Trade the Track Shoes for Taekwondo Belts

Arirang Taekwondo-

While teaching in Seoul, my Korean immersion has extended to studing Marital Arts- Korean Taekwondo, with Round house kicks, wooden board breaking and the 'giant leap frog' excercise.

I have hung up the track spikes and pole vault poles and traded them in for Taekwondo belts. The track skills have carried over well in martial arts!

About 3 times a week I take an hour long subway ride to the north side of Seoul in a neighborhood called Samgakji.
 The Dojang, (no, Dojo is Japanese) is apart of the Korean War Memorial Museum, and the Marital Arts center itself is one large, round room, with a sparring ring in the middle, a platform in the front of the room for demostrations and two huge wooden statues in the front that boarder a Korean flag. The class is made up of eqully Koreans and forigners, and given mostly in English.

Every class begins with a low bow on the hands and knees towards the front of the room, which represents respect for the Masters, the dojang, and the other fighters. A typical class will start with a half hour of warming up and stretching. When I mean stretching, I don’t mean the relaxing, breath in and out type, I mean the painful, people are standing on your back to flatten you on the ground, please-make-it-stop type stretching. We will sit with our legs against the wall in a splits, laying down on the ground and remaining that way till the hips have gone numb. If your legs are not far enough apart to the eyes of the master, he will get a pole and lay it across your feet and push your legs lower. Your groans only make it more enjoyable for him.

After stretching we work on the basic movements which include the stances, kicking techniques, blocks and punches. This is the more relaxing part. The movements done here are slowed down. Even the smallest movement is broken down into simple parts so that the technique is done correctly and safely. Precision is everything; having your leg in the right place and your foot turned in the right angle, every time, is more important than speed in this part of the training.

After about an hour of basic techniques, we move to sparring. Here we either pair up with another fighter or get in a line classified by belt color. We hit targets, or thick leather punching paddles, and practice the basic movements that were broken down earlier in class. This is when speed counts. Sometimes after a tough day of chasing kids around at work, the crack of pummeling a leather target is a very satisfying sound, especially when it echoes throughout the building. Every hit we do must also be accompanied by a yell, or a “ki-Yah,” or a “Hee-Ya.” Sounds seem to differ from fighter to fighter, but I find that the yells coming from the black belts are an intimidating battle cry, while the white belts have more of a forced-laugh sounding “Ha”. Sometimes you can tell someone’s skill level just by listening.

The last half hour of class is spent leaning and perfecting the “Poom-Sae,” or fighting sequences. These are a series of kicks, blocks, and punches that every Taekwondo fighter must memorize. There is a different one for every color belt, and to earn the next belt color, the Poom-Sae must be memorized and preformed according that belt color’s Poom-Sae. I know, funny word.

We then cool down, stretch, (the more relaxing type this time!) and then conclude class the same way we started with a low, kneeling bow. They are very satisfying workouts and I feel so much more flexible as the weeks progress.

Joining this Dojang is one of the best things I have ever done. In my collegiate track career I spent 5 years without an event coach. I spent 5 years coaching myself, writing my own work outs and trying to do the best I could with the situation that was given to me. No one was there to push me, give me advice or tell me just once that I had talent. I broke school records alone. Now I come to a foreign country and partake in its proud national sport. For the first time I have coaches, 4 of them to be exact, pushing me, correcting my every technique, and most all, admiring that I work hard. For years, this is all I wanted to hear. They push me hard and get into my head, and I feed off of it like never before. Its not often a Division I athlete joins the dojang. Especially a Pole Vaulter.

I have traded the track spikes for Taekwondo belts. I think it’s a pretty fair trade off.