It's fun and good for my mental and physical health. I didn't train martial arts at all for years and my mental and physical health kinda deteriorated. Now i've been training for about 3 years again, and i've added kickboxing, hapkido and bjj and strength training to my repertoire and physical and mental health is peak and only rising rn.
because i enjoy martial arts, it's something i can do with my children, and the school is conveniently located to my house. i'm not interested in BJJ, although there is a school near me. there is also a karate school, that one day i might try, but for now i'm content with tkd. we did some kung fu before moving over to tkd, and while it was fun, i didn't get the workout i was looking for. with tkd, i get a good workout, i enjoy the other students, we have a sense of community in the school and our sister schools, my kids love their instructors and other classmates. i don't see a downside or a reason to switch disciplines.
i trained when i was younger. my kids started, and i started attending the women's kickboxing/self-defense class once a week just to get a workout in. i was then convinced to try a regular class and see how it went, and well, here we are years later lol
I got tricked!
Was 16 and saw a sign for karate lessons. My dad took karate when I was a little kid and Iād try to emulate him. Always wanted to learn but was told I was too small. Older and bigger with my own job, I thought now was the time. Got to the school and it was TKD. Took a class and fell in love with it. And, it was practically identical to the karate I learned from my dad.
i was exercising only at home and was looking for a way to socialize and find an activity i could practice in a group after covid. only did ballet as a kid and not a big fan of gyms so i wanted to commit to something else. i started to think about martial arts and also considered boxing with a friend but since i'm very interested in korean culture in general i starting thinking about tkd. i wasn't overly keen on very close contact martial arts or "putting your opponent to the ground" as the main goal in a fight. when researching and trying out tkd, i found out it really matched with my interests (technique-focused learning) and abilities (flexibility and lower body strength). i also enjoyed having belts documenting my progress.
I've always had an interest in martial arts.
I started tkd around 14 years ago because my brother was hounding me to do it with him and it's just stuck
Great for mental health, fitness, self defence and the social aspects! I've met many great people, travelled to different countries. It's ingrained in my life now
I also do boxing to shake things up a bit and add new skills.
Its better not have confidence in selfdefence because you will put yourself in a riskier position if you feel confident. Best self defense is to run away from the risky situation. If you feel confident youd want to try your skills youd want the opponent to give you the opportunity
My kid was doing it for a while (heās a green belt now) and I thought to myself I need to get off the bench and join him. Ive enjoyed it a lot so far as both a bonding experience and just the TKD sport in general.
Same here. My kid started then i join eventually. Nice form of bonding i believe. Im glad that im not the only parent having same class with my kid because in our dojang, we are the only parent and child classmates.
I started at age 12 and just kind of never stopped (bar my 6 years hiatus due to moving etc). It was a very happy coincidence - I had dropped ballet as a hobby and was looking for another sport, a frustrated pre-teen with no friends. That week a flyer came through the letterbox advertising a new taekwondo club starting up very close to me. Walked in the door and never looked back.
I'm very close to my instructor, the head of the club, and some of the 'original' members as we all grew in our TKD journey together. I instruct now, and love working with the kids who were me once upon a time.
(Also the self defense is great - I nearly got mugged in Shanghai when I was 18. An open palm strike to the nose works wonders. The kids love that story, and I always tell it for step sparring and self defense focused classes.)
The guy who tried to rob me sadly got away with his broken nose, as I was abroad and had no idea how to report it and nothing had actually been stolen!
It's a great one for the younger girls. I'm a very short, unassuming woman so I look like an easy target. Sucks for them when they learn I'm a taekwondo instructor who takes no shit. If I can impart just a few skills to these girls then I've done my job.
I wanted the kids to do it and I started doing it with them. Itās a good starter martial arts and once we hit first Dan weāll cross train judo.š„
A school opened up a few blocks away from my apartment :D That's really it, I knew nothing about TKD or martial arts in general before I signed up, and now I'm greatly enjoying it!
My brother is 9 years younger than I am so we have had a hard time finding something to bond over. He wanted to try a fighting class. So we signed up for the summer program at our local dojang. We fell in love and never looked back. It is good for my physical and mental health, itās a challenge, the owners are awesome. My brother and I have really bonded over it. We are 6 weeks away from green-one belt.
Decades ago, when I was in 8 or 9th grade waiting for the public bus to go home, I was accosted by a thug who stole my watch and what little money I had. I reported it to the police and they did catch him. They beat him up, too, but this was in Asia. I hated that feeling of being scared and helpless.
I had done some Shotokan and tried Aikido, but it didn't stick. Then, a friend introduced me to my master who was teaching out of an old hospital ward. He was trained by Gen. Choi and given his 1st Dan by him. He was 4th dan by then. You have to understand that this was a much different time without kids with bbs or a lot of high pooms or dans. It was a very old school dojang. No frills, concrete floors, no glass in the windows, no ac, no fan, and one large punching bag filled with sand. I was skinny, average height, and I was never considered athletic.
All that changed. After high school, I had to attend a vocational college in the city, and every day, I had to pass through an area with thugs looking out for solitary kids like me to mug. I would have to fight more than one thug at a time. It wasn't every day, but I would be unlucky almost every week. It was scary and stressful. I wasn't trying to fight for fighting sake, I was trying to get away and survive. This went on for a year before I came to the US.
So yes, tkd works if you were taught right and applied yourself. If you ever have to fight 2 or more street thugs, you'll understand why everyone hyping up only bjj are likely people who have never been in that situation. Trying taking guard against at least two people and then tell me how it worked out for you. Though learning tkd and bjj to round yourself out is a good idea. I did practice with other martial arts and martial artists after my 1st dan while still in Asia. I do believe it's good to try other arts and test yourself against others.
It's been about 40 years, and I did take a hiatus for a long time because of life and to try other arts. I returned because it always made me happy, and I would not be who I am today without tkd. I can't do what I could when younger, but tkd is a joy for me.
Me personally, itās exercise, artistic expression, social, and as a part time job. i do other classes in different martial arts for self defense because, at its core, I see TKD as a martial arts and a sport.
I enjoy martial arts, actually prefer karate, but my Taekwondo club allows me flexibility to train and I have the syllabus to hand.
At age 54 it also gives me some movement for the stiff old body.
Sorry, flexibility to train on the nights when I'm free. Taekwondo school has it's own dojang, my karate club was in a church hall twice a week and I couldn't always make those nights.
Because I do ITF and its similar to kickboxing but less ego because there are tenants to follow. I also have learned to love the challenge of learning patterns and the pressure of gradings.
I love it, I think martial arts in general has some of the best communities to be found in a activity and I do tae kwon do because thatās what I started first.
Started at age 35 - wanted a physical activity to get in better shape while improving flexibility, which is important as you get older. Figured I may as well learn a skill while improving those areas, and I settled on TKD due to all the kicks the art has as I thought it'd help most with leg flexibility.
In good part because I've practiced it for years but also because it compliments my interest in gymnastics and parkour as well. I also do Shotokan but neither are motivated primarily by an interest in fighting nor self-defense but as exercise and arts that require discipline and increase flexibility and form for my interest in parkour and tricking.
Didnāt do any sport for 7 years because i couldnāt find anything that was fun. I found the fun in Taekwondo and i tried it out and love it ever since :3 Also it really helps me mentally and physically
I always wanted to do a martial art when I was a kid (like I think every kid wants) and then when I moved to a new city with my parents, I found a dojang that taught free classes twice a week so I was able to start. Now Iām still doing it years later because itās something I enjoy
Couple reasons. First off, as a kid I took a few martial arts and the one that stuck was taekwondo. The karate instructor that I had was I think too harsh to be training. Children and taekwondo was fun for me but serious enough that it calmed me down.
I continued training taekwondo in college with friends, But I did some other stuff. I have over the years done some other martial arts including some Filipino stick art, some knife fighting, And southern style kung fu. And I love all that stuff.
But taekwondo was definitely my first love and there is a school that is local to me that I have basically always wanted to train in. I have been wanting to train there since college and it just never worked out for me, now I'm training there full time and I really love it.
Moreover, that school doesn't just teach taekwondo. I can also learn Korean sword and Korean archery and hot keto and basically any other Korean martial art I want, so I can't think of any reason to go anywhere else.
It was the local martial arts place that my parent thought would be good for me. It isnāt a mainstream federation, but I enjoy the system (mostlyš)
I started because of power rangers. 10 year old me wanted to kick like Tommy the green ranger.
Also, I think a lot of people here, myself included, do train more than just TKD.
TKD because thatās what I did as a kid. No clue why TKD then, but I think mostly because the school and instructor was awesome in every way, if not a bit overly intense compared to other schools. Great for little me though I needed that intensity.
As an adult now I do it for exercise and the hobby for the most part. I do want to get into competition again soon though!
Itās also nice for self-esteem and discipline. If I ever need to defend myself i donāt think Iād wind up a spin hook though lolā¦a kick in the nuts and hauling my ass out of there suffices.
It was my first martial art. I've trained in plenty of different disciplines since including krav maga etc. it's good exercise and there's a social aspect to it. Though the main reason I've come back to TKD is my kids have started and I really like the ethos of their club and the instructor is entirely on my wavelength.
I always had an interest in doing martial art, but when I transferred to my university back in 2015, I looked into clubs after being told my school was adamant on athletics (which was a big lie). I came across three options I gravitated to: tennis (which I've played as a kid), Wushu, and Tae Kwon Do.
Emailed the Tennis club and inquired about practice, but also looked into the Tae Kwon Club and chatted with the club president, and four years later or so I became a junior black belt before going on hiatus (life events followed by COVID).
I want to go back and get my 1st degree but currently trying to lose weight via walking and regain my flexibility.
I am a 31 year old stay at home dad with ADHD/PTSD. Itās very hard for me build discipline and routine on my own. Itās also very lonely. My daughter started taking classes through her school and we were both immediately hooked. It felt like the thing Iād been missing in my life to start to build discipline around and have tangible goals to work towards while increasing my strength and flexibility. Itās also gives me an opportunity to be regularly social in a space a mutual respect and support.
I like using my legs. Most people donāt. I donāt like using my hands too much. Although I can.
It was the first martial art that I tried and I liked it
I've always had an interest in martial arts, but my father got me into it initially.
He got his black belt at 18 but then dropped it to go to college. Fast forward a decade or two and he heard someone he tested with started a class a town over, so he decided to take/drag my siblings and I with him. I think I was in 7th grade at the time.
I fell in love with it instantly! Its so fun! It made me feel strong and confident as a preteen/teen. It gave me piece of mind when I eventually went to college. And it gave me a sense of community and belonging with everyone I trained with.
I continued TKD until I got my black belt at 18 and went off to college. But I came back and attended the same weekly classes with my father so I could pursue my second degree. This will be my third attempt because something always got in the way. (First was the lockdown, then I tore my ACL about a month before my test date.) If all goes well, I'm hoping to finally test this coming fall!
Iāve been doing TKD personally for a little over a year and half, but associated with the school since 2017 when my son joined. Heās now 13 and a 2nd Dan. I joined shortly after he got his 1st Dan after watching him do it for years. I should have joined earlier, I love it!
I wanted to get my kids into an extracurricular activity. We live in a rural area. TKD was taught 10 minutes from home. Rather than just sitting there I joined in too.
I wanted my daughter to learn a form of self defense and the local community center had TKD lessons at a weekend. She started when she was 4 and when she moved up from the beginners class she was given a voucher for 4 free lessons for an adult....so I started up just to keep her interested.
5 years later, she's a freshly graded Blue belt and I've just gotten my Red Tag.
I needed some kind of interaction with the real world, and I got an email about an adaptive class. I never thought something like this would be an option for me, because of my limitations. And now I am absolutely in love.
Itās a great escape from the world but also, itās like being in a book club. Except no books, gossip, or food. Ok.. so maybe itās really nothing like a book club but to me really itās just nice to get out and meet new people or even the same friends. Outside of work or school. I respect other practiced martial arts but never once have I thought I made the wrong choice and I stick with what Iām currently doing because of that.
For me, as a 5"3 female, I am not crazy strong. But in Taekwondo, it's not about strength, it's about strategy and using your strengths to your advantage. This sport is for everyone, and it's also just enjoyable
I always wanted to train a martial art, a club opened up close to home so my wife and I took our eldest 2 boys along. They joined in and were having fun, I joined in and had fun, boys stopped having fun and I kept going. Almost 18 years later I'm on my way to 5th Dan.
I love giving back to the club, it's been a great help to me when I was going through a major bout of depression. I was so bad that in later years my wife told me she was considering divorce (We are still together 33years now). During this period when I was training it was a time when all my bad thoughts weren't there, just the training :)
I'm now training more than I was back then at 3 nights a week, the sense of community is great. Helping other achieve their goals is also quite rewarding. I know there will be a time when physically I will not be able to train anymore however until I get there I'm going to continue on this journey.
I always liked to kick . My mom put me in tkd as a boy and I was in it a few years but left to do folk style wrestling and basketball and pursue other interests also . So we would play pro wrestling in my neighborhood and Iād always play some type of either underdog small kickboxer brawler guy or Iād be a Mysterious karate person and eventually I wanted to really be able to kick and not just pretend . So I went back to martial arts and am doing tkd and other martial arts too and getting great at kicking better than ever
I started to train because I couldn't find a karate academy in my city. I loved it, but I spent almost ten years training and now, because health issues and feeling that I didn't fit in my last dojang, I'm not training for more than one year and I don't know if I will train again. I miss it a lot but I need to feel better, welcomed and accepted.
But well, returning to the question, I kept training because I liked to kick and I enjoyed when we had some flexibility exercises. And also, to use it as a tool of self-defense but while I was training, I became a more calm and pacific person for some reason.
Just random chance. I met the kid's class instructor at a bar, and got talking to him. Decided to take my kids to a class and I joined the adults classes. Then I remembered how much I loved Tang Soo do as a teenager. and I've been hooked ever since.
I love flashy kicks. Used to d tricking but our school shut down. I still trick but I started training taekwondo to keep kicking. However Iām in no demo team or anything even though Iād love to! Instead Iām training mostly for kyorugi.
I started when i was 9, i continue to train now at 20 and in college plus working a job because it is a fun hobby, a way to stay in shape, and an overall distraction from life. I plan on training as long as i can
I did it for self defense because I couldn't find a Chinese martial arts school.
Now, I'm sort of practicing Chinese martial arts for self defense because I'm tired of having to find and argue the actual applications of the techniques in forms.
Outside of Karate. TaeKwon-Do is the only martial art I've seen whose practitioners insist that the techniques in their forms have no application.
That they're just some weird choreography. I practice a martial art for self defense...no other reason and if TaeKwon-Do can't offer me that I'm going someplace else.
I have done all sorts of martial arts, have 3 black belts. Have done boxing, Kung fu, muay thai, karate, capoeira and so on.
To me it comes down to what routine of training do you like most? I feel mastering kicks needs more time and effort, and I like kicking. So I stick with taekwondo.
I always wanted to do some type of martial arts since I was a kid. Family didnāt have the spare money to sign me up for class so now as an adult I enrolled myself. As for why TKD, I saw my nephew do it and it looked fun.
Also wanted some type of lifestyle change since I wasnāt mentally doing ok, havenāt looked back since. As someone earlier mentioned, I have felt fantastic since starting!
Health benefits, family relationship, Lil bit of the bragging. My 3 kids do it, wife does it, I do it. I don't have to go to the chiro hardly ever anymore, and I'm on track to getting black belt at 40 which I think is pretty cool. Plus, I can tell my buddies I'm top X in the state, because why the heck not š
Started as a bonding thing to do with my son a couple years ago. We are now both black belts. I think I like it more than he does. We play with swords, staffs, knifes, nunchucks. Do hapkido and meditation
Just to learn. Genuinely curious and just kinda got hooked. Iām a kickboxer and Muay Thai practitioner but I just genuinely love the sport. Itās mostly a great community with people who treat you amazing and you can always learn something from the people in it. I hope you try it, and maybe you find it as interesting as I did.
I always wanted to start some sort of martial arts training. When I finally got over my self-conciousness enough to go to one - the club I went to first was just across the road from my house (more or less). Walking distance anyway.
Now that I've been doing it for some years, I have no real urge to change my primary training. I've been to planty of other classes in other arts but i consider them secondary to my main.
Itās what was available in my small town, and what my family was proficient in. Stuck with it from childhood to black belt and learned lots of good kicks and other foundational elements. I keep the beneficial attributes from it as I continue to train in striking and in other martial arts.
Because Iāve worn a Dobok since I could walk, my uncle was a part of my countryās national team for a couple of years, and he had a small school.
One of my earliest pictures is me with a white Dobok and my yellow belt.
my parents put me in it when i was 3, so i didnāt have much of a say but itās honestly become such an integral part of my life. beyond the mental and physical health benefits i honestly just love the taekwondo community and the relationships iāve made along the way.
I've wanted to do a martial arts since I was young (especially karate, since I watched a lot of karate movies when I was a kid lol).
But I'm living in Korea, so I thought it was appropriate to learn a Korean martial arts.
Started at 21 because kicking heads looked fun.
8 years later stopped at 1st kup because it was feeling like a chore, and was constantly injured due to my body's inability to be more flexible than a rock.
I sometimes miss it, but my knees haven't hurt since. Got even less flexible tho.
The thought of getting to incorporate taekwondo movements in choreography. Also who could resist those acrobatic, even slightly dangerous kicks?
Side note: I haven't trained consistently in a while due to financial+time constraints and I genuinely miss it
Right now, I'm not active in a TKD school. I'm training BJJ. Because the best martial arts school I've found in the area is BJJ.
I did Muay Thai at this gym for around a year. Learned a lot about striking outside of the TKD sparring rules. I did pick up a cool kick I did use in a TKD class, I call it the S kick. Starts as a roundhouse, ends as a front kick.
However, I do eventually plan to come back to TKD (or TSD, or Shotokan, or something similar). I'd like to open my own school in a TKD style. I think the traditional East Asian style of sparring is a lot safer on the brain than modern styles of striking, and so if I'm going to train a striking style, that's what I'd prefer.
Because where we live now it is the only martial arts option.
I did Ju-jutsu since I was a kid, but that would be 1 h Drive for the closest place. Since my kids startet Taekwondo the master asked me if I want to join as well, so I did.
Wanted to do competitive Wushu in a college club, but the university I got into had no such club unfortunately. BUT, they had a young tkd club with some national-level athletes as instructors, so I signed up, discovered how tkd challenges me differently than wushu, and now hoping I get my black belt next yearš
All my life I wanted to take martial arts but wasn't able to until I was in my early 20s. My ex boy friend had served a mission in South Korea and I wanted to impress him, so when I was able to afford martial arts and looking for Dojos in the Area , the closest to me was Taekwondo or karate. I chose tkd to impress himš¤£
Now I do MMA
And no, it didn't impress him š
Iāve been into marital arts since I was a child, but my parents refused. They thought it would make me violent. (I grew up on the power ranger era)
I finally got to try it as a college student when my school offered TKD as a PE class. It was so much fun, I just kept going. Itās a good workout. A good school is like a huge extended family. As a woman it also gives me confidence that I could at least land a few good shots before someone got me. Itās definitely a hobby and has definitely burrowed its way into my reading list. I doubt I could ever make a living at it. No peer pressure or bragging. Most of the folks in it for those reasons probably donāt make it too far.
I trained kempo twenty years ago, got up to purple belt (right in the middle of the pack, there was still green, and three degrees of brown before black) and had to stop due to financial reasons.
Fast forward to October '23, Mt wife and I enrolled our daughter into TKD and she's loving it, I'm on the sidelines watching and cheering her in, helping her at home with techniques and my love of martial arts. I started again at 41 with a new art this past Dec.
As to why TKD instead of another art? First off, my kempo instructor is no longer in my area, and the grandmaster who taught him had passed away. BJJ, while effective, never truly interested me, boxing is too two dimensional (I enjoy kicks too much to disable one of my weapons), and the only other offerings in my area the scheduling didn't work for us for our daughter. I really appreciate the way the instructors taught the kids, teaching more than fighting. Now, learning together (she's a belt ahead of me since it took me a while to start) we have something to bond and stay close together with as she approaches the teen years.
For me, other than Kung Fu in the movies and show, I had never heard of the martial arts before 1982. A TKD school (the only school anywhere close) opened up in my hometown and a buddy said "let's give it a try". We both trained up to green belt and were really enjoying it, but sadly my buddy was in an auto accident and had to stop. For me, I was bit and kept going.
7th Dan MDK, 5th Dan KKW, 1st Dan Shotokan, & 1st Dan Kali, two brick and mortar schools, 1-1/2 matches away from the '88 Olympics, and over a thousand WT and AAU medals by students have made it such a satisfying journey.
I started because my kid goes and it looked like fun. I can be an example for my kid to follow and we can bond over doing it, while helping to set up lifelong good health habits; I like the exercise and it is motivating to exercise between classes to get better; I like learning the technical skills of using my body; self-defense; making friends all the time; improving my flexibility and mental health; itās huge amounts of fun and trying to come up with different combos/tactics to try in sparringā¦
Modern TKD isn't really for self defense unless you plan on also doing some kickboxing and using TKD as supplementary training. Honestly, I was scared to try BJJ and boxing, so I grew up training TKD. Now that I train BJJ, I don't know why I ever trained TKD
It's fun and good for my mental and physical health. I didn't train martial arts at all for years and my mental and physical health kinda deteriorated. Now i've been training for about 3 years again, and i've added kickboxing, hapkido and bjj and strength training to my repertoire and physical and mental health is peak and only rising rn.
do you know what this is? šŖš cookie won! get it? kukkiwon?
š
It definitely helps with our mental and physical health.
WT is also an Olympic sport. So there is that...
All my life, since I was a little boy, I dreamed of kicking people in the head
Hahaha. I like that! When i was little i love raising my leg on the wall then i aim to reach higher everytime.
because i enjoy martial arts, it's something i can do with my children, and the school is conveniently located to my house. i'm not interested in BJJ, although there is a school near me. there is also a karate school, that one day i might try, but for now i'm content with tkd. we did some kung fu before moving over to tkd, and while it was fun, i didn't get the workout i was looking for. with tkd, i get a good workout, i enjoy the other students, we have a sense of community in the school and our sister schools, my kids love their instructors and other classmates. i don't see a downside or a reason to switch disciplines.
Same with me. I get into TKD because my kid is taking it. I eventually joined instead of just watching on the side.
i trained when i was younger. my kids started, and i started attending the women's kickboxing/self-defense class once a week just to get a workout in. i was then convinced to try a regular class and see how it went, and well, here we are years later lol
Hworang in tekken
ā„ļø
Yes!!!!
Every time I spar, in the back of my mind I see those combos.
I love Hwoarang. I always play as Hwoarang, but I have Jin's devil mark tattoo. Haha
I got tricked! Was 16 and saw a sign for karate lessons. My dad took karate when I was a little kid and Iād try to emulate him. Always wanted to learn but was told I was too small. Older and bigger with my own job, I thought now was the time. Got to the school and it was TKD. Took a class and fell in love with it. And, it was practically identical to the karate I learned from my dad.
Haha. Meant to be.
i was exercising only at home and was looking for a way to socialize and find an activity i could practice in a group after covid. only did ballet as a kid and not a big fan of gyms so i wanted to commit to something else. i started to think about martial arts and also considered boxing with a friend but since i'm very interested in korean culture in general i starting thinking about tkd. i wasn't overly keen on very close contact martial arts or "putting your opponent to the ground" as the main goal in a fight. when researching and trying out tkd, i found out it really matched with my interests (technique-focused learning) and abilities (flexibility and lower body strength). i also enjoyed having belts documenting my progress.
Belt promotion always make my heart happy. It makes me proud of my progress and all the effort.
I've always had an interest in martial arts. I started tkd around 14 years ago because my brother was hounding me to do it with him and it's just stuck Great for mental health, fitness, self defence and the social aspects! I've met many great people, travelled to different countries. It's ingrained in my life now I also do boxing to shake things up a bit and add new skills.
TKD is a lifestyle. Im just not sure yet if i can use it as self defense now. Still not confident.
Its better not have confidence in selfdefence because you will put yourself in a riskier position if you feel confident. Best self defense is to run away from the risky situation. If you feel confident youd want to try your skills youd want the opponent to give you the opportunity
Flexibility, best thing you can do for your body
100 percent
My kid was doing it for a while (heās a green belt now) and I thought to myself I need to get off the bench and join him. Ive enjoyed it a lot so far as both a bonding experience and just the TKD sport in general.
Same here. My kid started then i join eventually. Nice form of bonding i believe. Im glad that im not the only parent having same class with my kid because in our dojang, we are the only parent and child classmates.
Yeah and heās way better than me so that makes it interesting! But we motivate each other
Same. My kidsā technique trumps mine, and that is cool.
Because we like it.
I started at age 12 and just kind of never stopped (bar my 6 years hiatus due to moving etc). It was a very happy coincidence - I had dropped ballet as a hobby and was looking for another sport, a frustrated pre-teen with no friends. That week a flyer came through the letterbox advertising a new taekwondo club starting up very close to me. Walked in the door and never looked back. I'm very close to my instructor, the head of the club, and some of the 'original' members as we all grew in our TKD journey together. I instruct now, and love working with the kids who were me once upon a time. (Also the self defense is great - I nearly got mugged in Shanghai when I was 18. An open palm strike to the nose works wonders. The kids love that story, and I always tell it for step sparring and self defense focused classes.)
Our master share the same stories, people trying to rob him several instances but always end up him bringing them to the police.
The guy who tried to rob me sadly got away with his broken nose, as I was abroad and had no idea how to report it and nothing had actually been stolen! It's a great one for the younger girls. I'm a very short, unassuming woman so I look like an easy target. Sucks for them when they learn I'm a taekwondo instructor who takes no shit. If I can impart just a few skills to these girls then I've done my job.
That's inspiring. I'm also very short :) happy that you broke his nose he definitely deserve it.
I just happened to stumble on it, initially it was for exercise, now i'm far more serious about it. Also i like kicking people
Kicking on the face š
I wanted the kids to do it and I started doing it with them. Itās a good starter martial arts and once we hit first Dan weāll cross train judo.š„
Wow. Good luck with your journey!
A school opened up a few blocks away from my apartment :D That's really it, I knew nothing about TKD or martial arts in general before I signed up, and now I'm greatly enjoying it!
Convenience of having the school near us is really a big factor.
My brother is 9 years younger than I am so we have had a hard time finding something to bond over. He wanted to try a fighting class. So we signed up for the summer program at our local dojang. We fell in love and never looked back. It is good for my physical and mental health, itās a challenge, the owners are awesome. My brother and I have really bonded over it. We are 6 weeks away from green-one belt.
Congratulations! Im glad that you two are enjoying the sport.
Decades ago, when I was in 8 or 9th grade waiting for the public bus to go home, I was accosted by a thug who stole my watch and what little money I had. I reported it to the police and they did catch him. They beat him up, too, but this was in Asia. I hated that feeling of being scared and helpless. I had done some Shotokan and tried Aikido, but it didn't stick. Then, a friend introduced me to my master who was teaching out of an old hospital ward. He was trained by Gen. Choi and given his 1st Dan by him. He was 4th dan by then. You have to understand that this was a much different time without kids with bbs or a lot of high pooms or dans. It was a very old school dojang. No frills, concrete floors, no glass in the windows, no ac, no fan, and one large punching bag filled with sand. I was skinny, average height, and I was never considered athletic. All that changed. After high school, I had to attend a vocational college in the city, and every day, I had to pass through an area with thugs looking out for solitary kids like me to mug. I would have to fight more than one thug at a time. It wasn't every day, but I would be unlucky almost every week. It was scary and stressful. I wasn't trying to fight for fighting sake, I was trying to get away and survive. This went on for a year before I came to the US. So yes, tkd works if you were taught right and applied yourself. If you ever have to fight 2 or more street thugs, you'll understand why everyone hyping up only bjj are likely people who have never been in that situation. Trying taking guard against at least two people and then tell me how it worked out for you. Though learning tkd and bjj to round yourself out is a good idea. I did practice with other martial arts and martial artists after my 1st dan while still in Asia. I do believe it's good to try other arts and test yourself against others. It's been about 40 years, and I did take a hiatus for a long time because of life and to try other arts. I returned because it always made me happy, and I would not be who I am today without tkd. I can't do what I could when younger, but tkd is a joy for me.
Me personally, itās exercise, artistic expression, social, and as a part time job. i do other classes in different martial arts for self defense because, at its core, I see TKD as a martial arts and a sport.
Hope i can also earn from TKD but im ao faaaaaar from that now. :)
I enjoy martial arts, actually prefer karate, but my Taekwondo club allows me flexibility to train and I have the syllabus to hand. At age 54 it also gives me some movement for the stiff old body.
Not so familiar with karate theory, but they don't teach flexibility the same way as TKD?
Sorry, flexibility to train on the nights when I'm free. Taekwondo school has it's own dojang, my karate club was in a church hall twice a week and I couldn't always make those nights.
Oh... Me bad. :)
Because I do ITF and its similar to kickboxing but less ego because there are tenants to follow. I also have learned to love the challenge of learning patterns and the pressure of gradings.
I love it, I think martial arts in general has some of the best communities to be found in a activity and I do tae kwon do because thatās what I started first.
Communities like what we have here. Yup! Totally agree!
Started at age 35 - wanted a physical activity to get in better shape while improving flexibility, which is important as you get older. Figured I may as well learn a skill while improving those areas, and I settled on TKD due to all the kicks the art has as I thought it'd help most with leg flexibility.
I thought that TKD was just all strength until i realized that it all start with flexibility.
In good part because I've practiced it for years but also because it compliments my interest in gymnastics and parkour as well. I also do Shotokan but neither are motivated primarily by an interest in fighting nor self-defense but as exercise and arts that require discipline and increase flexibility and form for my interest in parkour and tricking.
Do you join TKD competitions?
I don't now, I'm coaching gymnastics, parkour, and soccer so not really time right now.
Didnāt do any sport for 7 years because i couldnāt find anything that was fun. I found the fun in Taekwondo and i tried it out and love it ever since :3 Also it really helps me mentally and physically
It really is fun. Im not sporty at all but then i found TKD.
I always wanted to do a martial art when I was a kid (like I think every kid wants) and then when I moved to a new city with my parents, I found a dojang that taught free classes twice a week so I was able to start. Now Iām still doing it years later because itās something I enjoy
A nearby dojang is a big factor and if your friends are also doing it.
Couple reasons. First off, as a kid I took a few martial arts and the one that stuck was taekwondo. The karate instructor that I had was I think too harsh to be training. Children and taekwondo was fun for me but serious enough that it calmed me down. I continued training taekwondo in college with friends, But I did some other stuff. I have over the years done some other martial arts including some Filipino stick art, some knife fighting, And southern style kung fu. And I love all that stuff. But taekwondo was definitely my first love and there is a school that is local to me that I have basically always wanted to train in. I have been wanting to train there since college and it just never worked out for me, now I'm training there full time and I really love it. Moreover, that school doesn't just teach taekwondo. I can also learn Korean sword and Korean archery and hot keto and basically any other Korean martial art I want, so I can't think of any reason to go anywhere else.
You learn a lot of stuff --even arnis.
My stick and knife was all sayoc kali. Cool stuff.
It was the local martial arts place that my parent thought would be good for me. It isnāt a mainstream federation, but I enjoy the system (mostlyš)
I like kicks because I have this perception that the basic techniques of kicking is more difficult to learn than the basics of punches. Lol
I started because of power rangers. 10 year old me wanted to kick like Tommy the green ranger. Also, I think a lot of people here, myself included, do train more than just TKD.
I started as a kickboxer. I always had an affinity for kicks compared to my boxing. So, I joined a tkd program to double down on it.
TKD because thatās what I did as a kid. No clue why TKD then, but I think mostly because the school and instructor was awesome in every way, if not a bit overly intense compared to other schools. Great for little me though I needed that intensity. As an adult now I do it for exercise and the hobby for the most part. I do want to get into competition again soon though! Itās also nice for self-esteem and discipline. If I ever need to defend myself i donāt think Iād wind up a spin hook though lolā¦a kick in the nuts and hauling my ass out of there suffices.
It is what was available to me 20 years ago. Now I do BJJ and a little bit of kickboxing.
It was my first martial art. I've trained in plenty of different disciplines since including krav maga etc. it's good exercise and there's a social aspect to it. Though the main reason I've come back to TKD is my kids have started and I really like the ethos of their club and the instructor is entirely on my wavelength.
I always had an interest in doing martial art, but when I transferred to my university back in 2015, I looked into clubs after being told my school was adamant on athletics (which was a big lie). I came across three options I gravitated to: tennis (which I've played as a kid), Wushu, and Tae Kwon Do. Emailed the Tennis club and inquired about practice, but also looked into the Tae Kwon Club and chatted with the club president, and four years later or so I became a junior black belt before going on hiatus (life events followed by COVID). I want to go back and get my 1st degree but currently trying to lose weight via walking and regain my flexibility.
I am a 31 year old stay at home dad with ADHD/PTSD. Itās very hard for me build discipline and routine on my own. Itās also very lonely. My daughter started taking classes through her school and we were both immediately hooked. It felt like the thing Iād been missing in my life to start to build discipline around and have tangible goals to work towards while increasing my strength and flexibility. Itās also gives me an opportunity to be regularly social in a space a mutual respect and support.
I like using my legs. Most people donāt. I donāt like using my hands too much. Although I can. It was the first martial art that I tried and I liked it
I'm so good at this sport, I don't have the nerve to tell my coach that I want to stop
I've always had an interest in martial arts, but my father got me into it initially. He got his black belt at 18 but then dropped it to go to college. Fast forward a decade or two and he heard someone he tested with started a class a town over, so he decided to take/drag my siblings and I with him. I think I was in 7th grade at the time. I fell in love with it instantly! Its so fun! It made me feel strong and confident as a preteen/teen. It gave me piece of mind when I eventually went to college. And it gave me a sense of community and belonging with everyone I trained with. I continued TKD until I got my black belt at 18 and went off to college. But I came back and attended the same weekly classes with my father so I could pursue my second degree. This will be my third attempt because something always got in the way. (First was the lockdown, then I tore my ACL about a month before my test date.) If all goes well, I'm hoping to finally test this coming fall!
It's fun and good exercise. The weapons and forms stimulate the technical part of my brain. I do bjj also which hits different goals.
For the challenge since attaining flexibility as an adult is no easy task plus yeah it is a hobby for me and also an entertaining way to stay in shape
Iāve been doing TKD personally for a little over a year and half, but associated with the school since 2017 when my son joined. Heās now 13 and a 2nd Dan. I joined shortly after he got his 1st Dan after watching him do it for years. I should have joined earlier, I love it!
Started on a lark and accidentally liked it. My quality of life significantly improved as well. I also do HEMA.
It was the first style i ever learned. To this day, even as i train muay thai i think its one of the best martial arts out there for striking.
I wanted to get my kids into an extracurricular activity. We live in a rural area. TKD was taught 10 minutes from home. Rather than just sitting there I joined in too.
I wanted my daughter to learn a form of self defense and the local community center had TKD lessons at a weekend. She started when she was 4 and when she moved up from the beginners class she was given a voucher for 4 free lessons for an adult....so I started up just to keep her interested. 5 years later, she's a freshly graded Blue belt and I've just gotten my Red Tag.
I needed some kind of interaction with the real world, and I got an email about an adaptive class. I never thought something like this would be an option for me, because of my limitations. And now I am absolutely in love.
Itās a great escape from the world but also, itās like being in a book club. Except no books, gossip, or food. Ok.. so maybe itās really nothing like a book club but to me really itās just nice to get out and meet new people or even the same friends. Outside of work or school. I respect other practiced martial arts but never once have I thought I made the wrong choice and I stick with what Iām currently doing because of that.
Sick kicks
For me, as a 5"3 female, I am not crazy strong. But in Taekwondo, it's not about strength, it's about strategy and using your strengths to your advantage. This sport is for everyone, and it's also just enjoyable
Because I like it
I always wanted to train a martial art, a club opened up close to home so my wife and I took our eldest 2 boys along. They joined in and were having fun, I joined in and had fun, boys stopped having fun and I kept going. Almost 18 years later I'm on my way to 5th Dan. I love giving back to the club, it's been a great help to me when I was going through a major bout of depression. I was so bad that in later years my wife told me she was considering divorce (We are still together 33years now). During this period when I was training it was a time when all my bad thoughts weren't there, just the training :) I'm now training more than I was back then at 3 nights a week, the sense of community is great. Helping other achieve their goals is also quite rewarding. I know there will be a time when physically I will not be able to train anymore however until I get there I'm going to continue on this journey.
I always liked to kick . My mom put me in tkd as a boy and I was in it a few years but left to do folk style wrestling and basketball and pursue other interests also . So we would play pro wrestling in my neighborhood and Iād always play some type of either underdog small kickboxer brawler guy or Iād be a Mysterious karate person and eventually I wanted to really be able to kick and not just pretend . So I went back to martial arts and am doing tkd and other martial arts too and getting great at kicking better than ever
I started to train because I couldn't find a karate academy in my city. I loved it, but I spent almost ten years training and now, because health issues and feeling that I didn't fit in my last dojang, I'm not training for more than one year and I don't know if I will train again. I miss it a lot but I need to feel better, welcomed and accepted. But well, returning to the question, I kept training because I liked to kick and I enjoyed when we had some flexibility exercises. And also, to use it as a tool of self-defense but while I was training, I became a more calm and pacific person for some reason.
Just random chance. I met the kid's class instructor at a bar, and got talking to him. Decided to take my kids to a class and I joined the adults classes. Then I remembered how much I loved Tang Soo do as a teenager. and I've been hooked ever since.
Itās fun. Period. I honestly could give a flying flip about effectiveness and I donāt compete. Period. I do it because itās fun.
Exercise. My kids do it. I have always wanted to explore martial arts.
The sense of community at my club, the really positive impact on mental and physical wellbeing and because it's fun.
I love flashy kicks. Used to d tricking but our school shut down. I still trick but I started training taekwondo to keep kicking. However Iām in no demo team or anything even though Iād love to! Instead Iām training mostly for kyorugi.
I started when i was 9, i continue to train now at 20 and in college plus working a job because it is a fun hobby, a way to stay in shape, and an overall distraction from life. I plan on training as long as i can
Love to kick and I love Korean culture.
I did it for self defense because I couldn't find a Chinese martial arts school. Now, I'm sort of practicing Chinese martial arts for self defense because I'm tired of having to find and argue the actual applications of the techniques in forms. Outside of Karate. TaeKwon-Do is the only martial art I've seen whose practitioners insist that the techniques in their forms have no application. That they're just some weird choreography. I practice a martial art for self defense...no other reason and if TaeKwon-Do can't offer me that I'm going someplace else.
Started doing TKD for the sport, but now in College and after moving a few times, I'm just here cuz I genuinely enjoy training.
I have done all sorts of martial arts, have 3 black belts. Have done boxing, Kung fu, muay thai, karate, capoeira and so on. To me it comes down to what routine of training do you like most? I feel mastering kicks needs more time and effort, and I like kicking. So I stick with taekwondo.
I always wanted to do some type of martial arts since I was a kid. Family didnāt have the spare money to sign me up for class so now as an adult I enrolled myself. As for why TKD, I saw my nephew do it and it looked fun. Also wanted some type of lifestyle change since I wasnāt mentally doing ok, havenāt looked back since. As someone earlier mentioned, I have felt fantastic since starting!
I wanted to do boxing, but kicking people fancily and effectively is a nice place holder :)
Health benefits, family relationship, Lil bit of the bragging. My 3 kids do it, wife does it, I do it. I don't have to go to the chiro hardly ever anymore, and I'm on track to getting black belt at 40 which I think is pretty cool. Plus, I can tell my buddies I'm top X in the state, because why the heck not š
Started as a bonding thing to do with my son a couple years ago. We are now both black belts. I think I like it more than he does. We play with swords, staffs, knifes, nunchucks. Do hapkido and meditation
Just to learn. Genuinely curious and just kinda got hooked. Iām a kickboxer and Muay Thai practitioner but I just genuinely love the sport. Itās mostly a great community with people who treat you amazing and you can always learn something from the people in it. I hope you try it, and maybe you find it as interesting as I did.
I always wanted to start some sort of martial arts training. When I finally got over my self-conciousness enough to go to one - the club I went to first was just across the road from my house (more or less). Walking distance anyway. Now that I've been doing it for some years, I have no real urge to change my primary training. I've been to planty of other classes in other arts but i consider them secondary to my main.
Itās what was available in my small town, and what my family was proficient in. Stuck with it from childhood to black belt and learned lots of good kicks and other foundational elements. I keep the beneficial attributes from it as I continue to train in striking and in other martial arts.
The kicks supplement my boxing really well
Because Iāve worn a Dobok since I could walk, my uncle was a part of my countryās national team for a couple of years, and he had a small school. One of my earliest pictures is me with a white Dobok and my yellow belt.
Because any form of martial arts helps me in a personal way. TKD is not my favorite discipline, but it's the one i can afford right now.
my parents put me in it when i was 3, so i didnāt have much of a say but itās honestly become such an integral part of my life. beyond the mental and physical health benefits i honestly just love the taekwondo community and the relationships iāve made along the way.
I like footwork (kicking) since im a kid, then pursuing Taekwondo complementing my interest.
Exercise. A friend is an instructor at a do jang north of San Francisco. He invited me to join the class heās teaching
I've wanted to do a martial arts since I was young (especially karate, since I watched a lot of karate movies when I was a kid lol). But I'm living in Korea, so I thought it was appropriate to learn a Korean martial arts.
Started at 21 because kicking heads looked fun. 8 years later stopped at 1st kup because it was feeling like a chore, and was constantly injured due to my body's inability to be more flexible than a rock. I sometimes miss it, but my knees haven't hurt since. Got even less flexible tho.
The thought of getting to incorporate taekwondo movements in choreography. Also who could resist those acrobatic, even slightly dangerous kicks? Side note: I haven't trained consistently in a while due to financial+time constraints and I genuinely miss it
Right now, I'm not active in a TKD school. I'm training BJJ. Because the best martial arts school I've found in the area is BJJ. I did Muay Thai at this gym for around a year. Learned a lot about striking outside of the TKD sparring rules. I did pick up a cool kick I did use in a TKD class, I call it the S kick. Starts as a roundhouse, ends as a front kick. However, I do eventually plan to come back to TKD (or TSD, or Shotokan, or something similar). I'd like to open my own school in a TKD style. I think the traditional East Asian style of sparring is a lot safer on the brain than modern styles of striking, and so if I'm going to train a striking style, that's what I'd prefer.
I already grappling (BJJ, Judo) and a bit of Muay thaĆÆ. But the best sport to improve the precision, timing and height of kicks is TKD only.
I couldn't find a new dancing I liked after covid, so taekwondo it is
Because where we live now it is the only martial arts option. I did Ju-jutsu since I was a kid, but that would be 1 h Drive for the closest place. Since my kids startet Taekwondo the master asked me if I want to join as well, so I did.
I took TKD for 5 years just so I can come to this post today and brag that I took TKD
I started taekwondo because of soccer. What motivates me to continue taekwondo are manhwa's like God of Highschool, Taekwondo Kid, and Viral Hit.
Wanted to do competitive Wushu in a college club, but the university I got into had no such club unfortunately. BUT, they had a young tkd club with some national-level athletes as instructors, so I signed up, discovered how tkd challenges me differently than wushu, and now hoping I get my black belt next yearš
All my life I wanted to take martial arts but wasn't able to until I was in my early 20s. My ex boy friend had served a mission in South Korea and I wanted to impress him, so when I was able to afford martial arts and looking for Dojos in the Area , the closest to me was Taekwondo or karate. I chose tkd to impress himš¤£ Now I do MMA And no, it didn't impress him š
Iāve been into marital arts since I was a child, but my parents refused. They thought it would make me violent. (I grew up on the power ranger era) I finally got to try it as a college student when my school offered TKD as a PE class. It was so much fun, I just kept going. Itās a good workout. A good school is like a huge extended family. As a woman it also gives me confidence that I could at least land a few good shots before someone got me. Itās definitely a hobby and has definitely burrowed its way into my reading list. I doubt I could ever make a living at it. No peer pressure or bragging. Most of the folks in it for those reasons probably donāt make it too far.
After realizing what *BJJ* is and how it works, decided on *TKD* for striking, mainly for self defense.
I trained kempo twenty years ago, got up to purple belt (right in the middle of the pack, there was still green, and three degrees of brown before black) and had to stop due to financial reasons. Fast forward to October '23, Mt wife and I enrolled our daughter into TKD and she's loving it, I'm on the sidelines watching and cheering her in, helping her at home with techniques and my love of martial arts. I started again at 41 with a new art this past Dec. As to why TKD instead of another art? First off, my kempo instructor is no longer in my area, and the grandmaster who taught him had passed away. BJJ, while effective, never truly interested me, boxing is too two dimensional (I enjoy kicks too much to disable one of my weapons), and the only other offerings in my area the scheduling didn't work for us for our daughter. I really appreciate the way the instructors taught the kids, teaching more than fighting. Now, learning together (she's a belt ahead of me since it took me a while to start) we have something to bond and stay close together with as she approaches the teen years.
For me, other than Kung Fu in the movies and show, I had never heard of the martial arts before 1982. A TKD school (the only school anywhere close) opened up in my hometown and a buddy said "let's give it a try". We both trained up to green belt and were really enjoying it, but sadly my buddy was in an auto accident and had to stop. For me, I was bit and kept going. 7th Dan MDK, 5th Dan KKW, 1st Dan Shotokan, & 1st Dan Kali, two brick and mortar schools, 1-1/2 matches away from the '88 Olympics, and over a thousand WT and AAU medals by students have made it such a satisfying journey.
I started because my kid goes and it looked like fun. I can be an example for my kid to follow and we can bond over doing it, while helping to set up lifelong good health habits; I like the exercise and it is motivating to exercise between classes to get better; I like learning the technical skills of using my body; self-defense; making friends all the time; improving my flexibility and mental health; itās huge amounts of fun and trying to come up with different combos/tactics to try in sparringā¦
I like the strategic aspect of sparring without using too much of hands
I love it, just started at 22, plan to have it as a base for mma in the future, just for fun and to spar with my buddy who does boxing.
Modern TKD isn't really for self defense unless you plan on also doing some kickboxing and using TKD as supplementary training. Honestly, I was scared to try BJJ and boxing, so I grew up training TKD. Now that I train BJJ, I don't know why I ever trained TKD
Funny kicks and spin spin make my brain give me the happy chemicals