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

~ (Author), John Gerrard (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Designed to meet the needs of students who have mastered the basics and come up through the ranks of the lower-level belts, Black Belt Tae Kwon Do offers everything readers need to complete their training, from advanced sparring to breaking techniques. Following the format of its predecessor (Tae Kwon Do: The Ultimate Reference Guide to the World's Most Popular Martial Art, Updated Edition, 1999. ISBN 0-8160-3839-2), it combines a complete explanation of the physical aspects of the martial art with a full description of the philosophical elements of its training. Among the topics covered are: practice, warm-up, and advanced techniques and forms; self-defense techniques; and sparring strategies and techniques. Extensive appendixes include a special section on opening a successful Tae Kwon Do school; official rules of competition; and weight classes, governing bodies, and international organizations and associations. Two glossaries translate terms from English to Korean and Korean to English.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Checkmark Books (June 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0816042411
• ISBN-13: 978-0816042418
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #553,502 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent guide to the black belt forms, August 23, 2000

By	Eugene Eisman (N. Miami, FL USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Black Belt Tae Kwon Do: The Ultimate Reference Guide to the World's Most Popular Black Belt Martial Art (Hardcover)

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.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book on TKD, February 2, 2005

By	magellan (Santa Clara, CA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

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.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Reference Guide for WTF, May 24, 2001

By A Customer

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.