Warm up for Taekwondo

I got an interesting question the other day when I chatted with a friend about general Taekwondo training, and the conversation turned toward warm up. This is something that is often a missunderstood part of training, and it also comes with its own myths as well. I like to believe that Taekwondo being in the Olympics has made more instructors aware of sport science and that we generally have moved on from the 1950s/60s idea of a warm up based on army training. I see that modern Dojang that leans toward Olympic sparring is actually more up to date on this area, and holds an advantage over "traditional" oriented Dojang around the world. It is more often than not those "traditional" oriented Dojang that does not understand what a warm up is for in my own opinion. There is a lot of heavy science and theory behind what a good warm up should be, and what the purpose of a warm up is.

However instead of sharing a lot of dry research material, and a lot of theory, I would rather just share my thoughts on the topic of warm up, both its purpose, its length and proposed drills, and why those drills have been selected.

Review on Taekwondo; Origins of the art: a historic photospective

Taekwon-Do - Origins of the art:

Bok Man Kim`s Historic Photospective (1955-2015)

Review by Ørjan Nilsen

Being a self-appointed "Taekwondo-nerd" and amateur historian of Taekwondo, I noticed that the name Kim Bok Man showed up frequently during my studies of Taekwondo history. Despite his name showing up in several places, I did not really know much about him other than the fact that he was one of the original instructors of the Oh Do Kwan and close to General Choi Hong Hi during the formative years of Taekwondo. I am very interested in the history of Taekwondo (any lineage), so when I first heard about this project I anticipated opening the finished product, especially since photos and documentation in Taekwondo`s formative years (1950s to early 60s) seem to be quite rare. Being the lucky man that I am, I was asked if I was interested in doing a review for the book, to which I immediately said, «Yes!»

Micro Post; This months quote

"If you study carelessly or haphazardly, your Poomsae* and techniques will never come to life"
-Gichin Funakoshi 1943

(*He obviously said "Kata" where I have put "Poomsae" in the quote)

I hope to provide much more video content to this blog in the future. I have therefore set up a GoFundMe page on www.gofundme.com/traditionaltaekwondoramblings which I hope I can crowdfund a video editing software so I can make good quality videos for the blogs readers. If you want to contribute please visit the link to my GoFundMe page. Every donation helps :-)