get mixed up, that's great. If it is Olympic style, then you will learn something moderately worthless, but it's a good workout.
A lot of old Koreans know a lot of Judo also... btw.
I hated TKD. I trained in it for about 6 months because it was the only MA club anywhere near. The forms were lacking depth (I've a karate background) and the complete refusal to teach any sort of punching (it was a sport based TKD school) just left me disillusioned. It's good for fitness, flexibility, and MA community, but I don't rate it as highly as other striking martial arts.
Because it was sport based. You should have trained in the 1970's.