Taekwondo **BONUS VIDEO**

I'd been waiting so long to get a video of this! And finally, Thursday, I had my chance.

Several times, before my rag-tag tkd group started our session, the black belt competition group would practice their performance routines. This is a series of taekwondo moves (punches, kicks, blocks) coordinated to music. Cool, right? Yes, it's cool, but it cracks me up--these performance taekwondo routines seem to be the closest thing in Korea to organized cheerleading routines! There's punching, jumping, kicks, uniforms....all put to music.... But isn't taekwondo (fighting!) one of the farthest things from girly cheerleading? What I also enjoy is watching their faces. The girls sometimes goof-off a little, but the boys are straight-faced, giving it 110%. Ashley and I started learning one performance routine, but we're hopeless.

The juxtaposition of everything never fails to amuse me. I hope you enjoy. I sure do!

Taekwondo is Much More ______ Than the Gym

There's so many words to fill that blank! TKD at Hyundae Dojang is fun, time-consuming, humiliating, frustrating, entertaining, cute....

I joined a dojang my second week here in Seogwipo. There's an English teacher here from last year who let us (me and another new ETA in Seogwipo, Ashley) tag along. We started our second week here in Seogwipo, about 4 weeks ago. So far, it's been a fun, time-consuming, humiliating, frustrating, and entertaining experience.


Time-consuming: TKD is definitely time-consuming. I go everyday, leaving the apartment at 6pm and coming back around 8pm. That's about 2hrs of my day that's inflexible. One drawback. But...

Fun: Taekwondo is definitely fun; we're hanging out with kids for 2hrs everyday. On top of that, we sometime skip the TKD and justplay games (like dodgeball, piggy-back rock-paper-scissor relays, etc).
Humiliating: Because I (1) am the worst and oldest there, (2) I don't understand what's foinf on half the time. This ties in with frustrating.
Entertaining: Because I usually don't know what's going on. I either try to piece together the kids limited English and actions (entertaining) or make-up my own explanation (also entertaining). This is also a theme of daily life in Korea.
Cute: This TKD dojang has its own mascot, Kim Wong Gang. She 5yrs old, shows up to TKD everyday, and is adorable. She seems to be there just for the master, the instructor, and the students to play around with her. Super cute.

The first day, rIght after I walked out of the changing room, I heard "TEE-CHA!". There was black-belt TKD-star Yu-Gin, one of my middle school students. Her English is pretty much non-existent since she goes to TKD instead of English Academy. We're friends all the same. Ashley and I are in what I would call the rag-tag class. The group of students before us, Yu-Gin's class, is the black-belt competition group (about 10-14yrs old). Our group is a collection of about 8 junior high and high school boys, 2 college students, and us silly American girls. The black belts sometimes stay and join our class for a little extra physical training.

I pretty bad at learning Korean names. Erin's to the left of me and Yu-Gin on the right. Otherwise, all I can say is there's 'Batman' in the Batman shirt, 'Chopstick boy' (not pictured, tall and skinny), 'I'm watching you boy' (blue front center), 'Number 4' behind Batman), 'Small Eyes/Dodgeball Crazy' (next to Batman), etc. But, apparently, Western names are hard too! The master nicknamed me Lee Hyori (click!).

A month of TKD

태권도=taekwondo (TKD)

Our month of TKD at Orientation is over (4 classes 4 times a week). This was definitely a good experience and lots of exercise! Our class size started at 40 but dropped to about 30 by the end of the month. We had three different masters(picture below): young master/Pasta Brioni/Jeong Cho Min (left), middle master (right), and master master (center). The master master (the owner of the dojang, an 8th degree black belt, and who has been practicing for 42 years) was in China the first two weeks, so we were instructed by the middle master and Pasta Brioni. The second week middle master left, and Pasta Brioni was our only instructor. He was more relaxed and laid back; we had fun but didn't necessarily focus on correct form. Pasta Brioni also brought a couple black belt students to help him out.both who had won honors at the Chuncheon. Considering that TKD is the equivalent to Little League or Youth Soccer in the states; everyone does TKD when their a child. Our black belt helper instructors were less than 10 years old!

What did we learn? As I mentioned in the first TKD post, the first couple days were mostly physical training--sprinting, jumping, etc. Each day became less physical training and more punches, blocks, and kicks. We started with punches (face, body, trunk), then blocks (same as punch: face, body, trunk), and then learned kicks. The kicks, especially when done in succession, were the most aerobic activity. The master explained that the TKD kick is the most efficient; you (1) raise your quad, (2) extend/kick out the lower leg then bring it back to the first position, then (3) lower you entire leg. We started with front kicks (body and face), then moved to roundhouse kicks (body and face, the most difficult!), and straight kicks. The form is important, especially for the roundhouse kick since you need to rotate your entire body. Pasta Brioni had been lax on form, so we got grilled when master master returned from China.

Yellow Belts: No sparring for white belts! After three weeks we were tested for our yellow belts. When the master master had first returned (after 2 weeks), TKD class was a lot harder, and we improved a lot before yellow belt testing. We were tested in small groups, going through punches, blocks, and kicks--everyone passed.

Pasta Brioni? You've been wondering? After our last lesson, we went out for dakgalbi with all the masters. Lots of fun. Young master wore a shirt from an Italian restaurant, eternally labeling himself as 'Pasta Brioni'. It's easier to remember than Jeong Cho Min.

I would like to continue TKD in Seogwipo--it's a great way to stay in shape. However, I would be sparring with 10yr olds; no Korean starts TKD as an adult (see right). A couple of the other girls in Seogwipo took TKD with me, they may be interested in continuing...we'll figure it out!

Taekwondo 태권도

Or simply TKD. During orientation, we have the option of participating in different cultural activities: calligraphy lessons, a traditional tea ceremony, salmulnori (drumming), cooking, hanji (art of paper folding), or, what I signed up for, TKD. A deal was worked out with the 'master of Chuncheon' for a month of lessons (Mon-Thrus, 1hr/day) and a dobok (도복) unifrom. We meet the master last week for our unifrom fitting; he is such the master that all we had to do was stand up, even from across the room, for him to determine the correct size.

Before I go into what happened at yesterday's first lesson, let's go back to the Chuncheon Taekwondo tournament. We've been sharing our dormitroy with youth taekwondo teams from China and Russia and seen other teams (Iraq, Hong Kong, China) around campus. To get pumped for our first TKD lesson, a group of us went to Hobang gymnasium to watch some matches.

We didn't know the rules, so nothing really made sense. Points are awarded for 'good' hits to the opponents target areas: 1pt for the chest, 2 pts the head (but not the face), and an extra point if the opponent is knocked down. That's why some kicks are higher--double the points!

Yesterday was our first lesson. Right after Korean class, we changed into our doboks to go directly to the gym. As Americans, we're already a spectacle; 40 of us dressed all in doboks, even more so! We didn't even know how to correctly tie our belts, which was the first lesson.
The first lesson, especially considering we're all straight-up beginners, was more physically challenging than I expected: 20 laps around the gym (not so hard, but really sweaty), stretching, jumping (over a partner touching their toes, over partner who's on 'praying' on the ground, touching our toes, etc), and basic commands. Generally, I'm excited--it'll be a great workout. For some of the group, TKD is a lot more exercise than they expected. It'll be interesting to see what they do; the fee for a month of classes a bit expensive (100,000 won, ~$80).

tae = 태 = 'feet'
kwon = 권 = 'fist'
do = 도 = 'way'/'method'

taekwondo = 'way of the feet and fist'

According to the master, taekwondo requires endurance, agility, strength (=physical training),etc. And supposedly, everything will become easier, and each day we'll be less sore. We'll see!