What are the physical benefits students get from studying Taekwon-do? I want to start with one that might surprise you. Here it is:
Studying Taekwon-do makes people less destructive because it helps them control their movements.
Now, you might be thinking, how can learning how to break a board with their hands help kids be less destructive? I know it seems counterintuitive, but it’s true.
Young kids don’t have the same motor control that adults do. When an adult performs any motion, it’s a deliberate thing. The link between your mind and body is so smooth – and so highly developed – that you don’t even need a conscious thought. You want to pick up a glass of water, and so you do it. End of story.
Kids can’t do that – not yet. They haven’t learned to control their movements. The older they get, the more controlled they become. But very young kids – and our youngest students are not even in school yet – don’t have that control. They want to do things, but they don’t know how.
Sometimes, their motions can seem destructive. They reach out to pick up a glass of water, but their lack of coordination and control makes them spill it, instead.
What kids learn when they study taekwon-do is that movements have consequences. We teach them that by repeating a movement, they can learn to control it.
We work with kids at their level to help them gradually improve their physical coordination and control. These changes won’t happen overnight, but they will happen with continual study. The movements we teach very young kids are simple ones. We ask more of them as they get older.
What does this mean for you as a parent? It means that if you have a child who is inadvertently (or deliberately) destructive, studying taekwon-do with us can help. Deliberate destructiveness is rare in young children, but it does happen. We think that studying martial arts helps with both issues.
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