Grappling At KAT

The Korean Academy of Taekwondo incorporates ground tactics into it's rank system.  The purpose of this is to provide a more fully rounded system of martial arts.  In addition, the Korean Academy of Taekwondo participates in Jujitsu competitions (Gi and NoGi) throughout the region.  In the five years we have been including this in our training, we have developed many competitors that have proven to be successful in a variety of competitions.

Why Grappling?

Martial Arts may have begun it's most transformational period about 60 years ago and continues through today.  New ideas and new people entered a variety of arts and began cross training in other arts with the purpose of finding what works best in many different situations.  Taking what is effective from each style and incorporating it into what might be considered a new style.  People like Bruce Lee created Jeet Kune Do, Helio Gracie created Brazilian Jujitsu, Masahiko Kimura popularized the Art and Sport of Judo, and Choi Hong Hi (General Choi) was instrumental in the creation of what we now know as Taekwondo.  But the newest generation of martial artist has taken it even a step further to combine stand up fighting with ground tactics to fill some of the gaps that have appeared.  The arena of mixed martial arts continues to refine this process and allows the martial artist to tweak that aspect of the art.  Outside of the competition ring, martial arts continues to evolve as well.  Martial arts systems like Krav Maga and Combat Hapkido are examples of that as well.

Almost all fights end up on the ground.  Even if you have the fastest, most powerful kicks and punches ever seen, they do you little good on your back.  You might be the best blocker in the world.  But once you are taken down, your blocking may be limited to using your face... That's not a good plan.

Grappling, combined with our Taekwondo and Hapkido programs provides a well rounded defense curriculum for our students.  People join martial arts for various reasons but our school, being able to offer this combination, creates opportunities for a well rounded defense system as well as opportunity to compete in 2 or 3 different styles of martial arts.  We practice Olympic style Taekwondo in which there is not likely a more widespread art.  But adding in the grappling curriculum, we can now also compete in submission wrestling competitions as well as Jujitsu tournaments.  And by the way, our students do pretty well at it.

All of that aside, if you want to defend yourself or your loved ones, our curriculum and teaching methods are more than adequate.  With what we teach at the Korean Academy of Taekwondo, you will be able to walk the streets confident that you are able to protect yourself, you will be healthy enough to do so, and you will have an understanding of how to keep yourself from a dangerous situation.