On Sunday 21 April Taekwon-Do UK held their Black Belt 1st – 3rd Degree Technical Course at the Trident Taekwon-Do Academy at Sale Rugby Club. The course was taught by Master Archer, President of Taekwon-Do UK, and Master Ridley, Vice President of Taekwon-Do UK, assisted by our host, Master Miley, and with our newest Master, Master Crisp, also in attendance.

After a fun and bracing warm up by Master Crisp we got stuck into the 1st Degree patterns in detail with everyone going through each pattern together and move by move before the Masters took the trickier sections and went through some of the finer details and we had volunteers perform the patterns in front of the group before some time for questions to make sure that everyone was clear on how the patterns should be performed.

After a short water break the 1st Degree students were then separated off to do some further work on those patterns with Master Miley whilst the rest of the group worked on the 2nd Degree patterns. With these patterns requiring a little more room to perform we split into two groups with one group performing whilst the other group watched. Again, we broke down some of the trickier aspects and performed them in isolation.

For the final set of patterns the 2nd degrees joined the 1st degrees with Master Miley and they went through some of the protocols around step sparring and self-defence whilst the senior grades went through the 3rd degree patterns. It was good to see so many Senior grades in attendance. It’s always important to stay on top of your own training the higher up the grades you go and to make sure you keep up with any slight technical changes that may have come about from our Masters attending IICs. There was a very mixed group of 3rd degree students in attendance with some having not long been promoted to that grade so still getting to grips with the patterns and others nearing the stage of being ready to take their International Instructor grading but performances from all were excellent.

We rounded the day off the day with some model sparring with some of the more Senior Grades showing the rest of the group their model sparring routines. It’s important to be working on things like model sparring and step sparring in your own time as well as in class to make sure you have a few set routines that you have worked on and can perform without any worries.

We are extremely fortunate as an Association to have four Masters who care so much about passing on their knowledge and also continuing their training. Master Crisp had attended the session as a participant as there is no such thing as too much training! A huge thank you to Master Archer and Master Ridley for their informative and fun sessions as well as Master Miley for hosting and assisting throughout the day. Thanks also to Master Crisp for travelling up from Cambridge to take part and share his knowledge with us.

Well done to all students who took part in the course, it can be a long day with a lot to take in, particularly for some of our younger students, but everyone worked hard and stayed focused throughout the day.

T-UK Black Belt Technical Course