Bowing in Taekwondo

When you think of Martial Arts, and you take away all the punching and kicking, all the patterns and sparring, the break falls and the self defence… 

What (if anything) is left?

Respect

Respect is the underlying factor in all Martial Arts, it’s part of the reason we all love it. Respect allows us to train potentially dangerous techniques and teach other people because we trust them; we have a mutual respect.

Bowing is the pinnacle of respect on the mats. Bowing to others shows humility, humbleness, and a suppression of the ego. Bowing shows appreciation, respect, recognition, and truly seeing another person.

In each martial art, the bowing is done in different ways. 

So how do we bow in Taekwondo?

We start from an attention position 차렷 (Charyeot), which like the military in both the US and South Korea—is standing full erect, feet together, heels touching, chest out, arms at your side, chin up. From here we perform the bow 경례 (kyeongrye). 

While bowing we want keep our spine straight and head in-line with the spine. This means as we lean forward we will eventually gaze at the ground while we bow. This is showing a trust in our opponent or fellow practitioner. There is a vital spot on the back of the head where the brain stem connects to the spine and it is very vulnerable while we bow. We are trusting our opponent will not give us a chop!

(Not all martial arts will look down as Taekwondo does, in Karate it is customary to keep your eyes locked on whomever you’re bowing to.)

Why do we bow from a military-style attention stance?

The answer is simple, General Choi created Taekwondo and used it to train the Korean military. This blending of Martial Art and Military tradition caused our stance to resemble that of a soldier while bowing. Contrarily in Karate, practitioners bow with their heels together but toes apart in a more natural stance.

Why do we look down when we bow? Wouldn’t that be a bad idea to expose our weak spot?

Well first of all, we wouldn’t be bowing in a street fight, and we wouldn’t be bowing if we thought we were in any danger.

Now that that’s out of the way, we will usually only bow in the Training Hall 도장 (Dojang) so we can assume to trust our opponent or fellow practitioner. We also have to bear in mind that Taekwondo has a sport version as well, which means you’ll only be fighting one opponent at a time and you both agree to pre-conceived rules; along with have a referee there to keep you both safe.

So when and where should we bow in a Taekwondo Dojang?

• Bow to senior practitioners (Respect our elders) 
• Bow to higher ranked practitioners (Respect those who started before we did)
• Both of these types of practitioners (either older or higher rank.. or both!) can be referred to as 선배님 (seonbaenim).
• Bow to Instructors 사범님 (sabumnim), because… duh!
• Bow when entering/leaving the Dojang
• Bow when entering/leaving the training mats

Why do we bow to our Seonbaenim?

They came before us! Either in life or in martial arts training, so we respect them and glean whatever lessons they may have for us; whatever help they may provide us along our journey… because they walked the same path before us.

Why do we bow when entering the Dojang? Why do some Dojangs have their students shout ‘Taekwon!’ when they enter?

We bow when we enter to show respect to the Sabumnim who cares for the students and the facility.

We shout ‘Taekwon!’ As a way to let everyone know we have arrived!

NO!

‘Tae’ means Foot and ‘Kwon’ means fist… So we shout ‘Taekwon!’ because yelling ‘Foot-Fist’ is just something we do!

NO!

Shouting ‘Taekwon!’ When we bow has historical roots that go as far back as the naming of our martial art! 

Our martial art was created by a man named Choi Hong Hi— He was a general in the South Korean army. He named his martial art ‘Taekwondo,’ however some others (like the South Korean president at the time) wanted to call it ‘Taekkyon’ 택견 (which was an ancient Korean martial art focused on tripping the opponent with leg techniques).

In order to gain traction with HIS name, General Choi commanded all students in his dojang to shout ‘Taekwon!’ Whenever they bowed.

As we know, the more we say or hear something… the more it sticks! That’s exactly what happened to Taekwondo.

(With no small amount of pushing from General Choi)

We bow when we enter and leave the training area to show respect to those who are training at that time.

Let me know if you have any further questions or concerns about bowing and we can work through it together in the comments!

Train hard, bow often, and see you on the mats!👊