One year has already passed since the Olympic Games in Beijing. Another two years and the qualification tournaments for 2012 will start and then, again one year later, the London Olympic Games take place. Most nations have already begun their Olympic mission with a new sense of motivation. Many of them brought about changes: They employed new national coaches, developed new training programs and financial plans, and of course there are young players around, who are looking for their places in the Olympic teams. But one thing never seems to change: Teams and coaches are divided according to gender with separate coaches for junior teams. This division seems self-evident and for many years this kind of departmentalization has served teams all over the world well. But sometimes it helps to cross over departments in order to get better results.

Taekwondo athletes are not only divided by gender, age or weight classes. There are two other clearly distinguishable groups of athletes, which do not depend on the traditional distinctions at all: defensive and offensive athletes. As early as 1989, when I gave up working as a national coach, I developed the idea to concentrate on these two characteristics and to departmentalize national team training in a new way. According to my idea there would be specialized coaches for defensive and offensive athletes. If a nation has enough means there could also be experts for offensive (or defensive) training techniques and specialists who concentrate on offensive (or defensive) tactics and strategy.
Athletes’ fighting techniques are almost always either defensive or offensive by nature. A few really good athletes can adapt well to both modes, according to the situation and to their opponent. But athletes who have a natural talent for both modes are extremely rare. In most cases an offensive athlete will never be really good with defensive techniques and vice versa. At the same time, the style of many coaches is determined by their being naturally defensive or offensive. An athlete instinctively feels whether the training methods and the coaching of a trainer suit him well. Very often the reason for that is that the coach and the athlete belong to the same character group. Sometimes an athlete who did really well as long as he practiced in his club has no success any more as soon as he is admitted to the national team. There may be psychological reasons of all kinds for this. But a reason that should not be underestimated is changing from a defensive team coach to an offensive national coach (or vice versa).

A defensive athlete who has to concentrate on offensive techniques during training loses a lot of time. He has little chance to fully learn what he is taught and he loses out on the chance to learn the things he is talented for. Instead of this, a defensive athlete should concentrate on his natural talent and bring this to perfection. A good coach makes use of the predisposition and the mentality of his athletes. Having defensive and offensive athletes practice together is therefore not an ideal situation for coaches and athletes. The logical solution is not to divide athletes into male groups and female groups, but rather into offensive groups and defensive groups, and to make sure that the coaches in charge are specialists for the respective groups. It is true that in Taekwondo we need experts – but for which field of expertise, is the important question. It is not too late for a change in the run up to London 2012. I wish every national team the best of luck and success and would be proud and happy if they find my ideas helpful.