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For a while now, I had been questioning my training. I questioned whether or not it was benefitting me or hurting since the style I practice now, WTF TKD, doesn't allow me to use my upper body techniques (trapping, parries, head strikes, etc.) like I have in the past. I have had to radically alter my style of fighting to fit what I was doing now noticing that as I did, my defense was not as sharp, my hands suffered from lack of use, and my overall technique was just sloppy. I felt my art was failing me.

Then I trained with someone who is a really hard fighter, also WTF TKD, who was displaying all the skills I felt I used to have and using them quite effectively. Then I woke up. It isn't the style failing me, it was me failing the style. TKD has everything that every other style has to offer when it comes to strong self defense but you need to TRAIN it. Just because you do a certain style of sparring in class doesn't mean you do not train your other techniques too.

I got off my butt and starting practicing as much of the TKD curriculum (sp) as I could as taken from the Kuk Ki Won website and found that my skills, power, and technique have all significantly increased. They are at least back to where I felt they were strong and perhaps a little more so.

Next time you question your art, question yourself. Are you personally working as hard as you need to in order to make the art benefit you? Are you putting into it all the effort necessary to bring out the best in your techniques? Are you using all the weapons available and at your disposal within the art? If not, then question yourself and your motivation, not the art.

Seems pretty straight forward but you would be surprised how many people actually forget that lessons at the dojo/dojang can't possibly cover the entire wealth of knowledge the art has to offer. Explore your art and find out what you are missing that is within its scope and then apply that knowledge before you start to question your art.

For what it's worth,

TKD has everything that every other style has to offer when it comes to strong self defense but you need to TRAIN it. Just because you do a certain style of sparring in class doesn't mean you do not train your other techniques too.

Just because you do a certain style of sparring in class doesn't mean you do not train your other techniques too.

I got off my butt and starting practicing as much of the TKD curriculum (sp) as I could as taken from the Kuk Ki Won website and found that my skills, power, and technique have all significantly increased. They are at least back to where I felt they were strong and perhaps a little more so.

Seems pretty straight forward but you would be surprised how many people actually forget that lessons at the dojo/dojang can't possibly cover the entire wealth of knowledge the art has to offer. Explore your art and find out what you are missing that is within its scope and then apply that knowledge before you start to question your art.

classic denial , no style has all the answers , no person has all the answers

Next time you question your art, question yourself. Are you personally working as hard as you need to in order to make the art benefit you? Are you putting into it all the effort necessary to bring out the best in your techniques? Are you using all the weapons available and at your disposal within the art? If not, then question yourself and your motivation, not the art.

Next time you question your art, question yourself.

For example, one may notice the deep and often forward-leaning stances of other styles and ask whether we ought to be using more of these stances. Do these folks know something that Uechi folks don't? But read Funakoshi's 17th precept.

I guess for me the answer is simple. I put on a white belt and started climbing another mountain. If you do this, chances are you will be challenged time and time again to assimilate the differences and the arguments made for various practices. The person telling you that this way (the way they do it) is better than that way (the way you just did it, your "old" way) is probably not aware that they just contradicted another style of karate, but unlike them, you have to get to the bottom of it in your own mind. Sorting it out almost always yields an increased appreciation for both ways.

How do you learn how to train something long enough to make it work instead of throwing it out too early.

Spend three years following a teacher and then strike out on your own.
Never follow a teacher.

In Pat McCarthy's group the students a given a little book. For their kihon (basic) techniques they are expected to practice each 10,000 times one their own (if it is something like a break fall) or with a partner (if it is something like a block, throw, or lock.) Mr. McCarthy said that his teacher told him that after 10,000 repetitions you will no longer have questions about how the technique is supposed to work.

Is that too much "blind following" to ask of a student or to model for students as a method of learning?

How do we ensure that our students go an inch wide and a mile deep instead of a mile wide and an inch deep? How did our teachers foster that in us?

If you're learning techniques then you'll need to go very wide before you can connect the dots on your own. If you explore fundamental principles then you can attach movements to any of those principles.