Eras Of Taekwondo

C4C Johnelle Parlagreco

Maj Lopez

English 111 – Project 3

25 April 2016

Reviving Lost Eras of Taekwondo

In the community of the World Taekwondo Federation, Competition fighting is what connects athletes and drives fighters to chase dreams of Olympic medals. In the past several years one of the most talked about topics in modern Olympic competition is the use of electronic scoring gear. With electronic sparring gear, also commonly known as protective scoring systems, or a PSS, points are awarded to a player when the electronic sensors in the foot gear, located only on the instep, make a forceful impact on the magnetic surface of the chest gear. For context, the International Olympic Committee and United States Taekwondo (USAT) indicate that

a kick landed on the chest gear is one point, a spinning kick to the chest is two points, three points are awarded for a valid kick to the head, and a spinning kick to the head will earn four points (World Taekwondo Federation). If spectators were to watch a fight prior to the introduction of electronic scoring in 2010, they’d see reckless attacks being thrown with fighters aiming to make some kind of an impactful hit, but with the growing presence of this new gear, the entire fighting philosophy has changed. So many athletes, coaches, and spectators aren’t happy about this fact, and as a community going forward, a solution needs to be created and put into action.
Being a discourse community, Olympic style fighters all share one common goal: victory. This technological advancement of scoring came with a new style of how matches are being fought, but still most fighters would prefer a human judge confirming. The way that electronic scoring gear causes the fight to be carried out has not been received well, and its effect on the fighting philosophy is noticeable. Fighters are being forced to adapt to using the technology in their favor rather than sticking to what they know and what has been done and seen in preceding years. In a match using electronic scoring gear, seeing the players move slowly in order to plan their techniques carefully to place kicks more accurately is a likely sight to see. This is because it is just what the electronic scoring gear’s sensors require. While some people may say that that causes the more skilled fighters to shine through, most others may say that it is drowning out the spontaneity and excitement that fighters have grown up with loving. However, while there are fighters who prefer the new system due to the emphasis that falls upon skill and accuracy rather than showmanship, it is widely recognized that there are also many unsportsmanlike fighters who look for ways to exploit the system’s flaws in order to manipulate the game. Additionally, current technology is not always reliable or cooperative. These are only minuscule issues, the main issues that comes from this advancement is how it has changed fighters.
The style of fighting seen in matches prior to the introduction of electronic scoring consisted of points being awarded when any part of the foot touched what practitioners refer to as “fair zones”, which is any part of the chest gear or head gear; so, naturally, fighters were wired and wild, throwing techniques that may or may not make contact with the other player and grant them the one point that could be the difference between winning and losing. A common belief among officials and judges is that the electronic scoring gear system is meant to lessen unfairness and human error. While it does in fact do that by removing human bias, this brings with it new issues; for example, with the absence of human interpretation, basic round kicks, worth only one point, may not always be awarded points because the impact was not hard or large enough for the chest gear to detect. For this reason among others, the current electronic gear does not have a good reputation. There is world-wide controversy over this system’s use. Fighters who have been competing since before this new technology’s implementation note how it has made the style of fighting, and therefore the sport as a whole, softer, less intense, and overall less exciting. This is something that is constantly being argued about, and there is a federation wide dissatisfaction with the current capabilities of electronic scoring gear and so it is in the best interest of fighters who are going for gold to change their style of fighting from wild but basic attacks to the body, to predominantly head or spinning kicks with just a few well-placed and impacting body kicks. Subject matter experts on taekwondo, Kang Won Sik and Lee Kyong Myong state in their book, “the taekwondo games rules can [have] influence on the changes of game skills” (Kang and Lee 125). So now the community has a shared issue, “should we move onto a better system.” Most athletes and coaches would agree that it’s time for a new system, but the questions that remain are “what could that be” and “how can we implement it.” However, the answer may be found by looking at history and the sport’s past changes.
Practitioners and students of taekwondo have accepted and become familiar with an ideology that states the existence of three eras of the sport; the power era, the combination era, and the cutting era (Ghafour). Each era is defined by the nature of the sport at the time. As all things, each era has its pros and cons and has brought about new changes. By analyzing each and taking the best parts, a compromise could possibly be made in order to revive and refine the nature that seems to have been lost and seem to want back.
The power era began when taekwondo debuted as a sport in the 1980s and went through the 90s. In its early years, taekwondo was scored similar to boxing, where a winning a round meant ten points, losing meant nine, being knocked down meant you lost a point, and the judges believing you were the dominant fighter meant you gained one point. During this point in time, the name of the game was strength and showmanship, and for practitioners today, strength and aggression is what is taught to them by their seniors. This era came to an end when electronically kept scoring, not electronic scoring gear, came into place.
The combination era began when judges made the transition from paper scoring to scoring by electronic triggers in the late 90s. Electronic scoring works like this: if 2 out of 3 judges register a point within one second, a point would update on the scoreboard in real time. Like electronic scoring gear, this changed how the game was fought. Knowing how this scoring works, and learning from their power era instructors who fought with aggression, fighters became encouraged to throw flourishing combinations in order to get the attention of the judges in attempt to increase their chances of registering a point. The other major change that happened is in response to knowing scores in real time; rather than putting on a show to get the judges’ favor for the extra point, fighters started to be more reserved and careful, because they know their score and the goal, really, is to just stay one point ahead.
Today fighters are competing in the cutting era, or the era of electronic scoring gear. Fighters, like British Olympian Aaron Cook, often owe their losses to bad or unfair judging, nothing comes without reprimand. With this in mind, the main goal that innovators wanted to achieve with this new technology is the removal of human bias and increase overall fairness. New self-scoring gear creates the issue of removing the showmanship and spontaneity that fighters love. While scoring has become in fact become fairer across the federation, systems currently in place just are not as good as they need to be at recognizing kicks that used to work in the power and the combination era of the sport. On top of that, the way electronic scoring system operates creates a favor for only two techniques, a side kick, a kick that uses the side and heel of the foot in sort of a pushing manner, and any high kick that can graze the head, even if it lacks power.
The current electronic scoring systems present several issues, but the most harmful is the issue of this new, disliked style of competition fighting that includes lack of showmanship in the sport and loss of variety in favored techniques. Additionally, it’s caused matches to be fought more carefully and strategically, making fights slower and it grants an advantage to taller fighters, who now rely on head kicks, over shorter fighters, who once relied on either power shots or combination kicks; it is also worth noting that both of these outcomes directly go against the mission of the World Taekwondo Federation. The current system was recently showcased at a test event for the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games, and analysists admitted to noticing that with the current electronic scoring gear, fighters just need to concern themselves with being efficient in two or three techniques, without having to show beauty in the movement to score the point (DeMatta), a sad reality that older fighters are trying to battle.
So what does all this mean? Maybe change is good, maybe the current system is something that needs to just be accepted. However, knowing all this, an ideal scoring system should be made by combining all three eras and creating a system that balances the aggression of the power era, the showmanship of the combination era, and the fairness of the cutting era. The best way to fix this issue of not having a perfected system is to incorporate technology that takes into account all things that made each era great and advancing current technology a little bit further. To do so, this proposed technology needs to reward fighters that exhibit power, fighters that throw combinations, and fighters that can successfully kick the head, all while providing a fair competition environment. This new technology would work similar to the way fighting video games work, with a health bar rather than a point system. Normal body hits alone take away one to ten points on the health bar of the opponent based on the pressure detected by the system’s sensors, and head shots work the same way but with a base point value of ten to twenty. In order to accommodate for the combination eras, a short timer, perhaps two to four seconds, will set off at the impact of the first kick’s point value. Any additional kicks that connect with the system within that time frame will earn a .5 bonus to the kick. Rounds will still last three minutes, a match will still consist of three rounds, and current World Taekwondo Federation penalties regarding falling, holding, improper attacks, and the like will still stand. The winner of the round will be the fighter who ends with more health, by completely depleting the opponent’s health, or by classic knockout.
This new system also caters to the spectators and adds back the excitement that seems to have been missing for the past few years.

Part of the World Taekwondo Federation’s mission statement is to “promote, expand, and improve worldwide the practice of taekwondo” (World Taekwondo Federation), however the interest in the sport has notably gone down from the time of the Barcelona Olympic Games in 1992 to the time of London 2012. This new system houses a lot of different factors into how the fight is scored. Furthermore, the trend of idle time will decrease as scores will be much less black and white, and the fighters’ scores will be much more neck and neck. Every match and every round will once again be

dramatic.
Like the switch from paper scoring to electronic triggers, and from electronic triggers to electronic scoring gear, this new scoring system will once again revolutionize how this sport is played. Change will start with instructors and their students, when power exercises and combination drills will once again be practiced in studios across the world, and the results will come to fruition on a world stage. It will take the sport’s current reputation of soft and strategic and replace it with aggressive and wild, like many wish it would be once again. During a conversation with 1992 Olympic Gold Medalist, Herb Perez, he said this “We miss the times when people used to kick with power and combinations. We miss the intensity, the speed of the game, and the different strategies. We want to see the taekwondo that we fell in love with again.” This proposed system could bring all that back and even improve upon it. This proposed system could bring about a golden era of taekwondo.
Word Count: 2133

Works Cited
Da Matta, Patricia.

“Tech-wondo Shows Off Its Innovations at Rio 2016 Olympic Games Test Event.” Rio2016.com. Rio 2016 Olympic Games, 22 Feb. 2016. Web. 6 April.2016.

Ghafour, Ali. “3 Eras of Taekwondo and Electronic Scoring.” 2020armor.net. 20/20 Armor, 2016. Web. 6 April 2016.

Kang, Won Sik, and Kyong Myong Lee. A Modern History of Taekwondo. Seoul, Korea: Bokyung Moonhwasa, 1999. Print.

"World Taekwondo Headquarters." World Taekwondo Headquarters Promotion Regulations. Web. 19 April. 2016.

Documentation

Revised by C4C Demore in class, provided a proofread for mechanical errors

Works Referenced

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Kang, Won Sik, and Kyong Myong Lee. A Modern History of Taekwondo. Seoul, Korea: Bokyung Moonhwasa, 1999. Print.
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