Basic Olympic Taekwondo

Jonathan Reff: Hi, there, my name is Jonathan Reff and we are here at Somafit. Today, we have a great video series going on Olympic Taekwondo we will soon find out. Today, on this series, I am going to over basic techniques, foot work, we will go over some kicks starting with the roundhouse kick. We are going to show you some jumps, more advanced jump kicks with the roundhouse, we are going to go over axe kick. We will do the same with axe kick and show you a more advanced version. We are going to then go to cut kicks, we will go to back kicks, a spinning hook kick and then at the end finish off with some spiraling and show you a practical use of how one might execute those kicks and bring them together functionally.

Olympic Taekwondo is predominantly a kicking art and very famous for a powerful, very quick and is set with the kicks. Now, the kicks can go from the waist up, legal target area or scoured target areas from the waist up, waist being your hips, chest your hip, stomach, chest as well as the head end or the neck end. The power as such they are quite a few knockout kicks and it is certainly, knockout power. Many of the kicks are spin kicks or double and triple kicks in the air and one generates quite a bit of power and is able to devalidate or stop an opponent in that way. Now, as far as myself I have been practicing the Olympic Taekwondo for over ten years, over a decade. I have been a quarter finalist at the 2002 U.

S. Nationals. I was three time Maryland state champion as well as a bronze medalist at New Jersey State championships and a silver medal at the U.

S. cup twice. I have also fought abroad in Europe. Taekwondo has been my passion for that time and will continue to be for the rest of my life. From this series I hope that you guys take these basics and then go to other studios and other instructors and continue your careers as a practitioner in that way. It is very important that you don't do this on your own and don't go back out into say for example, a friend's backyard and trying to practice these on him or her. Safety is such that these kicks are very, very advanced and can be very powerful you need to have the proper equipment, the proper pads and protective equipment on your head, a mouth guard, there is a chest protector which you will see in later segments as well as foot and arm pads which we don't go over but they are utilized when you begin as a practitioner. So, it is very important to keep safety in mind and enjoy yourself as much as you can and again, I hope you take from this as much as you can and then continue practicing happily for years to come. Thanks very much. Again, my name is Jonathan Reff and I hope you enjoyed this segment.