跆拳道 tái quán dào

跆拳道 tái quán dào Tae Kwon Do

A quick background on the sport: Taekwondo originated in Korea and currently stands as their national sport. With loose translation, it means "the way of the foot and fist" or "the way of kicking and punching." The sport highly emphasizes kicking techniques, which distinguishes it from other martial arts. The Koreans think the leg is the longest and strongest weapon and historically they thought the hands were too valuable to be used in combat.  

I've been studying Tae Kwon Do in Feng Yuan, Taiwan just over two months now. Susan and I take class with children ranging from ages 7 to 18 for 4.5 hours 3x a week (we're just so blessed to always be around children). We've had a great time learning different forms and kicks, and harassing the Taiwanese students, but one of the most humorous parts of class is the language barrier between us and our coaches.  

We tested in front of judges a few weeks ago in hopes we could earn our yellow belt. It can be a bit confusing to be given directions in Chinese, but we felt confident with the test. In fact after performing a series of kicks and forms, our coaches had Bai Die (Susan) and Shi Lian Yin (me) stand up and be recognized in front of 50+ students. We're only assuming and hoping he said positive things but it's always hard to tell without knowing Mandarin.

It was just the other day that we finally were able to tie our yellow belts around our white uniforms. 

Now that we have those, we are seemingly never satisfied and are now hoping to earn our blue belts before we leave in a month.