History of Patterns

Similar to art of Taekwondo itself, modern Taekwondo patterns are steeped in history, but are a fairly modern development that is in a constant state of change. To understand Taekwondo fully, one must understand the evolution of the modern patterns and how they have contributed to the worldwide growth of the art.

The passing down of information through physical movement is probably as old as mankind itself. Ancient cultures used sequences of physical movements to pass their culture to the next generation. Part of this culture would be the fighting techniques that had refined and found to be most successful. Since combat is a physical activity, the most effective way to learn combative skills would be to copy the movements of the elders. The elders would demonstrate the combative movements, and younger men would try to emulate these movements. These skills would then be further refined and passed to subsequent generations. This process created the first martial arts patterns.