Taekwondo is a systematic and scientific Korean traditional martial art that teaches more than physical fighting skills, it enhances one’s spirit and life through training the body and mind. It is an integrated approach that focuses on building leadership, self-discipline, respect, courtesy, integrity, self-control and perseverance. The training that is provided results in a student who has a better understanding of the “why” of the moves, not just the “how.” This leads to a more competent, well-rounded martial arts student.
NMMA’s Taekwondo curriculum is based on sound training and teaching principles:
Principle #1: People will do what they practice:
As many of you are aware, repetition is the mother of skill. This is especially true in the martial arts! How many times someone repeats a motion will determine not only their level of proficiency but will solidify their muscle memory so that they will be able to use these skills in a time of a major adrenaline surge (i.e. – a true self-defense situation).
The NMMA curriculum has been developed in such a way that the students will repeat their material constantly. Fortunately, this is not through repetition only! The curriculum has been designed in such a way as to allow your students to progress from:
– Learning the basic movements. to
– Implementing those same movements with a partner in a self-defense or sparring situation, and
– Repeating those movements in the air in a form with proper knowledge of the move’s usefulness and effectiveness!
Principle #2 – You learn martial arts material more effectively when you know what it is for:
By learning the self-defense and sparring applications of the form, they student has no problem memorizing the moves they learn because they have a complete understanding of their use. The curriculum is based on practical and functional use of skills.
Principle #3 – Disguised Repetition:
As we discussed earlier, repetition is the mother of skill. Students get to practice the same material over and over (repetition), however they will do this on bags, on one another, and in the air. There is NO down time in students’ learning! With less memory and more disguised repetition built into the training curriculum, students will have a number of benefits.
– More training time during the testing cycles (no more of that last-minute hoping you can get someone to memorize X, Y, and Z to be able to test).
– More efficient martial artists. Flat out, if you have more time to train, while spending less time on memory – – – you will become better, faster.
– The time it takes you to learn how to defend yourself is truly reduced.