ZQ,
He was talking about the stereotype mckwoon. He didn’t mean all kung fu schools in general. I hope.
If a guy who fights with Muay Thai techniques 99% of the time lands a technique from TKD or something, that doesn’t mean he’s a TKDist and it doesn’t mean TKD is the ultimate art.
If he does it successfully REPEATEDLY, then you can say that that is a good technique he took from TKD.
If he wins repeatedly PRIMARILY with TKD techniques, then you can say TKD is effective.
Does style make any difference? Of course it does. If your teacher require you to put on a “silk pajama” during training then you should be 100% sure that as long as you stay with that teacher, you will never be a fighter for the rest of your life.
Oh. Irony.
YKW what you wear has no bearing on what you can do.
You often focus too much on style and not enough on substance.
spinning techniques pay extra in thailand, so you bet your hiney they’re in there.
Style, the method of training, and your natural ability all matter. Boxing makes you proficient at punching probably faster than any other art, and they spar full contact, which is closer to a real fight. However, if you are looking for kicking or grappling, you need to look elsewhere. Tae kwon do has the largest variety of kicks in probably all of the martial arts, but if you want to spend more time on punching or grappling, you have to look elsewhrere. Many people study tai chi just for its health benfits. While tae kwon do is more limited than most other arts, there are some tough tae kwon do fighters out there. I have heard that some tae kwon do people have soundly defeated muay thai and kyokushinkai fighters, and iI don’t doubt it.
I think the Filipino and Indonesian arts are the best for learning knife and stick defenses, although some people claim that Kalaripayattu are just as good. Many karate schools have you stop sparring after you or your opponent gets one good hit in, then have you move away from each other and start sparring again. That is definitely not a good habit to get into if you are serious about learning self-defense. BJj is an awesome ground grappling art, but is also lacking in other areas.