The biggest insult to martial artists is that you do martial arts like gymnastics. To the martial artists, ‘Do you play gymnastic?’ is the most insulting word.
But gymnastics is the best and best exercise for human body building. Bruce Lee also told that he would teach gymnastics to his son before martial arts. Martial arts training is the process of building a body like a gymnast.
If you build your body like a gymnast, then learning martial arts is a piece of cake. The Contemporary Chinese martial arts-Wushu player should develop the body like a gymnast. In particular, Chang quan(long fist, It is one of Wushu game)has a lot of mechanical and acrobatics. Therefore, if you do not practice from a young age is difficult to follow after becoming an adult.
It is a common opinion of all practitioners in athletics that there is no better exercise than gymnastics to develop factors necessary for physical activity such as strength, endurance, flexibility, agility and sense of balance.
Once you learn gymnastics and develop your abilities, you will easily learn what you do afterwards.
The essence of Poomsae is gymnastics.
Recognizing that poomsae(=Form,kata) is like gymnastics can help you understand the nature of poomsae. What humans express with their bodies belongs to the realm of gymnastics. Fitness elements for Poomsae also doesn’t eventually go beyond the definition of gymnastics. Poomsae is included in the subcategory of gymnastics.
But why do martial artists think insults that ‘you are a gymnast’? Wouldn’t it be a complimentary expression of gymnastics?
Of course, taekwondo poomsae has different factors from gymnastics. The scoring standards for Taekwondo Poomsae are largely divided into accuracy and expressiveness.
Here you can find the difference between gymnastics and martial arts. Taekwondo Poomsae must express tenderness and strength / tempo / rhythm, technical characteristics and energy. If Taekwondo overlooks this part, it becomes gymnastics.
In other words, the representative difference between gymnastics and martial arts is in expression, not accuracy. Martial art should be expressed like martial arts, If you don’t do this, your poomsae is considered gymnastic.
Among the many new areas of taekwondo are taekwondo dance and taekwondo gymnastics. Taekwondo gymnastics was created as an international organization and is still developing. Some people say that taekwondo is not gymnastics, and taekwondo gymnastics degrades the quality of taekwondo. These opinions overlook that gymnastics is the essence of Taekwondo Poomsae.
But Taekwondo has a sparring. Sparring is not gymnastics. The essence of competition is fighting, so gymnastics and its genes are different. But the essence of Taekwondo Poomsae is in gymnastics. Taekwondo martial arts have two aspects of fighting and gymnastics.
Martial arts have Form. The training of the Form is not different from the goal of gymnastics. Poomsae has the purpose of making the body and the purpose of self-training alone.
Just the goal of martial arts is fighting. Poomsae is a process of practicing martial arts, not its goal. A martial artist who trains only poomsae is a gymnast. Your identity is what you create.
However, because Taekwondo is a Compition, there are players who specialize in poomsae. Poomsae players should focus on poomsae training, not fighting.
In short, it is not an insult that Taekwondo Poomsae players look like gymnasts. It rather means doing well like a gymnast. And understanding the essence of poomsae is gymnastics, so you can broaden your understanding of martial arts.
