I want to get into sparring!

[lol-TKD]

I have been practicing Taekwondo now for about 8 years (starting when I was 7/8). I am now 16 years old. I am also female who is second dan.

I am really interested in getting into sport taekwondo with the body armer amd everything. We do occasionally practice sparring in class....but I'd like to do more...so that I can be goood enough to compete.

Is there any excersise that I should practise at home that would help towards me becoming a faster kicker, more powerfull kicker, more flexable....or anything else you need to become a goood sport taekwondoist?

I really hope you can help me with this. Thanks
Lorna x

 

[granfire]

Get a bag and go rounds with it.

But seriously, you need to hook up with some people who are into sport sparring. There is no other way to practice sparring than doing, taking your hits as you dish it out.

 

[ATC]

You are a 2nd DAN, how many tournaments have you been in over the course of your TKD training? This mean from white belt till now.

The number one things that I see that forces kids to quit the sport and the art sometimes is that they wait to long to get experience. To walk into the ring at 2nd DAN and have no real experience at it can leave a person demoralized.

At the top level most Black Belt competitors will have had years of experience in the ring. They may have over 200 and up tournaments under their belt.

To start sparring at 2nd DAN is a little late. I am not saying that you cannot do it but the process for you will be a little different than for most coming through the ranks all while competing also.

My best advice for you is to find a school that is well known for there sport fighters and train with them. The master or coach of that type of school will know exactly how to prepare you for the ring, and won't put you in the ring before you are ready.

Lots of hard work will be needed as well as super dedication. Good luck and happy training.

 

[granfire]

Well, one more point:
Our organization is into light/medium contact point sparring. It's a far cry from full contact. One of our instructor suggested to first look into a few tournaments, see where the difference is and take it to open point sparring before taking the next step.

 

[terryl965]

I look at this post and see a troll I believe, loltkd what style do you currently do and what is your age? Also why have'nt you done alot of sprring in the past, what type of person comes to a new chatline and ask this type of question and not give anymore info? I will bewaiting on some real question about age, stytle and so forth.

 

[ralphmcpherson]

It doesnt just come down to how much sparring you have done, it's actually more about what 'sort' of sparring you have done. At our club we do heaps of sparring and the club puts a real emphasis on sparring BUT we steer clear of 'sport' style sparring, so I have no doubt that if someone from my club entered a WTF tournament they would lose and lose badly because they havent trained for that particular type of sparring.

 

[granfire]

I look at this post and see a troll I believe, loltkd what style do you currently do and what is your age? Also why have'nt you done alot of sprring in the past, what type of person comes to a new chatline and ask this type of question and not give anymore info? I will bewaiting on some real question about age, stytle and so forth.

I consider my own learning curve in terms of all things TKD. I would have never dreamed there was more than what my club offered. Depending on the OP's location she could have led a pretty sheltered life so far interms of exposure.

BTW, she said she was 16 years old...

 

[ralphmcpherson]

I consider my own learning curve in terms of all things TKD. I would have never dreamed there was more than what my club offered. Depending on the OP's location she could have led a pretty sheltered life so far interms of exposure.

BTW, she said she was 16 years old...

Quite true. I would consider most at my club quite 'sheltered' when it comes to tkd in general. We do everything 'intra-club', we only spar within our club, we have club championships etc but its only for members of our club. In saying that, we have clubs in most parts of australia and have about 30 clubs in just in my capital city alone so there are literally thousands of members but it amazes me that almost all tkdists at my club would have absolutely no idea what the kukkiwon is or what a taeguek is or what the WTF or ITF are. So I can understand that there are students out there who are extremely sheltered when it comes to sparring in the much broader tkd sense. I actually had someone at our club say to me during the olympics "I saw this sport on the tele the other night and the commentator must have confused sports because he called it tkd, and I watched it and it definetely wasnt tkd". I had to explain to him that a lot of tkdists wouldnt consider what we do to be tkd.