Taekwondo and other martial arts are fabulous sports for girls! Not only do they incorporate fitness, agility, discipline, and fun, they empower girls to take control of their destiny and teach them very important self-defense skills.
Tracee from So Sioux Me, shared this photo of her daughter showing off her Taekwondo form on her website and gave me permission to share it with my readers, too. From Tracee’s post on Taekwondo, here are her thoughts on the sports benefits:
It’s completely gender neutral, a sport where girls are as likely to excel as boys and instructors are both men and women.
It’s focused on discipline and respect, which I find useful as a parent who struggles to get my kids to obey.
It’s centered around personal excellence. In other words, you aren’t necessarily competing with other athletes as much as you are trying to push your own self to the next belt level.
It is confidence building in that she’s learning something new and achieving levels of excellence.
I think she’ll carry her physical body in a more assertive way. Studies have shown that girls tend to try to disappear or shrink as they get older, feeling less worthy of taking up physical space. I hope Karate will make her feel entitled to all the space she wants.
Also I hope it will make her feel her body is a source of action and strength instead of a just an ornament meant to look pretty for male approval.
They are encouraged to use their voices and their bodies to defend their own persons. Like any parent my worst fear revolves around someone feeling they have a right to physically over-power my daughter and attack her. I hope that Taekwondo will improve her chances of escape and survival should that happen.
My daughter has quite a few friends who do various martial arts and they love it!
