The way of the foot and hand - Part 2

"Hansu" is the name of my club, which means water (from the Han river) and symbolises the characteristics of water: source of life, flowing softly yet powerful enough to form rocks. The picture in my last post shows the logo of our club on the back of a taekwondo uniform, the Chinese character for water enclosed in a wave.
So what does the uniform look like? It is basically a simple wide jacket and wide pants both made from thin white cloth. The jacket is held together by a belt which also shows the rank of the person.

For sparring and self-defense additional equipment is necessary: a vest/ body amour, shin and forearm protectors, hand protectors and a head guard. When wearing all this the resemblance to a plush toy comes to my mind. Or the one of a giant turtle, well kind of a ninja turtle ;-)



For starters just some loose fitting clothes will be all right. When you decide to regulary attend classes then a dobok (taekwondo uniform) should be considered.

As for the sparring gear most clubs provide them for use during classes. If you are sure you will learn taekwondo for a longer period of time (and/ or for hygienic reasons) buy your own equipment!



At our club Hansu we are very technique oriented which means we focus on learning forms (called "poomsae"). There are 17 forms, each with a fixed pattern and level of proficiency. The form is a combination of hand and foot techniques resembling combat but are artistically non-combative. Energy, precision, speed and control are the key points to train. This makes it so attractive to start with taekwondo, age does not matter to learn poomsae!

The way of the foot and the hand - Part 1

For something I really love to do it does not come easy to blog about it. Why is that? Or better, "What is she talking about?", you may ask. As I mentioned in my little self-introduction (left hand side bar) one of my hobbies is taekwondo. It is Korean and literally means "foot - fist - way". It is a Korean national sport and became also popular troughout the world recently. However, it is one of the sports that is still quite misunderstood in my opinion and this makes it more complex to explain. When people hear "taekwondo" they usually get the right connotation: It's a martial art! And then wild images of people flying and kicking and fighting like mad pop up, scenes from the many martial arts movies. Taekwondo can be a very good basis for those kind of movies. The real taekwondo classes for people like you and me though is more of learning techniques, flexibility, strength, perseverance and generally coordination of body and mind.

 

My local taekwondo club explains it like this on their website: "Foot" and "hand" represent the most important techniques of taekwondo, kicks in all variations, abdomen or head height, rotate, jump, double or triple and fist techniques, especially punches to attack and block for defense. The "way", however, describes the personal development that goes through each Taekwondoin (people learning taekwondo): from white belt to black belt, from student to master. It is more than just sporting progress. If Taekwondo is properly taught and learned, it becomes a character school. Patience, respect for the opponent, recognizing one's own weaknesses and strengths, self-discipline are only some aspects with which the athlete has to deal in training.

Well, that's a whole lot and there are slight differences between children, youth and adult classes. I'm very happy that I found out about my club as there are not many who offer adult classes. In our classes we start quite late at 20h00 until around 21h30. We usually start the class with a game to warm up, mostly football (but with a soft plastic ball and no goal keeper). And different from the games I know from school it is not about who wins but to have fun and get warm. And fun it is! I'm not skilled in any game involving balls and so are others in our group. However there are lots who are. So this leads inevitably to funny situations with a lot of laughter. And it helps me to leave the day behind, to clear my mind and to get ready for the training. We then do stretching followed by various key aspects of activity like basic techniques, pattern training, one-step-sparring, free-sparring or self-defense. The class ends with exercises for strenght/stamina or stretching. It's a really good workout, it's fun and helps to reduce stress. Most of the times before driving to my class I really feel more like relaxing on the sofa. Miraculously though, I feel relaxed after classes too. So I made it a habit to go to my club and exercise, and the habit became a beloved hobby.

Discovery Day Festival

"One can always find a reason to celebrate" the saying goes. The idea behind Discovery Day is to move people from the city to their surroundings to visit and to discover new places. All goals should be consistent with public transport and at a great price achievable. Parallel in the city, a great festival with six stages and 150 stalls takes place. In addition to the municipalities and communities, presenting with numerous actions , there are also local and regional associations, organizations and artists in the streets. We strolled along the many stalls and stages, had a "Bratwurst", a grilled sausage we usually eat when being in the city.

We were looking for the sports stage where local sports organizations are presenting themselves with a little show to attract new members. My Taekwondo club has a show team which prepared for a demonstration performance: Taekwondo techniques and powerful jumps, acrobatic and comedic skills inspired the audience and me too! :-) 

                  

Our show team consists of a group of youngsters who are also members of the federal state competitive squad. So unlike the adult training group where I am exercising. We focus on "fit for fun". And fun it is!

So what is Taekwondo? It is the way of the foot and the hand, a martial art originating in Korea. It combines combat and self-defense techniques with sport and exercise. Gyeorugi (pronounced [kjʌɾuɡi]), a type of sparring, has been an Olympic event since 2000.
Taekwondo is my "active" hobby, when I am not cooking, baking or crocheting. I started more than 20 years ago, had a long break of nearly 10 years and started anew three years ago. It is still my favourite sport, even though I have to accept, that I am not 20 years old anymore, nor 30 but already 41! So techniques and jumps have lost their hight. Still an excellent way to keep in shape and to have some fun exercising.