Ohwell August 8, 2016 Share August 8, 2016 Has anyone seen the greased hunk from Tonga? I think he was a taekwondo athlete. Link to comment
MyAimIsTrue August 8, 2016 Share August 8, 2016 You haven't seen him because we've been, ahem, busy... 5 Link to comment
Ohwell August 8, 2016 Share August 8, 2016 Well, just remember to towel off before you go back out in public. ; ) 2 Link to comment
Ohwell August 9, 2016 Share August 9, 2016 Tonga hunk's name is Pita Taofatofua. He won't be performing until August 19th. That should be enough time for him to, ahem, recuperate... 2 Link to comment
Superpole2000 August 18, 2016 Share August 18, 2016 I just watched a fight that ended 0-0 and required overtime. The padding seemed a bit excessive considering there were zero kicks that landed. Even in fights where someone has scored a point, the kicks seemed to be rather weak...like a tap of the foot instead of anything that could cause damage. I guess this sport is more like fencing with your legs than anything actually practical in a real world fight. Link to comment
Matt K August 18, 2016 Share August 18, 2016 27 minutes ago, Superpole2000 said: I just watched a fight that ended 0-0 and required overtime. The padding seemed a bit excessive considering there were zero kicks that landed. Even in fights where someone has scored a point, the kicks seemed to be rather weak...like a tap of the foot instead of anything that could cause damage. I guess this sport is more like fencing with your legs than anything actually practical in a real world fight. My understanding is the padding is used for two reasons. 1) Safety because the force of the kick and punches, which is more force than you might think and it applies at all levels where opponents might not be as evenly matched. 2) I believe they have sensors on them (and the hands and feet have the other end) so they register whether a kick or punch should score a point. But that's just based on a quick trip through the wiki when I was trying to figure out the scoring. Link to comment
Ohwell August 18, 2016 Share August 18, 2016 (edited) 4 hours ago, Superpole2000 said: I just watched a fight that ended 0-0 and required overtime. The padding seemed a bit excessive considering there were zero kicks that landed. Even in fights where someone has scored a point, the kicks seemed to be rather weak...like a tap of the foot instead of anything that could cause damage. I guess this sport is more like fencing with your legs than anything actually practical in a real world fight. I was interested in watching this because I took taekwondo 20+ years ago. Needless to say, things have changed. We used to call what they're doing now at the Olympics "point fighting" but it was much more varied than this lame stuff I'm seeing. Sure, we used our legs but when we kicked, we kicked like we meant it, not this lame, wet noodle kicking I'm seeing from some of the athletes. We also used our hands more (my favorite hand shot was the ridge hand). We didn't have padding around the waist, but we had foot padding and shin guards if we wanted to use them (I'm female, and most of us females used shin guards because we didn't want bruises on our shins--most guys didn't care so didn't use them). In short, this doesn't look like actual "fighting," it just reminds me of what we did when we were just having fun and horsing around with our defenses down. Edited August 19, 2016 by Ohwell Typos 1 Link to comment
Gulftastic August 19, 2016 Share August 19, 2016 Well done to Jade Jones for retaining the Gold for Team GB! Link to comment
Ohwell August 20, 2016 Share August 20, 2016 (edited) Here's an interesting article about why/how taekwondo has changed in the Olympics and why it's so boring now (at least, to me). I love the term "foot fencing." https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2016/08/20/new-high-tech-twists-on-taekwondo-are-rapidly-changing-an-ancient-sports-feel/ Edited August 20, 2016 by Ohwell 1 Link to comment
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