Product Description

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 896 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, competition rules, referee signals, 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 destined to become a classic of martial arts literature.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #446353 in Books
• Published on: 2003-05
• Released on: 2003-04-08
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 896 pages

MA Success Magazine, October 2003
"The" definitive work on the subject, and of mammoth scope . . . expertly integrates traditional and modern approaches, history, sport and self-defense.

Review
"The most comprehensive work ever written and illustrated on the world's most widely practiced martial art . . . expertly integrates traditional and modern approaches, history, and sport and self-defense . . . the definitive work on the subject, and of mammoth scope. If you want a worthwhile investment in a single Taekwondo book, I recommend that you buy this one. You won't be disappointed."—John Corcoran, Managing Editor of MA Success magazine and coauthor of the classic Martial Arts: Traditions, History, People "An excellent job in compiling a very detailed list of techniques . . . a rich reference source for the beginning as well as intermediate Taekwondo student. . . . The author is to be commended for his excellent organization and presentation of the material throughout the book. . . . an historical asset."— Journal of Asian Martial Arts

About the Author
Marc Tedeschi is an internationally respected artist, designer, educator, and martial arts master, who has practiced martial arts for more than 25 years, training extensively in Hapkido, Taekwondo, Jujutsu, Judo, and Karate. Tedeschi's unique ability to blend his skills as a designer, writer, and martial artist has resulted in numerous books, widely acknowledged for their design excellence, outstanding imagery, and clarity of content. He is the author of twelve works, including a unique series of general martial arts books that provide an in-depth look at the core concepts and techniques shared by a broad range of martial arts.

Customer Reviews

Taekwondo Bible
I love this book. Everything you will ever want to know about Taekwondo with easy to follow pictures. This is a must have for the serious artist. From the beginning of your journey to the end.

Taekwondo: Traditions, Philosophies, Techniques
This is one of my favorite book about Taekwondo. It presents all technique that you need to become an excellent Taekwondo practicer. Its wide variety of 1-to-1 technique can help you efficiently both in sparring and on the street. It also presents various forms with discreet directions that a even a beginner can follow. I highly recommend it to any enthusiast.

TaeKwon Do from a WTF perspective
Mr Tedeschi is undoubtedly a skilled practicioner of Hapkido and has written a thought provoking and intelligent review of TaeKwon Do.

However, despite claims that it covers all forms of TKD, and indeed doing so in terms of patterns (Tull or Poomse depending on your WTF or ITF affilliation), it only deals with WTF (Olympic) sparring.

As a result, whole chapters on sparring are rendered irrelevant, much more difficult to apply or less useful to any non-WTF practicioner.

This WTF focus extends to techinical parts of the book too. Whilst acknowledging that WTF is primarily a sport form and ITF a traditional self-defence form, it then fails to cater to the techiniques of the latter in the practical sections.

Similarly, the focus is on footwork appropriate to WTF stylists, kicking techniques appropriate to WTF stylists, etc etc.

Having found Mr Tedeschi's Hapkido book enthralling and informative, I was a little disappointed with the failure to acknowledge the scope of modern TKD. WTF stylists may find it of more use, but if the book is going to claim to encompass all of modern TKD, I would like to see it do so.

Paul Mitchell
1st Dan TAGB