OP (original poster): what style TKD are you, WTF, ITF or something else? Do you compete in Poomsae or sparring?
After a dozen years of farting around and doing various martial arts but never grading in any of them, I decided I should commit to learning one (or many) of them, so I picked up WTF TKD. Work is slowing my progress down considerably so I don't intend on grading for 1-dan until at least 2015. Also I started competing in sparring tournaments but again work gets in the way, so I'll come back to it later, but I feel that as far as tkd is concerned sparring is important to sharpen one's technique. One can really tell the difference between the black belts who do spar competitively, and those who don't, by the sharpness of their technique, and their sense of space.
Funnily enough I kept getting busted for using karate stance (because of my prior karate experience), and my opponents get dreadfully confused by my habit of parrying every strike instead of dodging (because of my prior kung fu experience). Which makes me think, a long long time down the track, once I feel I have attained a basic level of competency in TKD, I should probably do the same for karate and kung fu, though I feel those will be much harder than for TKD.
