The most comprehensive text ever written on the world's most widely practiced martial art--Taekwondo. Expertly integrates traditional and modern approaches, sport and self-defense, in a single definitive text.

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This ground-breaking text is the first to offer Taekwondo in its totality, documenting the traditions, philosophy, and techniques of the world's most widely practiced martial art. In more than 8,600 photographs spanning 840 pages, renowned Taekwondo masters and elite competitors demonstrate over 700 core Taekwondo techniques, including stances, footwork, hand strikes, elbow strikes, standing kicks, jump kicks, ground kicks, avoiding and blocking skills, step and self-defense sparring, Olympic-Style sparring, breaking techniques, and solo forms and patterns. Techniques are named in both English and Korean throughout.

Detailed introductory chapters provide an authoritative overview of Taekwondo's history, philosophy, current structure, and contemporary issues, and thoroughly review breathing and meditation, warmups and flexibility exercises, and vital targets. To address the highly specialized and constantly evolving needs of sport competitors, in-depth chapters on Olympic-Style sparring cover basic concepts, current trends, core techniques, tactics and strategies, terminology, and more than 90 core attacking and counterattacking techniques used by world-class competitors. For forms enthusiasts, 250-plus pages provide a comprehensive overview of 49 forms and patterns embraced by major federations, such as the WTF and ITF.

Inclusive of virtually all Taekwondo styles, this unprecedented work integrates traditional and modern approaches, sport and self-defense, in a single text. Written and designed by the author of the 1,136-page "Hapkido"--widely acclaimed the most comprehensive book ever written on a single martial art--this indispensable work is the definitive text on Taekwondo, and a classic of martial arts literature. View sample pages, read book