Self Defense

While we emphasize the need to avoid physical confrontation by all means possible, we teach students how to defend themselves if such a confrontation is unavoidable.  Much of what we study in terms of self defense at Family Tae Kwon Do is based on sparring and the art of Hapkido and Jiu Jitsu. One major component of our self defense training is the Won Shim forms. These forms, rooted heavily in Hapkido, teach how best to move our bodies in order to block an assailants attack, to get out of the way and to set ourselves up to counter attack. Hapkido was developed by combining Tang Soo Do (a precursor of Taekwondo) with Jiu Jitsu and Aikido. We train to manipulate our opponents body so they not cannot seriously hurt us and are unable to defend our counter attack.

Our classes delve deeper into understanding how to use our bodies to fend off an attack and to control our opponent with minimal use of force. In order to do this, we learn to employ joint locks , arm bars, special footwork, blocking and punching and kicking. We also learn how to fall and protect ourselves by learning the counters for our art. Knowledge and understanding of multiple martial arts disciplines makes us more effective in defending ourselves.

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