How Do People Keep Up? (Rant)
I’m going into seniors from juniors in the 2027 season as a female. I’ve done Taekwondo since I was like three since my dad owns a Dojang. I did some casual competitions before Covid and only got back into competitions afterwards. And even then the sparring team itself was an on and off thing until my dad actually found a sparring instructor. My dad grew up in Korea learning TKD as a kid and now has a Dojang in the states. So when I was a kid I learned a more traditional style of Taekwondo with constant changes after Covid with my dad trying to basically keep up with all the changes, but some of it’s basically ingrained in so I was a semi unusual style which is why I don’t do well in Poomsae at the USATKD state level competitions. And I see myself as more of an all rounder I do really well in demo and breaking, but it’s not like a major part of TKD like forms or sparring. I’ve done states twice with having only one sparring match since apparently they had nobody the first year. I got genuinely obliterated tho because I was going against someone who’s gone to nationals like over 5 times so what am I supposed to do at that point. I did get one head kick. But the competition itself is expensive with like about 500 I think for states itself. But my dad isn’t a millionaire who can spend thousands upon thousands of dollars every years for a chance at me winning. At local competitions it basically impossible, the refs are controlled by one school and most of the matches are rigged if your opponent is from that school. Not to mention that the world class scoring systems is so old that it doesn’t register hits at all. I’m about 110 and for a local competition I went against a junior who was 160 and a 150 cadet(since my division is empty) and they couldn’t even score with a straight kick to the chest! It’s that bad, the only good scoring system is at big USATKD competitions and that costs a lot of money. Not to mention they change the gear like every year. First it was Gen 1, then Gen 2, then Kpnp, then Gen 3. They switch at like the same time every year and only very few schools in the country can get them and we can’t even compete at because we can’t drop like 1000 on the gear every year and there’s no where to buy it anyway. So how do people actually make it? Are people really that rich that they have thousands to drop on gear and competition? (Lowkey Might Delete This Later 🙃)