<p>Hi,</p>
<p>I'll be an incoming freshman this fall, and I was thinking of taking tae kwon do as a p.e class. I was hoping some of you could answer a few questions I have about the course. Do many girls take it? Since I am one, I don't really want to feel awkward and be the only girl there. And is the instructor any good? I might take karate instead, but I am still deciding. Thanks so much!</p>
<p>This is a really long post. if you don’t have time:
There are plenty of girls in TKD who could kick my butt. The instructor is great at teaching TKD and is also a great person.</p>
<p>TKD at Cornell is just plain awesome. The emphasis is on TKD as a SPORT and I’ll explain why later. TKD at Cornell has two aspects: the PE class, and the TKD club which are officially completely unrelated but the instructor is the same awesome person.</p>
<p>I can’t really tell you anything about our instructor… he’s supposed to be shrouded in mystery. lmao just jking. Our sab is Cornell (engineering lol) alum who has taught at Cornell for 20ish years and he’s a Korean international 7th dan black belt. He’s hilarious, sarcastic, and brutally honest. There’s never a dull class because he throws in quips about things he notices about students in his class.</p>
<p>The PE classes typically involve stetching and then learning techniques and then drilling them and then perhaps some pushups/situps. Noobs are all considered white belts and there are two optional belt tests each semester (extra fee though because it’s not part of Cornell PE). You learn the performance aspect of TKD, poomsae, and also the “sparring steps” which are combinations of kicks and punches. The requirements of the belt tests are the same as what you learn in class everyweek. TBH if you’re looking to learn 100 ways to kick someone’s butt this is not the best class. Contact sparring is not done in this PE class since there are no pads in Helen Newman Dance Studio BUT READ FOLLOWING PARAGRAPHS. The focus is self motivation here. TKD really is only as good as how much work you put into it. However, if you’re interested in training your muscles to do repetitive movements that look awesome, and practice self-discipline/motivation, this is where you want to be. The movements he teaches is legit and is definitely not slack either.</p>
<p>The class also runs at a flexible schedule. for the beginner classes, there are four time slots in a week. You can register for any one of them on studentcenter but show up to any or all of them. to get your PE credit, you need to attend a minimum of 10 classes. So technically, if you’re so inclined, you can show up 4 times a week and get the credit done fast. generally not recommended because each week he introduces a new lesson-ish thing so you might not get alot out of doing the same thing 4 times a week UNLESS you do it for the entire semester lol. If you miss a class it’s generally not hard to catch up. </p>
<p>The class demographics is about 60-40 guys to girls. so there are plenty of girls who throw kicks here. Since a few students each semester get hooked on TKD, there are soph, junior and senior girls who’ve taken TKD for more than 4 semesters working from white belts to black. If you pit me against one of them, I’d likely bet against myself lol. There are even a few grad students here and there too. The reason we all keep taking TKD is because of sab’s close relation to (and requirement that we take his PE class at Cornell to participate in) the Cornell Sport TKD Club</p>
<p>TKD at Cornell gives people unique opportunities beyond the PE class and it’s bascially all thanks to sab. He started a TKD club during his undergrad years and it became so popular Cornell asked him to teach it as a PE class. On top of that, (not sure about the timeline here exactly) he started his own TKD studio off campus (where we train). Eventually, a lot of the schools in the NorthEast had TKD clubs so sab and coaches from the NE got together in a drunken orgy and gave birth to the Eastern Collegiate TKD Conference??? wow i just realized I dont even know what ECTC stands for. Bascially there’s 5 tournaments around NE universities (last year we travelled to MIT, Cornell, UPenn, Princeton and Westpoint) where we go perform poomsae, spar our butts up the brackets and meet new peoples!</p>
<p>To prepare us for the sparring portion of the competition, we train at sab’s studio off campus, on our own time, unaffiliated with the Cornell PE class. He trains us on olympic-style sparring which involved body armor, pads, and scoring points by kicking the armor! google olympic TKD if you want to get an idea. we do the exact same things and sab’s trained a few olympians through Cornell. This is what I meant by SPORT TKD. we dont aim to cripple (though accidents happen) but to score points only. still involves making contact, but with i guess sportsmanlike intent. Sab does not expect extra payment because he loves the Cornell TKD club 
(but also the reason why he requires us to commit to taking the PE classes)</p>
<p>We have a strong rivalry against MIT, the only other team in the ECTC big enough to compete in division 1 (yup there’s only two teams in division 1). We took the Cup last year :D. It’s really a friendly rivalry since the MIT coach is one of Sab’s former students at Cornell but ya know, competition’s still competition and we want to keep the Cup here. </p>
<p>Everyone who ends up doing the sparring team forms a really tight community because like sab says, Pain is probably the most honest thing anyone can show you about themselves. Since we spend a good part of our saturdays kicking each other, you get to know eachother reaaaally well.</p>
<p>We lost a lot of amazing seniors to something called graduation and we’re always looking for interested new recruits! Come join us. If you have a bit of time to spare, TKD is a great place to go!</p>
<p>wow thanks so much! that was a great explanation and definitely made me more interested. How well does Tae Kwon Do prepare you in terms of self defense though? Because I’m definitely wanting to learn skills that will help protect myself.</p>
<p>I’m all for self-motivation, but ^^ I will never understand someone wanting to learn “self-defense”.</p>
<p>This isn’t some karate kid movie. If you get jumped, you aren’t going to punch & kick someone til they stop. If you get into a legit fight, the other person will more than likely have a knife or a gun. </p>
<p>A can of mace is better self-defense than years of martial arts practice.
Watch an MMA match. You can be an 8th degree black belt, and the moment you step into a ring (even in itself a poor representation of a street fight), there are no twirly moves or roundhouse kicks, it’s people punching each other.</p>
<p>oh i don’t know…learning self defense can’t hurt.</p>
<p>for instance, say you were alone in an elevator with a sketchy looking man in a leather jacket. all of the sudden, he pulls out a knife.
as he aims to stab you, you could, using your intense tae kwon doe skills,
do a little bandae dollyeo chagi action and kick the knife out of his hand, do some palmok makgi in front of your face as the sketchy guy, now armless, aims a punch at you, and then leap into the air and end with a smashing jump kick and stroll out coolly when you arrive at your floor, dialing 911 as you walk.</p>
<p>just sayin’</p>
<p>Um tbh… i think all of the martial arts PE at Cornell taught as “self defense” is really a joke or in the case of TKD, a confidence booster. self defense classes are in general meant to make you feel less uncomfortable walking around in unfamiliar places. It’s meant to take away the feeling of helplessness before anything has even happened. Like some other posters have mentioned, most people would have a gun and a knife and unless they give you the perfect opportunity, you’re still likely to get hurt. I’m not saying there arent people who could disarm/attack an attacker, but that’s like special military grade training, not some University PE. nowhere near intense enough. </p>
<p>I’ve posted this following comment elsewhere about dancing: PE classes at Cornell are really only meant to keep you active and encourage students to pursue a healthy lifestyle. That’s why a lot of heavy emphasis is put in telling freshmen to do it freshman year. It’s a great healthy living campaign and it’s stress relief for HS college transition, and a great way to meet people especially at TKD, as I’ve described. </p>
<p>As far as practicality goes, I epically failed to mention that sab gets creative sometimes and teaches “boxing steps” (for cardio) and “grappling” (probably the most practical self defense aspect of TKD here at Cornell). Grappling is what happens in most fights after the first few punches are thrown: people start grabbing whatever they can; hair, arms, legs, face, legs. Grappling is essentially “effective grabbing” if you go through grappling with us, you will learn what it feels like to be rendered completely helpless by a person who weighs like 40 lbs less than you. or likewise, learn how to bring a guy a foot taller than you into submission (granted it’s not easy. but again, confidence is key). It gets down and dirty here and you’ll have a few crotches in your face but it’s all in good fun. No better way to get to know a person when you’ve sweat all over each other right lol?</p>
<p>haha, i was just kidding about the whole elevator, sketchy guy w/ a knife thing.</p>
<p>Does he also teach Cardio kickboxing?</p>
<p>Yes I believe it’s the same guy; if studentcenter lists the same name, then it’s him. Some of the people who keep missing that class and need “attendances” are often invited near the end of the semester to attend a TKD class instead. I don’t have any clue what that class is like though</p>
<p>Applause to fallenmerc for such a comprehensive post.</p>
<p>yes thank you fallenmerc! I think I’m in. No prior experiences needed, right? And do you suggest buying amouth guard? haha</p>
<p>If you want a martial art for self-defense, take Muay Thai. TKD really only works in a TKD gym - in a real fight, you won’t be able to pull off flashy jumping kicks, because you’ll be getting punched in the face.</p>
<p>But honestly, if you’re pursuing martial arts for self-defense, it’s going to take more than a semester and it’ll be outside of a school setting - you’d have to train in a legit gym to really develop your skills. I’m not sure how serious you want to be about it though. The Muay Thai class is a good start, or even the boxing class.</p>
<p>@freefocus. I wrote that somewhere in this thread before. guess you didnt have time to read through it all lol ;).</p>
<p>@ anythinggoes. I had never done any martial arts before last year so yeah. no prior exp needed. Noob sparring doesn’t really require mouth guards since most people aren’t flexible enough to “accidentally” kick the head. However, if you do decide to participate in the long run, sab requires us to wear mouth guards during spar-offs and the ECTC requires all fighters to have a certain amount of armor worn. Body, shin, forearm armor and headgear can be borrowed but if you don’t like sharing it with sweaty people, you can buy your own. mouthguards you probably don’t want to share. You will need to get a top only mouth guard (there are top&bottom mouthguards which are bad for martial arts) As for cups… o wait you’re a girl so you don’t need to worry about that :D.</p>
<p>I would suggest you hold off on buying any of these things before you actually decide to stick with the sparring team. You won’t need it at all for the PE classes. though a mouthguard is rather inexpensive, it would be a poor mentality to stick with TKD because you’ve already invested in a mouthguard.</p>
<p>Look forward to seeing you try TKD out. I hope you eventually decide to stick with it!</p>