Kdtyjb

I'm a 16 year old beginner in taekwondo.

As you can tell I'm taller than most people, I'm actually 193 cm.
I weigh around 80 kilos so that isn't that heavy for my height.

I'm wondering if I'm in the wrong sport; don't get me wrong I love taekwondo.

I'm worried I won't be able to progress beyond a certain point of skill because of my height, thanks.

You are certainly not too tall, I might actually argue that you might be overweight for elite TKD competition. Steven Lopez (2 time Olympic champion) is approximately your same height (6'3" for our US folks), and he fought in the 68 kilo weight class for his first medal, 80 kg for his second.

In any martial art that depends on reach for sparring/scoring, you are going to be at an advantage, provided that you have the flexibility to take advantage of your height. If you don't have that flexibility, the height won't hinder, but it won't necessarily help either.

So go ahead and train TKD, you actually have a very desirable body shape/style for the sport.

As with everything in life, size matters :-D ... all jokes aside.

For ranged styles like taekwondo being big is beneficial, because of the longer attack distance/range.

For close-in fighting and throwing/clinching styles, shorter arms/legs are better, because of the better leverage effect.

I see no reason why you should not train taekwondo.

Also there really is no martial art that is "wrong"; all of them are designed from human beings for human beings.

So just train what you love and everything will be fine. Wish you all the best!

I agree with the others that having long legs can be an advantage in TKD. The extra reach will allow you to score from the long range while your opponents will be too far away to score on you.

What this means is that your opponents will have to use a strategy whereby they will use off-beat rhythm to time their attacks relative to yours. That will cause you to have to recalculate what you're doing mid-way into whatever your attack is. That will buy them the time needed to get in on you.

So as part of your training, you must work on your mobility, combinations, speed, and non-telegraphing. They're counting on you being slower because of your extra mass and longer reach. And they're going to be looking for openings which they can predict ahead of time based on your habits and repetitive movements. You'll have to be spontaneous and try not to do the same things over and over again. You need to be fast and use non-repetitive combinations to keep them guessing.

As for aesthetics, the longer your legs, the worse you will look in TKD. The reason is that the longer legs will require a very low stance in order to make it conform to the standard.

For example, a front stance will require your front leg to be parallel with the ground. To do that, you'll be very far out, almost lunging forward. That causes a lot of strain on your quad muscles. Your hip will also be strained due to lack of flexibility. It's going to feel very awkward and will hurt your mobility.

Shorter people have a much easier time of this. People with long legs tend to have shorter looking / more upright stances compared with shorter people.

This means you'll probably never feel fully comfortable conforming to the standard shape of any of the stances. You certainly won't be sparring that low to the ground. But when you do forms or drills in class, you might find that your instructor continuously criticizes you for not being low enough. They simply don't understand what it feels like to have long legs. It is much harder.

I don't think this is an insurmountable problem, but it will cause some friction in your training.

As for sparring, like I said, you're probably going to be better off having longer legs.

Hope that helps.

I'm a bit taller than you (and used to weigh as little as you).
I'm a second dan, ITF.
The answer above about flexibility is spot-on - everything is so much easier (and more fun) when you're flexible, and, for me, at least, can outweigh other factors.

Anyway, my opinions:

I don't think height will negatively affect your style or aptitude for doing things right.

I suppose that with longer legs, jump spin heel kicks might not look as "perfect" as someone of more average height... but who cares? Do the best you can in whichever discipline you follow.

For me, lack of killer instinct and lack of ability to do much thinking "on my feet" or respond all that well instinctively to my sparring opponents' moves, has always been my main limiting factor, far outweighing any disadvantages of having my shorter-limbed opponent in "too close".

One advantage is that you have a longer time to see kicks coming up to your head... but don't let that lull you into a false sense of security.