Customer Reviews

Black Belt Tae Kwon Do: The Ultimate Reference Guide to the World's Most Popular Black Belt Martial Art

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I am giving my soft cover copy to a friend, and buying the hard cover. There are plenty of Tae Kwon Do texts for the color belts, but this is the first book I've seen that covers all the black belt forms. Excellent illustration, excellent glossary describing the various kicks and strikes in both English and Korean terms.

First, you should know this book is for the WTF style and forms, not the ITF, which is different. But whatever style you practice, all told, about 40 million people in 167 countries do TKD, making it probably the world's most popular martial art.

I am mainly a karate, kung fu, and escrima practitioner and teacher these days, but I also have a black belt in TKD, and learned many of my most important lessons and basics from first studying TKD. My teacher was the great Ju Hwarn Kwark, who very few people know of, but he was possibly the greatest kicker and puncher I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot.

The book starts with a brief history of TKD, the presents two brief chapters on basic techniques, prearranged sparring, and advanced techniques. The author discusses its popularity as a sport and much of the book seems aimed at helping a prospective instructor become competent enough to open his own school.

Most of the book, however, is devoted to the forms. In fact, 142 pages of the book is just on that. So if you're looking for a book mainly on sparring and practical techniques this might not be for you, although there's a good chapter on that after the forms.

There is also a section on self-defense, and several useful appendices, including rules of competition, weight divisions, referee signs, and a glossary of terms.

One little piece of trivia. You may notice that the stepping pattern of the last form, Il Yo, follows a Swast_ka pattern--except the Oriental version of this is the reverse of the N_zi one. In fact, this symbol on maps in Japan denotes a Buddhist temple, and is a common Buddhist symbol.

I bought the book not knowing that this was for WTF. Although I study the forms of ITF, I still found this book to be helpful. It has good pictures of 1-steps, proper rolling procedures, blocks, board breaks etc.

This is basically a reference book for students learning the ITF forms. Other than that it is pretty mediocre.

First of all is the section on history. Most of the history goes on and on about the ancient arts of which little is known and which is not very relevant for what is being done today...as with most TKD histories, they are trying to tie the ancient glory days with what they do today. The reality of the situation is that by the 20th century not much was known of the old martial arts...people in villages practiced a folk art involving kicking and while this was a pretty good self-defense, it was mostly practiced as a competition between the young men, like villagers in Europe would practice various styles of wrestling. In Eastern thought, being kicked would be a real put down, much more than being hit with the hand. In the 1940s Koreans who had been sent overseas were returning, a number had studied Japanese and Chinese styles but evidently Shotokan was the most common. Several of the founders of Tae Kwon Do styles were low ranking Black Belts in Shotokan and up until the 1960s, Shotokan forms were practiced by the Tae Kwon Do schools. My last point in regard to the history is that the WTF authors never mention the men who founded the different styles and put the TKD organization together, thus avoiding any mention of their major competing organization the ITF which really did much of the foundational work and spreading the style of TKD around the world.

The section that really deserves criticism is "Practical Applications." It shows a series of self-defense situations but does not use TKD in the defense movements...just standard semi-jujitsu moves that you see most everywhere. Where are the great TKD kicks when you need them? The first scenario shows a double handed grip on the victim's wrist and the defense is to reach through the attacker's hands, grab your own wrist and pull up on it to free the hand, then attack with an elbow. To start with, the attacker has tied up one of your weapons with two of his. This gives you the opportunity to use your free hand and either of your feet in a counter attack...why not hit the guy in the face a couple of times, or use a side kick to the stomach? Also either of the two knife defenses gives the attacker great opportunity to cut the hell out of your arm...especially the second, blocking a downward knife strike with a upper block...even if you block it, it is just too easy to get cut. Mr. Gerrard's bio says that he teaches law enforcement officers...hopefully he knows better and didn't have much input into this part of the book. This section, and perhaps the section of sparring should have been left out of what is a decent reference work.

I was amused by the chapter on Rule of Etiquette for TKD practitioners. My favorite was "When having a conversation with another person, you must be careful not to spray saliva." "You must eat food with your mouth closed so as not to show the inside of your mouth" was another.

Note: I wouldn't suggest that anyone try using this book (or its companion for the first eight forms) without an instructor. Learn your forms at the Do Jang. I find, though, that my Master shows me a form, but when I get home I find myself stuck on a detail. These books are excellent for refreshing my memory.

When I got the books I took them to show my 7th dan WTF Master. Not only did he say they were great books, but he was friends with two of the authors. That reassured me that the books must be accurate. He wouldn't recommend one if he thought I'd learn something incorrectly!

Mr. Park has created a great set of books for any Tae Kwon Do student. It has really helped me when learning or reviewing forms.

This is a good reference book to have on one's shelf. It offers good advice in the matters of teaching others and operating a quality school. It clearly illustrates (with photos and text) all the currently approved WTF black belt forms and some advanced sparring techniques. In my opinion however, most of the sparring techniques discussed do not utilise the tighter, more streamlined kicks available to the taekwondoist.

...come back later, then. This books seems aimed at the black belt athlete who is considering teaching Tae Kwon Do and maybe opening his own dojan. It covers all the aspects of TKD training, from warm up to philosophy to sparring techniques. Its forms session is very thorough and clear. Every TKD instructor should have a copy inside his do bok.

dear sir please state which taekwon do form this book is there are 2 styles. international federation and world federation as they are as difrent as cheese and chalk inter being selfdefence and world a sport thanks