Taekwondo
Taekwondo (Tae-Kwon-Do, Fist-Foot-Way) is a Martial Art from Korea. It is a blend of Shotokan Karate with other Chinese and Korean martial arts. Its training generally includes a system of blocks, kicks, punches, and open-handed strikes and may also include various take-downs or sweeps, throws, and joint locks. Taekwondo places great emphasis on fast, spectacular kicking techniques with very few hand strikes.
Taekwondo tends to place more emphasis on the sport aspect of Martial Arts. Taekwondo is more of a long range fighting style, due to its use of more kicking than hand striking. Board breaking is used in belt grading in Taekwondo, to show the power and control of the techniques being taught. Its popularity has grown and is probably the most widely practiced of the Martial Arts and is now recognized as an Olympic sport, which is sure to popularize it even more.
Formally, there are two main styles of Taekwondo. One comes from the Kukkiwon, the source of the sparring system which is now an event at the summer Olympic Games and which is governed by the World Taekwondo Federation (WTF). The other comes from the International Taekwon-Do Federation (ITF). In the beginning of 1957, the name Taekwondo was adopted by several Korean martial arts masters, for its similarity to the name Tae Kyon (Taekkyeon), an accent Korean Martial Art that has is origins around the fifth and sixth centuries. Today, it is officially classified as an Intangible Cultural Asset No. 76 by the government of Korea.