Taekwondo

Taekwondo is a modern martial art characterized by it's fast, high and spinning kicks. The name Taekwondo means: Tae='to strike, or block with the foot' or 'to kick' and it also means 'jump', K'won='Fist' or 'to strike, or block with hand' and Do='The way of' or 'art'. Take this together and Taekwondo means: "The art of Kicking and Punching" or "The art of unarmed combat".

Taekwondo originated from a traditional korean Martial art, and now it takes a prominent position as an international sport and became one of the official sports in the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games.

 In recent decades, Taekwondo as a martial art contributes to improve the quality of human life since it offers a pleasure of learning the self-defence skills and distinctive characteristics, mental disciplines and philosophical behaviour. All of its activities are based on defensive spirit since Taekwondo was developed as a defence against enemy attacks.

 In old days people living simple lives lacked physical fitness and their body became bent in their old age. Taekwondo also served to improve health, physical fitness and poise of the people practicing it. Our beliefis that Taekwondo-trained men are self-confident , not only in physical aspects but also in their mental discipline, because they have developed superior techniques for personal defence by using their entire bodies.

 For a Taekwondo man, his entire body is a weapon, and he is easily able to attack and beat off an aggressor with hands, fists, elbows, knees, feet or any other part of his body.There is no use of weapons in Taekwondo. The opponent is attacked with bare hands and feet.

Taekwondo has become popular because its a very powerful sport and very spectacular to see. In 1973, the World Taekwondo Federation (W.T.F.) was founded. In 1980, W.T.F. Taekwondo was recognized by the International Olympic Committee (I.O.C.) and became a demonstration sport at the Olympics in 1988. There were several attempts to unify I.T.F. and W.T.F. Taekwondo, but unfortunately, these failed. Eventually, in the year 2000 W.T.F. Taekwondo became an official sport in the Sydney Olympic Games.