…am I going to get my head kicked in?

Yes…

Ha Ha…Nu you will be fine.

Loads of fitness/stretching/kicking and learning patterns

Good on ya.

My 9 year old takes his blue tag grading next week…

My 5yr old has his first grading in just over a months time. I figure it’s probably a good thing for us to learn together.

With out a doubt you are going to get your teeth knocked out.

No not really. You’ll be fine. My first ever lesson was a bit intimidating, but following that ive done 5 years of training and have a black belt to show for it. You won’t ‘get’ some bits, but it’ll be worth it in the long run. Get ready for press ups ( on your knuckles!) and being out sparred by teen aged girls…

Depends on the club. 3rd Dan here, around 16 years training. Also trained and competed in several other martial arts but always prefer tkd. Not the best for self defence but awesome for fitness and fun. BTW wtf is better imo than itf. Only knocked one person out by accident – Have fun

Nah, itf all the way! Can we have a my arts better than your fight now? 😉

Seriously, you’ll enjoy it. You’ll also get out what you out in. Where are you going to train? Agree it’s very club specific, mine just seems to be good (for me) so happy daze.

I went to a TKD class a few years back and was the only girl. I got paired with some right moron who, despite being told by the instructor to be very gentle ended up smacking me in the face. Never went back but would love to try it if could find a women only class. That or boxing but again the local place if full of blokes who are all trying to out bloke one another. Tis crap having boobs and lady bits sometimes 🙁

i loved doing tkd when i did it around 15 years ago.for some stupid reason i just stopped doing it though 🙁 may have to start up again sometime.

I live in hope. 😉
They have no chance of knocking some sense into you but I do hope they try.
Obviously you will be fine especially if you go to the kids class.

Emma – that’s shite. There’s a couple of girls at my club (Bath PUMA TKD and KB) who’d love to meet a **** like that. Try this one for starters

My 6yr old grandson pack an awesome freakin kick ❗ Take him to class occasionally and the instructors are very good with the young-uns.
Did judo for a while and being a farm worker from a young age had it`s advantages re throwing stuff/people around 👿

haha, she definitely would have won, he was a right scruffy useless dope. Probably would have cried if I’d hit him back but to be honest I don’t think he did it accidentally, I think he did mean to do it

I did some private training in my early teens with my uncle, the stretching is a killer!! He’s 52 now looks and walks like an old man, but would kick most folks arse! He has lots of women in his classes. However he charges slightly above average apparently to keep the idiots out. He only wants people who’ll work as one big group!

Hmm, I always fancied a martial art but never fancied tkd. That’s all that seems to be on offer around here though, that and karate.

Back in the day the student nationals used to be itf on the sat and wtf on the Sunday. Used to use the itf nationals as warmup 🙂 to be fair I never trained itf just spared quite a few they were never that great. Itf fighters always look good though! Tapping someone three times in the face without dropping your leg is pretty impressive ( but useless for self defence ).

If you really get into it you’ll be surprised what you can get out. I spent 2 years in the gb team and travelled to quite a few places to compete, mostly Europe, but also us and hk. I think there are even more opportuniies now wtf is in the Olympics.

?? I’m confused… WTF is the more kicky, no hands style sparring surely?
Either way, sparring has bugger all to do with self defense, it’s a points scoring game if tag. Fun, but ultimately a game.

wtf is full contact, but no punching to the face competitors wear torso armour (which does bugger all if you get caught properly) good fighters will use strong punches to the torso to setup for kicks. ITF is tappy point scoring so you tend to just wear head protection and fist/instep shin guards, and when I used to fight the guys often used to use front leg roundhouse ‘flick’ kicks to keep you at bay – zero power but could still score in itf rules (wouldn’t in wtf)

Watch some sparring on youtube it’s quite different. Sadly all my internationals were before the days of digital 🙁 I got some lovely knock outs. In the mid 90’s wtf was quite brutal, the odd elbow or knee wasn’t unheard of in competition and often got away with. Much cleaner and better regulated these days.

That said I know the rules of wtf have evolved in recent years to try and make it more interesting to watch (now it’s a olympic sport) to make it more ‘entertaining’ so maybe itf has too.

Used to compete in judo, kickboxing and a bit of karate as well, all quite different in the ring, all good fun. I also really enjoyed learning some of the animal forms in kung fu.

Anyways OP – its great you’ll love it.

And someone mentioned kids, we used to joke we were cheaper than child care….

did judo for yeahs the later moved onto aikido much more fun as a point scoring game and comes in handy now if anyone starts a fight as you can just move them out the way without fuss or trouble and be gone before they realize youv’e just moved round them out the door and are now skipping down the street 😆 good for fitness as others have said and restraint

Had my first training session last night and absolutely loved it. Was surprised how hard work it was from a cardiovascular point of view – I’d say harder than any sufferfest. Have the proper DOMS on today.

Great fun and after a years‘ training, much more supple, due to all the stretching. We all do it: me, Mrs bakey and my two boys (8 & 10) 2 or 3 sessions a week.

SbZ – what did you do when they asked you to do some stretching?

TSY – what stretching would this be?

TKD – also known as ‘Tiggy Kwon Do’ 😀

First grading tomorrow. Should be interesting.

Daughter (12) has just got her black belt, MrsStGeorge Green Belt.

I don’t argue with them !

They love it (TAGB)

Gradings are fun – at least my KSW ones are, so I presume TKD will be too. Though, when I say fun, I mean that special kind of fun that’s absolute hell until it’s all over 🙂

Martial Arts are really good for fitness. I studied Jeet Kun Do for 20 years but sadly Master Bruce passed away and I couldn’t bring myself to continue.

Good Luck. The first ones the worst if you make it through the nerves and get in the dojang, you’ll be fine.

That turned out fine. Had DOMS from last nights training though.

Well done sbz.
Just done jujitsu this morning and taken a pasting very black and blue.
Arms took the brunt of it. Going to hurt tomorrow for sure.