Background and Study Aim : In the light of the literature on health psychology individuals are active processors of information and not passive reactors. The aim of this work is the research concerning the strategies of copying with pain used by taekwon-do athletes. The following questions were asked: what strategies of copying with pain are used by taekwon-do practitioners to the greatest degree and what to the smallest? What degree do taekwon-do practitioners feel that they are able not to surrender to negative feelings that pain carries? At the same time the research aimed at checking if the strategies of copying with pain cover (correlate) with the generalized feeling of personal competence.

Material and Method s: Group: 47 taekwon-do taekwon-do athletes participated in the study (14 female, 33 male), aged between 16 and 45 (average 25.17± 9.73 ). Research tools : Questionnaires used in health psychology were applied in the research: Coping Strategies Questionnaire and Feeling of Personal Competence Scale. Additionally, in the presented research the data were gathered with the use of self-elaborated questionnaire. The regression technique was used.

Results: The conducted research shows that taekwon-do athletes use the following strategies of copying with pain: revaluation (M=27.94±6.10), distracting attention ( M = 25.68± 7.12), behavioural strategies (M = 24.49± 5.97), catastrophizing (M= 4.51± 8.16 ) and mixed strategies will combine cognitive and behavioural strategies that distract attention. Average values of how the examined persons can subjectively control negative feelings caused by pain are M=3.62 ± 1.15 was observed. The correlations between the strategies coping with pain and feeling personal competence were observed (p<0.05).

Conclusions: In the examined taekwon-do group relations between the adaptative, active strategies: revaluation and distracting attention and feeling of personal competence were observed. A very low degree of catastrophizing was observed. Revaluation (positive predictor) and catastrophizing (negative predictor) explained part of the variance feeling of personal competence level R²=0.52; p<0.01