New York University Sport Taekwondo Club
| Home | | | About the Club | | | Sport Taekwondo | | | Schedule | | | Links | | | Contact |
|
|
New York University Sport Taekwondo Club |
||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||
Modern sport Taekwondo can be differentiated from other martial art styles by its emphasis on kicking. There is no other martial art today whose kicking technique is more advanced than Taekwondo's. Outside the Olympic style sparring mat, Taekwondo also relies on a plethora of hand techniques that are demonstrated during forms competition.
The World Taekwondo Federation (WTF) is responsible for, among other things, the creation, maintenance, and evolution of standard competition rules for Taekwondo at the Olympic, World, National, and Regional levels. The national association that serves as our liason to the WTF is U.S.A. Taekwondo (USAT). Our collegiate league, the INCTL, uses current WTF and USAT rules with modifications such as the one to allow our unique team competition framework. These various sets of rules influence the techniques, style, and evolution of our art and are under constant revision and refinement.
For the most detailed information about rules and regulations, you can read the INCTL rules here, and the USA Taekwondo rules here (click on Competition Rules under Foundations of Refereeing).
Forms (also called patterns or, in Korean, poomsae or hyung, or in Japanese, kata) are choreographed sets of movements that include series of steps, and blocks and strikes by all four limbs. They showcase the depth and expressivity of traditional Taekwondo technique. The more advanced forms include techniques that are highly illegal in modern sparring competition due to their destructiveness (various explosive attacks to the neck, armpits, and eyes, arm breaks, kneecap attacks, the list goes on). They are very pretty to observe and practice in theory, though.
Our club practices three starter forms along with the standard forms as prescribed by the World Taekwondo Federation (responsible for the administration of Taekwondo worldwide) and the Kukkiwon (Taekwondo headquarters). These standard forms include a series of eight forms called Taegeuks that correspond to various color belts up till black belt, as well as a series of nine additional forms, individually named, that are intended for black belts from the rank of 1st Dan through 9th Dan.
Forms competition is judged by a combination of artistic and technical criteria. Included are subjective determinations like whether a technique has been performed with efficacy and efficiency, and objective ones like whether the competitor has performed the proper stepping motions and aims techniques properly and consistently.
Sparring is arguably the purest form of martial art competition. Two people enter a ring and compete to see who has more heart and who has better technique, training, and talent. In modern Taekwondo competition, there exist rules, judges, referees, and protective gear to protect the competitors that are trying to score as many points as they can. Beginner competition is safe (there may be a bruise or two involved), and advanced competition is less safe (one of the goals at this level is to knock your opponent out).
We train to compete in the same competition format as those who compete at the world and Olympic levels. That is, we use as our basis the rules set by the World Taekwondo Federation. Kicks and punches are permitted to land on your opponent from the hip (belt level) up to right below the armpit, either to the front, side, or back of the opponent, with no techniques permitted to the spinal area. You can score a point via a good strike to the permissible body area (formerly, language in the rule book mentioned the colorful phrase "trembling shock" but they took that out). Kicks are permitted to the front or side of the head, and because it is more difficult to do so, if the opponent's head moves as a result of being kicked, this counts as two points. No hand techniques whatsoever are permitted to the head. Any legal technique that incapacitates your opponent (for instance, a kick that knocks the wind out of your opponent) will trigger either a standing 8-count, which will add an additional bonus point to your score, or a 10-count which means the referee is stopping the game. The referee always has the right to stop the match for any reason at any time. Illegal techniques count as a negative one-half point (only full-point deductions actually count, so you need two half point deductions to actually reduce your score). An intentional illegal technique could mean a full point deduction or even a disqualification, at the referee's discretion. The referee's primary job in the ring is to ensure the safety of the competitors.
Beginners can experience competition without worrying about getting kicked in the head by competing in the beginner's D and C team divisions in INCTL tournaments. Intermediate (green, blue, red belt) players play on B teams and advanced (advanced red, advanced brown, and black belt) players play on A teams. Each collegiate team is composed of three players, a light-, middle-, and heavyweight. Teams that are composed of fewer players automatically forfeit the slots they did not fill.
The INCTL uses single-elimination brackets for sparring competition. A team must win in order to advance to the next level; a loss knocks the team out of the competition.