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The same applies to martial artists when they wear safety equipment while sparring. Before the safety equipment, martial artists trained to achieve precise control of their techniques and they learned to focus the power of the techniques to a finite point in space, such as focusing a punch to complete its motion at a point one-inch in front of the opponent’s nose. Accidents did occur, but they were did not occur very often. A martial artist who had too many “accidents” would be chastised or even told to leave.

Since the advent of sparring safety equipment, many martial arts, Taekwondo included, do not stress control and focus as much as they did before the safety equipment. In some martial arts, the practitioners never learn the concept of control and focus; instead, they rely upon the safety equipment to protect themselves.

Before the safety equipment, when you got hit by a stray punch—it hurt—and you learned to protect yourself so it did not happen again. You also learned what it was like to get hit and how to deal with its effects. Now, with the safety equipment, students tend to ignore the strikes, or pretend they did not happen. In their mind, the strikes were not effective and they are still the best fighters.

Sparring safety equipment has created complacent, unskilled martial artists who think they are real fighters. Their techniques are not as clean and crisp as they were before the advent of the safety equipment; their blocks are weak or non-existent, and their methods of kicking and punching have changed to adapt to, and to take advantage of, the beneficial or detrimental effects of sparring while wearing the equipment. When using the safety equipment, there is little visible damage from strikes that use excessive force, but, since there is less concern about excessive force, there are more strikes that use excessive force. After years of sparring this way, medical complications due to cumulative trauma may become a problem.

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