Getting Personal

Of the martial art styles that use sparring, some use no-contact sparring, some use light-contact sparring, while others use full-contact sparring. These contact classifications are related to the amount of force that is permitted while sparring. The level of contact used in sparring is important and should be considered when choosing a martial art to study so it is discussed in other TKDTutor topics.

Another type of contact to consider is personal contact. There are three classifications of the personal contact used in the martial arts: impersonal, semi-personal, and personal. These same classifications of personal contact may also be applied to the military.

During combat, most soldiers never see the enemy. They drop bombs from aircraft, fire missiles and artillery from a great distance, and fire their rifles from long range. Sometimes they must deal with an enemy face-to-face, but it relatively rare due to the massive amount of the aforementioned types of warfare that are used. Since most soldiers make little or no personal contact with the enemy, they may be classified as having impersonal contact with the enemy.