Each week sports reporter ROBERT CARRY tries out martial arts from around the world. This week it’s Korea’s art of Taekwon-Do
John Ng, one of the instructors at Dublin’s Taekwon-Do Centre, had some strange ideas. First, he tried to tell the eight or so students gathered for the beginners’ class that if you crash into a wall at 40mph, then the force of the wall hitting the car combines with the force of the car hitting the wall to produce an impact of 80mph. More implausible still was his suggestion – which I think came as a response to my wearing a Muay Thai t-shirt – that a Taekwon-Do expert could break the leg of someone who tried to shin-kick them (shin-kicks being the staple of Muay Thai fighters) by snapping out their arm in the direction from which the blow was coming and taking the impact on their wrist.
I’m sorry, but I beg to differ on both counts. First of all, if you crash into a stationary object at 40mph then the force generated is that of a 40mph crash. Secondly, Muay Thai fighters spend hours booting the legs off each other. Some even repeatedly roll broom handles up and down their shins to kill the nerves and thicken the bones. I’ve been shin-kicked by Muay Thai fighters and it’s like being smacked with a baseball bat – I’m sorry John, but your wrist, being thinner and weaker than a Muay Thai fighter’s impact-conditioned shinbone, would shatter if you tried to use it to absorb such an impact.
However, one big plus at the Dublin Taekwon-Do Centre was its excellent facilities, which act as the home of the Irish National Taekwon-Do Association (INTA). Without question, they were far and away the best I’ve seen. The building was opened by enthusiasts Brendan O’Toole and Gerry Martin some 26 years ago (they marked their 25th birthday by giving Taoiseach Bertie Ahern an honorary black belt) and its 300 members now enjoy a full weights room, a sports therapy clinic and an impressive high-roofed matted area with church-like stained glass windows that look onto the busy street below.
Our class kicked off with a few warm-up laps of the matted area before moving onto the stretching routine. I had noticed the fact that the walls of the room were fitted with what looked like the bars that ballerinas throw their legs onto, and we were directed to grab a space against them. First off, Ng told us to throw our left leg up behind us, followed by our right, but apparently I was bending my leg slightly. Then we started throwing our legs up to the side, but this time I was pointing my foot rather than keeping it at a right angle to my shin. Next we moved onto the stance, but Ng kindly informed me that I was tensing my shoulders too much. Then we started throwing pointlessly uneconomic punches towards an imaginary foe’s solar plexus (instead of at their face, where you might actually do them some damage).
It was at this point that Ng let me know that I had poor hand-eye co-ordination, before telling the room that it was down to the fact that I worked on a computer rather than with my hands. It was around this time that I began to pray that we would be moving onto sparring soon, where I might get the chance to test the strength of his wrists, along with a few of his other bones.
Unfortunately, after combining the stylised punches, blocks and stance into a routine (called a kata), the class was nearly over. We finished up by doing a few sit-ups and 20 push-ups on our knuckles. Sadly, Ng wasn’t happy with mine because I was doing them on the middle two rather than the first two knuckles of each hand.
There is a lot about Taekwon-Do to be impressed by – the extravagant, high-flying kicks the sport has become known for require a serious level of flexibility and athleticism – and I particularly enjoyed seeing the stretching routines that give practitioners the capacity to execute them. Another strike in favour of the surprisingly modern martial art, which was unveiled to the world by its Korean creator General Choi Hong-Hi in 1955, has been its ability to draw in people from diverse backgrounds.
I had a quick chat with co-founder of the centre, Brendan O’Toole, who told me that the sport is hugely popular in Eastern Europe, and Poland in particular. The instructor, who has been involved in Taekwon-Do for the past 35 years, said the extent of this popularity was demonstrated by the fact that Poland managed to send some 50 competitors to Quebec for the World Taekwon-Do Championships, while affluent Ireland could only muster 19. “Around 10 per cent of our students would be from Eastern Europe,” he told me, “but we’ve got people from all over the place.”
O’Toole also pointed out that it had proved an excellent way of helping migrants to make new friends and to integrate: “It’s probably one of the better ways to break through the veneer people are faced with in a new country. When you get into martial arts you get under the surface, you’re not just bouncing off the outside.”
It has its strengths, but Taekwon-Do really needs to leave a lot of baggage aside. For a start, katas (which are also found in Karate and Kung Fu) don’t help you to improve your fighting skills – and let’s face it, that’s what martial arts are about.
Another thing that needs to go are the weird, groundless myths around concentrating body strength and suchlike that are associated with Taekwon-Do and some other Asian forms. That stuff just gives martial arts a bad name. You cannot imbue parts of your body with mystical, physics-defying qualities. There is nothing impressive about splitting a sliver of timber with your foot, you cannot damage someone’s internal organs by hitting them with a ‘one inch punch’ and the only way you’re going to hurt someone with a Shaolin death finger, or whatever, is if you poke them in the eye.
