As some of you may know from our previous posts, we are currently blue belts in Taekwondo(태권도). When we arrived in Korea and started to ask around about Taekwondo we were surprised to learn that in Korea, it is possible to become a black belt in one year! This was surprising to us due to the fact that in America it typically takes about three years to achieve black belt status. Once we joined our gym we figured out why it takes about a third of the time.
The secret is we go to class four to five nights a week. This is normal in Korea and we actually get a lower grade on attendance if we miss only two classes in a month and a half. In The States people usually attend class two or three nights a week max. This is one of the reasons for the time discrepancy. We have been taking lessons for about 6 months now and are five belts into our ten belt training, so we are half way there. Due to vacations and not coming five nights a week every week, we are guessing it will take us about a year and a half to achieve a black belt. Valerie and I are both so excited about this future achievement and mostly about being able to accomplish it together in the country where the sport originated! Thanks so much for following along on our journey as we work towards this goal together.
The other night I decided it would be fun to do a time lapse recording of our one hour class to share with all of you. Our typical class look like this:
5 mins– Jump rope
10 mins– Stretching, push-ups and sit-ups
10 mins– Form practice (repetitive stances, punching, kicking, blocking)
10 mins– Kicking/Punching paddle
20 mins– Poomsae practice (Specific moves in order. So far we know three forms and are learning the fourth.)
5 mins– Cool down stretching
Enjoy the video!
