Seminars

4th ITF Fight Evolution Summer Camp

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Report by Nicolas Taylor:

As every year, since the last 3 years, I went to the ITF Fight Evolution Summer Camp organized by Oleg and Katya Solovey. It took place in Yablunytsya in the Carpathians from July 22nd to July 29th. The camp is growing every year. This time, there was 122 participants from 18 countries. Among those, there were 3 Masters (Master Stephen Cooley from Ireland, Master Thierry Meyour from Finland and Master Alexandru Muresan from Romania) and more than 10 World Champions. Many participants were also part of their national teams. The level was very high.  We were divided in 3 groups : coloured belts, black belt female and black belt male. There were 3 training sessions per day :

  • 1. morning run in the mountains or crossfit (every other day)
  • 2. sparring drills with pads
  • 3. sparring (competition sparring, point fighting etc.).

In the middle of the week, we had a day off where most of the people went to Bukovel to rest. And in the last evening, we had the  ‘Sayonara party’ to celebrate the end of the camp.

Once more, I enjoyed the experience. Not only for the training but also for the great atmosphere in this camp and the opportunity to meet Taekwon-Do friends again. And it was a very good preparation for the European Championships.

Belgian Masters teaching abroad

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The belgian female Masters were invited to give seminars abroad.

Master Annick Van Driessche will conduct 3 sessions in different disciplines of Taekwon-Do in Balbriggan & Skerries (Dublin, Ireland) Saturday June 15th: a class for children up to 12, a session for all green belts and above 13 years and above and a class for girls and women only. It’s the third year in a row Master Annick was invited to conduct a seminar by Master Terry Donnelly and the club Elite Taekwon-Do.

The weekend of June 29th-30th Master Virginia Dionisi will conduct a seminar in Switserland. She was invited by Anthony Meynet. Also for Master Dionisi it’s the third time she’s invited by Anthony to conduct classes, although the previous times the seminars were held in France (Thonon-les-Bains), near the border with Switserland.

Seminar Mark Trotter in Ukraine

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Report by Nicolas Taylor

On May 4th was held in Kiev (Ukraine), a seminar given by Mark Trotter, multiple World Champion in tul from New Zealand. It was opened to colored belts and black belt. It consisted in 3 sessions of 2 hours with breaks. Around 80 athletes from all around Ukraine and Belgium (myself) participated. It was a technical seminar and Mark Trotter demonstrated an incredible level of technique. He gave various exercices and non conventional approache to improve the way we are performing tuls. We all learned a lot of «tricks» and tips. There was a very friendly atmosphere during all the training.

After the seminar, I stayed in Ukraine for a few more days and joined the city of Ivano-Frankosk where I had the opportunity to train in the Dojang of Sabum Oleg and Sabum Katya Solovey.

16th National Instructors Course

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Harelbeke, Sunday May 19th

After 16 times we can consider it to be a tradition: the ITF-Belgium NIC, open to black belt instructors only.

On the program this Sunday: 3 tul sessions conducted by GrandMaster Frank Vanberghen & Eddy Van Damme: Kwang-gae up to Juche, Sam-il up to Yon-gae (while the I° and II° degrees continued with Chon-ji to Choong-moo) & So-san up to Tong-il and a session of step sparring (sambo, ibo, ilbo matsogi) conducted by Master Annick Van Driessche.

As always with enough time for questions and discussions, participation certificats and snacks/drinks provided by the federation.

International Do Course

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Report by Esther Meulemeester

The weekend of May 11-12th the second International Do Course took place in Amsterdam (The Netherlands). The course was conducted by Master Trân, Master Martinez and Professor Gauthier. During the weekend 29 particpants attended the IDC from different countries: the Netherlands, Germany, England, Argentina, Costa Rica, Guatemala and of course Belgium (Nico Tunyck from Chon-ji and Esther Meulemeester from Ge-Baek). It was also an honour that Grandmaster Weiler, Grandmaster Lan and Grandmaster Tjin-a-Ton participated to this course. During the 2 days we got more information about the understanding and how to teach the tenets of Taekwon-Do. The first day Master Trân started the course with the right words that after this course we are more than ever ambassadors of the DO. We already knew that Taekwon-Do isn’t just about kicking and punching. During the first day we trained the different disciplines of Taekwon-Do and we tried to look which of the Tenets were involved during each exercise. After each exercise there was time to discuss our experiences. The second day was for instructors and we received tools how to teach Taekwon-Do. We got information about the Socratic approach, the psychology of human behaviour, motivation and goal-setting, perceived self-efficacy and how to integrate the Do in Taekwon-Do. But maybe more important we did not only got the information. We also discussed moral dillemma’s in smaller groups, did some role playing, practiced the different tools,…

The instructors conducted the course in a very inspirational manner and everyone had the opportunity to learn and to ask questions. This way we were teached how to teach the different tenets. I’m really looking forward to participate at the next IDC!