School News

International Technical Seminar - Holland
Senior Master Hwang Ho Yong 8th degree

Master Robert Howard and Mr Conor Dunne (Athlone) attended an ITF technical seminar in Holland last weekend (13-15th May). The seminar was conducted by the ITF’s technical director Senior Master Hwang Ho Yong(8th Degree) and hosted by Taekwon-Do International Nederland.

The main theme of the three day seminar was on the composition of Taekwon-Do; fundamental movements, dallyon (conditioning, power breaking), patterns, sparring, self-defence, and how all five components feedinto each other. If you neglect any of the components then your
self-defence, which is the ultimate (physical) goal of Taekwon-Do won’t work.

With that message in mind SM Hwang started the seminar with instruction on fundamental movements. This included blocks, hand attacks and kicks. His kicking technique and leg strength put many of the attendeesto shame.

In the patterns he gave correction on Chon Ji to Choi-Yong (3rd degree), but unfortunately didn’t get a chance to do the higher degree patterns.

In the sparring the emphasised the importance of following the order of 3-step, 2-step, semi-free sparring, free-sparring, 1 –step. He said that if you learn and teach sparring in this order that you and your students will then be fully prepared for the final component (self-defence). He said that sparring is not the pinnacle of Taekwon-Do, self-defence is the goal.

He then brought the class through self-defence (release from grabs etc), defence against a knife (similar toone step), and knife sparring. It was clear for the logical progress from 3-step to 1 step that all the concepts (strong blocks, inside blocks versus outside blocks, logical counter-attacks, etc) for real self-defence are present. Unfortunately most students don’t see this and view these as just something which they must do to pass their grading. He said that it is important that instructor teach this very well sothat the students are really prepared for self-defence.

SM Hwang had a very relaxed and pleasant way about him and all the attendees were relaxed and found it very easy to learn and ask questions. The funniest moment was when he got the class to sing to encourage them use a group rhythm when doing a pattern in class as opposed to 70 individual rhythms.

He presented an ITF distinguished service medal posthumously to Senior Master Bart Stokhoff who sadly died last year. SM Stokhoff was the chief instructor to Holland and the medal was collected by his daughter.

The whole weekend was a great success. Aside from the fantastic Taekwo-Do training and instruction; the accommodation, food and organisation by the Dutch federation was excellent.

The boys and girls from the Friday’s Tiger class took part in the Athlone Fun Challenge before the Easter holidays. The competition had children from Athlone, Galway and our own school Senior Master Howard’s Dojang.

We got the bus to Athlone on the Sunday morning from the Maple Centre and all the boys and girls (and parents) were very excited about our first away competition.  The tigers competed in three events; 4-step punch, flexibility and team sparring.  The event gave the children a chance to meet and compete against their Taekwon-Do cousins from Athlone and Galway.  All of the children did very well and got a chance to put their Tiger Goals into practice at some stage of the day and showed respect by bowing to the judges when they collected their medals.

In total the Tiger class took home 5 gold, 5 silver and 14 bronze medals in individual events. While our four Cabra Tiger teams won 1gold, 2 silver and a bronze in the team sparring.   Well done to everyone who took part in the Fun Challenge.

Special thanks to all the parents for giving up their time to travel with the children and make the day a great success.

The next Tiger event is the grading for their next stripe.  It’ll be in June but the date needs to be confirmed with the examiner.

Congratulations to the members from Master Howard’s Dojang who competed successfully at the 2011 ITF-Ireland Cup in Athlone last Saturday. Competitors from 16 Taekwon-Do schools from across the country competed in the day’s events. Three members of our school took home 6 trophies between them.  Mr Leon McSherry won a silver in the Black Belt Patterns. Wojciuch Pawlak won gold in the red belt power, silver in sparring and bronze in the red belt patterns. While Arno Denne took home a silver in both the blue belt patterns and veteran sparring. Well done to all.  Our instructor Senior Master Howard was there as special guest  and Master Howard was chief umpire for the event.  The next competition is the Irish Open on the 3rd of December.

For a full report, photos and results see www.rita-itf.org

Our recent Fun Challenge was a great success and all the Tigers and Dragons performed brilliantly. The competition was held in our dojang and the boys and girls competed in several events. Technical (punching and blocking), sparring, and we had a stretching event. Congratulations to all the boys and girls for practicing so hard and trying their best.  Also a special thanks to the umpires who gave up their time to judge. There are some photos on the gallery. If any parents have photos of the night could they email them to Master Howard please.

The Tigers are now in training for the Fun Challenge in Athlone on the 17th of April.