Master Frank Vanberghen, Master Annick Van Driessche, Eddy Van Damme, Amy-Jane Troy, Michael O’Keeffe, Erika Knihti-Van Driessche and Esther Meulemeester will take part in the upcoming IIC in Dublin (City West), Ireland May 12th-13th 2018. 
The IIC will be conducted by the ITF Technical Committee: GrandMaster Hector Marano, Grandmaster Lan Ung Kim and Master Pierre Laquerre.
Next IIC’s in Europe: Skövde (August), Sofia (November), Amsterdam (November) & Barcelona (January).
Since a couple of years ITF-Belgium is having 2 Days of Taekwon-Do a year…..meanwhile it has become a tradition.
May 6th the first edition of 2018 was being held in Destelbergen, with 113 participants and 11 instructors. For the first time there were separate classes for kids 3-7, the Kids Day. For these youngest participants, the seminar was shorter (1,5 hour). The instructors: Margaux Pollefeyt I° and Jérémie Bewa I°.
Youth, juniors and seniors had classes from 10.00 to 13.30. We started with a general warming-up, afterwards the groups were divided according to age and grade; there were classes in fundamental movements, tul, application of movements and stepsparring, hosinsul, sparring, powerbreaking and special techniques. Instructors: Master Annick Van Driessche VII°, Eddy Van Damme VI°, Virginia Dionisi VI°, Yves Pollefeyt VI°, Patrick Crevecoeur V°, Bob Wigman IV°, Nico Tunyck III° and Jan Lauwereins II°.
Meanwhile some black belts, instructors, could join Master Frank Vanberghen VIII° for individual tul sessions.
At the end of the seminar all participants received a participation certificate.
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 :
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!
