FMA Taekwondo
Rotating Curriculum
FMA Taekwondo for Kids tailors it’s instruction through any number of the following combinations of practice:
Stretching: Each class begins with stretching to loosen up muscles, increase flexibility and improve posture and dexterity.
Cardio: Cardiovascular exercise follows our stretching to get the blood pumping. Cardio helps our students increase their energy levels at the beginning of class to help improve their endurance. It improves their overall health, burns calories, reduces stress, and even increases lung capacity.
Calisthenics: Once the students are all loosened up from stretching and cardio, they are challenged with a variety of calisthenics from pushups and sit-ups to jumping jacks, leg lifts and more. Calisthenics improves range of joint motion, burns calories and increases overall strength.
Kick/Punch Drills: To become an accomplished martial artist, students are challenged through intense kick and punch drills which improves overall techniques and improves their endurance, speed and accuracy. Our comprehensive drills allows the student to become instinctual in their responses. Over thinking an attack or defense can lead to slower reaction times. Practicing repetitive kick and punch drills contributes to a more instinctual response during a self-defense scenario or sparring match.
Forms: In the context of Taekwondo the term taegeuk refers to a set of ‘forms’ used to teach Taekwondo. A form is a defined pattern of defense-and-attack motions. Each belt rank has its own form associated with it and as such, students must learn and master these forms as part of their curriculum and is tested on the execution of the form during belt rank testing. Each belt rank form consists of increased number of steps or moves so as the student progresses through each rank, their techniques, range of motion, focus and memorization improves significantly.
Patterns: Patterns serve the same function as kata in the study of karate, and indeed many of the early, traditional Taekwondo forms are derived from Shotokan kata.
Sparring: Sparring includes variations such as freestyle sparring (in which competitors spar without interruption for several minutes), and 1-step sparring (in which students practiced prearranged sparring combinations); and point sparring (in which sparring is interrupted and then resumed after each point is scored) during competitions.
Board Breaking: The breaking of boards is used for testing, training, and martial arts demonstrations. Board breaking challenges students to focus, visualization, accuracy and improves confidence. Each belt rank is challenged to break boards which have an increased level of resistance the higher in rank a student is. The practice boards are manufactured hard plastic designed to break away on increasing levels of impact. i.e, White boards are the easiest to break, where as the black boards and much harder to break.
Self-Defense Techniques: Taekwondo teaches students techniques in self-defense and is advocated to only be used in self-defense scenarios only, outside of class or competition. In addition to Taekwondo techniques, a mix of streetwise self defense techniques are presented to provide the students with multiple strategies to leverage should they ever find themselves in such a situation. Of course, each lesson of self defense is always predicated with strategies to avoid such situations whenever possible.
Taekwondo Fundamental: Taekwondo techniques generally include kicks, blocks, punches, and strikes.
Throwing & Falling Techniques:
– Both anaerobic and aerobic workout, including stretching
– Relaxation and meditation exercises, as well as breathing control
– A focus on mental and ethical discipline, etiquette, justice, respect, and self-confidence
– Examinations to progress to the next rank
– Development of personal success and leadership skills
Weapons
Though weapons training is not a formal part of Taekwondo federation curriculums, individual schools will often incorporate additional training with staffs, swords, sticks, etc. Martial art weaponry brings additional value to student training by teaching responsibility and respect as well as improving focus, dexterity in fine and gross motor skills, improved vision, range and form.
History of Taekwondo
Traditional Taekwondo:
The term traditional Taekwondo typically refers to martial arts practiced in Korea during the 1940s and 1950s by the nine original kwans after the conclusion of the Japanese occupation of Korea at the end of World War II. The term Taekwondo had not yet been coined. In reality, each of the nine kwans practiced its own style of martial arts, so the term traditional Taekwondo serves as an umbrella term for these various styles. Many of the founders of the nine kwans had studied Shotokan karate, so traditional Taekwondo shares many of the same techniques, forms (hyeong), and names as Shotokan. Traditional Taekwondo is still studied today in martial arts styles such as Tang Soo Do, Soo Bahk Do, and Moo Duk Kwan Taekwondo.
The original schools (kwans) that formed the organization that would eventually become Kukkiwon continue to exist as independent fraternal membership organizations that support the World Taekwondo Federation and Kukkiwon. The official curriculum of the kwans is that of Kukkiwon. The kwans also function as a channel for the issuing of Kukkiwon dan and poom certification (black belt ranks) for their members.