Taekwondo obsession

Tejaswini, a 10-year-old taekwondo player from Boduppal, is teaching people to fight like a girl — 2,800 kicks at a time. At the world record attempt of performing the highest number of full-contact kicks in one hour, by the Taekwondo Board of Telangana (TBT), little Tejaswini contributed the fourth highest number of kicks. She along with 48 others attempted to beat the previous record of about 58,000 kicks by registering almost double the number of kicks —1,23,056 kicks in one hour’s time.

“Tejaswini has been a great student, fighting all odds. She has four siblings and her parents have been struggling with finances, so they hope she will make it big,” says M.R. Bobbili, general secretary of the TBT.

Full-contact kicks were done onto a board every alternate minute, with one minute of rest in between. Stewards were assigned to each player to record their kicks. The maximum kicks were done by Jaitray, a 10-year-old boy, who scored 3,100 kicks in an hour. But the 30 girls in the group of 49 helped double the previous record figures.

“Girls are coming to learn this sport not just for defence but as a career option as well. A majority of them are in the age group of eight to 18,” says Shiva Reddy, who is part of the organisation.

The group got together at Pallavi Model School on August 12 to create the world record.  The footage and evidences of the event would now be sent to the Guinness Book of World Records in order to verify and register the new achievement. 

“The record would be registered within a period of three months, if they find it up to the mark,” says Laxmi, their coach.

Telangana is becoming a fierce battle ground for Taekwondo groups, which are upping the ante by beating each other’s records, with a group recently breaking the record of the largest taekwondo display in the world with over 1,000 participants.