Taekwondo: The Beginning
About three weeks ago, I enrolled into a Taekwondo dojang, Concord Taekwondo. It is a TKD school that is affiliated with Taekwondo America. It is an ITF based school and as such based on the traditional forms and movements of Taekwondo, rather than the more full contact and legs-centered WTF style of Taekwondo.
I decided to start taking TKD because I felt it would be a good thing to get physically active especially now that I work IT for a fashion company and sit all day. I have always wanted to learn how to properly defend myself in the event of a real fight, rather than the horse play between brothers that I had as a kid.
I am not sure if it is the teaching style of this school or merely how TKD is normally taught, but each session is about 45 minutes to an hour long. I can go to as many sessions as I like, they have no limits. However, after the 10-15 minutes of warm up and stretching at the start of every class, there is only about 30 minutes left in the session to actually be taught things. The different instructors at this school all have different ways of teaching, some more than others sync up with how I learn. Either way, with so little time, a move is shown, we’re walked through how to do it and then we do about 5 repetitions per side of the body with the move. After that, we move on to the next form. It could be because I am a white belt and so don’t know anything about TKD, but there is a lot to learn that they keep giving us. Realizing that I wouldn’t be able to keep up with the different things I needed to learn without practicing at home, I started a journal of sorts.
Essentially, at the end of class, I change back into street clothes and sit at a table in the reception/waiting area outside of the dojang gym area. I’ve been writing the date, and what moves/stances/tips that were given to me during the session down in a notebook. If I can’t remember one or two things, I will go to the instructor and ask. They are always willing to go over something again and take extra time with an individual so that they can learn.
Thus, I find myself here. I’ve decided it might be cool to document what I write down in my logbook on my blog so that if anyone actually reads this thing, they can follow my progress as well. It will also serve to be an online backup of what I write down, with some commentary thrown in. Today, I am going to do a new post for each of the days’ sessions I have been to, so far.