Well that is a great question and the answer is most definitely YES!!

Taekwondo is a Korean Martial Arts that is one of only a few that is an Olympics sport and is deemed as the most popular martial arts in the world. Dating back thousands of years Taekwondo has a long and rich history of proving its’ effectiveness both on and off the military battle fields, in sports competition, body guard field work, and every day self defense situations.

Taekwondo is known primarily as a kicking martial arts but there is other tools that Taekwondo uses for self protection.

Physical Self Defense Tools of Taekwondo:

• Kicks and Knee Strikes using the legs
• Punching and various Hand Strikes using the hands
• Forearm and Elbow strikes using the arms
• Blocking Techniques using both arms and legs
• Foot work that allows practioner to move in any direction quickly and at will
• Various takedowns using both the hands and legs
• Various joint locks, manipulations, and breaks
• Depending on the dojang(school), Taekwondo also makes the use of martial arts weapons as well

Methods of Practicing Self Defense in Taekwondo:

• One Step and Three Step sparring which is pre-arrange self defense techniques from punching and kicks
• Non Contact and Contact Sparring in which the students learn to react to various attacks and attack and counter attack appropriately
• Self Defense Scenarios in which students practice various techniques to defend against various attacks being strikes, pushes, grabs, holds, and etc,.
• Poomse/Forms which are a set of techniques arranged together to simulate a fight against an imaginary opponent or opponents
• Various striking, blocking, and kicking drills on physical targets or in the air to get in the necessary repetitions to make techniques second nature
• The practice of Breaking Boards and Concrete to test ones physical skills and mental confidence. If one can acquire a lot of physical power, one can defend themselves.

Taekwondo training almost all the time relies on physical, mental, and spiritual training to prepare the practioners to deal with any given situation. Being well prepared in these three areas can help prevent a lot of self defense situations from ever being physical. We often say that if you get into a fight whether you won or not, you have already lost anyway. If you weren’t paying attention to all the steps that leads up to any given moment, you have lost.

So as you can see Taekwondo is a great martial arts for self defense.