Women's Taekwondo in Riyadh: A Beginner's Guide to Starting

Saudi women's taekwondo is genuinely on the rise

The sport has grown from the margins into something with real depth. Arab News profiles Rahaf Alshammari, a 25-year-old second-degree black belt from AlUla who began formal training in 2020 under coach Abrar Bukhari and was competing at national level by 2021. Her medal cabinet has filled quickly: bronze at the Oman Open in 2024, gold at the Taekwondo Super Cup in Jeddah in 2026, and two silvers at championships in Makkah the same year. She was introduced to the sport as a child by her father — himself a black belt — and trains alongside sisters who compete too. Now she is aiming at the international stage while studying for a master's in criminal law.

Her story sits inside a bigger one. Saudi Arabia hosted the first-ever World Taekwondo Women's Open Championships in Riyadh on 25–27 November 2021, fielding a ten-strong home team — Rahaf among them — in an event that drew 171 athletes and 85 officials from 36 countries. For anyone who assumed women's taekwondo in the Kingdom was symbolic, the record says otherwise.

What taekwondo training actually builds

You do not need to chase a medal to feel the benefit. Taekwondo is, at heart, a discipline of controlled, explosive movement — and most of it comes from the legs. Where a striking sport built around the hands trains the upper body, taekwondo asks your hips, core and legs to generate speed and land it with balance. The pay-off is flexibility, coordination and body control that carry over into everyday life.

There is research behind that. A peer-reviewed study published by the US National Library of Medicine followed healthy adults over 40 through a year of age-adapted taekwondo training and found significant improvements across several measures of balance — steadier posture and longer single-leg stance among them. Balance, flexibility and coordination are exactly the qualities a kicking sport drills every session, and they are worth having whether or not you ever enter a competition.

How to start if you have never thrown a kick

The good news is that taekwondo for fitness is built for beginners — you scale the intensity, not the ambition. A sensible first month is less about height and power and more about learning to move well. Warm up and mobilise your hips and hamstrings properly, learn your stance and guard, and drill basic footwork and low kicks slowly, with form ahead of speed. Build flexibility gradually rather than forcing a high kick on day one, and leave recovery time between sessions. As a broad target, mainstream public-health guidance points to about 150 minutes of moderate activity a week — and a session on the mat makes those minutes fly.

If you would rather understand the movements before stepping into a busy room, the exercise library is a calmer place to rehearse a stance, a guard and a controlled front kick. For women who would prefer to begin in a women-only space, GymNation's ladies-only gym areas make that easy across the Kingdom, and the momentum you feel in a group class is often what turns a first try into a habit.

Your first session on the mat

1. Warm up and mobilise — five to ten minutes of easy movement, with extra attention to the hips, hamstrings and ankles.
2. Find your stance and guard — feet balanced, hands up, weight light. Everything else is built on this.
3. Drill footwork and basic kicks slowly — a front kick and a simple step, form ahead of speed and height.
4. Stretch and recover — finish with gentle flexibility work, and give yourself a rest day before the next session.

Your first steps start close to home

Saudi women's taekwondo did not arrive overnight, and neither will your first clean high kick — that is the fun of it. If the Kingdom's momentum has you curious, the simplest next step is to find your nearest GymNation in Riyadh and let a coach start you from the basics, at your own pace. Everyone is welcome, whatever your starting point.

Sources:
arabnews.com
worldtaekwondo.org
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

The opinions shared in the GymNation blog articles are solely those of the respective authors and may not represent the perspectives of GymNation or any member of the GymNation team.