taekwondo ''Taekwondo'', ''Tae Kwon Do'' or ''Taekwon-Do'' (; ko, 태권도/跆拳道 ) is a Korean form of martial arts involving punching and kicking techniques, with emphasis on head-height kicks, spinning jump kicks, and fast kicking techniques. T ...

, taegeuk is a set of ''

Pumsae The Korean terms hyeong, pumsae, poomsae and teul (meaning "form" or "pattern") are all used to refer to martial arts forms that are typically used in Korean martial arts such as Taekwondo and Tang Soo Do. * Hyeong is often romanized as ''hyu ...

'' (also known as ''Poomsae'' or ''Poomse''), or defined pattern of defense-and-attack forms used to teach taekwondo. Between 1967 and 1971, Kukkiwon-style taekwondo made use of an older set of forms called the '' palgwae'' forms developed by the

Korea Taekwondo Association Korea Taekwondo Association ( 한국 태권도 협회; 韓國跆拳道協會; KTA), originally the Korea Tang Soo Do Association (1961),Park, S. H. (1993): About the author. In H. H. Choi: ''Taekwon-Do: The Korean art of self-defence'', 3rd ed ...

(KTA) with input from some of the original nine ''

kwans Kwan (Hanja: 館; Hangul:관) in Korean literally means building or hall, but when used in martial arts it can also refer to a school or clan of martial artists who follow the same style and/or leader. Taekwondo: The Five Kwans / The Nine Kwans ...

'' of taekwondo. By 1970, additional kwans had joined the KTA so the newer set of taegeuk forms was developed to better represent inputs from all the participating kwans. By 1971, the palgwae forms were considered to be deprecated in favor of the newer taegeuk forms, though some schools still teach palgwae forms as well. All

World Taekwondo Federation World Taekwondo, called the World Taekwondo Federation until June 2017, is an international federation governing the sport of taekwondo and is a member of the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations (ASOIF). The ''World Taekwo ...

(WTF) Pumsae competitions use the taegeuk pumsae, along with 8 of the black belt Pumsae. To gain a black belt, a student generally must know all eight Taegeuk Poomsae and also be able to perform all of them consecutively with no breaks in between. Each Taegeuk form symbolizes a specific state thought to be indicative of the belt the student currently holds, and is represented in WTF Taekwondo by

trigrams Trigrams are a special case of the ''n''-gram, where ''n'' is 3. They are often used in natural language processing for performing statistical analysis of texts and in cryptography for control and use of ciphers and codes. Frequency Context ...

(originally derived from the I-Ching) similar to those found in the four corners of the South Korean flag.

Taegeuk Poomsae

Many schools require that form practice begin with a bow to the

flag A flag is a piece of fabric (most often rectangular or quadrilateral) with a distinctive design and colours. It is used as a symbol, a signalling device, or for decoration. The term ''flag'' is also used to refer to the graphic design empl ...

and/or instructor, but the motions of the forms themselves do not require the bow, nor is it necessary in personal practice.

References

{{Reflist Taekwondo Kata

Taegeuk Poomsae

See also

References