Tae Kwon Do

I used to take tae kwon do. One of my best friends that I know took karate and he used to show the other girls and me in my class, some of the things that he knows. When I found out that tae kwon has some similar moves as karate. In tae kwon do one of the things that they did was sparring and that is so much fun. My first master did not let his students spar until they where brown belts so I worked really hard to get a brown belt but when I had got my green belt we moved back to Utah where I met master Marlo. He had you learn sparring when you where yellow belt. (The first belt you get is white then it’s yellow.) so I happily signed up to go to his class.
Now I will tell you how to spar. (CAUTION DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME, IT COULD RESULT IN SERIOUS INJURY.) The fist thing is to buy special armor that is made for sparing and a mouth guard. Then you and your opponent puts it on. You play it on a pad that is red and blue.


There are three blue squares that are in the middle of the mat. the ref stands on one and the two opponent sands on the other and they face each other. The two opponents have on their armor two different colors on each side of their armor; the colors are blue and red. One of them would have it on red and their opponent would have blue. Now the ref puts his arm in between them and says something but I can’t remember, but I do know that it is sort of like, are you ready sort of thing. Then when he asks you, you sort of yell as loud as you can. (If you have watched any marshal arts and they yell that is what it is.) Then he moves his arm and the game begins, the ref also moves off the mat and stand a round the mat waiting for a penalty or some one to step off the mat. The rules are that you stay on the mat, you can’t kick them if they are on the ground and you can’t trip your a opponent or kick them below the waist. If you go off the mat then they take you to the middle of the mat and start you again. I do not know what happens if you break the other rules, because it dosn't happen very often. To get points you kick them on the big circles on there armor, that is one point for every kick. Depending on your belt and age there are head kicks, there are two different kinds there are light contact (that means that if you barely hit it with your foot, it counts, and if you hit it hard you are penalized.) And there is just regular (that means as hard as you want.) There are three judges that decide the points, they sit around the mat. Who ever has the most points at the end of time wins the game. One time I beat a black belt five to nothing.