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What Is Taekwondo?
Jinsue Park • 2024-11-05
Dylan Carnahan:Welcome to the Simple Questions Podcast. This is your host, Dylan Carnahan. The question for this episode is, what is Taekwondo? You will learn in this episode, how Taekwondo differs from other martial arts, tips for finding a credible teacher, and advice for beginners. Our guest was a member of the US. Junior Olympic Taekwondo team in sparring from 1989 to 1991. Grand champion in sparring at the 24th American Invitational Eagle Classic, and was recently inducted into the Taekwondo Hall of Fame. I introduced you Grandmaster Jinsue Park. I'm eight years old sitting in my father's office. I am playing with actions figures. I am playing PlayStation 2. I am watching old Star Wars VHSs. And nothing is helping my boredom. And I'm just looking around in his office when I spot a black belt on top of a bookshelf. When I ask him about it, he goes on to talk about his Taekwondo experiences, which was an interesting word. And I had never really heard anything about people fighting or anything like that. That was kind of reserved for movies and stuff. So this was completely new to me. And I asked him a lot of questions about it. And that's one of my earliest experiences with martial arts or Taekwondo specifically. So Jinsue, can you elaborate on what are some of your earliest memories with Taekwondo?
Grandmaster Jinsue Park:Yeah, some of my earliest memories are watching people move on the mat or on the floor. And, you know, I'm three years old and I'm having to sit up and watch at my father's martial arts studio because I was told to sit and watch. We're going upwards of eight and nine o'clock at night as a three-year-old and watching people spar and for me, that was normal to see and watch, which is not normal for most people. So when you grow up in that environment, it's just common to know that you want to learn the ability to self-defend and be in control. And I think martial arts, Taekwondo has been a great pillar of my life, because it is life. And that's what I was always told. Now, when you're young and you're in high school, you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it. I understand. Sure. Dad. But as I got older, you start to realize it's true. Because the thing about Taekwondo, there are five tenets. And tenets are very specific. And I don't know of any other art or sport that is universal in the tenets of courtesy, perseverance, integrity, self-control. And probably the biggest one is is indomitable spirit. People always ask me the difference between perseverance and indomitable spirit because by definition, they might seem similar. Perseverance is the act of keep going, not giving up, whereas indomitable spirit is the mental fortitude of not giving up. And in life, you're told many times, if you just don't give up, you'll eventually reach your goal, right? And these five things have always played a part in my life. Now, I didn't have to recite them or memorize them, but during practice, you practice these pillars or these tenets. But your question about how I came in to Taekwondo, my father actually, when he immigrated from South Korea to the states, as a pilot, he would teach other military pilots martial arts in Taekwondo. And it just grew from there because back in the late 60s, 70s, it just became this big thing with Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris. And he opened up schools of martial arts, schools. And that's kind of where I started and grew up in.
Dylan Carnahan:Wow. What a rich story. And again, you can take for granted some of those early exposures, right? And wow, how they've shaped you. Can you elaborate a little bit more upon kind of your family's connection to Taekwondo?
Grandmaster Jinsue Park:Yeah. So technically, my father was born in Japan. And when he was 10 and he went back to Korea after the war, he was ridiculed for not being able to speak the Korean language, even though he was Korean. So he sought out Grandmaster Kiwan Kim for training. Well, back then, they didn't teach kids. This was not for kids. It's brutal, very difficult training. And the instructor was like, we don't teach children, you know. But after like three or four or five, six months, he said, okay, fine, join. Because he thought, well, if this kid at 10, 11, 12 years old gets hurt during training or gets beaten up, he'll just quit. But he never quit. In fact, it fueled his fire. And he loved having that ability to be able to not only self-defend, but control what you're able to control, right? In life, I think we're always trying to control the controllables. And at that point, he was able to defend himself. And that kind of led his life into all the other things that he went into. And from that point of view, I've learned to understand, you know, the reason we do things is there's got to be a want in life. And he wanted to better himself. He wanted not to get beaten up anymore. And I think those two things way back in the day were very important to be able to create this structure in your own mind of who you are. And that built his confidence and confidence is a big deal in every facet of life. Whether you're hitting a baseball or doing surgery, or whatever, and that built his confidence to move on and move forward and do other things.
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah, I mean, that's a, it's a huge component. I think one of the worst things you can do to someone is to take their confidence, right? Because you know, your perspective shapes what you do. I think that's a great point, Jinsue.
Grandmaster Jinsue Park:Yeah, and just to backtrack a little bit when you said Star Wars, you know, that whole idea of him creating that whole movie was built on martial arts because when they are talking about the Jedi's being masters, like when you get a black belt and you hit a certain level of degrees, you're considered a master or a grand master. And that's where all that came out for that movie. I don't know if you knew that.
Dylan Carnahan:No, but it's definitely interesting. I mean, that is the language. Yeah, no, definitely see that connection. It's funny how that is, kind of this cross-pollination of ideas, right? You watch a sci-fi movie and it's kind of talking about that. It's pretty neat. I want to kind of focus back to you, which is you have this early experience. You grew up in this household with this rich history of this martial art. What did you do with your knowledge?
Grandmaster Jinsue Park:You know, when you're young and you're learning, you're not sure what or how to use it. And for me, I think the level of self-discipline, I just don't want to throw the word discipline out there because I think a lot of folks believe that, oh, if I just get my child or myself into any type of martial art, they'll discipline me. That's not the real point. The point is to be able to learn how to self-discipline yourself, to do the things in life that you need to do to move forward, right, for you to make those choices. So how to affect me? So I competed heavily when I was young and throughout my teens and 20s. And because of that experience, I was able to hit and I was very fortunate to win some really big tournaments and represent the United States in international competition. But academically, it helped with that level of discipline and understanding what I need to do on a daily basis. You know, just as simple as, you know, you have practice at, you know, 6, 7, 8 a.m. You have to just get up. You have to be, have that level of discipline just to move forward and get up and execute. That's half the battle of life, I think, is we have all these great ideas and people have great goals, but you have to want to do them and execute them. And I think for me, that's what that provided for me in my life is to just get up and do it. Go try it. Don't let things hold you back. But then, of course, it's when you learn something, you have to master it. You have to hone it. You have to practice and practice and practice almost until the point where, I don't want to say the word boring, but you know it so well that you can do it just without having your eyes open. You just kind of go through it. And that's the point of being an expert. You know it so well, but then that bleeds into, well, if I can do this one thing this well, then I can do other things this well. And all it does or all of that requires is practice. And that's the key to success is just keep moving in, keep practicing.
Dylan Carnahan:Yeah, there's a couple of things there. I think at the heart of it, you learn how to acquire skill. You know, you learn that you have that thinking, contemplating, whatever, that's not sufficient. You have to go, you have to do, you have to do it consistently. And you have to be able to identify those patterns and do it at a level that is going to be mundane to practice. And once you've acquired that skill and you've polished that, you now can see, oh, well, that's how maybe in a more professional setting, maybe it's not martial arts, maybe it's something else. Right. So I think that you've learned a lot of valuable lessons based upon your Taekwondo experiences.
Grandmaster Jinsue Park:And something that you mentioned just now is, you know, when you're doing this, be intentional. If you're going to do it, be intentional about how you're going to do it. A lot of times, I think, half or not even a half, but there are things that happen in life where you just kind of happen across it and you go, okay, well, I guess I'm good at this. Let me just give it a try. Well, and I have to be very careful when I say the word try. Try was never a word that we spoke in our house. It was either you do it or you don't do it. Right. So you want it to be intentional about all of your emotions. And part of that was when we trained, prior to class, you would meditate. And you would ask yourself, what did I do last practice? How did I do it? And how can I be better at it today? And then at the end of that class, you would ask two questions. Did I give my 100%? And what did I learn today? And I think for folks to have practice, this is like before we even talked about emotional intelligence, the EQ, like in the business world, because if you're a fighter and you spar, you have to know yourself really, really well and know where your boundaries are, of what you can do and what you can't do. And I think for a lot of folks, this was the beginning of EQ in my opinion.
Dylan Carnahan:You know, as you're essentially giving a performance, right? And so you have to, I know as a baseball pitcher, you have to be aware of, you have to really be aware of yourself in order to give an optimal performance. You know, you have to be, hey, maybe I'm not feeling as energetic today. Maybe it's really hot out. Maybe I had something happen earlier today that's kind of emotionally lingering there. And you kind of have to tap into that in order to still give the best that you can. And that requires, I think, again, I think there's a lot of terms that have been thrown out. And, you know, but I think in essence, that's EQ.
Grandmaster Jinsue Park:Yeah, for sure. I. I think people who get into martial arts are looking, they're searching for something and they want to be better at whatever that is in life, and they just need some type of catalyst to get them to that point. So well said.
Dylan Carnahan:Speaking as a the word catalyst, there are going to be people. We talk about a lot of different topics on the Simple Questions Podcast. And so sometimes this is a first exposure for someone. So we're going to take a big step back. Okay, Jinsue, it was a huge step back. We're just going to go. And oftentimes, the simplest questions can be difficult. But what is Taekwondo?
Grandmaster Jinsue Park:So in the simplest terms, it is a Korean martial art that was developed. Now, some say if you Google it, you'll Google it. There are pictures that were drawn 2000 years ago of what it looks like people doing sparring moves. But if you come more recent, and I mean recent the last 100 years, there were five Kwans, K-W-A-N-S. And these five Kwans were the genesis of what we now call Taekwondo. Each Kwan was headed up by certain gentlemen who, almost like religion, wanted to spread the learning of their Kwan. Some of it was, a lot of it was amalgamation of what they learned in either Japan or China or other places. And they kind of created their own thing, a lot like religion. They wanted to create their own way. Specifically, Taekwondo, te meaning foot, do meaning fist, and what Taekwondo mean, do mean way. So it's the fist foot way. So it's a very, very basic understanding of just what that is. Somewhere between 2000 and before it is the recent time, they used to throw the words around Taekwondo or Tongsudo. Every now and again, you see the word Tongsudo on other martial arts. But what the five Kwans did is they joined together and created Taekwondo. So that's how it started. People see Taekwondo in the Olympics were known for a lot of our kicks. So Taekwondo is a lot of kicking. It's a lot of speed or a lot of twists, a lot of turns, a lot of spins. But then that's sport Taekwondo. But then there are others that want to practice just the art. So I try to do a little bit of both where I can do sport and help those that want to compete. But I don't want folks to think that we can only do sport because it is a life thing to practice so that you can stay flexible, stay lean, practice, keep your balance and coordination, and basically just sweat. I think we all could sweat a little more these days.
Dylan Carnahan:That's a really interesting distinction you bring up there between a sport and an art. Let's dig into that a little bit more. What's the difference between the two?
Grandmaster Jinsue Park:So back in the 60s, they had these tournaments and they had very little gear. So people would break their noses and ribs pretty frequently. And they started to say, well, we need to start putting rules in place so that someone might not accidentally die. So when you actually sign up for a tournament, you have to sign a waiver saying, if you're dismembered or worse, you can't hold the tournament director's responsible. And you sign that every time you get in the rank. So they wanted to make sure that the sport of Taekwondo was still carried forward with a little bit of rules to make sure that safety was of the utmost importance, but not to lose the essence of the art. Now, the art is different where it is strictly about self-defense, but it's self-defense through being offense. So there's a lot of kicks involved. I think a lot of folks think of the martial art, you know, back in the day as well. I don't want my son or daughter or someone to be even more aggressive. It's quite the contrary. I think when you learn that level, you learn to be patient. You learn to understand. You learn to breathe. I think the first class, that's the first thing you learn, is to breathe. And that's a funny thing to say, because everyone thinks, well, I can breathe automatically, autonomously. But I have a friend who is an advisor from the US to the Ukraine right now, and he's one of our black belts. And he recently was in an air raid, and he had less than four minutes to get under a bunker. And he was trying to direct hundreds of people to get to the bunker in four minutes. And he just remembered, let me breathe. I need to breathe right now so that I can execute what I need to. I just had this conversation with him the other day.
Dylan Carnahan:Wow.
Grandmaster Jinsue Park:Wow.
Dylan Carnahan:There's a lot to digest there, the first of which to to address what you just said. Breathing is huge, especially in a very stressful situation. As that anecdote suggests, I couldn't imagine the stress to have to not only be in the presence of danger, but have to direct others to safety. I mean, what a difficult task. And again, exemplifying the importance of breathing during that four minutes, right? I mean, that's difficult to imagine, especially as a civilian. The difference between those two, again, shows the seriousness of what you're interacting with, what you're doing, what you're being a participant of, and then the inherent danger of it. And I want to zero in, you brought up the kind of this being offensive. Could you explain how that paradigm, that perspective?
Grandmaster Jinsue Park:So, we kind of defined martial art and some martial arts as a hard style or a soft style. In some ways, gung fu is considered sometimes more of a soft style because there's not specific direct kicks. You're more using your own body to defend, whereas Taekwondo has been very… is known for its kicks. So, in order for you… like, if you look and watch… and I'm just fast forwarding to what we… what a lot of people see today on TV is MMA. The ones that seem to have a really good, strong level of kicking, the ones that like to wrestle, they want to stay away because they don't know what to do with someone who kicks. Now, once they get on the ground, it's a different game. But the ones that have kind of created their own level of success, they tend to have this ability to control the fight or in the ring because it's about distance, it's about spacing. When you're able to control space and distance, then your opponent can't encroach because obviously your legs are going to be longer than your arms. And if you know your opponent is much faster, much stronger and they're elite at their legs, it makes you think twice about what you're going to do or how you're going to be strategic in either trying to get in or stay away. So I think the kicking aspect is one of the most, it used to be one of those things where people would look at and go, well, I'm just going to brawl. But nowadays, I think people have to keep their eyes down sometimes. Good fighters know to keep the triangle. Triangle is your face and your shoulders because you can't kick without moving any of those three points. But yeah, I think really good, strong fighters who would know how to kick well, always perform well.
Dylan Carnahan:I appreciate the analysis there. That's very helpful to, again, kicking being an effective measure to basically control your interaction, which is that's the offensive upper hand you gain with that. What other distinctions would you make between Taekwondo and different martial arts?
Grandmaster Jinsue Park:So yeah, thank you for that question. So Judo requires a lot more hand-to-hand combat with more throws. So they tend to use their body a little more. Kung Fu, they have a lot more flow to their movements. Not as much kicking, but they all have kicks. Don't get me wrong, they all have kicks. Taekwondo is just known for its number of different types of kicks. Karate, of course, everyone knows karate, right, the word. And I think the basis of a lot of our martial arts came from karate. Shotokan is another form of karate. So there's a lot of different names to a lot of these different Jiu-Jitsu. So they all kind of mirror each other, but each one has their one thing that they're known for. So I think Jiu-Jitsu is known a lot for, once you have takedowns, what you do on the ground. So if you have knowledge of all of them, I think you can be a good balanced fighter. But usually, usually, a fighter comes from one discipline to begin with as a purist, and then they start to branch out.
Dylan Carnahan:Interesting. So you have this aspect that these different martial arts kind of have their plus plus, whatever is kind of their most defined positive attribute. And as you kind of alluded to with MMA, that they all have their different benefits. And then, I guess that's a good UFC fighter, right? Having kind of mixed all these different martial arts together, and being really solid in one foundation, and then being able to kind of adapt. Like you mentioned, okay, you know, kicking, you know, being very good, but then maybe needing the need to, you know, deal with submissions and kind of people on the ground. So kind of the culmination of those things.
Grandmaster Jinsue Park:Right. I think a lot of people want to know, and I get this question a lot, so I'll go ahead and ask it of myself, and I'll answer it. They want to know which martial art is better than the other, right? Which one is better? And I've never thought of it as being better. It's like asking someone, well, which religion is better, right?
Dylan Carnahan:It's hard to define.
Grandmaster Jinsue Park:It's hard to define. It depends on the perspective. But every person has a body built for a certain type, and you have to find the type of art that is more built for your body type. And that's what I would say, because you could have a strong body here, but you might not be a good fit for this type of art, because you're not flexible. Yeah.
Dylan Carnahan:That's a great point. Quick anecdote. I have a poor vision in my right eye. I was a baseball player. I couldn't bat very well, so I was a pitcher. I throw the ball instead of trying to hit it. That's a way to play to your strengths there. Same thing with swimming, right? Some people have a body built for swimming. I think that's a great distinction. I guess, could you elaborate on what would be a good criteria for wanting to be a participant of Taekwondo? You brought a flexibility.
Grandmaster Jinsue Park:I mean, any body is going to be good for any art if you're just starting out because you're just learning, you're just molding what you are. What I'm explaining is if you're trying to be an elite player or a practitioner, there are some things that you can't teach tall. You can't teach that level of length. If you're in a sparring match where that is an important piece, then kicking might be a good piece to that, but you also have to be flexible. If you're not flexible, then kicking is not, you're actually going to be at a disadvantage because you're going to be slower and you can't kick as high. Your opponent will know that right away. Within 10 seconds, if they're an elite fighter, they'll know that too.
Dylan Carnahan:Interesting. I appreciate the clarification there. To those that maybe are interested in learning, can you talk about from your experiences and the experiences of those you've been around, what are some of the challenges being a practitioner?
Grandmaster Jinsue Park:Like anything, I think once there's a challenge or it gets a little more difficult or it's tougher in the learning, I think people tend to just say, well, I'll just quit or I'll do something else. They change their mind without trying to work through it. I think in any art or sport, there's always going to be a challenge as you're getting better and stronger and faster, you're going to meet up with other people who are bigger, stronger, faster as well. And you're just trying to test your mettle. And you've got to figure out strategically, okay, if I'm sparring someone who's 6'3 and I'm only 5'10, what do I need to do to overcome? The basis of Taekwondo is overcoming because when you go back decades, it's always about how do you overcome certain things or certain situations? And that's where indomitable spirit comes back into play. How do I conquer this knowing that it's going to be a tough challenge? And I think for most people, when they're learning something new, it could be a dance, it could be whatever. Understand in the very beginning, it's going to get tougher and it's going to get harder a little bit. But once you can go through it and you practice it, it gets easier. You will learn and grow and then plateau. Learn again and plateau. And I think the belt systems that are in place in martial arts, it helps people see the gains they're making, whether it's just a single strike or a change in belt color, but they see it because the instructor goes, okay, now I can see that you're turning your hip over better, you've gotten faster, and your positioning is stronger. Now I can see that you can move up to the next level. Sometimes it's hard to see or see it in yourself. And I think that's a very common thing that we can't see it in ourselves. But when someone else can see that, it allows that challenge to be a little less. So you just keep moving forward. And again, it's about moving forward.
Dylan Carnahan:I'm glad you brought up that aspect of kind of like the turning of the hip. It's really hard when you're performing something that's athletic, because you don't have that third person perspective, right? So it's kind of hard to see when you do things poorly, right? Unless you maybe you get an audible feedback from an instructor, or maybe someone takes a video. But I appreciate you bringing that up, that sometimes you don't always have that awareness of your increase in performance, because you simply can't always just see yourself, which sounds very simple, but can be, especially as a beginner, kind of detrimental because you don't have that validation of improvement, if that makes sense.
Grandmaster Jinsue Park:Well, you're supposed to visualize, right? Anytime you are practicing with an action, you want to visualize and see yourself actually doing it before you actually do it, because you need to build that level of seeing it before you can do it. We do practice with mirrors, and that allows you to see how you're progressing. But again, when you're practicing and you're asking yourself your questions at the end of practice, did I do my best today? And what did I learn today? You're building on that level of your emotional intelligence of, I am getting better. I might not know it. I might not feel it yet, but I'm getting better. And then at some point, it happens and it's like a spark and people go, oh wow, look what I just did. And they would have never in a million years thought they could have broken that brick or the boards that you have to break or spar someone who is 20 or 30 pounds heavier and faster and they're able to do what they need to do to hold the ground. And I think that in itself is very meaningful for people to go, you know what, I'm not scared anymore.
Dylan Carnahan:So, yeah, there's a lot of mindset. There's a lot of mindset elements that we've kind of brought up here that I think, as you mentioned earlier, have a lot of great parallels that you can take elsewhere. I'm just very appreciative of you kind of sharing these different things because I think to those that maybe we don't want to participate. I mean, there's still a lot of great mindfulness and things that you've stated along our discussion so far.
Grandmaster Jinsue Park:Yeah, I think we're sometimes our own worst enemy because we can talk ourselves out of something so easily because in our own minds eye, we think of ourselves as the way we think of ourselves, I guess. But when you're able to practice something that allows you to be to wear a mask basically and to perform differently and be different, I think that allows you to get out of your comfort zone and go, you know what? I can do this. I can do this, which allows me to broaden out my scope to do other things. And that in itself is a big win, I think, for a lot of folks to not talk themselves out of stuff. Mm hmm. Yeah.
Dylan Carnahan:There's a kind of a snowball effect to that, in my opinion. You can kind of cultivate that. And so I think this is a great means of doing that. So for people that are wondering, how can people begin their Taekwondo journey with a credible teacher?
Grandmaster Jinsue Park:Great question. You know, I think we all saw the first karate kid, where you saw two different teachers, two instructors. One was a lot more empathetic and sympathetic and understanding. Someone that can understand you and that wants to build on your progress. Everyone's going to be different. There is a standard you have to hit if you're going to progress in belts, but everyone progresses differently and everyone has their own way of moving forward. And as long as you have a teacher, you're the bottom line that cares about your ability to move forward and learn and understand and have fun. I think we don't say that sometimes enough. When you're learning, try to have fun, because if you're not having fun, you're not going to want to learn, you know. Find that instructor that just allows you to be you and will let you progress at your level. And that you also have to communicate what you want out of the program. If you don't say, well, I'm here to lose weight or I'm here to increase my flexibility or I want to increase my memory because learning a form or a kumse is a number of steps. And it's shown that when you are performing the steps over and over and over over time, your brain actually functions better because you're having to remember these steps, these 20 or 30 steps and perform at a high level and be on time and with power and good speed. It's not easy to perform all that all at the same time. So you're doing multiple things, but you have to tell the instructor, this is what I need or this is what I want. And if they can't provide that level, then go find another instructor. Or if that's not the style you like, then I know a lot of people, they're like, I like watching Jiu-Jitsu, I just don't want to be rolling on the ground with someone. And I understand, or they want to learn Taekwondo, but they just don't want to spar hard. And I go, well, then let's learn how to spar in a different way. Let me understand what you want out of this program. So find that instructor that understands you and what you want, but know that there are certain things that you just do have to do in order to progress, and sometimes that's the only way to do it. You can't create your own jello mold and go, this is how I want to learn it. No, you can't do that. Some instructors are very hardcore and they're like, nope, this is the one way we do it.
Dylan Carnahan:There's a lot of good advice there regarding that. I especially like the communication piece. I think that so often, at least when starting a journey, it's such a struggle to begin something that when you do, you're in the door, you forget to maybe use your voice a little bit more and set those expectations and have that conversation, especially power dynamic. You're talking to someone that has a large amount of expertise, you don't. Maybe a little afraid of having that conversation. So I really appreciate you bring up that point. I think that's very good, very good advice.
Grandmaster Jinsue Park:Yeah.
Dylan Carnahan:I'll ask you, what is your advice for those who are interested in Taekwondo? I know we've mentioned a lot of different things.
Grandmaster Jinsue Park:Yeah.
Dylan Carnahan:What else you got for us?
Grandmaster Jinsue Park:So let me break it down into different types of people. For the most part, do you ask any child, do you want to learn martial art or Taekwondo? They all say, yeah, I'm super psych, yeah. But then they don't realize the level of work because most kids today aren't that flexible. It's funny, I think post COVID, kids have gotten even less flexible. They're not doing PE every week or every day like we used to. So that's way different. So for a child, I think it's for them to want to learn something new, maybe branch out and give them an opportunity to learn something. But I think for the parents, they're looking for the child to be in an activity that they'll be accepted and have fun. Because when you're playing a team sport, as you get older and you grow, I think we forget there are kids that want to compete. They're ones that just want to play the sport and not compete. If you start to are not at that level to keep moving forward and say travel, baseball or soccer, then you get left behind and you're like, okay, well, what do I do now? I still want to exercise of some sort. So for kids, I think it's a lot of parents understanding what the kids want to do and how they want to do it, but also support them. If they want to quit right away, I want to talk with them about it and say, well, why is that? It's going to be a little difficult. We knew that, but let me help understand why you want to maybe quit. Adults tend to be way different. So adult men, they want to go in and they want to learn so that they can get back to the shape that they were in high school or college. That's what I hear a lot. They're like, well, I just need to get back in shape. I need to get out of my family mode or work mode, and I just need to get better at being me so that I can be better for my family or for better for work, which is a very common thing what I see. They tend to keep moving forward because I don't think a lot of men want to give up real easily because once they start something in martial arts, they're like, you know what, this is fun. I am learning. I don't mind moving forward. A lot of times it's work pressure or family pressure that maybe takes them out. What I've noticed is there are a lot more women who are wanting to learn martial art now because it's maybe through their children, because their kids are in class and they're like, well, if I'm going to have to stay and wait, I might as well join or they're like I wouldn't mind because the bar class that a lot of these women are taking these days, you know, martial arts has a lot of bar activity where you're having a kick, not just a couple of times, hundreds of times. And if they're trying to be flexible and be more limber and also be more, be better at their hip movement, then they want to do Taekwondo and that helps them to be in class with their kids. So they're able to do an activity with their child, which most parents can't just go out on the basketball court with their child on a team. So I think that's a great thing. For many people, I just think they're wanting to do an activity that allows them to move at their own speed. And I think for any martial art, you control how fast you want to go or how slow you want to go. But again, communicate that to the instructor so that they know.
Dylan Carnahan:Well said. I really appreciate you kind of breaking that down. I think that's very applicable to kind of those different different kind of audience, wide range of audience. So I appreciate kind of that clarification there. I think that that's a lot of valuable information and interesting to know is just kind of an outside observer. Well, Jinsue, this has been an exciting conversation. I thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and time today.
Grandmaster Jinsue Park:You're very welcome. I feel like I didn't explain thoroughly enough, but there's so much about the art that if you Google the Kwans, K-W-A-N-S, you understand their origins of how Taekwondo came to be. Really, it's the mental aspect, in my opinion, that helps most people get to the point in their life to be more goal setting, or to just be better for themselves or for other families. That's the goal is to be better for yourself. With a lot of mental challenges in this world today, I think anything that can help you get through those things is something that we all should strive for.
Dylan Carnahan:Absolutely. We'll be sure to include some more educational material in the show notes for our listeners to check out. I think you've just presented a lot of great information, so I'm happy that people can sit down and listen to our conversation.
Grandmaster Jinsue Park:Thanks, Dylan. I appreciate it.
Dylan Carnahan:That wraps up our conversation with Jinsue. We talked about mindset, the history of Taekwondo, and flexibility. Go to this episode show notes to see any resources Jinsue mentioned during our episode. Lastly, subscribe to Simple Questions Podcast to get notified when our latest episodes are released. Thank you for listening, and remember to keep asking questions.