The use of martial arts as a means of physical fitness is popular but more importantly as an effective form of self-defence. Among the myriad styles available, International Taekwon-Do Federation (ITF) Taekwon Do stands out for its comprehensive approach to self-defence, rooted in its historical significance and practical applications. This blog explores the effectiveness of ITF Taekwon Do, particularly highlighting its use during the Korean War, its adoption by specialist police squads in South Korea, and the personal growth benefits it offers to practitioners.
I see many posts on social media in my area asking where to go for self-defence training. From this you get a lot of people giving their opinion and what is often suggested is Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) . However I feel that this advice respectfully is coming from people with little or no expertise or experience of physical altercations and violence!!
BJJ and Judo are both highly respected combative sports that emphasise grappling and ground techniques. While they are excellent for sport, competition and fitness, there are several reasons why they are not effective systems for self-defence in real-world scenarios.
We entered 38 members into the recent Summer T-UK coloured belt grading. Everyone who was entered worked hard to attained the high standards required to be considered for promotion. As always the day was split into peewee and junior grading and adult grading.
Elsa Klegg from our Warwick club has recently been selected for a place at the FA Emerging Talent Centre for football, on top of playing for both Coventry City Girls and her school team. She will take a 6 month sabbatical from TKD to concentrate on her football.
This is no surprise as since Elsa joined the club 3 years ago has developed in to a very mature young lady who hasn’t always found Taekwon Do easy but has become a role model for other junior members.
2023 saw a very successful year for our clubs, new promotions to black belt, exceptional A pass results from each of the coloured belt area gradings, multiple world champions from the T-UK British Championships.
This made choosing the adult and junior students of the year very difficult.
In the end the Instructor team landed on the most deserving members. The criteria for the award is predicated on attendance, effort, attitude, overcoming challenges, taking on instruction and applying it, being a role model.
WLTKD students excelled at the TUK Central region coloured belt grading last weekend with 39 students being promoted including 4 student to black tag, well done Thea Roberts, Aisha Yousof, Seb Perrier, Lexie Alferez, the next one is the big one.
We also had 3 'A' passes, well done Sienna Mannell, Gabe Bailey and Sudha Pathak, outstanding performances.
A great team effort by the instructor team to get all there students ready for the grading and performing at an exceptional standard, well done all.
Now we can open the doors to a new beginners quarterly intake to also start on their TKD journey and help to change their lives for the better.
This weekend we delivered another Women’s only self-defence 1 day course at the Gap Community Centre in Warwick.
We had 14 keen but nervous women attending at 9am ready for a tough full day eager to learn new essential life skills to assist in making them feel more comfortable and confidant in their daily lives.
The day started off with an essential and in-depth presentation on all aspects of self-defence such as situational and environmental awareness, understanding how not to be a victim, understanding the psychology of an attacker, conflict resolution tactics, identification of the different categories of rapists, their psychology and how to deal with this challenging situation.
Yesterday there was held the T-UK Central black belt pre-test with 10 students from WLTKD that had made the required progressions and standards to be considered for testing.
The test was conducted by Mr Martin Noddings VI dan, assisted by Mr Rick Dhillon V dan and lead by Mr Alan Smith IV dan.
The test lasted 3 hours in total thoroughly testing all elements of the attendees TKD abilities.
Saturday we held our first Women’s only self-defence course since the pandemic hit. The course landed on the 6 month anniversary of the murder of Sarah Everard as well as the release of Colin Pitchfork the double rapist and murderer.
We started off with all participants and instructors undertaking a lateral flow test as close proximity in the physical delivery part of the class was necessary and everyones safety was paramount.
Our courses are not just about leaning the physical interventions and skills required in a violent incident we start by delivering a comprehensive and informative presentation educating the participants on the psychology of violent and sexual offenders. We looked at situational and environmental awareness and how to identify challenges and how to react for a positive outcome. Participants were encouraged to share their own experiences which brought to life the presentation content, this also allowed for discussion on strategies and solutions for similar experiences.
Last few places left for the 7th August course. Call now and reserve your place.
This is not just teaching the attendees how to physically look after themselves:
Creating an understanding and adopting personal safety habits that will firstly reduce your risk of being identified as a target
Teach you situational awareness
Assist you if you are targeted to defuse the situation
And then if necessary teach you effective techniques that will enable you to deal with an attacker.
Prepare yourself before heading out on holiday!
