If you ever make the decision to pursue a Tae Kwon Do, it also comes with plenty of health benefits. Strengthening mind and body techniques for better self-confidence, overall fitness, and discipline, Tae Kwon Do, a Korean martial art, has a style that can have more health benefits than you may think.
Tae Kwon Do comes from the words Tae, “foot” ” Kwon, “hand” and Do “art”. The combination of these words translates to “The way of the hand and foot.” These words define this Korean art.
This style martial arts is effective in self-defense and also a great art to watch. However, the training in this art will help strengthen your physical and mental abilities.
Strengthening the Body
Tae Kwon Do can be a high-impact workout that uses every muscle group in the body. Your endurance, flexibility, muscle tone, strength and balance will improve through training.
Most classes start with a short meditation to focus the mind on training. Warm up is then followed by thorough stretching and warming of the muscle groups. Parts of the warm up may include rapid executions of punch and kick combinations.
Once training starts you are taught techniques according to your rank and ability to execute them. These techniques include punches, kicks, combos of different types, blocks, and stances. while performing these actions you will be using multiple muscle groups along with learning to properly control these movements which is great for your core.
Strengthening the Mind
Mental training is just as important, if not more than the physical aspect of the arts. Let us just touch on two aspects of this mental training, respect, and discipline. First looking at the meaning of martial arts which can be defined as “military arts”. So as in the military, you salute your officers and in the arts, you would bow.
Bowing is the first and foremost sign of respect and discipline. Black belts represent your officers so when addressed its “yes sir” “no sir” or “yes ma’am” “no ma’am followed by a bow. Structuring like this is just a small part of the foundation of learning Tae Kwon Do as well as other arts.
Coupled with proper training, the physical and mental aspects of Tae Kwon Do is a great way to boost self-confidence, build inner strength, and overall make you a more healthy person. So if you ever want to push yourself to try something new or add to your physical training give Tae Kwon Do a try. The hardest part is just walking through the door of your new dojo. It can be that one big step that could be a positive change in many areas of your life.