Many things have been said about different training’s procedures. Vast majority put a great emphasis on their sport application, letting see a fantasy in it successful application and putting again the cart before the horses. The excessive way of seeking sport’s success has led to a modification of the training system and the way of instructing discipline. In the current way of teaching, important factors for the student’s evolution are ignored.
The unequivocal statistic that only 20% of students are interested in participating in sports competition has been set aside. This fact shows us that the remaining 80% are forced to train unintended goals. Among the factors that have ceased to be considered in training and even in courses and seminars, are the age and physical structure of the students.
On many occasions they are required to achieve things that they are unable to obtain: acrobatics with consecutive turns and repetitive kicks that are used in the Olympic system that use the same name but without practical application in self-defense. To apply with it some training systems that are foreign to this art have been incorporated without necessity with the illusion of improving the performance of the students: jumping on car tires or small obstacles consecutively, etc.
Gen. Choi refers to the obligatory need to consider the personal conditions of each individual in the learning process and developing Taekwon-Do techniques, to such an extent that he advises adapting the patterns (tul) to the possibilities of the student and not vice versa (Vol. 1 page 76 of the Encyclopedia of his authorship). Curiously, and having been his translator in more than 10 International Instructor Seminars among many other events, he never did any reference to the benefits of sports free combat, in fact, he considered it absurd and lacking of experience to teach technical combinations for that type of combat.
This is understandable due the physical difference and receptiveness of the participants that could be very notorious. An exercise of exclusive sporting application for free combat confrontations should not be unified in an order. Unifying combinations of legs and hands without considering the physical differences of the participants should be avoided. If you have among your students in your class or in a course several persons who are over fifty years of age and other of different ages but younger than these, it is improper and ineffective to demand an imitation of a technical combination that could be performed by younger people but not by the older. The same criterion is applicable for different physical structures and weights beyond their age.
Taekwon-Do is a martial art and as such, demands rigorous and specific training for the effectiveness of its achievements. This training is indicated and pre-established for a gradual growth of the psychophysical possibilities of people of both sexes who have decided to be part of this discipline.
Nowadays, the sporting aspect has been developed excessively. The true essence of the martial art and the training that it demands for its objectives, have been left aside.
Why follow the system?
Because you’ll find that the training proposed by its founder entails a different use of the personal possibilities of each student.
Training and strengthening the different parts of the body is undoubtedly a basic requirement. Nowadays it has become fashionable to train only what is related to sports combat, avoiding everything inherent to the martial art in its different aspects and psychophysical rigors, necessary for a successful self-defense. The system has been proposing this since its inception but has been ignored.
Sports’ training only aims to improve performance in this exclusive field.
SGM Ricardo Desimone
To be aware read again the previous notes