I have been practicing taekwondo for almost two years now and it has been a wonderful experience. When I joined Chung’s Taekwondo Academy, I was already a first degree black belt in Karate and an experienced martial artist. I joined taekwondo in order to gain more experience in martial arts. The basis of Taekwondo is mastering techniques. There are challenging kicks, punches, forms and sparring (combat) which makes taekwondo a whole body exercise. Taekwondo has affected my life in many ways such as teaching me self-discipline and improving my competitiveness.

By learning taekwondo, I have learned a lot about self-discipline. Self-discipline is the creation of new habits to improve myself. Taekwondo has not only improved my physical fitness, but moral development as well. By scheduling time to practice techniques every day, I have improved my time management skills and thereby improved as a person. This skill has also helped me in learning to prioritize in order to reach my goals. When there is a technique that I am unable to initially perform, I make sure that I have time to practice in my schedule. This has also helped in teaching me how to persevere until I reach my goals. Clearly, by practicing taekwondo, I have gained self-discipline.

Taekwondo has also given me a competitive edge. Ever since I was a yellow belt, I have been participating in various taekwondo tournaments. At first, I did not feel very prepared as I did not know what to expect. As time passed, I practiced my tournament forms and board breaking skills more and more until I was confident that I could win a medal. When the time of the actual competition came, I ended up placing gold in forms and silver in breaking.