What’s all this bowing about?

So whether you’ve seen it in a movie or seen it in a martial arts school, there seems to be a lot of bowing going on. So there’s actually a lot of history that goes behind the bow.
One simple way to look at the bow is here in America we see people we recognize and we waved to them in the orient that same gesture is communicated with a bow.
There are basically two kinds of bows,a warrior bow and a servant bow. In a servant bow, it’s deep enough that the person in front of you can see the back of your head. A warrior bow is approximately 45°. In movies you’ve seen that you always look at the person in front of you as you bow, that’s movies. Bowing is a sign of greeting and respect, so the eyes are down.

The bow in is one of the most significant things that you do and one of the hardest things to accomplish its meaning. When a student enters his training area, he comes to attention and bows. The significance of this is, that everything that was previously going on in that day stays outside the training area because now it’s time to focus on the training in front of you. So your body is at attention and your mind is at attention. When you bow, it signifies honor and respect for the skills that you are about to learn and the process that you are engaged in.

In a class setting, the beginning and ending of each class has a bow in and a bow out. It has much the same significance. Everyone starts off facing the front with the instructor in front of the class. Everyone comes to attention and bows to show respect and honor to God. Then everyone bows again to show respect and honor to the two countries represented, Korea the birthplace of Taekwondo and United States because this is where we have the privilege to live. Then the instructor turns around and there is a bow between instructor and student showing respect and honor to each.

And Warriors and Senior Warriors and in the five minutes daily that you were asked to commit to, there is a bow in and bow out. So what’s the purpose grasshopper? Focus, leaving everything outside for that five minutes so that you only focus on those techniques, is more difficult than you might think but the dividend and reward is much higher then you were thinking as well.

So grasshopper it’s time to get to the training come to attention and Bow.