Taekwondo Sparring (Kyorugi)

Hi everyone, today i will be explaining more about sparring in Taekwondo.

For Taekwondo in Singapore, only the red/brown and black belts are allowed to do sparring due to safety reasons. There are various weight categories and in each competition, the weight categories changes according to the organiser. Below is an example of a weight category.

Taken from Mooto

There is a total of 3 rounds and each round lasts for 1.5 minutes with a 30 seconds break in between. The person with the highest accumulated score at the end of 3 rounds or the person who manages to knock out their opponent, will be considered the winner.

Now i will be talking about how to get points during the match! There are two methods in which you are able to score points:

1.By Punching


Even though taekwondo focuses more on the legs, a punch is still able to get you points. The only location you are permitted to punch is at the trunk area of the body, which is from the bottom of the neck until the waist.

2.By kicking

Only by using the parts of your foots lower than the ankle bone are allowed. By using your foot, the permitted area is opened to one more area, which is the face. You are permitted to kick both the trunk and the face to score points.

Each valid kick will earn you points and different kicks will gain you different amount of points and below is the list:

Point System:

A normal turning kick to the trunk : 1 point 

Backthrust, 360 degrees turning kick: 2 points


A kick to the head: 3 points

For back hook, back thrust or any kick that requires you to turn your back and kick your opponents head: 4 points


Below is a picture of the permitted scoring area of the trunk:

Prohibited acts:


There are rules in Taekwondo sparring and breaking them will result to you having a Kyong-Go penalty or a Gam-Jeom penalty. A Kyong-Go is like a yellow card and a Gam-Jeom is like a red card except that you don't get kick out of the match instead,  if you have 2 Kyong-Go's or 1 Gam-Jeom, your opponent will earn 1 point.

Here are some examples of the prohibited acts.

Kyong-Go: 

-Grabbing/holding/pushing the opponent
-Intentionally falling down
-Faking injury
-Both legs out of the alert
-Punching/slapping the opponents face
-Attacking the opponents groin intentionally

Gam-Jeom:

-Attacking the opponent even after he/she falls
-Attacking the opponents back intentionally
-Both legs out of the boundary line

When you receive a total of 4 penalty points from adding up both Kyong-Go and Gam-Jeom, you will be declared as you have lost due to penalties.

Below is a video which shows the best of kicks during sparring in Taekwondo!

 If you wish to get any of the sparring equipment, you can head down to Liang Seng at Marina sqaure to get it!

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Thank You for reading and do leave a comment below (: 

-Nicole Tan