It’s Easier Then You Think...

Many times, you may listen to your instructor call commands in Korean and think "What is that? I’ll never remember all of these words!" Relax! Although learning even a few words in another language can be tough, the more you hear "ahp cha ki" the easier it will be to remember that it means "front kick".

Aside from studying your manual and paying close attention to what your instructor says, there is another trick you may try to help you learn the Korean names for Tang Soo Do techniques: you can create a "pneumonic device." Although this may sound fancy, a pneumonic device is simply a "trigger" your brain uses to help remember something more complicated.

For example, if you are trying to remember a new phone number that ends in '4951' you may trigger that in your brain by thinking "one less than 50, one more than 50". That’s a pneumonic device - it’s that easy!

Although different people remember things differently, I have heard a few really great pneumonic devices for remembering some of our terminology. Once, a friend of mine told me that he remembered "ha dan mahk ki" (low block) because it sounds like "hand on my knee", which is pretty much near where a low block is.

Another person once told me that she was having trouble remembering some of the anatomy words in Korean. She then realized that "tuck" (chin) was really easy to remember, since she had always heard her gymnastics coach say, "Tuck your chin when you do a somersault!" From then on, she associated "tuck" with "chin."