SELF CONTROL –
IT COULD BE THE MOST IMPORTANT TENET IN
TAEKWON-DO!

The hospital discharged the “Would-Be-Taekwon-Do-Student” in the wheelchair into permanent disability with the prospect of going down-hill from here. Big knee trouble.

In 2003, the would-be-student turned into a student and started along the narrow path of Taekwon-Do. Self Control is the most important tenet to him. He had never done an hour’s sport, or submitted to any written or practical test in his life. It was all new territory for him.

Soon he could use parts of the warm up exercises, routines which lead up to the patterns, in his daily life to re-gain mobility, keep it up to a certain level, and maybe improve on it. Losing some excess weight, improving stamina, controlling breathing was also anchored down.

Slowly he progressed from rank to rank. After a while he became a bit chirpy and trained some extra sessions with aspiring Black Belt students. Result? He failed the next grading. That threw the spanner in the works. He didn’t want to go back.

Did he still believe in self-control and to whose benefit was it anyway to keep on training? The answers were obvious.

So back on to the pushbike for the ¾ hour ride, up and down hills, to the next training session. It became clear to him that gradings are important, but just keeping up the level he was on now, would be, under his circumstances, an achievement.

And maybe when he turns 70 years old next year, he may get the Black Belt, which would be nice.

Uwe Skrandies, Kuranda Branch, FNQ