Recently, while doing some work with a group of athletes I work with, I went over how they need to view tournaments that they go to for their overall Taekwondo success. I told them that it doesn’t matter about the local competitions, or even the International Open’s whether they win or lose. It’s not about winning. They’re about trying out new stuff, getting comfortable with new techniques and their performance.

People get caught up on that they have to win the whole time. This is especially true when competing either at National level, or at a local tournament. If they’re the local favourite, they feel there is pressure on them to win, every single time.

For your long term success, this is NOT something that you should be doing.

I was reading an article about failure and success by a friend of mine this morning, and it got me thinking… It got me thinking about why very few people succeed in Taekwondo competitions and championships, and why so many don’t.

I began to wonder what it is that gives those who win the edge over those who don’t… And it became apparent very quickly that it was all to do with failure.

From training with the best Taekwondo athletes in the world – multiple Olympic and World Taekwondo Champions – to working with some of the best up and coming athletes in the Taekwondo world, that those who have succeeded and won Taekwondo Gold Medals time and time again are the ones who fail, time and time again.

In the last article – Taekwondo Training – Periodization – we had a brief introduction explaining what periodization is and why it is important. Hopefully you have written your goals and your training elements down as advised.

However we now have all of this information and need to put it into a coherent plan that works in one direction taking us step by step closer to our ultimate goal. Whatever your goal is, whether it be making National Team for the Olympic Games or winning a local competition, the planning process is quite similar… getting to the Olympic Games just takes a little bit longer that’s all

The underlying principle of periodization is to ‘train smart, not hard’. It is not about going out there and training yourself into the ground and bashing your body to oblivion.

I have been giving a lot of thought about how to approach the subject of the science behind flexibility. There is a whole wealth of information readily available on the subject of stretching and flexibility but it can be way too saturated and weighed down at times with information that athletes and coaches don’t really need to know about. At the end of the day all you guys want to know is how to get more flexible as quickly as possible!

As mentioned in a previous article static, active and dynamic forms of flexibility are all elements which are important to a Taekwondo athlete. A great example of this is the dollyo chagi or turning kick where the muscles of the supporting leg are stretched statically whilst the muscles of the kicking leg are rotated dynamically and actively held. The whole goal is to increase the Range Of Motion (ROM) within the body – kick people in head!