Family Team Forms

Master Holloway has added Family Forms to the list of competitions for the Captain's Cup Challenge.
How cool is this?  Jonathan and I have been practicing taekwondo for over four years now.  This will be the first time we can practice together for something that we will compete in as a team.  I love the idea of it.  One of the big reasons we picked this sport in the first place was because we could do it together and to be able to compete as a team is just icing.
Have any of you done this type of team competition before?  Tell us about it!

Stretching for Muscle Balance

Flexibility is crucial in taekwondo for great kicks and for injury prevention.  Balanced muscle and joint flexibility, from front to back and right to left is especially important.  A traditional warm up may be heavy on the split stretches (hamstrings and inner thigh muscles) and possibly light on stretches for the muscles in the front of the hip and thigh, the hip flexors and the quadriceps.   You might also notice that one side of you stretches easier than the other.  Almost every human body has asymmetries.  The trick is to stretch and strengthen to balance those asymmetries out, so that your body isn't constantly compensating for a restriction on one side.  Sometimes the exercises that you do to condition your body, in order to correct these asymmetries, have to be done more or less to one side than the other. 
You can obtain some great information about specialized corrective exercises from me of course! www.bodyworksptonline.com   But you might also want to check out www.totalmotionrelease.com to get more information about this sort of thing.

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Board Breaking

I love board breaking.  I feel like a ninja when I do it.  I think my favorite way to break is with a jumping kick because it feels even cooler to fly through the air and break a board. 
Tell us your best board breaking story!

How do you know you are addicted to TKD?

You know you are addicted to TKD when browsing the lumber aisles at Home Depot you are thinking about how you can break the wood instead of what you can build with it.

How do YOU know you are addicted to TKD?

The Gentle East Captain's Cup Challenge XVIII

Hope to see you all at the upcoming Captain's Cup on November 20th at the Takoma Park Middle School.
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