Olympic Team Training Program

We have been provided with a complete Electronic Body Protectors system, which is now used in all US National Taekwondo level competitions. An anonymous donor has recognized the enormous national/international success our competition team has had over the past 16 years, considering the fact that our world class athletes all started as white belts in our dojang right here on Maui!!!!

Our athletes are successful against all the odds of living in the middle of the Pacific. They are competing and winning against athletes who are able to attend more tournaments in a month than our kids can in a year. To be able to train with a EBB system is invaluable since it has now changed and modified the way the game Taekwondo sparring is played significantly. We are very grateful to the vision of this very generous donor.

Over the past 17 years the Kiffmann Dojang has been the most successful Maui school in officially recognized national or international martial arts competition of any kind. The school has produced hundreds of U.S. National and many international Taekwondo Medalists.

THE PATH TO THE OLYMPICS

a. Becoming a Kukkiwon certified Black Belt
b. Becoming a State Champion
c. Becoming a National Champion and making the National Team
d. Qualifying at World Olympic Qualifier

The path to becoming an Olympic/ World Taekwondo Champion is long and very, very, very competitive. Once competing in the black belt divisions most athletes that were used to winning tournaments as a color belt will realize that medaling every time they compete is a thing of the past and will quit if their only goal was to get a medal. Let’s not forget, in reality there is only a black belt national champion.

If an athlete decides to take the path to competition, here are two of the key points he/she has to follow.

1. Be a Self Motivator

Don’t ask your parents, coaches, peers etc. how often you should come to class or how many hours of training you should commit to. YOU have to want to train all the time and make it happen anyway you can!!!!! You get out what you put in! Period. Sometimes even if you love Taekwondo there will be times when you get bored with training or are simply physically exhausted. If at those moments you can push beyond your comfort zone it will give you the edge over your competitors. If you are self motivated you create your own workout sessions, run that extra mile, bug your parents to drive you everywhere or organize rides and use your allowance or join the booster club to pay for taekwondo events instead of the newest cell phone or video game.

2. Weight management and healthy eating habits
You should be aware of the correlation between being at your perfect competition weight and performing well at a tournament. If you go to any national event, you will notice the sometimes enormous differences in height between competitors in the same weight class. Irresponsibility regarding weight management by coaches, parents or competitors can lead to injury and overall negative experiences for everyone involved. While this should not be a reason to starve yourself to get into a lower weight class it should strongly encourage you to be at your best possible weight without sacrificing strength. If you have healthy eating habits, this should be a natural process.

3. Performance over Results

There are schools that strategically place their students in divisions with the fewest opponents. They will let red belts or even Black belts compete in green belt divisions just to get that medal. This is commonly referred to as “sandbagging”.
As a result most of the sandbagging schools never produce quality athletes but instead their players quit before ever competing as a black belt.  Our goal is to develop grass roots color belts into competitive black belts, that are able to take on the best taekwondo players in the world. This cannot be accomplished by handing them easy draws. Taekwondo competition is not entirely objective, because of the judging criteria involved. As such, it is important not to attach oneself to the outcome of a match or the final results of a tournament. We have all seen champions lose their first fight to unknowns or unknowns beating champions but losing on the scoreboard because of bias or other factors. The point is that if you lose a match on the scoreboard but YOU know you performed well or even better than your opponent YOU, your parents, your coach and all your friends should be proud of you. Many of the top athletes lost more matches than they won.

Embrace your training in taekwondo as training for life. Nobody has ever achieved anything of value without failing many times.

”The Olympic Dream Starts Here”

2011 US National Gold Medalist Makoa with guest Nathanael from King's Taekwondo California