After we decided to live in South Korea for 6 months of our trip, there were two things I knew I wanted to do:

1. Learn Korean
2. Take Taekwondo

This post is about the latter and will describe the experience of learning Taekwondo in South Korea.

It took me a month to find a place! Not being able to speak and read Korean made it difficult, but eventually I was successful and found a place less than a 10-minute walk from our apartment. It was an incredible deal; for $100 a month, Monday through Friday, we had class for one-hour and they even provided the awesome uniform for free. I also discovered, after a couple weeks, that you are welcome to class a half-hour early for stretching and additional practice. I had nothing else to do, so I took advantage of this.

The class was made especially interesting due to two facts:

1. No one spoke more than a little broken English. And my Korean has a long way to go before I can have an interesting conversation
2. Everyone but myself was a black belt

The Structure of the Class

There were about 10 core people that regularly came to class.  Despite this being an adult class, I would guess that most of the other students were between 17 and 22. There were also 5-10 additional people that would come every now and then. A few of the “additional” were little kids, around 12. Others were a slightly older and often assisted the teacher while taking the class.

There were two non-Koreans in the class, but the last two weeks they both did not come. They were both older gentlemen, probably in their 50’s – one from Ghana and one from Urguauay. Again, their English was not great either; but of course, they were black belts.

The gym facility’s floor was completely padded and was roughly the size of a basketball court.

There were two teachers for the class. We had a main teacher and then there was the master of the gym. You treat the master with extreme respect. When entering and leaving the gym, it’s customary to go to his office and bow to him saying either hello or goodbye.

A Typical Class

Each class began with reciting something in Korean. I never quite figured out what they were saying. My guess is that there are 3 core rules of Taekwondo which they recited. We would then do a warm-up jog for a couple minutes around the gym, followed by group stretching, push-ups and an abs exercise.

After these core activities, it was a complete crapshoot as to what was coming next. There was really no routine at all to the class, which was fun, because it kept the class fresh.

A common exercise involved performing specific skills across the gym floor. The skills would include running, jumping and different kicks. Another typical exercise had us split into 2 groups. One group would hold a kicking pad (picture to the right), while the other would go down the line practicing a certain type of kick. I always enjoyed this activity because you could kick the pad as hard as possible, rather than just kicking the air.

Towards the end of the month we began to spar regularly. At the beginning they asked me not to participate. They would say “Jason-she” and point to the back of the room, but towards the end of the month they let me participate. Most of the time, sparring was just practice and you didn’t make contact with your partner. But once in a while, they put on a large chest protector and helmet and actually sparred. I never got to participate in this – which was honestly a good thing. Just in practice, I could see the large difference between my ability and theirs. When I made even a small attack, they would quickly respond with a counter to an area I left vulnerable – they were impressively fast.

One of the main things practiced though was a set routine. Learning a routine thoroughly with proper form constituted moving up in belt rank. From what I gathered, there is an initial test which allows you to move from white to yellow belt. After passing the initial test, you begin learning the first of 8 tests. Passing the first 2 tests moves you from a yellow to a blue belt. Passing test 3, 4 and 5 moved you from blue to red. Finally, passing 6, 7 and 8 moved you from red to black.

I was able to pass the initial test and successfully learn the first of the eight tests and so I remain a yellow belt.

Other Random Information

• The two teachers were violent with the kids. The master would typically slap the students on the head, pretty hard, if they did something incorrectly. Thankfully, they did not do this to me.
• Taekwondo is known for its brick breaking, which we practiced. They have practice bricks, made of plastic which break in half. There are bricks with different difficulties and a couple times I practiced breaking the bricks (using the side of my hand). The last day though, the teacher had me punch through a practice brick. I was quite nervous, because using the side of my hand actually hurt. I made solid contact with the brick though and it did not hurt as much as I thought.
• One of the more grueling parts of class came when a student tried to punch through two bricks and repeatedly failed, hurting his fist more and more each time he tried. I’m guessing the rule is if you attempt to break bricks, you continue to try until you actually break them.
• Despite punching bricks, and being regularly kicked and smacked over the head, the students were “babies” in a lot of ways. They would often whine and complain about doing push-ups or sit-ups. And would often be really lazy doing the exercises.
• Most of the students were not very strong, but all had extremely strong cores. They could hardly do 3 pull-ups but could easily do 100 sit-ups, where I would be struggling around 40-50.
• Flexibility is an important part of Taekwondo. There was one day where we partnered up to push each other into an extremely intense stretch. This was the most painful day for me and I paid for it the next day.
• Some of the other activities we did were:
  • Soccer
  • Dodgeball
  • Gymnastics
  • Competing to see who could jump over something
  • Practicing getting out of holds
  • Wrestling against each other
• There were many times when the master and teacher would speak to the class. It was unfortunate that I couldn’t understand, as I’m sure this would help me better understand the thought process and methodologies behind Taekwondo.

As I’m sure you can tell from my enthusiasm, I absolutely loved the class. I wouldn’t classify it as something I was exceptionally good at it, but it was a lot of fun. I gained quite a bit of flexibility, as well as some upper body strength from the pull-ups and push-ups. Our time in Seoul is coming to an end, but I’m looking forward to continue to practice when we move south to Busan.

Filed under: Travel: South Korea