On Sunday 3 March, Taekwon-Do UK held their first Technical Course of the year, this one being aimed at Colour Belt students, at the Trident Taekwon-Do Academy in Sale. The course was taught by Master Miley and Master Crisp and attended by over 40 students, mostly from the North West but it was also good to see some students travelling up from Stratford-upon-Avon and Nuneaton. Although this course was focusing on colour belt patterns that doesn’t mean only colour belt students can attend. The course was open to all students from blue belt and above and it was nice to see some of the more senior Black Belt grades also in attendance to refresh their knowledge and make sure they are staying up to date with any minor technical changes that can come through.

We started the day off with a vigorous warm up from Master Crisp, as always Master Crisp specialises in warm ups that get your brain working as well as your body and some group activities that get the students working together and having some fun with each other. It was great to see students who may not normally train together, working and laughing together!

Master Crisp then took us through some basics of sine wave, breathing and the importance of getting our stances correct from the beginning. We then started working our way through the patterns with Master Crisp and Master Miley taking it in turns to break down the trickiest parts of each pattern to make sure all students are performing techniques in the same way.

We also spent some time working on three step sparring, mostly making sure that students are aware of the correct procedures, particularly around lining up for different range techniques.

After a short lunch break we moved on to the second half of the colour belt patterns set and also covered the procedures for one and two step sparring.

There is a lot of ground to cover in these Technical Courses and it can be a lot to take in, particularly for some of the younger students, but everyone worked really hard and there were some excellent questions from some of the participants, which is always nice to see at these courses.

As always a huge thanks goes to Master Miley and Master Crisp for taking the time to share their considerable knowledge with us all as well as to all the students who took part and worked hard all day and the parents of our younger students for bringing them to the course.

Looking forward to the next course now, which is the Umpire Course on 24 March.

T-UK Coloured Belt Technical Course