Whether you’re up for a demonstration or for regular practice, you want your body to rise to the occasion. In such a scenario, you don’t want to place a foot wrong as it can be detrimental to your progress. When it comes about improving Taekwondo Poomsae, you must keep the steps below in mind:

1. Basic Stretching: Before you begin with a demonstration, you’d want to spend quality time of about 30-40 minutes doing basic stretching before starting with poomsae. This is an important warm-up which activates your body and prepares it for the next step. By now, you’d know why this is important! It reduces the risk of injuries. (Our in-depth guide about stretching can prove to be really handy here).

2. Leg Stretch: While the in-depth guide does talk about stretching in details, there’s one particular thing you must make note of and i.e. the importance of leg stretching. Leg stretching is an important part of Poomsae and you must take 20-25 minutes of your spare time to work on your flexibility.

Some of the stretches you can engage in a contemporary way include:

• Reading, watching TV or playing Xbox while sitting in full splits
• Following the full split by front split with emphasis on each leg for up to 20 minutes
• Butterfly stretching with someone pressing down on your knees from behind.

3. Stance: There are three main stances in Taekwondo poomsae, i.e. cat stance or beom sohgi, front stance or ahp sohgi, horse stance or juchoom sohgi. It’s crucial that you practice the forms with these stances first. You can have someone correct your forms and postures or you can practice it in front of the mirror. Stop at each movement to evaluate its preciseness. Ultimately, precision is what we’re aiming for. Never forget to keep your shoulder square and your back straight in every movement, that is a pre-requisite.

4. Hands & Leg Movements: Poomsae is a combination of the entire body movement. Thus, once you get a grip on stance, you should emphasize on hands and legs movement. You want to perfect each motion. Thus, you can start off by focusing on the hand movements. Majority of the movements require your hands to be flat and fingers to be together. When practicing leg movements or kicks, don’t get lured by power and speed. What we want to achieve is balance followed by motion and power. Balance is crucial as, without which, no kick can be delivered effectively.

5. Club it all together & focus: Not only do you need to practice forms but you need to remember them as well. Once you’ve each movement in place i.e. stance, hand movements, and kicks, emphasize on improving the accuracy. Start slowly while maintaining the proper form. The goal is to not lose your balance. Once you achieve control, then you can integrate power and tenacity in your poomsae.