While teaching classes, this week, it occurred to me how much the components of Taekwon-Do training can be likened to a recipe for cooking, or baking. To simplify this as much as possible, let’s compare the recipe for chocolate chip cookies, to that of a Yellow Belt student preparing for a grading (over 3 months). First let’s look at the individual ingredients, in the image, below:
Let’s take the Cookie recipe: Most people would realise, if you leave out any of the ingredients, then you will not end up with a satisfactory cookie. Similarly, if the proportions are not correct (e.g. too much milk/too little flour), then you will also get a disappointing result.
It is the same with your Taekwon-Do training – every ingredient in the recipe is important. If you miss too many classes, or neglect some of the important parts of Home training, you will get a disappointing result. What often happens, is that students pick and chose the ingredients they want, or like, neglecting the ones that they need the most, i.e. are most challenging.
The result: disappointment.
So, when planning every single week’s training – ensure that each ingredient gets the optimum attention. This is the recipe for success, in Taekwon-Do training, and indeed, Life.