My older brother did kickboxing when I was younger, and I got to be his practice dummy! When I was 19, the Golds I was working out offered Tae Kwon Do and the instructor let me train there for free. I won state in 1999 and 2000. It was fun, but competition is point based so the other instructors get pissed when you're trying to take their students heads off. My intructor like to see people fight agressively and go for knockouts when the opportunity presented itself, so I had a better experience with him than I probably would've at another school.
As far as using it for actual defense, its great if you're fighting someone who doesn't have much fighting experience, or if you've got to defend yourself against more than 1 person. Grappling is great and all, but if you get in a fight and its not 1 on 1, you're gonna get your ass kicked by a guys' buddies if you go to the ground.
Its not too effective against people who are trained to fight, but against 99% of the idiots who actually start fights, its plenty effective.
My best friend from high school went to UW Madison and I was down there pretty much every weekend for his first 3 years there. Him and some of my other buddies knew that I knew how to fight so every time they got drunk, they were always starting shit and expecting me to fight. I got in a ton of fights and never came close to losing.
My experience was almost the exact fucking same in every fight. Some tough guy wanna be put his hands out to the side and talk his shit like "you wanna go" I would do a straight kick to the sternum with my heel, usually knocking the wind out of them, then follow it up with a few punches in the face, and the fights were over!
Ahhhhh good times!
