On Sunday 20 February, 2 years since we had last been able to hold one, Taekwon-Do UK held an Umpires Course at the Trident Taekwon-Do Academy in Sale.

We had a good turn out with students from all over the North West, and even as far afield as Stratford upon Avon, braving the weather and coming to learn together.

The course was run by Master Archer, President of T-UK, and Master Ridley, Vice President, with some input from some of our senior Umpires, Mr Dhillon, Mr Emm and Mr Smith.

The early part of the session was spent going over the theoretical side of umpiring; covering the basics of how squares are run, how the scoring systems work for patterns and sparring and the etiquette involved. We had some very insightful questions from some of the participants, which was really nice to see.

After a short lunch break we got out of our suits and into our doboks to try out the new skills we had been learning in the morning. This is always my favorite part of the day, getting up and doing things and the element of play acting involved in helping the judges have things to score or the center referee to have things to give warnings and fouls for.

Everyone on the course seemed really engaged with the material and I’m sure I can speak for everyone when I say we had a lot of fun alongside learning a lot for some of the people who have never done the course before and refreshing our skills for those of us who have, particularly after such a long break where we’ve not been able to use our umpire skills as such whilst events have been cancelled due to covid restrictions.

Huge thank you to Master Archer and Master Ridley for running the course and sharing their knowledge with us and Mr Dhillon, Mr Emm and Mr Smith for their input also. Finally, thank you to Mr Miley for hosting the course at the Academy and to all the parents and students for coming out and working hard.

Miss Jayne Heywood III

Publicity Officer for the Northern Region

T-UK Umpire Course - Manchester