Taekwondo Skills Boosted By Computer Games

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Taekwondo-Old Games meet New Games!

Manchester has a great taekwondo training facility and it’s come to light that the guys and girls are using computer games in their bid for medals at the 2012 London Olympics!

Quite a few of the martial arts athletes have their homes and apartments around the training facility and are encouraged to take a break from their normal skills training to play computer martial arts games.

“We know it keeps the mental agility there and it’s good for hand-eye coordination.” This was by Des Blackburn, who is now the performance analyst for British Taekwondo.

Tyrone Robinson, 22, one of the medal hopefuls training at the British team’s elite performance academy said “I’m never going to be able to throw fireballs in the ring like the characters in Street Fighter IV, but I can still try some of the crazy kicks they do!”

Normally Tyrone spends his time combining weight training, general conditioning and specific taekwondo drills and just uses the computer games for relaxation.

Sarah Stevenson won Britain’s first Olympic taekwondo medal at last year’s Beijing Games, claiming a bronze in the over-67-kg category. Tyrone Robinson qualified for Beijing but failed to win a place on the team – when asked about this he replied “I’m wounded. It would have been a massive thing. But I’m okay now.”

Robinson, who won an under-58kg bronze medal at last year’s European championships in Rome, said he had taken up taekwondo at the age of seven because he liked fighting.

“My uncle had his own club and my dad just took me along. I enjoyed it,” he said. “I used to play football, it was football and taekwondo. When I was 16 or 17 I used to win a lot and I thought: ‘I’m pretty good at this’.”

Winning a medal in Beijing has been a priority for the British team. As the host nation, Britain will have four automatic medal spots at the 2012 London Games.