60 Fun Facts About Taekwondo

Taekwondo is a martial art from which country?

In 2018 the South Korean government formally designated it the national martial art.

What does the 'tae' in taekwondo mean?

Kwon is the hand strike and do the art or way, so the whole name is roughly 'the way of foot and fist'.

Which body part does taekwondo emphasise above all others?

Head-height, jumping and spinning kicks are its signature, and Olympic rules award extra points for spinning kicks to the head.

What is the taekwondo uniform called?

The name simply means 'way clothing'; the wide sleeves and trousers set it apart from the Japanese keikogi it descends from.

What is a taekwondo training hall called?

It is the Korean cousin of the Japanese dojo, both written with characters meaning 'place of the way'.

What is the taekwondo term for board-breaking?

Demonstrations extend the idea to bricks, tiles and blocks of ice, and competitions split it into power, speed and special-technique breaks.

Which weapon-free rule applies to taekwondo?

Individual schools sometimes add staff or knife drills, but the major federations keep weapons out of the formal curriculum.

In which decades was taekwondo developed by Korean martial artists?

Its founders had trained in karate and Chinese martial arts; the sport-oriented Olympic style came later, in the early 1970s.

What were the post-1945 Korean martial arts schools that gave rise to taekwondo called?

Nine original schools opened in Seoul after the Japanese occupation ended, and their representatives founded the Korea Taekwondo Association in 1959.

Which South Korean president pushed for a single unified martial art after a 1952 demonstration?

He mistook what he saw for an older folk art, a confusion that helped shape the new name.

Before 'taekwondo' caught on, what name was commonly used for Korean karate?

It used the Korean reading of the same Chinese characters as karate; a Hollywood action star later built his own American style on it.

Which army general is credited by the ITF as the founder of taekwondo?

He proposed the name in 1955, went into exile in Canada in 1972 and later took the art to North Korea, which is why rival bodies leave him out of their histories.

On what date does the ITF say the name Taekwon-Do was chosen?

The general had argued for replacing 'su' (hand) with 'kwon' (fist), which also brought the name closer to the sound of an old Korean folk art.

Where did the ITF's founder die in 2002, receiving a state funeral?

He had defected to the North in 1979 after Seoul refused to let his federation teach there.

In which year was the International Taekwon-Do Federation founded?

Choi broke with the Korean association to institutionalise his own Chang Hon style; the ITF later split into three federations with the same name.

Why did the WTF drop the F from its initials in 2017?

The organisation had carried the initials since its founding at the Kukkiwon in 1973.

What is the Kukkiwon?

It stands in Gangnam and has kept a permanent demonstration team since 1974; it also issues dan certificates worldwide.

The first World Taekwondo Championships in May 1973 drew how many countries?

Two hundred athletes competed at the brand-new Kukkiwon; by 2023 World Taekwondo had 213 member nations.

Who was the first president of the World Taekwondo Federation?

An IOC vice-president who helped Seoul land the 1988 Games, he was later jailed for embezzlement and bribery.

At which Olympics did taekwondo first appear, as a demonstration sport?

The opening ceremony included a mass display of hundreds of adults and children performing moves in unison.

At which Games did taekwondo become a full Olympic medal sport?

The IOC had voted it in at its 1994 session in Paris; it was a demonstration sport again in Barcelona in 1992.

How many Olympic weight classes are contested for each sex in taekwondo?

World Championships use eight divisions, which are condensed for the Games.

Which martial arts shared the Tokyo 2020 programme with taekwondo as its only Asian ones?

The other Olympic combat sports at Tokyo 2020 were boxing, Greco-Roman wrestling and freestyle wrestling; karate did not return for Paris 2024.

How many points does a spinning kick to the head score under World Taekwondo rules?

A plain kick to the body is worth 2 and a punch to the chest protector 1; head kicks with a spin were raised from 4 to 5 points in 2018.

What is the chest protector worn in WT sparring called?

Modern versions are electronic, registering the strength and location of kicks so that human judges only score punches and spinning techniques.

How long is an Olympic taekwondo match?

A tie sends the fighters into a sudden-death 'golden point' round after a minute's rest.

What is a penalty called in WT taekwondo sparring?

Each one adds a point for the opponent, and ten of them mean an automatic loss.

Which strike is banned in Olympic (WT) taekwondo but allowed under ITF rules?

WT punches must be straight-armed shots to the chest protector; ITF sparring is not full contact and disqualifies anyone who knocks out an opponent.

What are the formal patterns of taekwondo called in the Kukkiwon/WT style?

The ITF calls its patterns tul; both fill the role that kata plays in karate.

How many patterns, or tul, did the ITF's founder define for his Chang Hon style?

Their names and symbolism refer to Korean history, culture and religious philosophy.

Kukkiwon taekwondo's eight taegeuk forms each link to a trigram from which classic text?

They replaced the earlier palgwae forms in 1971; the word taegeuk refers to the unity of opposites, as on the South Korean flag.

What are junior, coloured-belt ranks called in taekwondo?

Geup grades count down towards black belt, after which dan degrees count upward.

Which of these is one of the five tenets of taekwondo set out by the ITF's founder?

The other four are courtesy, integrity, perseverance and self-control, and they feed into a five-line taekwondo oath.

Taekwondo's philosophy often refers back to the code of which elite youth warriors of ancient Silla?

The 'flowering youths' were trained from the mid-6th century in a kingdom that produced three reigning queens.

According to Choi's Theory of Power, which factor matters most for the energy of a strike?

Kinetic energy rises with the square of speed but only linearly with mass, so the art was built around fast, whipping kicks.

The 'sine wave' principle in ITF taekwondo refers to what?

Some ITF schools adopt it and some do not, but nearly all use the patterns from Choi's 1983 Encyclopedia.

Which old Korean folk art influenced taekwondo's name and became UNESCO's first listed martial art in 2011?

It is built on a fluid triangular footwork called pumbalbgi and was nearly wiped out under Japanese rule.

Which Korean-American teacher is known as the 'father of taekwondo in the United States'?

He built a chain of schools around Washington, D.C. from 1962; his students starred in the bare-knuckle 'Blood and Guts' karate circuits.

Which US chain, founded in Omaha in 1969, teaches its own Songahm style?

Founder Haeng Ung Lee was a former instructor in the South Korean military; its spin-offs were reunited as ATA International in 2015.

Which action star founded American Tang Soo Do in 1966 after training in Korea while in the military?

He later created his own system, Chun Kuk Do, and held black belts in taekwondo, judo and Brazilian jiu-jitsu among others.

Which founder of the Moo Duk Kwan claimed to have entered China by climbing the Great Wall at night?

He fled Korea in 1936 after attracting the Japanese secret police and spent two decades in China before founding Tang Soo Do Moo Duk Kwan.

Which American won taekwondo gold at both the 2000 and 2004 Olympics?

His siblings Mark and Diana joined him on the 2008 team, the first three-sibling Olympic squad for the US since 1904.

Which Iranian won taekwondo gold in 2004 and 2008 and fought the 2008 final with a fractured hand?

He hid the injury throughout the tournament, then put his medals up for auction to help victims of the 2003 Bam earthquake.

Which Chinese fighter, famous for her axe kicks, won the -49 kg gold at both the 2008 and 2012 Olympics?

Her Jiangxi hometown is China's 'porcelain capital', and she draws sayings on porcelain as a hobby.

Which Welsh fighter won Great Britain's first Olympic taekwondo gold in 2012 and defended it in 2016?

She took up the sport at eight, won the 2010 Youth Olympics, and later switched to boxing.

Anthony Obame's 2012 taekwondo silver was the first Olympic medal ever for which nation?

He led the +80 kg final against Italy's Carlo Molfetta but lost on a judges' decision after a tie, and came home to thousands of fans in Libreville.

Which taekwondo fighter was Tonga's oiled, shirtless flag-bearer at Rio 2016's opening?

He went on to carry the flag again at the 2018 Winter Games as a cross-country skier and at Tokyo 2020.

Ahmad Abughaush's 2016 taekwondo gold was the first Olympic medal in any sport for which country?

He had won junior world gold in 2010 as the only Arab champion at the event, then sat out 2013 with a torn cruciate ligament.

Whom did Kimia Alizadeh, the first Iranian woman to win a Summer Games medal, represent at the Tokyo Olympics?

She left Iran permanently in 2020, calling herself one of millions of oppressed women, and later took Bulgarian citizenship.

Which Turkish fighter won 68 kg Olympic gold at London 2012 over Iran's Mohammad Bagheri Motamed?

A 7,500-seat arena in Mersin was named in his honour the following year.

Under ITF sparring rules, how many points is a jumping kick to the head worth?

Punches to body or head score 1, and the area is 9 by 9 metres; competitors wear no chest protector.

What is the belt worn around a dobok called?

The colour order varies by school, but white nearly always comes first and some schools run a stripe down the middle of the belt.

Kukkiwon grandmaster ranks (7th to 9th dan) carry what extra requirement?

Instructors at 1st to 3rd dan are considered assistants who may not yet issue ranks of their own.

Since which year has taekwondo been a Paralympic sport?

The International Paralympic Committee recognised World Taekwondo in 2013; World Para Taekwondo Championships date from 2009.

In which year was taekwondo accepted as a Commonwealth Games sport?

It remains an optional sport for hosts, unlike the WT-only events at the Asian, Pan American and European Games.

What margin between the fighters stops a WT match early?

The mercy rule applies at the end of round two or at any moment in round three.

In 2018 the South Korean government gave taekwondo what official designation?

It had already been adopted by the South Korean military decades earlier, which boosted its spread among civilian schools.

How many original kwans, or schools, joined to form the Korea Taekwondo Association in 1959?

The schools had opened in Seoul from 1945 after the Japanese occupation ended, and used names like Tang Soo Do and Kong Soo Do.

After Choi Hong-hi split from South Korea's association, where was the ITF headquartered?

South Korea withdrew its support for the ITF in 1972; Choi published his Encyclopedia of Taekwon-Do in 1983.

What is the 'revisionist' view of taekwondo's origins, held by most academic historians?

Traditionalists say it is indigenous, a view the Korean government has backed to distance the art from Japan.