Kickstart Taekwondo

On Saturday 17th October 2009 Northern Taekwon-do held a training session in order to raise money for Mission Cure Bangladesh, a charity that Miss Pearson is involved with, which aims to raise money to establish a specialist hospital for Maxillofacial Surgery, which will provide free treatment for people who suffer with oral disease, facial defects and facial deformities and will be within easy reach for the majority of the inhabitants of Bangladesh.

Mr Archer VI and Mr Ridley VI very kindly agreed to travel to Stockport to run the session for us, so all students were very much looking forward to this excellent opportunity to train with two of the most Senior Instructors in the Association and also to hopefully raise a lot of money for an excellent cause. The kids training session was in the morning and was well attended.

A special thank you to the parents from the Leeds club who travelled a long way on a Saturday morning to bring their children down to Stockport for this session. After a warm up with Mr Ridley, including some team races, Mr Archer took over for the technical part of the session.

He gave all the children some very useful tips and as each grade had been through their patterns they were sent over to Mr Ridley to do some pad work, kicking drills, self defence and sparring. The session was quite tough but very enjoyable and I think everyone who attended will have learned something. After a short break the adults arrived ready to start their session.

The adult session was booked to last 3 ½ hours and although some students may have found the thought of this length of time quite daunting I think everyone will agree that once the session started the time flew by. After a warm up and some stretching with Mr Archer we moved onto patterns and some technical pointers and again as each grade finished their patterns they were sent over to Mr Ridley to do some pad work, kicking drills, self defence and sparring.

After all grades had had a chance to go through their patterns and do some work with Mr Ridley we moved on to destruction. There were a number of students present who are due to be taking their Black Belt Grading in November so this was an excellent opportunity for them to get some helpful advice on how best to execute their destruction techniques.

After the session Miss Pearson presented Mr Archer and Mr Ridley with picture frames to hold their VI degree certificates and also some pictures of them doing what they do best to thank them for donating their time and travelling to help us raise money and also to congratulate them on their recent promotion to VI degree. We had also been selling raffle tickets in the run up to the training session and the draw was done after the presentation and with the main prize of an electric guitar, kindly donated by Fender, as well as a number of other prizes, everyone was keen to see who would win.

I spoke to a number of students after the training session and heard nothing but good things, John Delaney-Willis, a green belt student from the Stockport club summed it up the best, saying “To be trained by Mr Archer and Mr Ridley was invaluable.  Not only was it an intense and productive day but it was made all the more enjoyable knowing that we had raised money for a very worthwhile cause.” and it wasn’t just the colour belt students who gained a lot from the training session, James Lavin, 1.5 degree, agreed that “it was a great opportunity to train with such senior Instructors whilst raising money for a great cause.”

I would like to add that I hope everybody has learned something from the session that they can now take away and build upon in their clubs because, as Mr Ridley always says, we never stop learning in taekwon-do and should always be seeking to improve.

So far with the raffle tickets we sold and the money raised from the training sessions I am pleased to announce that we have raised £530.00 for Mission Cure Bangladesh. This will go a long way to help them reach their target and, on behalf of Northern Taekwon-Do, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Mr Archer and Mr Ridley for helping to make the training session that little bit more special, the students who attended from Trident Taekwon-Do Academy, everyone who donated raffle prizes and everyone connected with Northern Taekwon-Do who bought raffle tickets and attended the training sessions.

Pictures taken during the session will be uploaded to the site soon.