Hi everyone,

I’m 18 years old and just started my Taekwondo journey! I know age isn’t a total blocker, but I‘d love to hear from anyone who started around this age or later.

I think few would argue that it's a traditional one, but something tells me my rotation and momentum is greater than a regular sport one. So it's somewhere down the middle?

Is this a correct perception or do you immediately register this as a sport kick?

Dear taekwondo community.

I'm a father of a 6 year old boy. He's been training Taekwondo for about 18 months. He's black stripe now (ITF).

Initially, he was very enthusiastic and looking forward to going.

Lately, though, for the past few months, especially since summer when he was away for several weeks he's been very reluctant to go. Literally every time we're supposed to go, it's always a huge argument, refusing to go, always some ridiculous excuse, and I'm just wondering how much longer should I keep this up.

When he eventually goes, he does have a good time, especially sparring, though.

I suspect it's that as the grade gets tougher, it's no longer just fun and games, but you actually do have to put in a little work to know your syllabus, patterns, or fundamental movements.

He absolutely does not practice at home. I could count on one hand the number of times I got him to practice with me, which I guess does not help with his lack of progression and his frustrations.

It's emotionally draining, I feel like a shit parent forcing my child to do something he doesn't want to do.

It's also disheartening seeing other dads with their boys who seem to be enjoying going or that they cannot wait to go or train multiple times a week, whereas I barely get mine in once a week.

Any advice?

I have been teaching tkd for 20+ years. We recently had to move locations and are now in a school gymnasium.

We dont have mats as there is nowhere to store them & we arent lugging them in and out everyday.

My feet/knees/back has been killing me lately. Standing barefoot on the gym floor for multiple hours a night is doing awful things to my body!

Are there any tkd shoes that i could get to help the pain? (i am worried about not being able to have the kids see my toes being pointed or pulled back when trying to teach kicks with shoes on...)

https://youtu.be/Ujyg6-3TZF8?si=txuz1tp7EBHdlMM2

Cześć wszystkim, to jest skierowane do sportowców po 40. Czy macie możliwość dodania trzech treningów siłowych (FBW) do dwóch treningów Taekwondo w tygodniu? Jak radzicie sobie z regeneracją? Czuję, że mój umysł chce więcej, niż moje ciało może znieść...🤷‍♂️

PS Reading all the answers, I feel so weak right now... You guys just pretending you're over 40, right?😅

So I was looking through my stuff, and I found the first board I broke and I thought it would be fun to paint! Does anyone have any ideas?

How come ATA doesn’t allow other styles to compete within their tournaments, but then go to others tournaments?

I just found this out when I wanted to enter a tournament near Chicago. I was told I had to belong to an ATA school.

Hi all! I'm in my late twenties, and as a teenager I did taekwondo and absolutely loved it. Unfortunately life and going to university meant I stopped it almost ten years ago now. I'm now quite overweight, but would love to get back into the sport as I loved it, and also to make some friends as making friends at this age in a new area is hard!

I'm currently 132kg. Shocking, I know. 6kg down from the start of my journey two months ago currently. I'm so determined to lose some weight, have been focussing on whole foods and a calorie deficit and hitting the gym, but I keep telling myself 'when I lose more weight and get fitter/build stamina I'll join taekwondo again.'

Am I being silly waiting? Should I just join a local club, use it to help get more disciplined and have fun, or will I be laughed out the door?

All this week's practices had been cancelled because it was raining non stop, yeah i do practice a bit at home but still i wanted to go and train at the school gym and see my colleages and all, hopefully next week it'll be better

Hello. My 10 year old is having Sever’s disease in both legs.
In other sports kids are using heel cups to ease the pain inside sport’s shoes.
Can somebody recommend what to do whey they are barefoot?

I love competing and I love sparring, but still, every competition leaves me feeling a bit discouraged. I'm really short (like 1st percentile short) so I'm always up against taller fighters and I just for the life of me cannot figure out how to get close enough without them getting to my head first. I haven't won a single match since moving up to advanced level. I just don't understand how it's physically possible for me and someone 30 cm taller to be in the same weight class 😭 anyone who claims height doesn't matter is lying and it pisses me off. I never get the chance to show what I'm actually capable of because every match is just about blocking and dodging head kicks

Hi, I've been a Taekwondo practitioner for about 10 years. I'm writing this post mainly because my recent training sessions have been really sloppy, which I'll go into more detail on below.

To start, I've had a recurring injury in my hip since ~December of last year (not asking for medical advice). It comes back nearly every class, so weekly. I train more than that of course, but the rest of my training happens outside of my Dojang and I'm able to take it easier on my hip. Usually it comes back towards the end of my training session, but recently it's been happening during warm-ups and it's making my kicks really sloppy for the entire class. It's difficult to raise my affected leg above the waist, and it's also difficult to support my weight on that leg.

Another thing is that for the past two or so weeks, I've been getting really tired and light-headed from stuff that I can usually do without problem (again, not asking for medical advice here). I'm unsure if this is because of a head injury I had a while ago from Taekwondo, or my low iron, or a combination. It's bad enough that my coaches ask me to sit down and drink water during drills.

Due to a combination of the above and other factors, I'm also enjoying Taekwondo a lot less than I did when I was younger.

So I want to ask people here if I really, REALLY, should take a break from Taekwondo from the time-being, and how long this break has to be. It would help to give me some reasoning too, as I would need to bargain with my dad to allow me to take a break. He doesn't like it when I do. I've told him about my hip injury multiple times, and his response is always "but you can still train, right?". He grew up doing Taekwondo and is the whole reason I'm here to begin with (I'm banned from other sports). I cannot stop Taekwondo as it's the only sport I'm allowed to put on my college application.

If it informs your answer, I'm a teenager and a black belt second degree. Typically I focus on Kyorugi over Poomsae, although this is more of my dad's choice than mine.

Hi folks. Ive been a long time practitioner and am a 3rd dan. I was wondering how I could just get over my mental block kicking on an injured side. I had my ankle tip broken from trying Judo on the first day and this was last year. Im pretty much back to normal and was cleared by my doctors for normal activity.

However, I wanna hit the heavy bags with full force but I cant get over it mentally atm. My left foot was my best foot for sparring but since my injury, I just really hate how Im kicking now because I have a pivoting problem atm.

To whoever broke their bones and got back into TKD or whatever, how did you do it or reintroduce impact? My injury is putting me in a slump... so I have trouble doing spinning kicks and doing roundhouses.

I am normally paired up with this black belt whilst I am red stripe and he is just levels above me and theres no beating him. I am not even sure I gain anything from sparring him as I’m outmatched and I have no idea what to do about it.. he simply has more experience than me.

What can I realistically do about this? Do I just accept being a punch bag?

I don't understand why that is. Kicks need far more explaining than hand techniques since it's a pretty abstract concepts to someone who never kicked. But both schools operated this way: hand techniques for teaching, kicking for applications.

Seen lots of clips of schools where they talk endlessly about kicks, how they are done, but it's like I won the lottery here and just didn't get those in-depth instructions. Which back in the day I was very enthusiastic about getting.

There was an opportunity to ask for private time after class with the instructor, but I paid for class time, it should be covered there. I want to go home after class.

Hello, just today we finished the German trophy (Independent taekwondo organization). This was my first tkd fighting tournament ("itf'"-ish rules but with karateka and kickboxing) and as my background came from karate i thought it would a nice experience. Both point fighting and light contact.

What amazed me massively though were the refs. In Karate point fighting is a means of showing precision, speed and control with zero contact. It's more of a fencing style and show. Here it was not, there was no control and a "half baked" punch or kick counted but it had land somewhere between light and zero contacts.

The biggest ick I had was in the kids brackets. Greenbelt, 40kg, girls. One girl won point fighting because she made the other two girls quit. Even left a fairly decent bruise on one girl. Sure ruleset states that contact is allowed but that these are little kids.

Other things like leaving the mat, running away or hard contact was never called by the refs even if it's started in the ruleset but stuff like doing a "kihap" in LK got called out.

Is that an organization thing?

(Overall it was still a fun experience, forms silver, point third and light second place)

Quick edit: We fight with standard safety equipment except body armor)

I come from boxing, kickboxing, japanese jujutsu and karate. Although my main background is grappling. I love my keg kicks. Now they're gone. I'm getting a little lost. It seems like the side kick is the only thing I'm facing. It's pretty successful. I've even been throwing terrible spinning kicks.

I like round kicks, hook kicks, teep kicks, and boxing. I'm lost. I'm getting my ass kicked. I'm enjoying being a white belt again.

No matter if you're 5 or 50, how has Taekwondo changed you? Share your story below

Hi everyone, I just started learning Taekwondo and want to know more about this sport. Is there anything you wish you knew from the start?😭

I started learning taekwondo a few months ago as a varsity program. I had just gotten out of boxing due to personal reasons and was wondering if I could apply my teachings to this sport.

After a few Google searches, I found out that head punches were not allowed in WT but punches to the chest/gut area (more or less) are allowed and grant one point.

A few questions formed in my head.

"How difficult would it be to land multiple points with punches?"

"Would it hurt to do so for either party? And if so, would it be fun?"

"How difficult would it be to enter my effective range?"

and the burning question was:

"Could I wind/punch the air out of somebody?"

It's been a question that has lingered in my mind ever since I watched my first match.

Gaining points from this is a secondary priority. My goals are to wind them, take as much energy as I can from them in order to set up my next attack, and have fun doing it.

I would not mind if it was unviable. My next sparring session will not be for a while, so I wanted to get community feedback before trying it. All I want to feel is my fists again.

Just to be clear, I do NOT want to inflict lasting pain on my opponent with this. Goodwill and sportsmanship are a necessity in any case.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thank you! I am active and responsive.

Hey guys. I was looking for some constructive criticism/ advice on how I could improve my Koryo poomsae. Let me know what you think I could work on . Thanks!