As we’ve been redoing the website it’s been a while since our last post – so here is a combined update of what our instructors and students have been up to outside of their usual (now online) classes!
Online platforms have been brilliant for continuing to train as well as maintaining some social connection with the friends we’ve made around the world at competitions and other events.
While these online opportunities have been so much better than nothing, the lights at the end of the tunnel seem to be getting brighter for in person events. I think we’re all looking forward to travelling to a different country, putting on a dobok and spending a weekend in a sports hall with friends!
Back in December the ITF held a three-day online technical seminar as International Instructor Courses hadn’t been able to run due to COVID-19 restrictions.
Mr and Mrs Swain were ‘joined’ by Mr T Bailey and four other PUMA Members for some fantastic training. The seminar was taught by the ITF’s Technical Committee members (Grand Master (GM) Marano, GM Lan, GM Laquerre, Master Jedut and Master McPhail) and covered the technical details of all 24 Patterns as well as tips for improved performance and flow.
You can read more detailed views from Ms Reeve, Mr Hubbuck and ourselves on the PUMA events website, or the official review on the ITF Blog.
There have been three virtual training seminars and an online conference put on by the ITF Women’s Committee so far. They have been great opportunities to learn from some top female athletes in the ITF – for free, with no need to travel!
Mr and Mrs Swain have taken part in all of them, and joined by different students and fellow members of PUMA throughout. The most recent seminar was taught by Ekaterina Kozlachkova, Bo Rook, Isabelle Schander and Katya Solovey.
9 Members of PUMA were online to learn from these legends; including Mr A Bailey, Mr T Bailey, Miss Mohan-Singh and Mr & Mrs Swain.
The PUMA Review is up on the PUMA Events web-page.
Mr and Mrs Swain took part in a 2-day ITF Kids Course, spread across two weekends in January. The ITF Kids programme is similar to our Little PUMA programme and it was a fantastic opportunity to broaden our knowledge of teaching martial arts and life skills to our youngest members. We were also able to pick up some new thoughts, ideas and games which we will be looking at bringing into class when we are able to train face to face again.
On Sunday 7th February Mr and Mrs Swain taught a series of technical sessions for PUMA’s members on Zoom.
We were really pleased to have over 130 students log in to learn from us throughout the day ranging from white belt, all the way up to 6th Degree! We even had a former PUMA member now living and teaching Taekwon-Do in Malaysia join us for the whole day!
Master Gayle and Master Ogborne gave a short speech at the start of the day to open the sessions, and then we got started. The day was split into five sessions, with a short lunch break, covering basic principles of movement and performance for Taekwon-Do (mainly around patterns and kicking) and sharing tips on how to perform some of the more challenging techniques we see in Taekwon-Do.
There were some really insightful questions throughout the day and some lovely feedback received afterwards too. We can’t wait until we can get back to teaching seminars in person!
A massive congratulations and thank you needs to go to our students who joined in even though they’ve been enduring our lessons on Zoom for months already! Well done Mr T Bailey, Mr A Bailey, Miss Mohan-Singh, Mrs Hallett and Dave T; thanks for your support!
On the 13th September the Solovey family opened their Dojang to all ITF members for 2 hours on Zoom. As a family they are legends within ITF Taekwon-Do sparring – Sabum Oleg is the National coach of Ukraine, Sabum Katya is probably the best-known female ITF fighter and was undefeated in Europe, while Vitaliy is a rising star and already multiple time World Champion in the ITF!
The two hours were very intense, and really stretched the ability to train for sparring at home – I’m really missing the ability to do padwork or spar with a partner. It was a great opportunity to see and practice some of the training techniques and drills used to develop the speed and skills shown in the ring by Katya and Vitaliy. If you’ve not seen them you really need to get on YouTube and find some videos – talk about inspiring!
The most recent online session that we’ve been part of is the ITF’s International Sparring Course. A day of 6 sparring seminars taught by some of the best coaches in ITF at the moment, with assistance from competitors at the top of their game.
It was really interesting to see the different approaches that countries and coaches have adopted in how they teach and what they prioritise, as well as the common threads and mutual respect they all had for each other.
The line up of coaches was Master Barada (Slovenia), Master Triqui (Germany), Master van de Mortel (The Netherlands), Master Tapilatu (The Netherlands), Master Iagher (Italy) and Sabum Solovey (Ukraine); all of whom were teaching from their dojangs, and we were able to get their wisdom from the ‘comfort’ of our own homes!
