The Future of Taekwondo!

I am so excited.

Why, you might ask?

The future of taekwondo is incredible. If you’re as passionate about taekwondo as I am, you probably have already watched YouTube tutorials and know about the various educational and competitive apps you can download on your phone. They're certainly very helpful for reviewing poomsae, watching sparring competitions, or satiating your curiosity.

But there is so much more than that. So. Much. More.

Before I begin, I want to say this is not sponsored, and I do not plan to mention, endorse, or otherwise promote any products of any companies. This is just my ramblings and general excitement about what I’ve seen. Alright. Let’s begin!

So, have you seen the movie (or perhaps read the book) Ready Player One? If you have, you know it’s about a dystopian world where society essentially functions in a virtual reality. In this dystopic world, people do everything in the video game. School, work, exercise. Basically everything. Sure, to accomplish these tasks, you move around. But the context is entirely virtual, displayed through a VR headset.

That is essentially what is being made now. Interactive, life-changing technology. Except, you know, without the post-apocalyptic dystopia.

I suppose that’s a bad analogy, but you get the idea (I hope).

Recently, as companies develop VR technology, other people are creating sport-related systems to connect to it. Now, people aren’t sitting on their butts playing video game versions of Olympic events using a fancy headset. That would be very boring, and a true tragedy to the technology. Instead, they put on VR gear and do their sport (in some way or another) remotely.

As an example, there is development of a rowing technology where, instead of being in a boat on a river, athletes are on rowing machines. Same motions, same objective, but instead, they are on a machine where the data is transmitted and compared to that of another team. This certainly wouldn’t be the same as being in a real crewing event but, if presented with transport issues or public safety hazards (like a pandemic), it could be a viable sport.

In fact, there are enough different events that there could be a an international VR competition someday. This could be extremely helpful. It wasn’t long ago that Covid struck and the 2020 Olympics had to be delayed due to safety concerns. With VR technology, while we would still have to avoid in-person competition, we could still have an VR competition done remotely around the world.

Now, I’m hopeful that these remote events won’t take over the normal events, but instead complement them. Personally, I think it would be a tragedy to lose live competitions. At least in my opinion. There’s just something to the live events that makes it special. Adding the VR version, though, could be incredible.

I can also see it having great training opportunities. With an AI sparring partner combined with a remotely connected instructor monitoring the scenario, people could practice sparring virtually.

Sparring, and the future of it, sounds great. What about poomsae? We can't just leave it in the dust!

Thankfully, we're not. There are training apps already on the market to practice poomsae. The programs can help with stance, technique, rhythm, etc. Again, I can see how this could make competitions more accessible and easier to work remotely. At one point, I was talking with a fellow referee, when they told me about how they would do poomsae competitions during Covid using video. With a VR version, judges could see so much more than they might get from a video or livestream. They could, for example, see the competitor's perspective, as well as their own.

So yeah. I’m extremely excited for the future of this technology and look forward to its success.

Have a nice day!