Dar duo off to S. Korea for taekwondo training

Arusha. Two local trainers will represent Tanzania in a month-long taekwondo training in South Korea.

The exercise, which starts later this week, has attracted over 80 trainers from 50 countries.

The duo – David Samson from Arusha and Dar es Salaam’s Patrick Majaliwa – are already on the way to the Korean city of Muju, where the game originated.

Speaking to The Citizen before departure over the weekend, Samson said they had paid $390 (Sh892,222) to be enrolled in the exercise.

“We were invited after meeting the conditions, which include our passion and participation in the game”, he said.

However, he said the level of taekwondo in the country was still low due to various factors, including poor sensitisation.

Samson is nevertheless one of the few experienced players in the game, having attended various trainings abroad. That, according to him, include the ‘black bell’ stints.

For his part, the chairman of martial arts in Arusha, Kassim Ramadhani, said taekwondo and other forms of martial arts have some prospects in Tanzania despite some challenges.

Taekwondo is essentially a Korean martial art, characterized by its emphasis on head-height kicks, jumping and spinning kicks and fast kicking techniques.

The game was developed during the 1940s and 1950s by Korean martial artists with experience in martial arts such as karate, Chinese martial arts and indigenous Korean martial arts. The oldest governing body for taekwondo is the Korea Taekwondo Association (KTA) formed in 1959.

The main international organisational bodies for taekwondo include, the International Kaekwond-Do Federation (ITF), which was founded in 1966.