Perceiving Spatial Accuracy on Preparatory Standing Postures in Taekwondo Players

Abstract

Through the spontaneous body movement, individuals could perceive information about displacement of an object and its relative position to the individuals. This study aimed to examine whether body displacement generated by the dynamic preparatory stance would affect the perception of spatial accuracy in taekwondo players. Twenty taekwondo players from varsity teams of junior high schools served as the participants in this study. All subjects were above the international second degree Black Belt, and ever attended taekwondo competition of sparring. Four experimental conditions, composed of the preparatory stance (squat and jumping) and target movement (inward and outward) were considered to study the postures. Participants were required to judge the effective kick distance for twelve times in each condition, and total forty-eight trials were carried out. In the results we found that there was a significant interaction between preparatory stance and target moving direction. A simple main effect was found in the target-outward condition, absolute error in squat posture were significantly lower than in jump posture. In contrast, there was no difference in absolute error score between the two kinds of preparatory standing postures in the target approaching condition. It was concluded that squat preparatory stance was sufficient for athletes to perceive critical information for judging the effective kick distances. However, the jumping stance might interfere in the spatial accuracy judgment.