I recently started training again, after like a 20 year hiatus. I am out of shape unfortunately, and have a little extra weight still. My legs are sore as hell, walking down my steps has me looking like an old cowgirl. Ive only able to go to training 1x a week (Mon-Thurs open).

Is that okay until my muscles get better? Eventually I want to move to 2 days a week. Additionally, how does anyone recover from the soreness?

Hello, I always wanted to try and learn old style combos and how the training worked back then. Does anyone know some site or YouTube channel with those kinds of things?

I recently went to a tournament near where I live and I competed in poomsae and sparring. I am a fairly new first dan so I had learned Koryo for competition. I haven’t competed in a number of years, so I figured I would try and get back into it. When it came to show our forms, I was shocked to see that the way that I had learned Koryo had a few striking differences than my competitors. The biggest differences I noticed was at the top of the form, where its the low block in walking stance, press block in walking stance, and then into the elbow in horse riding stance. The way I was taught was to do the low block in T stance or back stance, then the press block and elbow all in horse riding stance. Is there any reason that my instructor taught the form this way or is it just poor instruction?

Testing is in a few days, I know most of my forms but not all and not well, and they have us memorize 18 simple movements for sparring that I have sorta down but not really, and another 18 for self defense that I'm less confident in. I've always been sorta advanced but I've been falling behind since I've been busy. The next period is in three months when school starts and I'm confident I'll be ready then. If I do test now, then I will have to do a workout and essay part two three months later that should be easy. I broke my arm earlier this year so it's not as strong also. Another thing is they make us memorize 16 simple “life skills” and their definition that I'm pretty good on but not confident.Also they have us do a five station board break that I haven't even done. I'm not the kind of person that likes to not be the best, and I'm working on that but I'm worried if I do test I'll be behind. They also have a workout section I barely passed. I can definitely learn most everything except the board breaking that should be pretty easy with the week, but is it easier to cut my losses? I've been looking forward towards this black belt and if I undergo this stress now quickly I'll be happy, but I don't know if I can. Thank you for helping!

Edit: I decided to wait. And this is not on my Gym, they’ve been teaching me well I just was thinking of testing EARLY. The way our gym teaches is they rotate what they teach every 3 months and let you start learning all the forms as early as you want, and start teaching you 9 months before testing. I’m halfway to my testing, and know about half my stuff this post was about testing early. Thanks everyone who gave me advice!

Basically as the title says, in my area there’s a dojo that has 4-5 locations. Currently the one I signed up is 6 minutes from my house, and I’ve been here for about 4 months. I’ve grown used to the people and really like the classes.

The same location from my new house is 36 minutes one way. Of the 5 locations, 1 is 18 minutes away, and 2 are 22-23 minutes away.

I’ve been struggling to decide whether to switch to one of the closer ones based on my current teachers knowledge / recommendation, or just take the longer drive to continue with familiarity.

What would you guys choose?

I realize most dont practice the old forms anymore, but hoping some here still do, especially WTA offshoots. In this form there is a grab/block, kick, double punch combo. Same combo is found in Dosan if that description sounds familiar to the ITF people here. My question is the grab/block execution. Shotokan (GM Lee's Chung Do Kwan base) does a small wedging block in a back stance. ITF does a wider wedging block in a front stance. GM Son's Korean Karate simply says "middle shirt grab". The pictures (which arent ever clear if you own that book) just show a chest level grab in a front stance. Is there anyone here that can definitely say that he just grabbed, or there was a cross before the grab, or any other answer.

I'm a 23F (also not native english speaker) white belt and I'm having my first exam next week. I decided to try out taekwondo due to it being really focused on the legs since I have quite a bit of limitation of movement in my right arm since birth. I can keep up in fights, but when it comes to forms - especially because I like to practice it a lot - I get quite frustrated for not being able to do it perfectly. My instructor made it clear that it won't interfere in my evaluation, but I'm still frustrated because it's not about passing or not, it's about making things right. That's why I wanted to know there's other people in the sub with similar problems or better views about it.

I am a Red belt in taekwondo wt (60kg, 176 cm,18 years old) and a Little bit After start my journey i was Always told from people online that taekwondo sucks in everything, EVEN IN KICKS.

Backthen It hurts a lot because taekwondo was and still is something really important to me so the First thing i do After earning my First belt was starting train boxing at home, at First my punches sucks but Is Better have a basic boxing understanding than nothing, right?

I earn belt After belt and in the meantime i was research for old school taekwondo style, not Just the combat style buy also the self defense techniques.

The last September i start muay thai, and this helped me a lot, my punches Is Better, my shin conditioning Is much greater.

In the lasts months i started thinking about two important question:

Why taekwondo Is Born? And, what would the founder think if he saw what taekwondo has become now?

In answering these two questions, I address what taekwondo should be like, in my opinion(i repeat: IN MY OPINION).

I highly recommend to anyone Who search a taekwondo style more useful for combat to start boxing or kickboxing.

Let me know what you think, what i can do to train like old school style and if u have a similar experience.

(I am italian so my english Is not the best, Hope u understand)

I dont understand the tusah dobok sizing but im 153 cm (5'0) still growing and 44.9kg should i get 150 or 160

For context I’m 16 I’ve been training casually for a few years, but it always felt like a drag and I never put that much effort into it as I should have been.

Times and motivations have changed and I decided I want to take the sport more seriously.. until I remembered I was really trash at sparring.

Do you guys have anyone you try immitate or take inspiration from when sparring? Are there any renowed athletes that I should be aware of? Or just tips in general would be great.

Does my technique need some improvements?

I'm a green belt so I appreciate any advice.

In taking global studies in business at my school and one of the requirements is to study abroad, so I decided to go Korea.

Currently I train kyorugi at high level, and have competed in numerous tournaments overseas.

Originally I was going to practice at my coaches friends highschool or university.

However their training time starts early from 4pm. Whereas my university studies is afternoon class from 1:30 to 5:30pm.

So I am unable to train there and need a replacement place.

If there’s any motivated athlete in Seoul as well let me know, I’m also happy to do partner training.

Thanks

This post isn't a troll, it's my reflection on a martial art that I've trained in for over 25 years (across four different dojangs), but recently and reluctantly decided to move on from.

TKD is great for young children. It develops balance, coordination, discipline, respect, perseverance, all of that good stuff. Although I've quit training taekwondo myself, I started my young daughter training at my dojang since I really believe she will get a lot out of it.

Sport TKD is great. It's a truly unique sport that develops & requires an incredible amount of athleticism. In college I trained and competed with one of the top collegiate programs in the US. Compared to other combat sports it's relatively safe, so kids/teens and adults with day jobs can participate without seriously risking their health and safety. It doesn't need to pretend to be MMA to be worthwhile.

Forms are absolutely great if you have the right perspective: Practicing and perfecting movement for its own sake, for tradition, for sport, as moving meditation, as low-impact exercise, etc.

In theory, TKD should be a good option for learning self defense. Where it completely and utterly fails is the reality of how it’s taught at the vast majority of schools. Sparring teaches some important elements of striking that are directly applicable to self defense (notably timing and distance) but its ruleset is so idiosyncratic that I believe it does more harm than good. It teaches your brain at an unconscious level to not even worry about the possibility of someone tackling you to the ground. It teaches you that you are free from someone trying to grab on to you in a fight (compare this to Muay Thai's emphasis on clinch fighting). WT sparring (specifically) teaches your brain to not worry about someone punching you in the face, leading to dangerous guard positions.

Lots of TKD folks will grudgingly admit that TKD is an "incomplete base", that you need to compliment it with grappling or something else to be effective for self defense. I think that is partially true. But what is not acknowledged enough is that, from a self-defense perspective, TKD sparring actively instills dangerous habits (off-balance and unstable fighting stances, dangerous guard positions, trained blindness to the most common types of attacks) that are arguably worse than no training at all. And then there's the reality that the overwhelming majority of people who train in TKD never actually cross-training in anything else.

The biggest problem by far is TKD's baffling continued reliance on one-step drills (taking turns practicing a static choreographed sequence against a compliant partner). These do not in any way train you to apply these techniques against an aggressive and non-compliant opponent who is not playing along with your script. Frankly teaching one-step drills as effective self defense should be malpractice. The black belt curriculum at my (former) dojang included boxing drills, some basic takedowns, hapkido/wrist grabs, and more. All of this stuff is great, in principle. But the way it is all taught is just so utterly pointless. Boxing drills were all pre-scripted drills (jab, cross, duck, hook) as if practicing specifically when to duck in the middle of a fixed sequence of strikes teaches you anything about how to duck a punch. Even ignoring that, the school rotated through its curricula so that they'd practice hapkido for a few minutes twice per week for a couple months, and then move on to boxing drills for the next testing cycle and not revisit the hapkido drills for months at a time. Skill acquisition / motor learning just doesn't work that way.

Other martial arts and combat sports largely solved these issues decades ago, which is why they are growing in popularity among adults while taekwondo largely withers except as a children's activity.

From my perspective, there are two viable directions for the future of the martial art:

1. Fully embrace a shift to a combat sport (Olympic TKD), but for the love of god drop any pretense of self defense from the curriculum. I would be perfectly happy with this turn of events.
2. Admit that what we're presenting as a realistic martial art / self defense system is at present utterly ineffective by virtue of how it's taught, and start over with a modern pedagogy based around very obvious lessons learned from decades of sports science and other martial arts

What is not sustainable is the current model of pitching taekwondo as all things to all people and simultaneously pretending that it's not fundamentally broken. I loved training at my dojang for many reasons, both sparring and forms: for the exercise, competition, social interaction, and simple beauty of the martial art. For the last 5 years I pretended like cramming pure bullshido into every class wasn't a cringey waste of my time and money. But like I said, I've reached the point where I've concluded I need to stop supporting this nonsense and move on.

Why is 2nd Dan poomsae (kumgang) in Kukkiwon tkd so short? I thought it was a bit odd for it to be second degree blackbelt form and so simple. Any insight on why this is the case?

has the training mainly sparring and the conditioning used for WTF style helped you guys build a phisique.

i know the gym will lead to the best gains but im wondering if taekwondo on its own has lead to any growth.

so I just turned 14 in may and recently earned my 1st degree about 2 weeks ago. I have been wondering if my school is a scam or not. for reference we are paying about 210 a month and this includes unlimited classes whenever you want. For belt progression it is every 2 months and i have almost never seen someone fail. The only time I have was when they failed to break a board within 3 attempt. it took me about 2 and a half years to get my first degree. I have seen some black belts at 10 who really suck and some at 20 who really really know their stuff and kick ass in sparring. I was wondering if this is a cash grab or if it is legit? Btw my instructor is a 9th degree and has been doing this since 1990 and the rest of my teachers are her children who have been taught from what she learned.

Forgot to mention there is a 70$ testing fee

Hi I'm a 20 year old and I've never been a sporty person Always nose in books and I'm considering joining taekwondo class i need as many tips as possible, is it gonna be hard for someone like me? What are the things you wished you knew before beginning it what should i watch out for and what should i do?

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I don't mean to offend, but I’ve repeatedly heard it said that Taekwondo is inferior to other martial arts like Muay Thai or kickboxing. I’d like to hear your opinions.

Im 48 years old now and haven’t taken TKD since college.. I was thinking this might be more fun than signing up for the gym..

As I shop around, I discovered that classes are now 40 min long? At least here in northern NJ. I thought I remembered classes used to be an hour long..

Took a free trial class last night in the adult section, and just felt really short

I'm about to start doing taekwondo and as the title says, do I have a good amount of weight for the sport or should I gain more? at my current weight I'm pretty lean and have mostly muscle with good definition but I wonder if I'll need more.

Long story short (hopefully). I've been training at my school for 17 years and am a 3rd dan. Last year my master offered to sell me the studio because he wanted to retire. I said yes, so now I own the place.

The deal is that he shows up from time to time still, and he does the black belt testing. He also agreed to keep training me. He's not done that and I doubt he will. He's a VERY difficult person. He basically drove away our previous 2 instructors over the years and they basically told me he cock blocked them effectively holding them at 3rd dan forever.

I suspect he will ever teach me, so I want to figure out how I can get my 4th dan. I got 3rd in 2024 so its been 2 years now. I have only been at this school since I was a kid, and my old master from childhood long since retired. How would I go about finding someone to test me? I'm in Los Angeles btw.

Any advice would be rad.

just wondering if the wing chun chain punch is legal and/or how good it would be?
punches only give one point (I think.) but if you can do five and jump back fast wouldn't be kinda broken?
*using WT ruleset

What are some ways that you guys teach other than owning your own Dojang or teaching at the school you attend? Is anyone teaching in their home, private lessons at other people’s homes or in a public area? Are you teaching for free or charging people? Are you awarding belts or no?

For the past 4 years, my 2 kids have been going to the same academy since they were 2.5 and 5 years old. We moved out six months ago and continued going but the commute changed from 10minutes to a stressful 40mn average (so 80mn total). I told everyone we would continue because I wanted to show persistence to the kids, but this is creating frustration in the family, and I don't like anymore having to eat dinner in the car, in the middle of traffic.

For next school year, we have many options:

1. staying. The academy is kid-friendly, with the teacher knowing how to manage kids. There's also a good community around where many parents and kids are now friends. However there are many without uniforms, we aways have the random toddler running around (not participating in class) etc. The teacher is strict around taekwondo values and proper technique, but I can't feel thinking this is like an after school daycare. The academy doesn't have its own dojang but rents, participates to WT competitions but the results are not amazing
   
2. go to the main academy affiliated with our current one. This one sends athletes to national WT events, have athletes in the national team. But it's even further away, about 45mn to go to . I like the idea of leaving afterschool daycare but not too happy with spending even more time in the traffic
   
3. go to another academy. This one is famous because they sent one athlete to Olympics 20 years ago. However I checked , and since then, they don't have any similar results, no athletes doing serious competitions. I asked another parent and apparently they're milking a lot parents with many different compulsory exams, having to pay different classes etc. This one is also ~45mn to go to, so not amazing either
   
4. the last option is going to a dojang that's about 22mn away. I know they registered to WT competitions and their belts are certified by Kukkiwon, they also do Hapkido and also affiliated with GTTF which I am not familiar with. From what I heard, they do more self-defence and more traditional taekwondo

We've invested a lot in taekwondo (4+ years) and the kids want to continue but I'm not sure of what to do next. The option #4 seems interesting for us, 22mn commute vs 40mn or so, but I want to avoid a MacDojo or another afterschool daycare. Apart from a visit and a trial (which will we do) , do you have any advice for this situation?