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Taekwondo Passion

Taekwondo Passion

By: Luis Arroyo
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Taekwondo Passion. The podcast for taekwondo passionate lovers.

Get inspiration from top world taekwondo people. Interviews with athletes, trainers, coaches, competitors and world class taekwondo professionals.Copyright Luis Arroyo
Episodes
  • James Howe: Seeing my athletes succeed is more fulfilling than anything

    James Howe: Seeing my athletes succeed is more fulfilling than anything
    May 5 2021
    Hello taekwondo lovers, I’m glad of bringing you a new episode of taekwondo passion.

    In today’s interview we talked with Master James Howe from Living Proof Taekwondo @livingprooftkd

    James has been a USA National Team member for many years and recently he founded Living Proof Taekwondo, the academy where he shares all his knowledge, experiences and helps others through taekwondo.

    James was an international level athlete, with a very longeve career always fighting with the best athletes in the world.

    But he comes from a traditional taekwondo background, and that’s why he teaches traditional taekwondo in his academy.

    Of course if his students want to train the sport, they’ll have the option to do it at the highest standards.

    Why is it so important to be in a place that helps you to grow?

    As a young athlete, James knew that in order to be as good as he wanted he needed to move to train with a competitive team.

    His idea was to try with different teams and choose the one which suited better for him.

    The first place he went was Miami, with Juan Moreno’s team Peak Performance, one of the top teams in the USA.

    He didn’t need to look for any other place. James knew it was the right place for him.

    The environment that coach Moreno promoted there was exactly what James was looking for.

    World Championships and Olympics

    James trained at Peak Performance for more than 10 years in a journey that took him to three World Championships, being very close to medals and fighting with athletes like Joel Gonzalez and Gabriel Mercedes.

    In the USA trials for London 2012 James fought against Mark Lopez, an experience which he considers helped him to realize that he could beat the top fighters in the world.

    But the -68kg was not a weight class for him. The winner of the trials was his teammate and friend Terrence Jennings, with whom he shared many battles from the past.


    James was able to help the USA Team on the way to the Olympics, especially his teammates from Miami, Terrence Jennings and Paige Mc Pherson and be part of their medals.

    Why is family support VERY important?

    Taekwondo still is not a professional sport, so many athletes and their families have to fund their careers.

    That’s been the case of many sparring athletes, like Nikita Glasnovic, Terrence Jennings and Paige Mc Pherson.

    And is even more common even for poomsae athletes, as is a newer sport.

    James family is no exception and his parents supported most of his career along with the support of USA Taekwondo.

    This can make us see the importance of helping youth to pursue their dreams, that will never be wasted money. If an athlete doesn't have support from his family, it will have a harder way through success.

    Another interesting thing is that James Howe always worked during his athletic career. He worked teaching younger athletes and also in the same warehouse as Terrence Jennings.

    Training with Juan Moreno at Peak Performance

    Peak Performance is one of the top teams in the USA and in the world. So, how is it to train there?

    James mentions that it is fun but hard. The day can start at 5:30am for the strength and conditioning training that sometimes ends with some paddle drilling and situation training.

    And they do a second training at night with the rest of the team. Coach Moreno is a tough trainer who doesn't accept any excuses and always expects so much from his athletes.

    But James points that he always motivates his athletes so they know that they can be among the best athletes in the world, of course, supporting that motivation with a lot of hard work.

    Living Proof Taekwondo

    As we mentioned in the intro James has recently opened his new facility, Living Proof taekwondo.

    After a long career James felt that it was the moment to open his own taekwondo academy. He teached taekwondo in the past but he wanted to do it in a place designed specifically to it with all the facilities to do taekwondo at the best level.

    He opened it just before the pandemic, so it was a very demanding challenge to face, but with the passion he has for taekwondo and all the experience he had accumulated, Living Proof will succeed and help the Bay Area community.

    You can hear the full interview following the links below. Please enjoy it and let us know your thoughts.
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    58 mins
  • Ehsan Davari: A gamjeom can change a person's life

    Ehsan Davari: A gamjeom can change a person's life
    Apr 20 2021
    New Episode UP!Hello Taekwondo lovers, welcome to a new interview in taekwondo passion.Our guest today is master Ehsan Davari from Iran.If you follow us from before, you probably know him as he helped us as an interpreter to interview Fatemeh Hesam.But I wanted to interview him as he has been a poomsae, sparring and gymnastics coach and competitor.At first he practiced gymnastics for many years. When he decided to move into taekwondo, he was already a gymnastics coach.But he made that move because in taekwondo he would have better opportunities to develop as an athlete.Master Eshan now is mostly focused on refereeing and as you’ll notice from the interview, he is very dedicated to improving his practice and knowledge of the rules.He mentions that one of the most common mistakes athletes make at any level is to not know the rules, the best athletes have a deep understanding of the game rules.One of the most important things you can learn listening to this interview is about dedication and willingness to learn. Master Eshan is clear that one of the most important things for success is not to quit. So, don’t miss the opportunity to learn from him and to listen to how taekwondo is in one of the countries with a greater tradition in our martial art..You can find the interview on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube.Iran’s taekwondo traditionAs you may know, Iran is a country with a very rich taekwondo tradition.Taekwondo is very popular in Iran, and also very competitive. The country organizes taekwondo professional leagues for sparring and poomsae.The league lasts for some months and you accumulate points as you participate and win matches every weekend.At the end of the league the athlete with most wins is the one who will win the league. IWhat do you think of this kind of competitions?I personally think that is a “fairer” way to find the best athletes in the country, but on the other side it can be very demanding for athletes to fight or compete every weekend.Also this kind of league can only work in countries where a lot of people practice taekwondo. A thing that with time is always more common.Here in my country Mexico, we have a lot of people practicing and going crazy about taekwondo events, and I’ve always imagined the same from Iran.Is it the same way in your country? You can tell us how it is in the comments.From gymnastics to taekwondoImagine that you are a really talented gymnastics athlete. You are among the best in your region and you are even starting to coach other athletes.Why should you move as a teenager to try in another sport? A sport that you have never practiced before.This was what happened to Master Eshan, he was a very talented athlete but his city is very small and they didn’t have the facilities which allow him to continue growing.They didn’t have even the most basic equipement.That lack of equipment didn’t allow him to compete in all the necessary events to be scouted as a talent.So he decided not to stop and to move to another sport.And that’s the way he came into taekwondo.It is also interesting that some of his first taekwondo training partners were his gymnastics students.But he didn’t care about that and as he was a person with a lot of athleticism coming from gymnastics he developed really fast in taekwondo.Another interesting thing Master Ehsan shares is that he was always the first who wanted to help his taekwondo Master.He was always early to class so if something was needed, for example cleaning the mats, he would always volunteer to that.The taekwondo journeyTo train in a small town can make things difficult but not impossible. Master Eshan was first more oriented to the sparring side of the sport.But you know you can train sparring alone, but it is better always to have a team and training partners.So, for Master Ehsan, a way to be more competitive was poomsae. In which you are more able to train alone.And in a similar way he is now more focused in refereeing than in coaching. He shares that coaching is a very rewarding experience, but for many aspects of coaching you don’t depend only on you to excel.So he prefered to focus on the refereeing part now. So, if he has to travel to an event he only has to focus on giving his best.But on the other side he has a responsability. He shares with us that he has talked with some coaches about the challenges of being a referee or a coach.If you make a mistake as a coach maybe you can redeem learning from it and giving the best for your athlete in the future.But if you make a mistake as a referee the mistake will always be there.What do you prefer?How to prepare for a competition as a referee?Every athlete has to prepare the best for a competition.The same is valid for referees.You have to be at your best for every match, apart from his normal preparation attending seminars and practicing. The night before a tournament, Master Ehsan reads and studies all the ruleset and practices for two to three hours.No...
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    1 hr and 19 mins
  • Tim Thackrey: The first thing we have to train is mindset

    Tim Thackrey: The first thing we have to train is mindset
    Apr 8 2021
    Hello Taekwondo lovers.New episode of taekwondo passion UP.Our guest today is 9x USA National Team member and world medalist Tim Thackrey. Now is an expert in sports performance and strength & conditioning.Creator of The Juice Compound @juicecompound he has coached Olympians, National Team Members, Games Athletes and people who want to improve their lives through exercise. Tim talked with us about his beginnings in taekwondo, being part of a family completely involved in taekwondo. @martialartfresnoTim was a child who used to win every competition he attended, until he was 15, when he lost every fight for two years.With the support of his family, he decided to stop going to high school to focus on improve his taekwondo skills and to dedicate full time to training.The strategy worked for him as soon he started to win and gain confidence and skills, first at national level and after it internationally.Years later he was able to finish his college degree in UCLA.Some of the things you can learn listening the interview are:Why is Tim's father, having an academic background and being professor in a prestigious university allowed him to drop out of school?How Tim prepared to get a medal at the World Championships?How should we program training when our athletes have to face multiple competitions in a year?Why do we have to learn about sprinting and weightlifting?How can we promote mental strengthening and toughness in our students?You can find the full interview on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts.Please enjoy and let us know your thoughts.Should everyone drop out of high school and pursue their dreams?One of the first things that I found interesting about Tim is that he dropped out of school to focus on taekwondo.The normal way we hear we should make things is to focus on our academic career and then after finishing it we should start to gain experience in our field.Tim made things in a different way.He was at a point where he was losing all of his fights. And he thought the solution was to train more and better.His father proposed the idea of stopping attending school. It could seem counterintuitive, being his father a successful academic we would think that he wanted his son to follow the same way.But his father’s academic experience was in psychology. He was an expert in human behaviour and development and he knew that the best thing for Tim at that moment was to try and put all of his effort in his taekwondo career.Later he could study at the university as he did.I was very interested in knowing if Tim would recommend the same to others, and the answer kind of surprised me.I was expecting a straight yes but it was not that way.When Tim studied high school there were less options to study and train.Nowadays, and especially after the pandemia, it is easier than before to study an academic career while training, we have a lot of distance learning programs.So, I’m pretty sure you can always find good options that allow you to train and compete.How to program training for taekwondo?One of the most important things we should do as coaches is to organize our training. With the number of people training and competing in taekwondo nowadays details make a big difference.According to Tim, before programming it is very important to consider the sports age of the athlete, which is apart from the biological age.We can have an athlete that is 21 year old but has only been training seriously for two years. Or we can have an athlete that is 16 but has been training for 5 years.The younger the sports age we should focus more on training than competitions. With an excess of competitions in the calendar we can be tempted to aim for performance peaks all the year round.The danger of this is that in order to perform better at competitions, we’ll take out important time from training. Which should be the main goal with young athletes.Tim recommends just one or two fundamental competitions during the year for these athletes.How to choose the fundamental competition?In some cases we can be worried that if our athlete doesn't win a certain competition he won’t be able to go for the more important one.For example, in some countries, to access a national competition you should win first your spot in the state or province championships.Another example is that to win a world medal, you should first win at a national level.So, which competition is more important? Shall we program for nationals or program for worlds?Tim mentons that if you are thinking in a world medal, you should program for that as you might be able to manage with all your experience the nationals stageBut if you still have troubles at the national level, you should program for the national trials.It depends on any case and the experience of the athlete.How high can a virtually trained athlete should point?Tim has trained athletes virtually even before the pandemic.He coached and qualified athletes from different sports to Rio 2016 and he continues doing ...
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    1 hr and 8 mins
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