April 18

The History of Taekwondo

By Danica

The reason I chose the history of Taekwondo is because I do it and it’s seems like it will be a fun topic to learn about. Taekwondo is a Korean sport. It teaches you self defense. For example if a stranger tries to kidnap you, you can use self defense to get away.

Each belt symbolizes someone’s advancement in Taekwondo. There are many belts in Taekwondo. Here they are in order -white, yellow, purple, orange, orange senior, green, green senior, blue, blue senior, brown, brown senior, red, red senior, and black.

Taekwondo was invented in 2333 B.C about, 4,300 years ago, but the name has only been around since 1955. It was invented in Old Korea. Back then Korea was divided in three parts Koguryo, Paekje, and Silla.

In the classes of Taekwondo when you are a black belt you can choose to be on the demo team or a training assistant. The demo team demonstrates Taekwondo and training assistant helps teach the lower belts Taekwondo.

Taekwondo is one word with several parts to it. The parts are, “Tae” meaning foot, “Kwon” meaning fist, and “Do” meaning “way of”.  So, literally Taekwondo means the way of the foot and fist, but you do not just kick and punch. You also learn values of behavior.

When invented, Taekwondo was considered a self defense encourager. Today Taekwondo is considered a fun sport. Today we still use it for self defense, but it’s more fun and not so strict.