Things players say to me

[Bruno]

I'm not a Tae Kwon Do expert but I did get to my red stripe, so that's a thing. I could kick above my head at the time too, no problem.

He's smoking some kind of crack if he says his TKD teacher teaches that the head is an easier target than the body. It might be a higher value target in a tourney (I never did tournament fighting) and GURPS certainly models it being a high value target in a real fight, but it's definitely a harder target (and not just because you have to lift your leg up further). Once you've got your leg up around your hip you can strike the entire torso and upper body with about as much leg-lifting-difficulty and speed. Hitting your target and not getting blocked is another thing entirely.

We definitely were taught to Telegraph our kicks, and I would say as a non-tournament practitioner I was merrily All Out Attacking too, even though the kata include miming defenses against imaginary opponents from all directions. The operative words there being "miming" and "imaginary".