Report by Nicolas Taylor (Samjok-O)

On Saturday 31 March 2018, a Masterclass with ‘The Dragon’ Stephen Tapilatu was held in London, organized by Da Silva Taekwon-Do Association. Two training session were organized :

• A 1h30 session for colour belts
• A 3h00 session for black belts

Although I was registered as coloured belt, I was given the opportunity to also train with the black belts, which made the day quite intense.

After a short warming-up, we started to do some mobility exercises, adding some kicks and punches afterwards. Then started to add exercices to practise counter-attack. Finally, we ended up by some sparring. As the number of participants was limited (around 10 per session), Sabum Stephen Tapilatu could watch out every single one of us and make comments to help us to improve. During all the sessions, we also had the opportunity to ask as many questions as we wanted.

It was a very interesting seminar (my first one with Sabum Tapilatu), where each exercise was built up on the previous one and I’m glad I had the opportunity to participate to it.

February 10th 2018  – Report by Erika Knihti-Van Driessche

Around 60 enthousiastic TaeKwon-Do practioners gathered in Vaajakoski sports hall for the Power breaking seminar, organized for the second time now by the Jyväskylä Taekwon-do club. Teachers on this seminar were Sabum Jouni Aartola 5th Dan (Arctic Taekwon-Do) and Kalle Kivioja 2nd Dan (Taekwon-Do Tampere), who was European Champion 2016 and World vice-champion 2017.

All competition techniques (ap-joomuk jirugi, sonkal taerigi, dollyo chagi, yopcha jirugi and bandae dollyo chagi) were explained and practised, as well as some more special breaking techniques. The course included 3 wooden boards each, to practise the more special breaking techniques at the end of the seminar. People used techniques like bituro chagi, sangbang chagi, sang sonkal supyong yop taerigi and yop joomuk taerigi, just to mention a few!

The seminar was very well organized, and the power machines were all very sturdy and easy to adjust. They are planning to organize a 2-day seminar next year, hopefully I will be able to participate then also!