How To Become A Winner In Taekwondo Competition

   
    Taekwondo is a Korean martial art that was developed during the 1940s and 1950s by various Korean martial artists that combine the elements of karate and Chinese martial arts with the indigenous Korean martial arts. In the real life, most people do taekwondo to keep body healthy or just as a hobby, but some people do taekwondo to protect themselves from harm and for self defense.
Every year, taekwondo communities invite athletes from all over country to join a taekwondo championship in a big city where every athlete can show off their skills. However, not every athlete could be a winner in a taekwondo competition, because only the best of the best could be the winner. To become a winner in a Taekwondo competition, an athlete should have at least three abilities such as good technical moves, high stamina, and a good body endurance.

    In every martial arts, basic move is a base that every athlete should have been mastered before entering next level of training. Because of the importance of doing this move, so basic move should be practiced regularly. After doing the basic move sessions, an athlete can start to do an advance move step by step to prevent injuries while practicing. Advance move is much harder to do than a basic move, because an advance move is a combination of two or more basic moves in one movement. An athlete could practice the advance move by doing a shadow practice which is a practice session without using target practice or practice it by using a target. After that, the session could carry on doing a fighting move that more harder to do. A fighting move is a movement that combines two or more advance moves to create a series of movements such as kicking and punching to create faster, more accurate and more destructive sequence of an attacks to a target. The best way to do a fighting move is to practice the movement using mobile target so it will simulates a real fighting experience just like in the arena.

    Stamina is a term to describe how much a person could do a combination of moves when fighting in a real battle or under heavy practices. The higher stamina of a person, the higher chances of a person to do a lot of techniques in one go. People tend to increase their stamina by running regularly. By running, people could increase the maximum volume of their lungs. The bigger the volume of a lungs, the more oxygen will be acquired when breathing. When blood circulates with so much fresh oxygen, the body will regenerate energy faster. While on this state, people will recover their energy faster but the body will gradually become weaker because the muscles always move faster than the normal body do. When a person reaches their limit, their body becomes fatigue for a while. To prevent fatigue while doing practices, an athlete must have a frequent rest before he grows tired. A good rest will help recover stamina quickly and will help the effectiveness of the practice.

     A good body endurance will help an athlete to do more practices and increase their body defence when taking a hit in the battle. But a good body endurance cannot be achieved easily without doing the right things. The first step of increasing body endurance is to focus on every practice. Without a good focus, an athlete will lose a lot of stamina while doing practices. It could happen because when an athlete losses his/her focus while doing a practice, they tend to do a false move. The more false move they do, the more energy will be wasted and depleted. the second one is doing intense training regularly before the championship started. Most athlete will practice three months before  the competition begin, but some athletes will practice more early than that. That's because each athlete has different optimum body performance, so he practices that suit their body. If the practices start too early, the body will grow tired while doing the intense trainings. But if the practices start to late, the body will not achieve the optimum body performance. The last, but not least while doing a practice an athlete should be highly self-motivated while doing an intense training. Without it, an athlete is vulnerable to give up while doing hard practices. These are the most common reason for an athlete not to achieve their optimum body performance. Without their optimum performance, an athlete will have decreased chance of becoming a winner in a competition. 
   
   To conclude, becoming a winner in a taekwondo competition is not an easy task for everyone to achieve. It needs high discipline, high mental fortitude, and a lot of practices every day. But sometimes winning is not everything, because a winner is someone that could defeat the limits in their bodies day after day.

By : Fajar Andriansyah K