![\"\"](\"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/cardio.jpg\")
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November 9, 1999 \u00e2\u20ac\u201d I wonder if this is what Korean general Choi Hong Hi had in mind when he created the martial art of tae kwon do in 1955 \u00e2\u20ac\u201d a roomful of American women punching, kicking and sweating to the beat of the Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.”<\/p>\n
Probably not.<\/p>\n
However, that’s been the scene all across the United States ever since a martial arts champion named Billy Blanks decided to set tae kwon do and kickboxing moves to music, call it Tae-Bo and market it to mainstream America as the future of fitness.<\/p>\n
It worked. Tae-Bo is no longer the future of fitness, it is the present. So simple, yet so successful.<\/p>\n
Blanks’ bank account grows with every punch and kick, leaving tae kwon do instructors everywhere wondering, “Why didn’t I think of that?”<\/p>\n
But many, like Gainesville’s Ki Oh Chang, owner of Master Chang’s A+ Black Belt Center at 975 Dawsonville Highway, aren’t letting this latest fitness craze pass them by.<\/p>\n
A few months ago, Chang added to his class schedule something he calls Cardio Kickbox \u00e2\u20ac\u201d using the Tae-Bo name is prohibited due to copyright regulations. The response has been positive, so positive, in fact, that Chang is currently trying to squeeze more Cardio Kickbox classes into his tight weekly schedule.<\/p>\n
“This is a new element to the tae kwon do marketing,” Chang explained to me in his thick Korean accent. “Before Tae-Bo, it was hard to get females into the martial arts. But now all that is changing.”<\/p>\n
Is it ever. About ten minutes before class time they started to roll in. Women \u00e2\u20ac\u201d all ages, shapes and sizes \u00e2\u20ac\u201d began to fill Chang’s gym. This evening’s class ended up being about two dozen strong, more than even Chang had anticipated, and there wasn’t a man in the group … well, except for me.<\/p>\n
All of this must be a little weird for Chang, 35, who began studying the highly-disciplined art of tae kwon do as a 4-year-old in Korea. A sixth-degree black belt, Chang moved to the United States in the early 1980s and in 1985 was the World Tae Kwon Do Federation’s U.S. Champion.<\/p>\n
He has been teaching tae kwon do \u00e2\u20ac\u201d scheduled to be an official sport at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia \u00e2\u20ac\u201d ever since. For Master Chang, this is serious stuff.<\/p>\n
With Cardio Kickbox, however, it’s “Hi, how are you doing?” instead of a formal bow. It’s sweat pants and T-shirts instead of traditional white uniforms. It’s clapping to the beat after punches instead of trying to avoid being punched.<\/p>\n
No, this isn’t the tae kwon do General Hi envisioned.<\/p>\n
But Chang seems to enjoy the casual atmosphere of his Cardio Kickbox classes. He smiles a lot. He makes the women laugh.<\/p>\n
He also makes them sweat. And that is why they show up.<\/p>\n
“I wanted some kind of aerobic exercise, inside, away from the cold,” said 23-year-old Heather Crane, a nurse at the Longstreet Clinic in downtown Gainesville who attends Chang’s classes with several of her coworkers. “It’s just fun now. You kind of get addicted to it. That’s why we’re all back.”<\/p>\n
After a series of warm-up exercises and stretches, Chang started the music \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and I realized that a market actually exists for ESPN’s Jock Jams compact discs.<\/p>\n
The next 30 minutes was a series of jabs, punches, hooks, ducks, knees and kicks set to the pulsing beats of such dance-club staples as “Twilight Zone” by 2Unlimited and “Pump Up The Jam” by Technotronic.<\/p>\n
In between songs some pumped-up class members would clap or let out an exclamatory “Woooo!” But once Master Chang introduced the kicking exercises to the routines about midway through the class, “Woooo!” quickly turned into “Owwww!”<\/p>\n
“The kicking technique is going to be a little bit more of a challenge,” warned Chang, smiling with the knowledge of the pain we would feel in our legs and hips the next day.<\/p>\n
But for most students, the pain is worth it. They see the benefits in their increased levels of fitness, in their shrinking waistlines.<\/p>\n
“It’s also a good stress reliever,” said Nicole Stack, 29, a pediatrician at Longstreet. “Then you can go home and relax. You’re working so many more muscles than you do in a regular aerobics class.”<\/p>\n
Muscles that I didn’t realize I had. Cardio Kickboxers are easy to spot in the days following their first session.<\/p>\n
They are the ones taking baby steps.<\/p>\n
They are the ones walking stiff like mummies \u00e2\u20ac\u201d all the way back to their next Cardio Kickbox class.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
November 9, 1999 \u00e2\u20ac\u201d I wonder if this is what Korean general Choi Hong Hi had in mind when he created the martial art of tae kwon do in 1955 \u00e2\u20ac\u201d a roomful of American women punching, kicking and sweating to the beat of the Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.” Probably not. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":325,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323\/revisions\/325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danwashburn.com\/sportinglife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}