Taekgyeon Showcase

Last Friday night, I went to and participated in my first taekgyeon showcase. My dojang has a few of these every year, but I've never seen what it's actually like. The showcase is mostly like a recital. All the taekgyeon kids (babies, most of them!) perform the routines they've learned: jumping and 낙법 (fall breaking), kicking, board breaking, sparring, and jump rope routines. Their parents were in attendance, super proud and also heavily involved: there were games incorporating 엄마 and 아빠, like the parents holding boards for their kids to break, as well as an adorable father-child jump rope contest. The last event was a lottery for some incredible prizes, including three new road bikes. It was loud, chaotic, and surprisingly fun!

Adorable taekgyeon babies! A lot of these kids are black belts, haha. Don't mess with 'em.

My moments in the spotlight came twice: I jumped over a soft barricade about four feet tall (in the video below, kids jump over one and two soft blocks; I've been doing four and trying five) and performed 본때뵈기 with the other adults who train at the dojang. It wasn't much, but I was proud to be able to show what I've been working on recently. In the end, I got a little medal for my participation in taekgyeon this past year, just like all of the other kids. Yay!

The guys on the far left and far right are my middle school homies. They hang out and train with the adults every so often, and I like talking to them, usually about American pop music.

I wish I had more photos to show you, but my camera was going nuts that evening. It had been too cold outside and it was too warm inside the dojang, so my lens and internal hardware kept fogging up. It wouldn't stop until the camera became acclimated to the indoor temperature. As a result, a lot of my photos were foggy, dark, and blurry. I wasn't pleased. But I did take some videos later, and I've spliced them into a short video. So here's a bit of what I witnessed at the showcase. Enjoy!