Among the many martial arts styles in this world, Taekwondo is said to be the most systematic and scientific martial arts in Korean traditions. This martial art, originated from South Korea, offers more than just physical fighting skills but it also command high discipline for its practitioners to help enhance their inner spirit by training ones’ body and mind. The word Taekwondo itself has very deep meaning of how the martial art portrays to the world.
In Korean, the word Taekwondo is actually a combination of three words, “Tae” which means to strike with foot, “kwon” means to strike with bare fist, and “do” means the “method” or “way”. And the martial art is literally the direct translation of its meaning. The fighting method of Taekwondo is more focused on empty-handed combat with the use of the whole body to either attack or defend. This martial art is full of kicking, blocking, punching, dodging, and parrying actions with both feet and arms.
In Taekwondo rich 5000 year old history, the martial art has developed and even goes by several aliases such as “Taekkyon” and “Subak”, and was believed to be originated from the kingdom of Koguryo, known by the name of “Sunbae”. Taekwondo was initially taught to potential leaders in the country, to keep them one head above the rest of everyone else.
In time, the Korean fighting style reached practitioners all over the world and has the most number of people practicing it. The rise has resulted in further development of Taekwondo into a few separate fields that merges various combat movement and techniques, sports exercise, philosophy, other than the most important self defense and meditation.
Although Taekwondo is like any other martial arts styles, it is a very different kind of martial arts compared to the other Oriental fighting styles. It emphasizes on combining dynamic and active movements. You can see the movements in Taekwondo competitions when the exponents do not pause or stop their movements, not even for a millisecond when facing an opponent.
This traditional Korean martial art also stresses on uniting the body, life, and mind of the practitioners, whether in the face of danger or during practice. The mind should be harmonized and synchronized with the body to create swift movements. The old teachings of the traditional martial art were based on Five Codes of Human Conduct that was adapted from the Buddhist teachings:
“Be loyal to your country, be obedient to your parents, be trustworthy to your friends, never retreat in battle and never make an unjust kill.”
The modern teachings are a correlation of the five, called Eleven Commandments, injecting faithfulness to one’s spouse, siblings, teachers, spirit, elders, and be loyal to one’s school. The commandments portray how much Taekwondo has its own life and teachings to be adhered by any practitioners all over the world.