Informative Speech on Taekwondo

Informative Speech Taekwondo Introduction Have you ever seen a martial arts demonstration, or hear of a demonstration team? Well, let me start off by telling you what a demonstration, or demo, team is and what they do. A demo team is a group of elite martial artists chosen to represent the school of martial arts to which they attend to the public during martial arts demonstrations. During these demonstrations they perform impressive feats that wow the audience such as, difficult board breaking techniques and impressive techniques learned through the study of the martial art they are representing.

During my high school years I had the pleasure of being one of these elite martial artists. In the demonstrations I participated in I did things from, breaking boards in impressive ways, such as jumping over three people and doing a flying side kick through a board held by someone on the other side of them, to choreographed fighting and even actual sparing. All of these experiences of my were a part of my experience with a martial art known worldwide as taekwondo.

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According to an academic journal titled: 2004 Olympic Tae Kwon Do Athlete Profile written in 2009, “Tae kwon do, a form of Korean martial art originally designed for warfare and self-defense, has in recent times become a well-recognized sport and has become more popular since its official introduction into the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. ” First I’m going to give you a brief history on what Taekwondo is, then I’ll talk to you about what taekwondo is, and finally, I will be sharing what practitioners of taekwondo normally do. Body I.

Tae kwon do was originally designed for use in Korea’s armed forces, but is now practiced worldwide and has become extremely popular as a sport and a way of self defense. A. Shortly after the Japanese occupation of Korea ended in 1945 the South Korean government ordered all of the major martial arts schools in the country to get together and make one universal martial art that they would then begin teaching to their military. B. This style that was made from all the different styles in the country at the time soon became known as taekwondo and quickly gained popularity. II.

So I bet your all wondering what the heck taekwondo means. Well, according to martialartsresource. com, “‘Tae’ means “foot” or “to strike with the feet”. “Kwon” means “hand”, or “to strike with the hand”. “Do” means discipline, art, or way. Hence TaeKwonDo (foot-hand-way) means literally “the art of the feet and the hands” or “the art of kicking and punching”. ” A. Tae kwon do is a marital art that deals primarily with kicking. B. The focus on kicking is designed with the thought in mind that the leg is the longest most powerful weapon a martial artist has at his/her disposal. . This fact means that a martial artist that is very good with his legs can strike an opponent while he is still outside of his opponents range. 2. While remaining outside of your opponent’s rang you can deal highly damaging blows without having to take any powerful blows from your opponent. III. Tae kwon do customs differ slightly depending on where it is taught. A. Tae kwon do practitioners generally practice bare foot and in places like gymnasiums. B.

The uniforms worn by practitioners used to be the kind that you fold over and tie together, but because of the sport-like nature of it these days they uniform style of the V-neck is becoming increasingly popular. C. Practitioners of taekwondo generally take part in sparring matches. 1. There’s a lot of gear you have to wear when sparring, these include: helmet, mouthpiece, chest guard, gloves, cup and shin guards. 2. There are also plenty of rules involved in sparing to make sure it is as safe as it can be. These include: no punching the face, no groin shots, no locks, no clinching, etc.

Conclusion Today we learned that taekwondo is a martial arts style that involves mostly kicks, where it originated, and what some of the customary practices are. One last bit of information I want to leave you with is that, according to the American Taekwondo Association’s Website that was last updated sometime this year, “Taekwondo is currently the most popular martial art in Korea, and ranks among America’s and the world’s most popular martial arts. ” Thank you for listening to my presentation and I hope you all know a little bit more now than you did before.