apss pecha kucha - how to sharpen your mental focus

Pecha Kucha Night Taekwondo: How to sharpen your mental

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What is Taekwondo?

• Taekwondo (태권도; 跆拳道) is a Korean martial art and sport

• In Korean, tae (태, 跆) means "to strike or break with foot"; kwon (권, 拳) means "to strike or break with fist"; and do (도, 道) means "way", "method", or "path”

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Source: Wikipedia

Some history…

• General Choi Hong Hi

• 9th Nov 1918 – 15th June 2002

• Learnt and Taekkyon and Shotokan karate, merged elements of the two and invented Taekwondo

• Gathered 12 original TKD master to spread the art globally

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Do you know?

‘Taekwondo’ is also written as taekwon-do, tae kwon-do, or tae kwon do by various organizations, based on historical, philosophical, or political reasons.

4 Today: est. >70 million practitioners in 190 countries!

What are these?

• Dans (Darns)

• Form of ranking

• Higher Dan, Higher Rank

• Max at 9th Dan = Grandmaster

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Ranks and grades

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1st Dan

2nd Dan

3rd Dan

4th Dan

5th Dan

6th Dan

7th Dan

8th Dan

9th Dan

Min age 15

3 years training

2 years

1 year

7 years

3 years

4 years

5 years

8 years

6 years

From 1st Dan to 9th Dan, minimum training duration = 36 years

Master

GM

We need focus to succeed!

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“Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have twenty-four hour days.”

Zig Ziglar

"If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more to patient attention than to any other talent."

Isaac Newton

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"The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus." Bruce Lee

"The shorter way to do many things is to do only one thing at a time."

Mozart

We need focus to succeed!

Destruction (Breaking)

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requires…

Sparring…requires

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…on the head!

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In many martial arts, including TKD, meditation is a

common technique to

Improve Mental Concentration

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Basic Principles of Meditation

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• Quiet place and comfortable posture

• Eyes closed, minimal movement

• Focusing only on slow breathing

• Usually from a few minutes to hours!

1) Poomsae

2) Target-kicking

3) Plank-breaking

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How to train?

–A combination of basic actions and movements exercised with an imaginary opponent (while not on weed or EtOH!)

–Through practicing poomsae, one needs focus to be accurate in execution! (think focus in archery!), critical to winning to competitions!

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Poomsae

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1 set ~ 2 minutes

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Target-kicking

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Plank-breaking

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Thank you for your time!

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