Taekwondo Swindon

It's got to be said that Taekwondo can be pretty physically challenging, which might unnerve the older and less nimble folks in Swindon from taking this up. To be honest, the most common people participating in Taekwondo classes are children and the younger generation, but obviously older people who're in great physical health can easily be involved and benefit considerably from this sport.

Taekwondo is a martial art that mostly involves kicking moves and manoeuvres, most notably fast kicking styles, spinning/jumping kicks and head-height kicks. It began in Seoul, in southern Korea in the 1940's, when a number of martial arts enthusiasts founded schools known as "kwans", which blended various martial arts techniques.

Taekwondo now has over 60 million practitioners worldwide and has become very popular in Swindon and throughout the UK. If you want to get involved in this activity, which is now an Olympic sport, joining a Taekwondo club or class in Swindon is a good place to start. While nobody would expect you to get to Olympic standard, you can certainly be one of the best Taekwondo exponents in Swindon.

While there is much to be gained by doing Taekwondo, it is the self-defence aspect that most Swindon people are interested in. This is not hard to believe when you take into account the high levels of violence experienced in town and city centres on a daily basis. Being able to defend yourself is a key factor of Taekwondo, but this is tempered by learning self-restraint and a respect for others.

Your eagerly mastered Taekwondo skills will likely never have to be tried and tested outside the monitored atmosphere of an actual Taekwondo class, however being aware of the fact that you've got them will instill you with confidence.

What to Expect From Your First Class

Different Taekwondo schools in the Swindon area will have different guidelines for what students should cover on their initial class, however to give you a notion of what you can expect most initial Taekwondo lessons will include a warm-up, a bit of sparring, learning basic Poomse (forms), an introduction to hand attacks, stances, blocks and kicks (technical training) and a final warm-down to relax tired muscles and get the body back to a state of harmony.

Taekwondo also of course has got its own regulating body, and in the British Isles it is British Taekwondo. Anyone wishing to sign up with a Taekwondo club in Swindon has to become a member of this organisation. You can find lots of information on coaches and competition referees, clubs and members, coaching courses, first aid, health and safety, news, safeguarding and equality, events, starting a new club, and more, by dropping by at British Taekwondo's website.

Taekwondo for Beginners

As with any sport or activity we have to start somewhere, and Taekwondo's just the same. Even the topmost Swindon Taekwondo masters were total beginners at one time. So, exactly what can you expect as a total beginner at Taekwondo? Beginner classes should give their enrollees enough training to teach them the basic principles and allow them to gain self-confidence as they progress. The perfect beginners class must be enjoyable as well as instructional, when folks are enjoying themselves they are far more engrossed and are going to learn much faster.

Taekwondo Belts (Ranking)

With there being many different kinds of Taekwondo there's never really been any standardized arrangement for assigning belts (promotion). What does exist however is quite similar and consists of two belt groupings "junior" and "senior" ("colour" and "black"), each one of these groups is divided into ranks, eight to twelve colours for juniors and 9 for the seniors.

In the UK Taekwondo has a set of ranks (belts) which are known as "Kup", these ranks range from 10th (lowest) to 1st (highest). The Taekwondo belt order, similar to most of the martial arts is indicated by a number of colours, these colours are white, yellow, green, blue and red, with intermediary belts with stripes, namely white with a yellow stripe, yellow with a green stripe, green with a blue stripe, blue with a red stripe and red with a black stripe. Students in Swindon getting started in Taekwondo will begin with the White Belt (10th Kup), and progress through the colours until they earn the Red With Black Stripe Belt (1st Kup).

Taekwondo students in Swindon become known as "black belt candidates" once they've successfully completed this process, and they'll then be faced with moving through yet another nine ranks (or Dans) if they want to achieve the greatest accolade Taekwondo Black Belt. Therefore, Junior, Senior and Black Belts are the three principal sections in the Taekwondo belt order. The Junior Taekwondo Belts are; White (10th), White With Yellow Stripe (9th), Yellow (8th), and Yellow With Green Stripe (7th). The Senior Taekwondo Belts comprise; Green (6th), Green With Blue Stripe (5th), Blue (4th), Blue With Red Stripe (3rd), Red (2nd) and Red With Black Stripe (1st). The Black Taekwondo Belts go from 1st to 9th Dan which takes many years to successfully progress through. (Tags: Taekwondo Belt Order, Belt Order Taekwondo, Taekwondo Rankings Swindon, Taekwondo Belts Swindon).

Taekwondo Tournaments and Competitions

A regular Taekwondo tournament includes sparring, breaking and patterns (forms), in the Olympics only sparring is involved. That being said there can also be a few unique categories in certain tournaments such as team demonstrations and self-defence. World Taekwondo tournaments are solely soft-contact events, whilst ITF (International Taekwon-Do Federation) competitions permit some hand attacks to the head. There are also some multi-discipline contests.

Taekwondo Forms (Patterns)

Forms are a pivotal element of Taekwondo and are vital if you are going to excel at this thrilling martial art. A few basic "forms" have to be learned at the beginning and more complicated forms must be mastered in order to advance through the various belts. A Taekwondo form is characterized by a number of aspects such as direction, technique and stance.

To Summarize

We can pretty much guarantee that if you take up Taekwondo you will improve your wellbeing, gain self-confidence and make new friends. If that's all you get out of it, then that is great, you can call it an achievement! We're not all aiming to be Jade Jones's or Lutalo Muhammad's, but those of you who are, still need to begin with the initial step. Good luck with your journey!