Taekwondo is both a martial art and an Olympic sport, it’s a way of life and it helps you develop a wide array of abilities that can be of great help in your everyday life. One of those is today’s topic: Coordination.
But let’s start by understanding what Coordination is. Coordination is the ability to control your movements in regards to the space and people around you, it is also being able to prevent injuries both to yourself and others.
And this is particularly important because in competition your objective is not to hurt your opponent but merely get in contact with the sensors in the body and head so you can score points. But what about a real-life combat situation? In these cases, you also need to have the coordination to know where is it that you are standing on, what is around you, because you can get hurt if you hit something that is beside or behind you.
Coordination comes with training, not just physical but mental, because it means you need to have clarity of mind to see all that is around you. Also, remember that in competition, you have a specific area where you can move and if you break it, you’ll likely be penalized.
It is believed that coordination is a natural ability, which can be true in some particular cases, yet it has been seen that people can greatly improve their coordination skills through taekwondo training and bring themselves to new heights.
FOR CHILDREN AND ADULTS
This is a very important point, in previous articles we have mentioned that the way of taekwondo can begin at a young age, and here’s something not many people know, through taekwondo training young kids can develop and improve greatly on their coordination skills.
And this is the result of the training they undertake that will normally make them use their bodies in new and different ways that, as we mentioned before, allow for them to make movements of different kinds but at the same time learning to be aware of their surroundings, learning to control the strength and to think what move will come after.
Also, children (and adults too) learn something that is critical for coordination to work: focus. With focus comes the ability to think and make every move in a way that they know why they are making it and what the outcome (intention) of such move is intended to be.
And this is very important when it comes to real-life combat, you need to know why you are doing what, what are you doing next, what things in your environment (including preventing what your opponent will try next) will affect your moves and your desired intention.
Coordination in taekwondo training also means knowing and learning to use each part of your body in the most efficient way possible. And this is critical no matter if you are using taekwondo for real-life combat or for competition. The more efficiently you use your body the more chances you have to succeed and emerge victoriously.