Beatiful sport Taekw0nd0
By: Simon Choi
History of taekwondo
In about 50BC wall paintings depicting men in fighting stance were found in tomb in Korea. After taekwondo was created karate was made. When Japanese took over Korea they try to get rid of taekwondo and korean cultures. Then in 1945 Korea became an indenpendent country. In 1973, an international governing body called the world Taekwondo federation (WTF) was founded. Since then , taekwondo has spread to almost every country in the world and has 20 million followers world wide. In 1980, WTF taekwondo was recognized by the International Olympic conmittee. In 1988, taekwondo became a demonstration sport at the Olympic games. After all of those important things happening in 2000, taekwondo became an official sports in Olympic games.
Taekwondo techniques
There are four main techniques in taekwondo, and they are breakng, striking, punching, and self-defense. When students are doing breaking techniques they learn the power of their foot and fist work by breaking boards. In all of these moves, the hips are used to give extra power to strike. For striking, pads are used to focus your attention on an object. Pads can be moved around to sharpen their accuracies. Then there is a punching techniques. first always strike with the first two knuckels, because these are the biggest and strongest. Never bend your wrist while you are striking. Keep the wrist in a straight line wit your forearm. Last but not least self-defnse. Taekwondo relies mainly on kicking and punching, although close contact work, known as self-defense, is usually taught to higher level/grade students. The aim of self-defense is to immobilize your opponent so that they cannot strike you. The whole point of self-defense is to recognize and avoid dangerous situations.
Taekwondo competition
One of the most important thing in taekwondo, competition. In competition competitors display more than just their fighting ability at contests. There are competitions for breaking technique and poomse. International competitors have to be 14 years and over to compete in World Taekwondo federation competitions. To get points you need to hit them on the body. If you kick him or she on their torso you get one point. If you kick him or she on the neck you get two points. Lastly if you knock down him or she you get three points. One who gets the most points in time wins the game. In South Korea, there are annual national competitions held at kukkiwon, the national taekwondo center.
Belt system
One of the most important thing in taekwondo, belts. Belt describes how good you are or what level you are in taekwondo. Whats the difference between white belt and a black belt. Well the white belt is for the beginners, and the black belt is for the masters or the higher levels of students. Higher belts higher skills, which means it will get really difficult as you get to the black belt. But one thing that you need to know about the black belt is that there are 10 different kinds of belts for the black belt. Which means black belt degree 1 is lowest and the black belt dgree 10 is the highest level for black belts. For each belt there's something that you really need to know, its call poomse. Poomse defines pattern of defense and attack motions. You need to know the each poomses to go on a next level or a next belt. Getting to next belt will make you really pround espesially the black belt.