My 66 year-old client embarked on his sixth hour with me. This is a martial arts cross-training personal training course used to improve his movement in taekwondo and to improve his balance for the turning kick. Despite not being involved with Korean martial arts since the 1990s, I am working with a lot of taekwodoins who wish to use other martial arts, such as boxing to improve their overall game. This afternoon, being so close to his grading, I decided to totally work on

Crowding changes everything for a taekwondo fighter. Range disappears, kicks get smothered, the opponent’s pressure feels constant, and the clean, linear exits that work well at long distance suddenly become harder to find. That was the central problem in a late afternoon martial arts cross training personal training session with a teenage taekwondo competitor preparing for the British Championships.

When my advanced teenage taekwondo competitor came back for more martial arts cross training, I knew we had a great opportunity to sharpen her skills beyond traditional taekwondo drills. Cross-training in martial arts offers a fresh perspective and new challenges that can elevate performance in unexpected ways. Our session focused on contrasting in-fighting and outside fighting through sparring games, followed by drills to improve footwork and transition smoothly back into ta