Kickstart Taekwondo

Well it’s been a busy couple of weekends on the taekwon-do front so I thought it was time to run a news story about everything that has been going on.

On Saturday 7th November Miss Pearson, Mr Scragg, Mr James Lavin and Miss Hulme travelled to Coventry to take part in the Black Belt Grading, hoping to be promoted to the next grade.  After a physically and mentally tough grading during which the students were tested on their patterns, free sparring, set sparring, self defence, Korean and Destruction techniques I am pleased to congratulate Miss Pearson on her promotion to 3rd degree and Mr Scragg and Mr James Lavin on their promotion to 2nd degree.  Unfortunately Miss Hulme was not successful this time but in the true spirit of taekwon-do is going to persevere and work on the points that let her down and be ready to re-take the grading in April.

On Sunday 8th November several Stockport Taekwon-do students travelled to Stratford-upon-Avon to participate in the GTUK Regional Championships.  After an extra early start to be in Stratford for an 8:30am registration everyone was in good spirits and looking forward to seeing how the new tournament system was going to work.

After taking a couple of minutes to show our respects on Remembrance Sunday the tournament got underway.  First up were the Peewees and Juniors with Katie Lavin earning a Bronze medal in the patterns competition and a Silver medal in the sparring competition.  I would like to say extra congratulations to Katie for doing so well in her very first tournament.

Next up, in a change to the way the tournament normally runs half of the adult black belts were next to compete with their categories being run through to semi final levels ready to be mixed in with the other half of the black belts in the afternoon.  Miss Pearson competed in the patterns competition and successfully made it through to the semi finals.  Mr James Lavin also competed in this half and successfully made it through to the semi finals of the sparring competition.

The afternoon got underway with the adult colour belts first up with Helen Pengelly earning a Silver medal in the patterns competition and a Gold medal in the sparring competition.  Next up were the other half of the black belts followed by the Finals of the black belt competition.  Congratulations go to Miss Hulme for putting in great effort in her first adult tournament and to Miss Pearson who earned a Gold medal in the patterns competition.

After all the categories were finished and the points added up it was announced that Region 2, the region Stockport Taekwon-do was in along with clubs from Trident Taekwondo Academy, Leeds, Tameside and Poynton, had come second overall with Region 1, containing Scotia and XS from Scotland, coming 1st.  For full results see www.gt-uk.net.

I would like to thank all Stockport students who travelled to the tournament and competed in this great event and hope that most of you are going to be looking forward to more tournaments in 2010.

Finally, on Friday 13th November Miss Pearson and Mr James Lavin flew out to Cork to participate in the Celtic Cup.  After months of training, not just in our club but also travelling to Squad Training in Loughborough every Sunday, the time had arrived and Mr Lavin was ready to compete in his first International Tournament.

The tournament was to take place over Saturday 14th and Sunday 15th November with Miss Pearson and Mr Lavin competing on the Saturday.  After what I’m told was a very tough competition Miss Pearson earned a Gold medal in the patterns competition.  Unfortunately there were no sparring medals for Stockport this time but I would like to congratulate them both for taking part and extra congratulations to Mr Lavin for competing in what I’m sure will be the first of many international tournaments.

After these busy couple of weekends we now look forward to the Colour Belt Grading on 12th December, Stockport Taekwon-do’s Christmas Party also on the 12th December and then a short break before we start again in 2010 with many more tournaments, including an International Tournament hosted by the GTUK in Edinburgh in May.  Full details for the colour belt grading and Christmas Party will follow.