Takwon-Do: Famous Martial Art In South Korea

Natan Usic

Professor Ana Gudelj

Critical Reading and Writing

UWRT.100.80-82

21 October 2014

Tae-kwon-do

Tae-kwon-do is a famous martial art that was invented in South Korea. It’s a mixture of physical and spiritual training. Learning and understanding it will not only make you a better person, but also more forgiving and passionate. You will learn not to hate, but to embrace all the lectures that life has to offer you.

It’s based on leg-kicking techniques, and today there are over 100 million of people who are practicing it daily. It’s one of the most popular martial arts in the whole world. The goal of Tae-kwon-do is not to attack someone, but to protect yourself from threats. ”I undertake to abuse Taekwondo never.” (anonymus) Many famous

The same thing is with Tae-kwon-do, their routines are different. They’re based on stretching, it helps you relax and to enhance your body. All that leads to great peace that your soul can accomplish by understanding the essence of Tae-kwon-do. I remember when I started with Tae-kwon-do. My father trained me daily when I was 4 years old. He is a great role model to me. He also trained Taekwondo and he was truly impressive, and still so even with his 48 years. Taekwondo made me to do stuff that most of people won’t ever be able to do. Also, I was able to do every sport that I could imagine doing it. It felt like I was invincible.

The creator of Tae-kwon-do was the great Chong Hong Hi. He was known as General Choi, a South Korean army general, and a famous martial arts master. He had founded Tae-kwon-do and was called a “Father of Tae-kwon-do.” My father used to talk about him with such amazement. Tae-kwon-do is based on 5 Tenets: Courtesy, integrity, patience, self-discipline, and invincibility.

Courtesy is all about the respect for other people, and the evaluation of their abilities and personalities. Showing good manners has always been a skill of the character. Tae-kwon-do taught me to always be nice towards other people, whatever personalities they possess. Integrity is talking about knowing the difference between right and wrong, as well as having a consciousness that

There are 3 categories of senior section. Student, Master, and Grand Master. For title of Grand Master you need to be at least 40 years old.

You have to take a writing test that consists of hard philosophical questions about body, soul, and the universe. My father and my trainer were always eager to explain me the connection between these three. Competition usually involves self-defense, patterns, breaking, and sparring. Self-defense is the art of protecting yourself with as less hitting as you may. The reason for that is because when you are striking with your fist, there is a high chance of hurting yourself. Patterns or “Hyeong” are forms consisted of prearrange sequence of strikes.

Execution of pattern needs to be stiff, determined, and it has to look like you are floating through a water. Breaking is a demonstration of how to break something that you feel like you can’t. You have to focus your strike in the center of the target, the weakest point. Sparring is an Olympic sport since 2000, it’s based on full contact.

Although, there are two categories of sparring, point-sparring and full contact. The first one is light contact, based on striking the enemy in the head or body, and receiving points. The second one is more brutal, it’s consisted of fighting until the end of the round. Safety is one of the main occupations of a sport, although there are only minor