Agility

Today, I will be talking about agility and why it is important in taekwondo sparring. Agility is the ability of a fighter to control the body while maintaining power and speed. Step sparring is used to improve agility and reflexes. Other activities for improving agility are running in place, zigzag running, speed kicks, sideways running in small steps, paddle sparring, and sports such as soccer and basketball. Yes, you heard right, I said basketball. I actually been playing basketball to improve my own agility.

Without agility, effective attack and counterattack skills cannot be performed with speed. Agility is the ability to move quick, shift weights, and move back and forth and side to side as necessary in the ring. When an older athlete decide to compete in a younger age class (local tournaments), they are often surprise to find that their agility and and reaction times are somewhat slower than the agility and reaction time of their younger opponents. Agility and speed changes as athletes get older that is why there are different age divisions in a taekwondo sparring tournament.

The video above are drills to improve agility. It was demonstrated by master Sang H. Kim. For more information check out his video Ultimate Kicking Drills.