Everyone should maintain excellent physical conditioning throughout their lives. You never know when you may need to use it. When I lived in Nevada, sometimes a family would decide to spend a Sunday afternoon exploring one of the many ghost towns. Some ghost towns, although in a desert area 20 miles from a paved road, were reachable in a family car. The problem was that sometimes the car would break down and the family would be stranded in the desert. Then the father had to hike back to the paved road for help. Some did not make it. In December 1999, a radio station had a contest winner that got to run back and forth for a few minutes between a bank vault and a storage container carrying as much loose currency as he could carry each trip. He started off great but started slowing down and passed out from exhaustion after only a few trips and had to transported to a hospital. He ended up with $80,000 but could have had much, much more if he had been in good condition. Since you never know when it may be needed, you should stay in excellent physical condition at all times. As the late comedian George Burns once said "If I had know I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself."

Taekwondo students train for many reasons. They train to strengthen themselves mentally and physically, to gain flexibility, and to perfect their Taekwondo techniques. They also train to replace instinctive responses, such as panic, covering, turning away, or clashing with attacks, with trained responses, such as calmness, evading, redirecting, and dispersing of attacks.

Students train to develop a constant awareness of their surroundings so they may quickly evaluate and react to problems. They train to remain a calm, dispassionate, and impartial when facing an attacker They train to develop their peripheral vision so they may defend against attacks from their periphery.

ARTICLE COMMENTS: Only registered users may view or make article comments!