Sport Taekwondo

Contemporary taekwondo is publicly recognised as an Olympic sport, beyond its martial roots and semi-contact variants. The Olympic style we are all used to seeing, is based on World Taekwondo Federation (WTF) full contact rules, with participants wearing protective armour and headgear scoring points by kicking their opponents to the head or body.

The sport has developed really since the early 70's, but the explosion in its popularity has driven the development of the sport, which again has fed its popularity. The last five years has seen sport taekwondo enter the general conscience, probably due to its appearance in the last 2 Olympics as a full medal sport.

Arguably (very!) still dominated by Korea, the international sport has strong representation across all continents with the medal tables regularly  topped by Iran, France, Spain, Turkey, Chinese Taipei, USA, Mexico and Korea. The UK has a thriving sport scene, and has enjoyed international success, perhaps not as much as our European neighbours, notable Spain, France, Holland and Germany.

The European sport scene is recognised as the best in the world, with the Dutch, German and Belgian Opens attracting the World's finest players. Spitfire Taekwondo members are very active on the UK sport circuit, with the elite members competing on the European circuit. 

The modern approach to sport training demands a breadth of training methods and regimes. The concept of "fighting" is fast being replaced by the concept of "match playing." The logic that a naturally aggressive personality and physical strength guarantees success in taekwondo is now clearly ill-founded.