Jade Jones Wins Gold!

Jade Jones, the Welsh Taekwondo athlete from Britain, went on to steamroll the competition at this year's 2013 Taekwondo German Open. This is a major boost for Jade, who was eliminated in the first round of the previous Swedish Open. At only age 19, it looks like she will be ready and even better than before for the upcoming 2016 Olympics.

Wrestling Removed from Olympics...Taekwondo Next?

            The Olympics have announced the removal of wrestling as an official sport for the next Games. Outrage quickly followed, as wrestling is one of the original Olympics sports. Speculation is that the Olympics is slowly attempting to remove all "violent" sports from their roster, as seen by years of attempted removal of boxing.             


 Taekwondo is also facing elimination. The president of South Korea has personally plead to the Commission to allow the sport to remain. Taekwondo has been a contender for elimination every single year since the it's debut in 1988.

Taekwondo as a Para-Sport?

With numerous other contact sports being promoted in the Paralympics (such as Judo), some athletes are promoting Taekwondo as a sport for the handicapped, and the WTF is eying a new potential audience.

Will Taekwondo ever become a sport for the handicapped? Forms and breaking has been considered, but the handicapped engaging in full-contact sparring has raised some concerns as to participant safety.

Currently, all signs point towards Taekwondo not becoming a Paralympic sport, but time will tell.

Karate Practitioners Have Different Brain Structures

According to the Cerebral Cortex Journal, scientists in Britain have determined that karate practitioners do not purely use brute strength or muscular mass to achieve their concrete-breaking power - rather, through years of practice, their brains have rewired themselves to perfect and repeat the most efficient methods of striking a target.



While the notion of "practice makes perfect" is no new idea, these scientists think they may have found proof of the brain actually changing in physical structure, specifically in the "white matter" area of the brain. Researchers measured punches from a group of karate blackbelts and a group of equally fit athletes. At a distance of 5 centimeters, the karate practitioners could consistently generate a punch with more impact and PPSI (pounds per square inch). It is believed that the brain, aside from having a different structure, also sent signals to develop the nerves that initiated these precise movements to a level of near-perfection.

Kendo Footwork

Here is a treatise on footwork in Kendo. Notice any similarities between this and Taekwondo? Sometimes, it's best to outmaneuver your opponent.

  In Kendo, the Japanese martial art of sword-fighting, the most important thing to know is not how to swing your sword, but how to move your feet.  Good footwork offers more to kenshi that just being able to smoothly maneuver across the dojo floor. It can also bring you into your proper attacking distance with a step, carry you out of danger, or shift your position for the most advantageous strike, all while keeping your body balanced. Good footwork also allows you to put pressure, or seme, on your opponent, and proper footwork is a vital part of achieving zanshin, a state in which your mind and body are working together to put pressure on your opponent while retaining enough flexibility to counterattack.

Footwork begins and ends with the most basic stance in kendo, chudan no kamae. In this stance, the feet are both facing forward, about two fists apart. Slide the left foot back, keeping the leg straight,  until the big toe of the left foot is at the edge of the right foot’s heel. Bring up the heel of your left foot until the ball of your foot is supporting your weight, then bend the right leg slightly.

In order to move, kick off with the left foot, sliding the right foot forward, then bring your left foot back into the starting position. This step is called okuri-ashi, and it is the most basic step in kendo. Taking a step back requires you to push back with your right foot. In all cases, you want to slide your feet along the ground. This deceptively simple step is the basis for the rest of kendo, and kenshi will spend the rest of their kendo career learning how to do it right.

Here is a video of a 5^th dan kenshi demonstrating proper okuri-ashi

Beginning kenshi will often get blisters on their feet as they are getting used to sliding their feet across the floor. This can be painful, but it is also a good learning tool. If a blister forms, make sure it is on the center of the ball of your foot, between the second and third toes. If the blister is closer to your big toe, you need to adjust your stance.

Kendo footwork is a good example of the linear footwork found in Japanese martial arts, including Karate and Judo. The emphasis is on advancing quickly in order to attack, not to mention being able to retreat quickly if you need to. In fact, kendo’s footwork provides a common link between hand-to-hand martial arts and European fencing. In fact, fencing as a sport offers the clearest example of linear footwork since the two opponents only advance and retreat.

When fighting with a sword, nothing is more important than speed, decisiveness, flexibility and balance. With practice, kendo footwork provides the key to all four of these traits. 

Chris Gottschalk is a freelance writer and kendo practitioner. He runs a website at http://chrisgottschalk.info/