Although Taekwondo was first developed over 20 centuries ago in Korea, it was not officially recognised as a system of self-defence until the 1950's when a group of leading Korean martial artists unified their various art forms under a single style of hand and feet fighting. They named this martial art, TAEKWONDO, and in 30 years have developed it into one of the most effective styles of unarmed self-defence.

Taekwondo is a free-fighting combat sport where an individual uses bare hands and feet to repel an opponent. Taekwondo literally means the "way of kicking and punching." It consists of sharp, strong angular movements with free flowing circular movements to produce a balance of beauty and power. Taekwondo's trademark is the kicking techniques, which are both spectacular and difficult. All the moves are based on the defensive attitude, which was originally developed for self-protection. Equally important to Taekwondo being a superior art of self-defence, it is also a mental discipline.

In recent years, Taekwondo has become a modern amateur sport. It has maintained its tradition and spirit of martial science and is now a very popular sport - being practiced in 157 countries by more than 50 million people throughout the world.

The national federation of Taekwondo in Australia is Taekwondo Australia Incorporated. And the NSW state body is Taekwondo Australia NSW Incorporated. Taekwondo was first introduced in Australia in 1965. Over the last 35 years the Taekwondo family has grown to 120,000. There are approximately 1,000 Taekwondo schools in Australia with 3,000 registered competitors.

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