by Jennifer Kennedy

Created on: May 05, 2008   Last Updated: May 08, 2008

Taekwondo is a Korean martial art and has been around from 1955, a group of Korean martial arts leaders chose Taekwondo as the Korean martial art. The meaning of Taekwondo is the way of hand and foot, although Taekwondo is a martial art form of self defense, it is also a good sport.

There are two types of Taekwondo, the first one is World Taekwondo Federation (WTC) and the second is The International Taekwondo, which was founded by General Choi Hi, the father of Taekwondo.

Taekwondo is a martial art that suits people from all walks of life, the youngest that someone can join Taekwondo is 5 years old and there is no age limit, the training for Taekwondo basically includes blocks, punches, open handed strikes, kicks and patterns.

Like with other martial arts, when joining Taekwondo you begin at white belt level, however after each successful grading you can advance the colour of your belt, the colours of the belts are as follows:
white belt
white belt, yellow tag
yellow belt
yellow belt, green tag
green belt
green belt, blue tag
blue belt, red tag
red belt
red belt, black tag
black belt

After reaching black belt you can progress further if you wish, to first dan, second dan etc and eventually you can reach a stage were you can teach Taekwondo.

The gradings are held three times per year, this information will be provided by the instructor, for gradings you must have both a license and your Taekwondo suit, both of which can be purchased at the club which you attend, both the license and suit cost 35 each and each grading costs 30 and the License needs to be renewed on a yearly basis. There is other safety gear needed such as the gum shield, groin protector, head gear and sparring boots and gloves, which can be purchased from your club or a martial arts shop, however the safety gear wont be needed until you advance to coloured belt.

Once coloured belt stage has been reached you can enter competition's for sparring, which is contact fighting and also for patterns. There is usually a small fee for participants to pay when entering the competitions, and again you need to have a license to enter.

My 7 year old daughter does Taekwondo and has been for over a year now, she`s a yellow belt, green tag and she has entered some competitions and won three gold medals and three silver medals. The reason we made her join was because she was really quiet and was`nt very confident, but since joining Taekwondo she is no longer as quiet as she once was and she is gradually getting more and more confident, but most of all she really enjoys it. She has also made new friends through joining Taekwondo and she now stands up for herself both in school and out in the street. Although Taekwondo does appear to be quite expensive, it is really worth it.

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