University of Portsmouth Taekwondo

Welcome

2011-07-19T15:04:00.002Z

Taekwondo is a Master class in the finesse of fast-paced, high-octane martial arts, but don’t let that deter you! The beauty of this discipline is its adaptability to any student; whether you’re looking to improve your fitness, learn self-defence, or work your way to your black belt, Taekwondo is for you!

We are currently the only martial arts that are classed as a sport, and so go on the awesome sports tour that occurs yearly at Portsmouth. We are also invited, though this is not part of the University, to the Hungary training camp that occurs for a week once a year which is truly an epic way to Train! We are one of the biggest and fastest growing clubs so join now!

Finally, An Update!

2010-05-06T12:31:00.005Z

Hey Everyone!

Welcome to the Re-vamped University Of Portsmouth Taekwondo Site!
From now on there will be regular updates, information and general comments for you all to see and keep up to date with!

Look forward to regular reports on how the clubs doing, Plus new features to be added in the future!

UoP TKD is making a Change for the Better!

Josh, UoPTKD Pres 09/10

Overton Novice Tournament Overview 22/11/08

2008-12-04T16:19:00.004Z

Novice tournaments are a fantastic way for new-comers to Taekwondo to ease themselves into the turbulent waters of competition sparring. The atmosphere is friendly, the feeling of anxiety is typically mutual, and fighting is (mostly) fair. There is, however, an element of corruption, even in such a well-intentioned organisation. The problem is the definition of a “novice”. The agonising factor lies in the fact that a novice in Taekwondo can be a black belt in another martial art: i.e. Karate or Kick Boxing - the kind of martial arts that link in rather well with Taekwondo. And so, your white belt novice infact has seventeen years experience in tournaments, and would likely wipe the floor with most Dan grades, let alone fellow novices.

Another slight inconsistency arises when the match-ups take place. For those not in the know, sparring competitions are divided into categories based on weight, grade, and to a lesser extent, age. This works brilliantly regarding National Championships and County Opens where they receive a great umber of applicants to fill out the categories. Novice tournaments, on the other hand, can be a little sparse competitor-wise. And occasionally grade and weight boundaries have to be ignored in order to actually give someone an opponent, as you’ll soon see.

I apologise for the moaning and groaning, but this preamble is just may way of justifying some of the results which don’t look so good when you see them on paper, but completely reflect Portsmouth University’s misfortune regarding the opponents it was drawn against. So, without further ado, let’s get on to the match reports.

First up was Angie, our one and only female competitor (a ratio I would like to improve on next time please ladies!). I don’t feel it’s worth dwelling too much on the details of this encounter. The only girl in Angie’s weight category was a red belt, Angie being a white belt - go figure! Needless to say, a match between someone who’s been training for two months and someone who’s been at it at least three years didn’t provide the fairest of fights, and the result was 7-0 to the red belt. The main problem obviously being experience, and the time it takes to learn different methods of attacking and movement. The red belt was able to gauge Angie’s approach early on in the fight, and simply picked off the points as Angie stepped in to attack. It isn’t worth being too critical at this point as the fight is by no means a fair reflection of either competitors’ ability. Hopefully the next fight will be a little more even, Angie!

Angies Fight (Blue)

My apologies now to the guys as I can’t quite remember whose fight was first so I’m just gonna do the best I can. I hope you can forgive me!

I’m gonna take a guess and say that Martin was our first male competitor up (after around three hours of hanging around - it was now dark outside!). Yet again, another unfairly matched fight. Correct me if I’m wrong, Martin, but his opponent looks to be a blue belt judging by the video (yes, I’m watching the videos - you expect me to remember everything!?), and Martin a slightly whiter shade of colour. To give him his due, though, Martin was not phased by the more experienced man. He got stuck straight it, and fought his corner valiantly. Yet again, the blue belt was obviously more experienced, and was targeting the openings Martin left when he attacked. Another thing we’re going to need to work on is setting a boundary between being offensive, and just running in. Martin was guilty of a lot of the latter, which was when his opponent was able to pick him off and score with counterattacks. Also, a lot of Martin’s kicks were a little flippant, just flicking his foot up into the air. We need to work on using the hip more, firstly for the extra power, secondly for the extra range, and thirdly for the increased chance of scoring a point with it. The result at the end was 11-4 against Martin, but scoring four points against a blue belt is nothing to be ashamed of. Again, the match isn’t a fair reflection on Martin’s ability, as I’m sure he and all our other fighters would have fared better against an opponent of the same grade and height/weight.

Martins Fight (Blue)

I think Dan was up next, or should I call him Clubfoot? I can hear him laughing already. I don’t know about anyone else, but Dan never ceases to surprise me. First impressions present a well-spoken, well-mannered boy from Hamble. How wrong can a first impression be? Put this boy in the ring, and it’s very reminiscent of Ed from a couple of years ago: the transformation from man into beast. On the outset, this fight looked well-matched. Both white belts, both of a similar height. It was looking good. I, however, don’t think that Dan’s opponent, a student of Grand Master Lindsey Lawrence (the greatest fighter Britain has ever produced) was the novice he looked. The high kicks, the footwork, the well-executed back kick…I’m dubious. But whatever, this is the tale of the tape: Dan was kicked in the throat early on, which he protested wasn’t legal, but of course it bloody is - stop whinging, man! Either way, the foot to the throat sparked a change in Dan. It inspired rage, Dan got ANGRY! All technique and tactics went out the window, Dan now had only one goal: to kill his opponent. Needless to say, such an approach is liable to fail. Dan’s knees ceased the act of bending, and every kick was swung in a blurred arc that could be seen coming a mile away. If we can learn to channel the aggression, I think Dan could be a star for the future, but for now, Clubfoot will have to put up with being laughed at. The score in the end was 12-8 against Dan, which is actually very impressive. I think the two headshots his opponent scored turned the tide, as well as Dan’s straight-legged approach, but many things to be proud of.

Clubfoots Fight (Red)

I’ll tackle Sean’s fight next; the last of our fighters participating in their first ever tournament. Sean’s opponent was a green tag, but had also done Kick Boxing before, as his sparring approach suggested. Sean got off to a flying start though - literally! His double round house stole a quick point, and a succession of good footwork, subsequent double kicks, and a well-timed sidekick resulted in the score being 4-2 to Sean after only twenty seconds, and had me thinking we were on our way to our first gold. But then fatigue, that old demon, raised its ugly head! The movements soon grew sluggish, and the kicks lowered to about knee height on occasion, earning Sean at least a half point deduction, if not more. It was a real shame, as he started so well. I think if we work on our fitness and conditioning we’ll improve substantially, as the technique and approach is there. Perhaps a more reserved start may also be beneficial, as impressive as it was. 12-7 in the end, but once again, plenty of points scored by our team.

Seans Fight (Blue)

Guy next (Blue), one of two not-quite-so-novice-novices, having sparred several times before and actually achieving a gold medal at one tournament. But nevertheless, he made good use of the opportunity to glean a little more experience. Hey, if a Dan grade could partake in the Novice tournament, then why not Guy? This was one of the other fights where the grades of both competitors were the same. The main difference was the other bloke’s height and resulting leg length advantage, which he made the most of with repeated attempts at head shots. I’ve seen Guy fight a few times now, and I must say this is the best performance I’ve seen him put in. His timing and his movement have greatly improved since the last tournament, it’s just unfortunate that his opponent had such a reach advantage. There were moments of greatness from the Portsmouth Uni representative though, a nice two-point combo in which he avoided the counter that came between his two attacks. And also the spectacular way he fell on his arse to avoid a back kick. Watch the video, it’s hilarious! It even had the referee laughing. My main criticism would be that Guy didn’t utilise the fact that he could get in close and cut off his opponent’s attacks, but instead stayed at a distance that put him at a disadvantage. But with Guy getting our highest score of the day with a 12-9 defeat, I can’t complain too much.

Guys Fight (Blue)

Lastly to Simon, who has also participated in several previous tournaments, though is still searching for that elusive victory. Simon’s opponent was a green tag, like he, and actually a little shorter too. If anything, I would have said advantage Portsmouth. But, again, his opponent had studied another martial art before; this time Kung Fu. For the most part, the fight was fairly even. Both of them were counter attackers, so there were extended periods of inactivity reminiscent of the bouncing competitions at the Olympics. But I think, on the day, Master Lawrence’s student was the better counter attacker. His timing was sharper and his footwork more precise. Simon had a tendency to over-commit, meaning he was off-balance and pretty much defenceless against the counter attacks. He eventually lost 7-6 but I’m not the only one to say that this is his best performance to date. Once again, a lot of positives to take away, just need more practise!

Simons Fight (Blue)

It sounds good to say we came away with five silver medals, and although they were technically default prizes, I believe that each and every one of our fighters earned them. For the most part we were up against the odds, sparring higher grades and people who had likely been training all through the summer, unlike our lazy lot who’d been lazing around getting fat. What is reassuring though is that we scored lots of points. In terms of offence, we’re sharp and committed. Our faults lie in defence. It’s all well and good getting a point, but if you leave yourself open to a counter attack that point is negated. We need to work further on distancing, movement, and improve the strength of our own counter attacking abilities. The spirit is there, which is fantastic! We’ve got fight in our hearts, now we just need to get fight in our heads: learn to think, to anticipate, teach ourselves to react quickly and precisely. It’s all basic, but it all goes out the window in the ring, as we all know! Our job now is to learn to close that window, and earn ourselves the gold medals that we and Portsmouth University deserve.

Russ
UoP Taekwondo President.

Grading coming up

2008-11-07T13:36:00.002Z

There is a grading coming up on 7th of december which is a sunday, this will allow you to progress up a level in taekwondo, speak to a committee member about what you need to have and Master Pat if you feel eligible to grade.

Ashley
Social Sec 2008

Kit prices and pictures

2008-11-07T13:35:00.003Z

Kit details are now on the site if you contact a committee member, preferably myself first with some money for the order I will get it processed for you

Ashley
Social Sec 2008

Up coming Tournament

2008-11-07T13:32:00.002Z

There is also a novice tournament coming up 22nd of november, it is good to get to know yourself and have fun we have the equipment but you will need to purchase a dobok (taekwondo suit) to take part, also you will need to be in possession of a license if you speak to Russ or Master Pat we can arrange this for you

PUB Golf TKD style

2008-11-07T13:29:00.001Z

Hoping everyone had fun on the Pub golf social!
Due to me being unorganised by the end of the night ( a.k.a drunk) I did not get to collect scorecards.....

But heck I will let you be the judge on your own performance I am impressed by you all in consumation and so it shall continue!!!

Not many photos exist from the night but if anyone is in possession of some and fancies forwarding them my way they will be uploaded on to the site with all our smiley faces on it

If anyone wants to be a social night photographer let me know, not promising I will go any easier on your consumation and punishments mind you :D

Hope everyone is looking forward to the next one as soon as it is arrange emails will be going out

Ashley
Social Sec 2008

TKD goes bowling

2008-11-07T13:20:00.003Z

Hello again ladies and gents!!

Bit of a different social and a good turn out

Hope everybody enjoyed it as much as I did, hoping you enjoyed your nicknames not too offensive I hope.... it is forward thinking for the sports tour where you will need a nick-name but thats all to come...

Seems like we have a few members who may have joined the wrong club (Emily and Michal) scoring some seriously high pin scores in the 140-150's region

Entertainingly Michal went from hero (1st) in the first game to zero (last) in the second game

The move on to the american pool tables was great fun with the TKD team possessing 5 tables in a row how about that for a bit of TKD take over!

A special mention has to go to Stash who amusingly managed to get rather drunk on a non-drinking social we need to teach this boy how to hold his drink.... but in all fairness he didn't bring it all back up

Look forward to seeing you all on the next social it's consumation next time round

Ashley
Social Sec 2008

Freshers of the TKD Social

2008-11-07T13:06:00.004Z

Hey guys and girls!
I hope you all had a good night and you enjoyed your interaction with former members and new members alike

You probably noticed I was taking the consumation of beverages a bit lightly,
only because it would be nice to remember names for once as my memory is terrible for that even when sober :D

The consumation levels will go up on the pub and club socials but not to stupid levels but enough to have a merry night

Next social is going to be non-alcoholic it is a bit of bowling details to be given in class hope to see you all there

Ashley
Social Sec 2008

Kit Pictures and Prices

2008-11-07T12:42:00.005Z

This is what the kit of all descriptions for the club look like sizes and prices on here speak to the a committee member to arrange an order:

Doboks - £16.00

NOTE YOU NEED A DOBOK TO GRADE

Made from High Quality Ribbed Polyester/Cotton material.
Incredibly strong Dobok, yet light to the feel, giving students greater freedom of movement

White belt included

Available in the following sizes

110cm = 3' 5" - 3' 8"

120cm = 3' 9" - 4' 2"

130cm = 4' 3" - 4' 5"

140cm = 4' 6" - 4' 9"

150cm = 4' 10" - 5' 2"

160cm = 5' 3" - 5' 5"

170cm = 5' 6" - 5' 9"

180cm = 5' 10" - 6' 1"

190cm = 6' 2" - 6' 5"

200cm = 6' 6" UP

The Training Top Prices for either the sleeveless or the crew neck is £12.00

The Polo shirts are £20.00

The Tracksuit Bottoms are £18.50

The Social Hoodies are £23.00

If anyone wants a better image sending to you direct email Ashley_evans_01@hotmail.co.uk

Freshers Fayre and Stuff.

2008-09-26T09:50:00.000Z

Hi Guys,
I hope you've all had a good Summer. It's the new semester and yes, it's that time of year again! Fresher's Fair! Anyone willing to help out the committee on the day we "rope in all the young and fresh", please email Russ (russ_equals_tortoise@hotmail.com) or Guy (gus2dam@hotmail.co.uk) for more details.

Task range from giving out leaflets, tending the stall to chatting up freshers about how good the club is and make them join (or you'll kick them in the face). There will also be a social arranged by Ash, more details to come.

Fresher's Fair is on the 1st and 2nd of October. Hope to see you guys there.

On another side note: If you haven't already got wind, I have stepped down as President (before the official semester even start!) due to a change of university. I am now in Hull (No TKD clubs *cries*). This role have been passed back to Russ (last year's president) and I'm sure a confirmed committee will be up before you guys start. Take care now and it was a pleasure to train and help the club over the past 3 years :)

Training Times...

2008-09-26T09:41:00.000Z

The Usual Training Times and Venue:

Training will be in Studio 1, Studio 1, Nuffield Sports Centre,
Thursday - from 8pm to 10pm.
Sunday - from 2pm to 5pm

Our doors are opened for any new members (with or without any experience in Martial Arts), the first session you come to is free so you can have a taste of how we train : )

If you've not received any recent e-mails/news on socials, please contact portsmouthunitkd@gmail.com and you'll be added to the mailing listings. Thank you.

Tournaments To Come...

2008-09-26T09:30:00.000Z

...

~

More tournaments to come, this post will be updated when more info is received.

Taekwondo: Basingstoke “Novice” Tournament 2008

2008-05-02T08:26:00.005Z

Philipa Barnes (Blue)

It’s never easy entering a Taekwondo Tournament, it is especially nerve wrecking if it’s your first time. This is our second year doing this “Novice” tournament held by Overton & Basingstoke Taekwondo, which is meant for newbies or for those who haven’t fought in a tournament in a while.

First eager to fight for Portsmouth University was our only female entrant to this competition, Philipa Barnes. With good hits and distancing, she didn’t disappoint the team; a great 7points clear of her opponent, Philipa won before the first half! That’s quite an achievement for a fresher.

Simon Tidbury (Red)

Only his second tournament since he joined us this year, Simon Tidbury had 2 fights lined up for him in this tournament. His first fight was against a giant Southampton City fighter! The height difference didn’t put Simon off – with moments of great aggression, counters and one heck of a great punch, which knocked his opponent off guard and out of the ring during the second half, he put up a good fight but lost 4 – 7 in the end.

Tom Hutton (Red)

Another eager fresher stepping into the ring is Tom Hutton. With some previous experience, Tom did very well with well timed offensive techniques, dummies and counter, winning his fight 7 points clear in the middle of his second half, 9-2 on the score board. Good one!

Colin Jones (Red) Vs Simon Jell (Blue)

More often than not, in a small, non-nationals tournaments such as this, some of our team mates are bound to meet in the same ring... in this tournament; it was the meeting of the veteran novices. Both Simon and I haven’t done a tournament for over a year and a half – making use of this tournament as a warm up before June’s bigger tournament.

After Colin threw many dominating combo kicks and a good couple of back kicks, the judges ignored these shots, where Simon kept coming at me with his onslaught of right leg round house kicks. With undefeated attitude and saying sorry too many times, Simon won the bout at 9-2.
(Colin: The score didn’t reflect the bout, I think the corner judges forgot they’ve got a red trigger.) (Simon: That’s what they always say! :D)

Jason Wells (Red) Vs Simon Tidbury (Blue)

Jason Wells met Simon Tidbury in yet another same team bout. Jason, a fresher to Taekwondo tournament, did well with great aggression and attitude. Since this was Simon’s second fight in this tournament, he was understandably tired and Jason made full use of it by working Simon around the ring. Initially losing to Simon, who did some great counters; Jason came from behind with a handful of great round house kicks and ended the bout at 9-8 to Jason.

Guy Mullins (Red)

Guy Mullins, the only fresher to have double graded this year has shown much potential in Taekwondo. Whilst being selective of his kicks when in the ring, he didn’t disappoint the team and worked his way up the score board, ending his bout 9-2 to Guy. Great job and I’m sure this will not be the last time we’ll see him winning fights.

Simon Jell Vs ITF 2^nd Dan?
(Apologies, no fight picture)

The last fight of the tournament ended with a last minute arranged fight between Simon Jell and Gavin “the white belt”. Do not be fooled though; he is in fact a 2^nd Dan (2^nd Black Belt) in ITF style Taekwondo looking to get back into doing tournament after a long period of rest.

In the ring, wounded from his previous fight with me, Simon had to pull a trick and a half to score a point or two against this White Belt. The fight ended 5-1 to the white belt after Simon spent the fight in pure defence.

Overall, I’m quite pleased with the number of Freshers for taking their first step into the world of a Taekwondo Tournament Fight and I’m happy to announce we’ve earned 5 Gold and 4 Silver medals!

Gold Medals:
Philipa “7-0” Barnes
Simon “right-legged” Jell
Tom “dummy & counter” Hutton
Jason “aggressive” Wells
Guy “selective” Mullins

Silver Medals:

Simon “runner” Tidbury (x2)
Colin “no worthy points” Jones
Simon “right-legged’ Jell

UoP TKD Man of the Match: Philipa Barnes (First fight, first gold, way to go girl!)

Special Thanks to: Lee Mason (for always being there for us! J)

Design a Logo Competition

2007-11-12T22:57:00.000Z

Congratulation Jooman Abass, the official winner of our club's Design a Logo Competition; here is the winning entry:

This logo will be featured on the back of our new Hoodies.

Please see/contact Simon (fatalfrog@hotmail.co.uk) for more information on Social Kit Orders.

I would also like to thank everyone who've made an effort to enter this competition, all contributions and efforts were appreciated.

BSTF Student Nationals 2007

2007-03-12T18:17:00.000Z

(If you want to save the video, right click on the video name -> select save as)

Colin's Fight 8.5mb

Ed's Fight 01 7.1mb

Ed Vs Luke (AKA Ed's Fight 02 / Luke's Fight 02)*

Luke's Fight 01 14.3mb

Luke's Fight 03 33.7mb

Luke's Final 13.0mb

Nathan's Fight 01 20.4mb

Nathan's Fight 02 13.6mb

Nathan's Final 32.6mb

Reuben's Fight 01 21.6mb

Reuben's Fight 02 18.0mb

Sam's Final 7.7mb

*Vid to be uploaded soon.

Doctor & Nurses

2007-02-26T22:12:00.000Z

The night was scheduled to start at 7:30 in the fuzzy duck. However after I met up with Axe-man Ed we arrived at around 8 o clock to a very lonely and sad looking table, which only contained Simon, Dan and Mo. A few drinks later Dr Jones and Guy turned up with their 2 sexy nurses Whitney and Amanda. Once Robo Will(nickname due to his fav dance move the robot) and his mate Andy arrived the decision was made to start touch cup, with battle lines drawn up, the game commenced and it seemed that the main target was once again Robo Will. This may have been because of Andy’s inane ability to turn most the players against him and so turning Robo Will a very nice red colour very early on in the game. This is roughly the time when 3 more stunning nurses came through the door Barbara, Dinah and Hannah.
At that same moment Axe-man Ed had suddenly found that the floor under his chair slightly sloped down hill and was slowly moving away from the drinking and more to the girls further down the table, hmmmmmmmm funny that.

The touch cup game was just about coming to the end when superior Chris showed up and a challenge was issued to Robo Will and myself to do downing competition to get rid of the last 2 pints on the table. After much swearing and complaining (by Will) we both managed to finished our drinking at a petty fast pace. However that pace was nothing compared to the speed that Will rushed to the toilets to throw up right in the middle of the floor.
NICE !!!!
This is when we made a quick get away from the Fuzzy Duck and moved our way to the union. Robo Will stole about 20 mints from the dear Dr Jones to get rid of his hideous breath after throwing up
When we reached the union the queue was HUGE , so we decided to pay the £6 to get straight in. Once everyone was in we went upstairs to the main dance floor and started shaking our groove and Robot Will did his defining dance move the “ROBOT” oh yeah.
This was about the time Axe-man Ed stated his mission for tonight. So myself and axe-man Ed (we weren’t dressed up) thought he would have had a better chance if we moved away from the weirdo’s who were dressed up as doctors and nurse on a SCHOOL NIGHT(what’s that about Simon?), so we moved into the next room.

A few minutes later Barbara joined us and we had a great laugh for about 20 mins before we went back in search for the rest of the group. This is when the night turned bad because the live band came on stage and they sucked. This is when people started going home, first it was superior Chris, then Colin, Whitney, Andy, Mo and guy all left. Simon had used his position of power in the club to seduce the lovely Amanda so they disappeared as well, so they were hardly any of us left. We decided to spend the rest of the night dancing in the smaller room until Barbara left the club with her friends and Axe-man Ed disappeared in the club. I decided the night was coming to the end and left to go home leaving Robo will hitting on random girl after random girl in the club all by himself.

Summing up
The next day I found out that axe-man Ed’s mission failed that night but the second phase of the mission is still on and Robot Will kept getting rejection after rejection after I went (maybe the mints were just not strong enough ).
Much love
Nathan (The Pol)

Cambridge Open - Jan 28 ‘07

2007-01-30T14:39:00.000Z

Well weren’t we all glad that we drove up there Saturday and stayed in a hotel? I know I was. Not having to get up at the crack of dawn the day of the tournament is a gift to put Santa to shame. After nearly being forced to begin sparring early with Simon during the Pompey Man U game, we climbed aboard the coach and set off for Cambridge. The journey was long and arduous, but many thanks to Scott for bringing along his PSP and providing vital hours of entertainment kicking arse - well, getting our arses kicked - on Tekken. After getting pretty lost, and laughing at Colin’s lack of communication skills over the phone (Steven G. Thomas!) we were given an escort to the weigh-in by a bullet-proof Lexus owned by the local KGB faction.

Weigh-in went as expected: Simon was still fat and Feliciano was still made of feathers. Then it was grub-time! Lee performed some off-road manoeuvres to get us a parking space, and we strolled to the local complex. All-you-can eat Chinese buffet was tempting, but unwise, and Nando’s only had one chicken to offer the fourteen of us, so to Pizza Hutt we went, much to the disapproval of the staff eagerly awaiting the end of their shift.

The Travel Inn thingy was comfy, if a little snug. Mental note to self; never share a bed with Colin again. It ain’t his snoring you have to watch out for, but his orgasmic moaning. After a long night of little sleep, morning came. And we were once more back on the coach.

The hall was surprisingly small, with very little room around the edge of the rings which led to many obstructions to the videoing. The tournament itself had no Poomsae, and no kids, so for the first time in Taekwondo history, we had sparring in the morning!

Sam was up first, facing a beefy green tag, and I think for the first time ever, Sam didn’t dick all over her opponent. The other girl was just too big, and wasn’t going to go down easily. Our guaranteed gold-medallist was defeated in the first round, much to our surprise, and her disappointment. And without Nathan (our male guaranteed gold) competing due to a self-inflicted ankle injury, we were at a loss for who to turn to for inspiration.

Up to the plate stepped Ed Oppong, the beloved Mr. Echo, and we had a new champion. Ed made easy work of his opponent with his new found favourite chop-kick, and early in the second round he was seven points clear and voted unanimously the victor. Hell yeah!

Apologies if I get the fights in the wrong order, there were just too many. Also making an early start to the day was Reuben. If we were impressed last time, we were amazed this time! For someone who only began training with us this year, Reuben fights as well as any of us. His movement was much better, and his back kick especially was dangerous. The fight was close, and without electronic scoring we had no idea who was winning, but valiant Reuben came out on top and proceeded to the next round.

Our other early starter was Luke, the demise of Colin at Basingstoke, but now fattened up and in the next weight category up. The only word I can think of to describe Luke’s opponent is dickhead. He seemed like an arrogant twat who thought he had it in the bag, and really didn’t like it when Luke scored against him. Luke pulled out some clean hits, especially a beautifully executed sidekick that I do believe caught the guy right in the face. Looked like it from behind anyway. After that the guy was pretty pissed off, and threw everything at Luke, and the end of the fight yet again brought a little uncertainty amongst the ranks. But Luke was voted the winner, and went through to the next round. Only then did we realise that he’d be fighting Ed. But there were a few hours to prepare.

I was up next, and having not competed since the Dorset Open, was bricking myself. My opponent was roughly my height, for once, and it was a fairly even match. My game plan went out the window and I didn’t pull off any of the spectacular kicks I had in mind, but I picked my shots and ultimately scored a few more points than the other guy, whilst being kicked in the balls about five times! Thank God for groin guards! And through to the next round I went.

I think Shu was up next. She wasn’t far off anyway. This was the match we’d all been waiting for, after seeing, and occasionally experiencing, what she could do. With kicks more powerful than Alex’s, and faster than a bullet from a gun, I felt this would be a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it fight. To a certain extent, it was, but not as we’d expected it. The little Chinese first dan Shu was up against matched her for speed easily, and pulled out some great combos and was soon racking up the points. Shu fought back well, but she just let her opponent score a few too many easy points, and it wasn’t long before she found herself at the wrong end of a seven point deficit.

I’m gonna put Reuben’s second fight next. He went out and carried on from where he’d left off. His back kicks again were phenomenal, but this time his opponent was just that little bit quick for him, and was able to dive in and score some unguarded points and few too many times. It was still a close contest, and once again we had no idea which way it was going to go, but Reuben was declared the loser, and earned himself a well-deserved bronze medal.

And so, the time for the Portsmouth Uni showdown had arrived. After a few hours of silent meditation, Luke and Ed stepped into the ring with strict orders to play nice. Luke had the benefit of knowing exactly what Ed’s all about, and knew he had to wait him out, and not jump in recklessly and fall victim to those long legs. Ed got his points from kick attacks, and Luke got them back with well-chosen counterattacks. And the fact that Nathan was shouting “Chop kicks, Ed!” gave Luke a pretty good idea of what was coming next. The match was a close one, and Luke gave Ed his only test of the day, but in the end the victory went to Ed, and we had ourselves another well-deserved bronze. Might be worth-while dropping back down into our category, Luke, so you don’t have to face such tall buggers!

Up next was our resident red tag. Scott rather lazily beat Rob at the Basingstoke tournament, but with headshots being legal in the comp, we felt that Scott could really pull it out of the bag. What we didn’t count on was his opponent. Scott fought brilliantly, and scored some great points, knocking the guy to the floor on a few occasions. But his opponent’s counterattacks were nigh-on unstoppable. Jumping back kicks, 360° round kicks, you name it, the guy pulled them off. A little over half way through the second round the other guy was declared victor with a seven point lead which I think was a little unfair, but I don’t think Scott could argue. It may be a default bronze, but he fought well for it. I don’t think there was too much more he could have done. Good match.

Feliciano was up, the little speed demon himself. I think this is the best performance he’s ever put in, and took his opponent right to the end of the match. It was even all the way through, with both of them pretty evenly matched and scoring good points. But there’s one thing that I think turned the tide. Feliciano took a leaf out of Nathan’s book and did some dirty cheating, delivering a brilliant right hook straight into his opponent’s face. Needless to say he was penalised, and frowned upon by everyone as a dirty fighter, but it was a great punch! I think without that he may have come out on top, but the deducted point cost him greatly, and the other guy won. Bad luck Feliciano. And bronze medal, but maybe next time stick to Taekwondo ;p.

Simon’s first fight was late in the day. I didn’t see it myself, and we haven’t got the videos from Sam’s camera yet, so I have nothing to say except he won. Well done that man. Second of our fighters through to a final.

My second fight came next. The guy was a good few inches taller than me, and heavily bearded. We dubbed him the yeti! I was sceptical. After my first win a had a lot more confidence, but I think I relaxed a little too much. I lost count of the amount of times he kicked me in the head (I did return the favour a couple of times I must add) and his extra reach and power proved too much for a lazy bastard like myself. With all my bumps and bruises, I was half-relieved I didn’t have to go through to the final.

Immediately after I limped over to the other ring to watch Colin. He’d been automatically put through to the semi-final as he was one belt below me, and we had hoped to meet in the final, but that wasn’t going to happen after my defeat. Colin was paired up against another oriental, and the match was pretty even. Colin, we feel, took an early lead. He fought really well and scored a few great points without giving too many away. But after his opponent tried to stop the match for a quick breather, Colin reverted back to his former self and did a bit too much spinning. His opponent managed to steal a few points back, and eventually scraped the win. Another default bronze for the Sillyporeon, but slowly but surely he’s getting there. Next time, Colin, next time you’ll get your first win. You’d better anyway!

Two matches to go. Two finals. Up first was Ed. Ed went out into the first round and battered his opponent all around the ring, scoring loads of points and conceding only one that we saw, and even that I felt was a matter of opinion. After the break, it looked as if fatigue (and the effects of smoking!) set in, and the match became a lot more even. Ed was forced out of the ring a few times, but he was still careful not to give many points away. At the end of the second round Steven had him down as the victor at 6-2, but it would appear the other two corner judges weren’t watching, and the match had to be decided on sudden death. Ed, knackered and looking like he’d just stepped out of the shower, didn’t look to happy about it, but he did us all proud with a kick not even a second into the sudden death and won it. His reserve kicked in and he jumped around like a lunatic, proving his exhaustion had been a farce (yeah right) and he had a gold medal! Whoo!

And so to our final fight. Simon’s final. This one I did see, though we have no video as the battery had run out long before. Simon fought really well, better than I’ve seen him before. He took it to his opponent, but, like most of us, he just allowed a few too many easy points, and was declared loser, but earned us a silver medal.

Needless to say we didn’t win the overall best club plaque. But I think we came fourth which isn’t too bad.

It was nice for the tournament to finish on schedule for once, and we subsequently got underway and headed for home. Spirits were still pretty high in the coach, and Tekken came out once more to provide entertainment and frustration, with Colin serenading us with his snoring. Once back in Portsmouth people gradually left the bus at odd intervals, and the celebratory drink turned out to be just Nathan, Ed, Sam and myself. Simon’s position as Social Secretary is under jeopardy after choosing not to come for a drink. I vote will be held shortly (joke).

So good, day, and good weekend. Loads of bonding, which we all love, loads of medals, and loads of bruises. Congratulations to the entire team, and special thanks to Steven and Master Pat for coaching us, and Nathan and Dan for coming along to support.

MOTM: He was a very strong candidate last tournament, but he simply stole the show this time. Ed, you’re my hero!

DOTD: A lot of us missed out on some good chances. But I think my special mention goes to Colin, still yet to be victorious. Also I quick reminder of Social Sec Simon not coming for a drink. Negligence of duty, I think that is. We’re all very disappointed :p

Well, 2200 words later I think I should bring this to an end. Once again well done everyone. We’ll do better next time. I’m expecting golds from everyone, and that includes you Colin!

Russ out.

For Videos, Click Here.

Cambridge (28/01/07)

2007-01-30T08:22:00.000Z

(If you want to save the video, right click on the video name -> select save as)

Colin's Fight*

Ed's Fight 01 14.2mb

Luke's Fight 01 30mb

Ed Vs Luke 24mb

Ed's Final*

Feliciano's Fight 28mb

Reuben's Fght 01 31mb

Reuben's Fight 02 30mb

Russ's Fight 01 27mb

Russ's fight 02 26mb

Sam's fight 34mb

Scott's fight 28mb

Simon's Wrong Fight 5mb

Simon's Fight 01 32mb

Simon's Fight 02*

Shu's Fight 11mb

*Not Recorded - DV camcorder ran out of batteries.
Our apologies to the fighters and viewers hoping to watch these fights.

All Updated!

Basingstoke "Novice Tournament" 02/12/06

2006-12-02T23:51:00.000Z

Alex VS SCTKD 20mb

Chris VS LLTKD 21mb

Chris2 Vs LLTKD 18mb

Colin Vs Luke 22mb

Ed Vs LLTKD 16mb

Nathan Vs Lew 30mb

Reuben Vs OBTKD 21mb

Scott Vs Robert 20mb

Whitney's Poomsae 16mb

Basingstoke Novice Tournament (02/12/06)

2006-12-02T23:03:00.000Z

The Basingstoke Novice Tournament

The Basingstoke Novice Tournament was the first one I’d actually looked forward to. All the fun of watching people batter away at one another, with no chance of being injured myself! I think I was alone in my excitement, though. The couch journey there was one of quiet reflection and meditation. We arrived - ooh - only about an hour early, and amused ourselves with racist comments towards Colin - all in the name of fun, you understand.

Eventually the tournament began. The first section was devoted entirely to Poomsae, and amidst awful renditions of numerous patterns and even hand techniques (yes, you heard me correctly; hand techniques at a patterns competition) our very own Whitney stepped up to the mat. Whitney showed the audience the meaning of focus and technique, and quite literally cained her opponent in a non-violent way to win Portsmouth Uni our first gold of the day. Go Whitney!

In short order, sparring began. But it was about a three hour wait until our first fight. Time was spent wisely, dining on McDonalds (by myself and Lew anyway) and some run-of-the-mill tom-foolery.

Then without our knowledge, Whitney’s fight was pushed forward three or more rounds, and we were greeted with the announcement “you will be disqualified if you are not on the mat in thirty seconds!” Harsh, to say the least, as Whitney didn’t even have her body armour on yet. But in a costume change only Superman could beat, she made it to the mat in good time. I had been elected cameraman, as I was not competing (regrettably), and so was ringside for the performance. What ensued was an even match. Whitney fought really well, her technique especially was commendable, and this one really went down to the wire as (and correct me if I’m wrong) it was 6-6 at the end of time. In the words of Anne Robinson; “let’s play…Sudden Death!” Or Golden Kick, which naturally only lasts a matter of seconds, and unfortunately for Whitney it was her opponent who landed to killing blow. Bad luck to her, but hey, a gold and a silver medal isn’t bad. And apologies from Colin who has corrupted the video of your fight and has lost it forever!

A bit more of a wait for the girls to finish, and then it was the blokes turn to flex their muscles and strut their stuff. Enter Colin and Luke, unfortunately drawn against one-another as there was no one else in their category. Luke’s had around twelve years of experience in Karate tournaments, but this was his first Taekwondo appearance. On the other hand Colin had numerous bouts under his belt and had the upper hand experience-wise, but who was going to claim their first gold medal in a TKD fight? Answer - Luke. Colin’s collection of consolation medals grows, but it was a decided improvement this time. For starters, Colin did not attempt to pummel the opposition into mush with his firsts (until the end) and both fighters exhibited good technique and fighting finesse. A close contest, and one that did our Uni proud.

We had another debut, that of Reuben, who informed us he’d only been training for seven weeks, or something like that. I remember what was going through my head before my first fight, and I sympathise with him. But then again he didn’t have to endure two head-shots and a split lip. But nevertheless. All I want to say about this fight is, if I didn’t know him, I wouldn’t have thought this was Reuben’s first fight. After only seven weeks of training the ability and technique he showed was astonishing, and although he lost to his opponent, his silver medal was well deserved. A bright future ahead, me thinks. Well done, Reuben.

Next came Chris (if my chronological memory serves me), and the first of two fights for him, the lucky bugger. It was a shame there were no headshots, as we all know how flexible Chris is, but even so he proved he was just as deadly on the midsection. The fight began evenly, and at halftime it was 5-3 in his opponent’s favour. Chris fought on bravely, but his opponent’s counter-attacks were just too much finished 9-3, but another silver medal well-deserved.

Following Chris came another tall, leggy brute of a man, Ed (or Mr. Echo as we’ve affectionately named him), and funnily enough had to fight the same opponent. Ed began the fight in much the same way as he has done in previous fights, and soon found himself behind. But instead of falling even further into oblivion, Ed carried out a brief rain dance (watch the video and you’ll understand what I mean - even though the sound is from Scott and Rob’s fight, another of Colin’s errors), and some divinity intervened and blessed Ed with God-like powers. Like a man possessed Ed roared and stared down his opponent, forcing him to make mistakes and forget those deadly counter-attacks. Ed proceeded to score point after point and got the match to 5-3 before his opponent ‘injured’ his foot and pulled out. We all know he was just too scared! But a round of applause to Ed. He managed to turn the fight around and come back from behind to smash the living daylights out of his opponent, and get revenge for Chris. If Ed keeps it up, he’ll be one to watch in the future. Good man.

Next up was another Portsmouth Uni showdown, this time our resident red tags Scott and Rob. Like Chris, I imagine Scott was a little annoyed about using headshots (although that didn’t stop him - we all saw that stunning back hook kick!), but to our surprise he was given several warnings about low kicks. You do the maths. It took about a minute before the scores were opened, and from that moment on Scott progressed up from 1 to 6-0, and we all felt that it was about to finish with a white-wash, but Rob scored a point back, and then another. In the mean time a couple of high kicks, including said back hook kick, from Scott dropped his tally down and it was 4-2. We all wondered if the biggest come-back in history was about to take place, but Scott snatched another point and held out until the final whistle and the match ended 5-2. I think it would be fair to say that neither competitor achieved their potential, but it was their first WTF tournament, though, so we’ll let them off. Good fight guys, and another gold for Portsmouth Uni!

After what probably felt to him like a brief respite, Chris was back in the ring. Chris soon fell two points behind, then managed to get one back before half time. Whether it was Steven’s half time coaching tips, of inspiration from Ed’s earlier performance, he managed to turn his match around. Chris managed to take the fight to his opponent and came away the victor at 4-3. Gold and a silver, can’t complain. Well done, Chris!

Up next, the penultimate fight, and the one I’d been looking forward to all day: Nathan versus Lewis, the rematch! This had been hyped up all day (mostly by me), and finally it had arrived. Coming off a 3-1 defeat from last time Lew had a lot to do, whereas Nathan had the confidence from that win, and the gold medal he eventually achieved. But what followed was not the fight most were expecting. It started off evenly, making its way up to 2-2. And then Nathan threw a few high kicks (like the dirty cheater he is) as lost a point. Lew then scored another and went off at half time with a 3-1 lead. Pity for him that wasn’t the end of it. As the fight continued Lew kept his lead up until 5-3, and then was deducted a point of his own for shoulder-barging. Then I think stamina, or lack of it, played a big part in the final thirty seconds of the fight, and Nathan managed to score a couple of points and successfully defended his title. 5-4. A lot closer than last time, resonant of a decided improvement by Lew. A well-deserved silver medal, and another gold for Portsmouth Uni.

Last fight time. Alex was up, our seventeen stone goliath. In the past Alex has struggled a bit, due to, like most of us, lack of stamina, and also because of his asthma. But he really pulled one out of the bag this time! I think this had to be the most professional performance of the day. He went a point down early on, but his opponent had it deducted for gesturing at the referee. Following this Alex used methodical and tactical kicking, not wasting his energy, only striking when there was a target, including a push kick that sent his opponent flying. The crowd loved that one! And he found himself 2-0 up at half time. He came back out in the second round and continued with the same formula. What do they say? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Alex proved how very true that is. It wasn’t long before it was 6-0 and he only needed one more point. We were shouting and screaming, but he thought we were just being weird because there was still a whole minute left. Even the referee had no idea how close he was to winning, as after Alex did score the seventh point, he left the fight go on a few more seconds. But eventually Alex’s triumph was realised, and we had our first white-wash, 7-0 to Alex. Legend. What a brilliant end to the day.

The bus journey home was enjoyed in much higher spirits than the one in the morning, and most of us went for a few drinks and then onto Pizza Hutt and really made a day of it.

What a good day for the team though. Seven gold medals, but more importantly, ten excellent performances! Everyone fought really well and did the club proud. Looking forward to Cambridge now where I’ll be joining in the fighting and hopefully we can do just as well.

MOTM: Oh my God how difficult this is! With so many great first fights and improvements. I think it’s gotta go to Reuben for such a great performance after only seven weeks training. But also a special mention to Ed for his terrorising come-back, and to Alex for totally obliterating his opponent.

DOTD: It’s gotta be Nathan for his dirty cheating. But besides that there wasn’t anything bad to comment on, except maybe Colin’s dodgy editing and stuff, and maybe my commentary.

Anyhow, that’s enough from me.
Peace.

Russ

TKD "Fireman" Themed Crawl

2006-11-08T23:19:00.000Z

Taekwondo – Firemen Style

The plan for the night was for everyone to get stuffed; get drunk; and have a double helping of fun, fun, fun!!
The night started off with everyone meeting inside the union. To my stupidity of leaving it to the last minute (no change there!), most people apart from me and a few others seem to look like actual firemen.
We left the place for a hike to Pizza Hut for a little round of scoffing. After a long time of ordering a surprisingly large amount of pizza (I don’t know how some people can eat a meal for three), not knowing about the touch cup we’d start playing later on!! After a lot of talking, and an amazingly long time of waiting (tut-tut-tut), our holy meals arrived! With Mark crying over his starters being stolen from the thieving Haley and Jenny; and Mo thinking he can meditate through his meal; and Chris/Will thinking they can eat more than they deserve; we all got on with the scoffing!

After finishing what we could, and the table looking like Genghis Khan pillaging a village, we realised we had some time waiting for (munching duo) Will and Chris, to eat their THREE (big emphasis on the number), deserts they had. After collecting the money from everyone, and paying the bill, we had £10’s over…so we decided we’d pay for a few snakey b’s at the union for touch cup.

After finding out that you have to pay to get into the union with NUS (*shaking fists*…grrr), we headed for the bar. With my newly acquired ten pound note (and after waiting about 25 minutes to get served at the bar), we settled down to play some touché le vais!

The first to get picked on was Mr (I don’t get drunk easily) Colin, who ended up having quite a few in the game. And after downing a couple of drinks we ended up into the legendary Lux bar. With a few drinks in our hands we set off to dance the night away-Taekwondo-Fireman Style.

There were so many laughs throughout the night to mention, but ones that stood out was (again, breakdancing) Will, pulling his moves on the floor; Crazy Dan getting raped by two girls trying to nick his jacket and helmet (Get in there Dan); as well as Mr (I don’t get drunk easily) Colin pretending to be in the circus, by throwing his homemade axe into the air. Luckily (thank god!) no one was hit, well I mean nobody other than the taekwondo lot, as there were some abnormal smacks to the head with that axe (I thought helmets were meant to protect your head!).
I can probably say from all of us that this was a great night and I definitely can’t wait until our next social ‘Golfers’ comes together.

Till next time!

Simon Jell (Jelly)
Taekwondo Social Sec

TKD Hawiian Themed Crawl

2006-10-18T23:13:00.000Z

Taekwondo: Hawaiian Style

We kicked the night off at the Fleet, and thought we’d go in with a Bang this year and flash our moves Hawaiian style! To my mistake, I didn’t realise, that rugby started out in the fleet; but we didn’t have a care in the world; nothing was gonna stop us tonight! So people began arriving and each time they did, they were enforced with the rule of three legged! This began the night of laughs as teams of twos began climbing (more like snail walking!) their way to the bar to get some drinks down!

The first team to break from the rule was (Maniac) Mo and (Krazy) Whitney, who decided that they would have to split when they desperately dashed for the loos (we see who has the weak bladders now!).

So it turned about 8 o’clock and after a weird decision on a pub crawl, I decided we’d stay at the Fleet and watch the football match (don’t worry: the girls to my surprise actually wanted to watch it too!)! So getting a few more drinks, people thought they could pull off doubles pool (yes still tied up!), but when Tom and TJ, thought one could hold their hand out and the other use the cue, well lets just say it didn’t work out as planned! After the match between Chelsea and Barcelona (and a disappointed loss by BarcaL) we left to go straight to the union!

The difference we made was that some of us got into 2 lines and tied to each other. So it ended up with 2 lines and we began ‘The Race’. It began with team 2 with a lead, but after a long and tiring race (and after chanting 1…2…1…2), team 1 had won the race! After a delayed wait in the queue, we all got into the union!

So, what to do in the Union….hmmm….well…lets see…we all got drinks…got a bit drunk! After that…we got more drinks! Went upstairs, and began to show our moves to everyone. I think the most memorable dancer of the night would have to be Russ. Apart form head-banging most of the ‘dance’ songs he thought it would be impressive to undo his shirt as well as elbowing our treasurer (Debt Collecting) Colin.

After that little incident, we got back on track by dancing a bit more, while passing Russ’ Hawaiian skirt and putting it on our head’s! Now, what we’d been waiting for the whole night was for Mr Will (Breakdancing) Chong, to pull out some funky moves, and we weren’t disappointed tonight!

As we all said our goodbyes for the night, we headed home to our comfy beds (well I hope everyone made it to their beds!), and dreaded the next day’s training session!

Man of the Night: Everyone really (Thanks guys for coming out!!)
Team of the Night: Team 2 (Team Xtreme!!)

Till next time!

Simon Jell (Jelly) - Taekwondo Social Sec

First "Fresher's" Social '06-'07

2006-10-05T23:11:00.000Z

TaeKwonDo First "Fresher's" Social Night 2006

The night began as we began to meet up at 7pm at the Fleet. After most of us meeting up straight away, we jumped straight into the night, and scoured the place for alcohol! With the atmosphere behind us, we started to get to know each other by trying to learn each others names (which I can say, is not the easiest idea with alcohol!!).

We left the Fleet for Yates for a couple of drinks before we headed to the next place. While the rest of the gang robbed the bar for drinks, I sorted out a place for us to sit, not knowing what was to come! As we all sat down, to get the place starting, Will got a shock as we shouted “Happy Birthday” to him, (with the aid of sambuca!! lol). Afterwards, we got down to some serious drinking with the help of Adam pushing me to get everyone onto some basic touch cup, (hehehe, that’s what I’m talking about!!). We suddenly became the loudest lot in the room, with some chants from the two separate games we started, and the Freshers soon found out how fun the game was (and how drunk you get from it!).

We then left merrily to invade the next bar, which turned out to be the fabled VBar. So the main aim of this place was to get Will as drunk as possible…so after a funny decision, we bought him two fireballs (LOL). He drank them without concern for the Tabasco sauce inside them!

We then headed for our last stop – the incredibly cheesy Route 66! And even though we did loose a few members (Whoopsie!) we still had quite a few left! After Adam finding out that he’s not a student anymore, we headed straight for the bar. With a few drinks down us, we headed for the dance floor! Now what we didn’t know was the Will loved to dance!!! With about a gazillion moves ranging from the robot to moves Michael Jackson wouldn’t even dare try, and a dance off challenge from other dancers, I think that we must all agree Will won!!
After everyone left, it came down to me, Adam, Chris, Gary and Jack, to go and get ourselves some food from some random burger van, and Adam, decided to brave the mega burger. So after walking for a bit and munching on our food (or as I call them: The Dirty Burgers!), we decided to split and get a taxi home!
I’d like to give a big thanks to everyone that came on the social, and to give a big happy birthday to Will!

Man of the Night: Will “Breakdancing” Chong for his Crazy Dancing!!
Thanks of the Night: Adam “Mr Smooth” Thomas for introducing girls to us in Route 66!

Overall an amazing night!!
Till Next time!
Simon Jell – Taekwondo Social Sec

Colin Jones Comment:
Was a darn good night, I was rather silly not to have taken pictures earlier on *duck and dodge flying tomatoes* I'm pleased many freshers came on our first social for the year and hope more will turn up and stay till the end with us :D
See you all soon!

Contact Us

2006-09-01T00:00:00.004Z

If you want to get in touch with the lot of us then simply E-mail: portsmouthuni.tkd@gmail.com

Master Pat Donnelly
(5th Dan Black Belt)

Master P. Donnelly PhD

Position: Chief Instructor

E-mail: RPDONNELLY@mail.dstl.gov.uk

"Thats it, Very good"

Josh Higgins

Position: President

E-mail: Jigginsrsd@hotmail.com

Phone Number: 07868847517

"Time for a 540 me thinks!"

Dan Marshall

In a phrase run...

Position: Treasurer

E-mail: Danielmarshall1001@hotmail.com

Phone Number:

"membership and licence fees?"

Emily Venables

Position: Social Secretary/Tour Secretary

E-mail: shl80358@port.ac.uk

Phone Number: 07794559736

"See it Away fresh! "

Dorset Sparring (30/04/06)

2006-04-30T22:58:00.000Z

Dorset Open (in Dorset)

Last tournament of the year! We left the union at 6am to arrive at 7am for an 8am weighing (which was stupid, everyone moaned that we should have had an extra hour in bed), anyway so there wasn’t any danger zone on the minibus this time however we couldn’t not go over some top gun songs – so after a bit of “you’ve lost that loving feeling” we were ready for the tourny. Yeaa!

Everyone weighed in fine except Simon or has obviously been eating way too many Easter eggs and was classed as “obese” by the scales so had to get a bit naked to get his weight down, which turned out alright (hehehehehehe I saw him nipples!).

The morning however was not alright, the kids were on til about 3pm and me and Steve (one of our instructors) had to corner judge for about 3 hours, which was cute but not very interesting – every other kid would cry as their competitive instructors shoved them off to the “loser” side and pushed in their next victim, however in one fight a kid was sick everywhere. As you can see, it was very tiring for me!

Anyway our fights started in the afternoon, Nathan started off well by giving Louie (our guest minibus passenger, who is a competitor from Power House TKD) a close match and winning eventually, but the others didn’t follow by example. Feliciano, Colin, Till, Ed and Simon all lost their fights - Colin was angry in his fight! Which was funny to watch, Ed and Till did really good for their first ever competitions and Feliciano went down injured cos he’s a mumma’s boy.

Mo took a crazy dive (well he took a kick to the face) and got knocked out in his first (and only) fight. Whoopzy, he fell on his ankle during his unconscious visit to the ground and was in A and E last time I heard from him getting his ankle x-rayed (with his lover Sam – who dicked on all her opponents and won gold again, gj) so hope everything’s all right Mo, which I’m sure it is! Apparently he can’t remember any of it anyway.

Laura only had one opponent cos of her random red belt category (one before black), she jumped around in a girl like manor then kicked her in the face pretty bad, followed by lots more kicks and was so far ahead on points that they stopped the match, so well done Laura – gold for her. Classic woman always showing us boys up by doing better than us.

Anyway Russ and Rob both got beat in the finals to take home silver medals; they did alright but encountered stamina problems (I think their just lazy) so couldn’t clench the wins. So after this there was only one final left, which was Nathan’s – he was a bit knackered and injured from the previous 2 fights he had to win to get to the final, and his opponent was the guy who knocked out Mo (Revenga!). This fight was crazy, Nathan starting off well and got about 6-1 up on points then basically walked into about 10 of the guy’s kicks in 2 seconds, which brought it back to 6-6. Nice one dipshit, anyway a bit after this he decided to take a headshot as well which put him 10-8 down with about 10 seconds to go! In an “epic” (as Ed said) battle, he dived in last second to make it 10-10, bringing it to sudden death. Louis and Russ bitched about the judges (cos Russ is actually a bitch), but it didn’t matter – Nathan throw himself in and took the golden point to secure the victory. Everyone got really excited and Tillman wet himself, haha. No he didn’t really; anyway we headed home for a quick drink (and a toast to Mo) at the Union and didn’t get back til about 9pm. On the minibus home Simon apologised (cos that what he does) and Feliciano as always, fell asleep.

So it was a great day, bit of a too-early start tho, had some good performances and an unlucky knockout for Mo. Good job to the girls who both won gold medals and thanks go to the random Strand driver John and out instructors Steve and Bryan for instructing us!

Till(man) next time,

Steve

MOTM – Nathan for beating the guy who knocked Mo out and winning a gold medal

DOTD – Mo for getting knocked out and not winning a gold medal

Videos coming soon!

Medal Tally:

Laura - Gold

Sam - Gold

Nathan – Gold

Rob – Silver

Russ – Silver

Simon – Bronze

Colin – Bronze

Ed – Bronze

Mo – Bronze (and a concussion)

Feliciano - Bronze

Dorset Open 30/03/06

2006-03-30T23:50:00.000Z

Colin 25.3mb

Ed 19.6mb

Feliciano 22.6mb

Laura 17mb

Mo (KO) 7.7mb

Nathan1 19.3mb

Nathan2 4.9mb

Nathan3 4.7mb

Rob 7.8mb

Russ1 8.2mb

Russ2 7.8mb

Russ3 7.9mb

Sam 10mb

Simon 8.1mb

Till 10.3mb

Southampton (12/03/06)

2006-03-12T22:55:00.000Z

Student Nationals in Southampton

First tourny of the year (first one ever without Fab L ) and everything was running smooth at 7:30am until Petros decided he was too busy looking at porn on his Laptop to answer his phone and made us get a random cleaner to let us into his department at Langstone. So picked up Petros and left for Southampton! 5 mins later we turned back round, Petros had forgotten his license. So back to Langstone, picked up Petros’ license and left for Southampton, had some random discussions on the minibus (Paul’s a filthy, dirty woman and the worst type as well – the man type) and Alex reminded me of the awesome “Top Gun” song ‘Danger Zone’ which I think my version of fired everyone up for the tourny.

Anyway arrived in Southampton in good time ( 8:30am), Arj was supposed to meet us here but didn’t; we tried ringing him about 10 times in the duration of 3 hours but he didn’t answer so I dunno what happened to him (hope he’s alrite? If your reading this Arj then let me know!) – We got everyone weighed in, no shocks there except that Alex beasted 99.9kg and Feliciano weighed about 2kg (cos of what he was wearing) and got put in the helium weight category.

We then had to wait around for a few hours because the organisers decided to re-organise (job security I guess) but then the fights started at 1pm, and we started to kick ass! – Well more like get our asses kicked, the white belts lost the first 4/5 fights (just down to lack of experience guys nuttin’ to be worried about), but there were some awesomely close fights; Alex lost in sudden death but only cos he gave away soo many points for kicking the guy in the balls! And Feliciano lost by only half a point! However Feliciano’s opponent did give him plenty of hugs that he’ll be pleased to go home with. I have to say Mo and Colin both impressed me with their sparring today despite their lack of success.

Our only successful white belt (Samantha Walters) won two fights pretty comfortably to come home with a gold medal (great job) after knocking her opponents around the ring with some fascist headshots and a very nice use of the classic “I’m gonna plant the sole of my foot on your face” technique which I’m sure will be very enjoyable to watch on the video.

Laura competed at Red belt level (one before black) and made pretty easy work of her first opponent, but lost in the next round after 2-0 after putting up a brave fight against a fighter that dicked on her last time (harsh but fair, it shows that she’s improved a lot since then).

Finally Paul competed at 1 st Dan (Black Belt) level and held his own vs. a very fast and tough opponent but wasn’t able to clinch the win – good effort tho matey.

I didn’t compete but came home with a very soar throat after screaming at Sam to kick her opponent in the head, screaming at Alex to kick his opponent in the stomach, screaming at Laura to kick her opponent more and screaming at Feliciano just to kick his opponent anywhere!

In conclusion, it was a great day and as with every situation in life the girls came out on top (which is sometimes a good thing), so good job especially goes to the girls, but well done to everyone else as well – the student nationals is definitely considered one of the hardest tournaments of the year and a lot of you went for it even tho you lacked previous tournament experience, which takes a lot of guts and trust me you’ll be rewarded for it at the later tournaments you attend where you’ll be kicking ass.

Many thanks go to our super duper driver Lee Mason and our instructors Master Pat Donnelly and Steve Butler for their coaching.

The pictures and videos will be on the website soon at www.portsmouthunitkd.co.uk

So til’ next time,

Steve

UOP Taekwondo Club

President

DOTD – Petros for leaving his license behind (basically the only thing he needed to remember)

WOTD (woman of the day?) – Sam for kicking lots of people in the head and getting a gold medal for it

Medals tally:

Sam Walters – Gold

Laura Dadd – Silver

Alex Wagnell – Bronze

Feliciano Wong – Bronze

Hamid Khazzaban – Bronze

I’ve been to the danger zone!

Click here for the vids

Southampton Grading (05/03/06)

2006-03-05T22:53:00.000Z

Southampton Grading 05/06

Third grading for the club!!!!! (Second for me) the actual grading was ok but the getting there was amusing!! Firstly the union didn’t book strand so we had to drive to the west Totton centre. So Alex, Rob and Mo went and got their cars and picked up the rest who waited at the union, Alex with Steve (club president) and Brian Anderson went in front with the directions that Master Pat had given us. We set off down the M27 towards Southampton (this was the easy bit!) Got off at Junction 2 as it said on the sheet and followed signs that said Totton! After getting lost 5 times and asking 4 different people for directions we came to an arts centre, it didn’t look very big and we weren’t sure if this was the right place but there was a car like the one Master Pat drives parked outside so it was possible we were in the right place!!!! Steve went in to check it out. After the woman had worked out he wasn’t here for the tennis tournament she gave us directions to the west Totton Centre. We finally arrived half an hour late! The white belt grading was nearly finished so for most of us we were just in time for our yellow tag grading! Rob and Mo did there grading with us even though they were white belts. The nerves kicked in, especially as we didn’t have time to warm up or stretch before the grading! The last minute wondering which way you step out first on leg technique number one, etc. The nerves didn’t seem to affect our performance to much, except Steve who unfortunately had a complete mental block when it came to Tageuk 1, an 18 move pattern. This was partly because he didn’t realise it was part of his grading.

Anyway we had a very eventful day and had a good time (that was just watching Mo try and do turns in the road without power steering!!!!) thanks to Master Pat Donnelly and Steven Butlin (Instructors) for teaching us. Hopefully there will be many more gradings to come, without us getting lost and turning up late!!! :D

Southampton 03/06

2006-03-01T23:50:00.000Z

Alex 42mb

Chris 31mb

Colin 31mb

Feliciano 44mb

Laura 15mb

Laura2 35mb

Mo 26mb

Paul 27mb

Petros 9mb

Sam 18mb

Sam2 39mb

Simon 33mb

AfterMath 20mb

Leeds (03/12/05)

2005-12-03T22:33:00.000Z

After a full night of work due to poor time management; Steve and I had a funky panic and Oz ragged it in to Uni at warp 9 to hit our coursework deadline but we still managed to get to the Union slightly early - and then left late! Shock! The entire journey up sounded like a Eurovision song contest as most of the team are world class singers (Yeah ,right).

We arrived at the Travel Lodge at around 9pm and were greeted by a seemingly confused receptionist (no really. Yes at a Travel Lodge! Hehe) who explained that they could not find the keys for one of our rooms. We decided it might be a good idea to go for dinner at this point so we dumped our kit in the rooms and headed into Leeds. Having not made any reservations we agreed to wait half an hour for a table which led to some time filling to which Social Sex Ben took the initiative and headed straight for the nearest dance arcade machine! We thought it would be a good laugh so we indulged only to find that Ben has far too much spare time on his hands which he has been dedicating to learn to dance on anything and everything with a dance mat and screen, although he was swiftly confronted by Nat (a stronger contender) who decimated his top score! Go Nat! Nando’s was as usual - plenty of hot and spicy chicks. Hot as in full of fine young waitresses and spicy as in the chicken was burning the shit out of my mouth! End of the first night and we all headed back to the ‘Lodge’ to fill out our entry forms, ensure that everyone could tie their belts correctly and squeeze in some training before bed time, however the receptionist didn’t find the fact that we turned the top floor of the ‘Lodge’ into a Taekwondo training centre – I think this was due to the guests downstairs thinking that they were being invaded from above?!

Waking up on Saturday morning was not too difficult but fighting for the shower damn well was! After the initial ruckus which is the Taekwondo team getting ready we decided to get something to eat from the garage across the car park. I don’t know if you have ever been to the services at Wooley Edge on the M1, but they just happen to be the most ridiculously expensive services up North (Not a true fact but I am pretty sure that £2.50 for a sausage roll is up there somewhere). None of us wanted to weigh in heavy so with food in our pockets and our opponents destruction in our hearts we headed off to Leeds Uni.

Upon arrival, we were informed that the categories had changed meaning that there was a greater range in the experience levels that we could expect to fight. Thankfully they balanced it nicely apart from misreading my entry form and placing me in the wrong group. I swiftly informed them however and it was corrected meaning that one category consisted purely of Pompey fighters – all the medals in the category go to us! Bring it on! A second category consisted of five fighters and four of them were from Pompey and, considering that we knocked the other player out in the first round, we took all of the medals for that category too (more later). Weigh in and the vast majority had lost a fair amount of weight meaning that we wouldn’t have to explain to any parents that their child had been sat on by a fat Taekwondo bastard!

Opening the day was a show from Fabian demonstrating a beautiful display of moves put together as one might construct a matchstick model. Unfortunately his show of accuracy and carefully timed power was wasted on the judges as they favour faster movements. Apparently. Shame really but it did secure our first medal of the day and inspired all of us as it was the first time we have seen him performing a pattern, which just happened to look awesome.

The first fight of the day saw the lightweight category consisting of myself, Simon Jell and Colin Ang fighting it out for the ‘Skinny Bastards Gold’. Colin and Simon were up first to fight it out where Colin saw his own demise as he tried to fend off Simon’s unyielding punches – you dirty boxer! Next up Colin and I went blow for blow and I managed to receive a low blow (nasty picture of it floating around somewhere!) and a cracking head shot although Colin reassured me before the fight he could not, in fact, kick at my head height?! Fucking Hustler! However, unfortunately for Colin a few well placed front kicks assured me victory, bloody well fought though mate. The final fight of the category saw Simon ‘I fight like dirty boxer’ (nothing wrong with boxing unless it is in a TKD fight btw) Jell and myself; Adam ‘frontal attack master’ Thomas face off and an aggressive two minutes later saw a draw. Another 30 seconds extra time was added and after another dirty punch I needed a kick to win – which came… and went being disallowed L meaning that Gold went to Simon – Good on him.

The second set of fights saw 5 men battling it out in a true TKD fashion with Chris ‘I am a boxer’ Wright destroying the opposition Uni’s competitor with ease haha. Following was Nathan ‘Six foot five’ Gajewski Vs Kenneth ‘Six foot four’ Robinson which saw a few head shots and a quick resolution with Nathan the victor. Next Ken’s direct kicks and swift moves were simply not enough to keep Ben ‘Swiftfoot’ Causbrook at bay as he passed, sitting ken back down for the final time. A good effort from Ken and some experience under his belt, keep it up mate. Chris back up fighting Ben in the final saw a hefty and definitely excessive punch in the nose as a present from Chris with love. Ben fought back rather heroically though to secure a second Gold for Portsmouth.

TAGB Joe Bruce was in the third category with no other Pompey players in sight. Three in this category meaning a round robin again. Joe fighting as a TKD junky on Prozac was not enough to fight off the first opponent and unfortunately even after upping his dosage he was unvictorious in his second attempt too, interesting fights however with a large amount of his kicks not being counted due to his opponent landing more punches on him than seems healthy. Well fought though in my opinion and definitely a fighter I want to see back in the ring soon.

The last of the students up to fight saw our president Stephen ‘The unbeatable’ Burt displaying some of his impressive talents on two very unlucky and unsuspecting victims. I have seen better from him but he looked extremely comfortable as he dealt out his famous ‘foot-to-face’ tactic on the poor Leeds fighters. Two easy rounds later, Steve secures Pompey yet another gold medal, which I know for a fact has gone to his shrine above the fireplace in his house for all to see. Hehe, nice one Steve.

The final fight of the day saw Fabian ‘I may look big, but I move like a bolt of lightning’ Bong’s return, this time as a 98Kg destruction machine. Fabian’s fight saw him face up to a rather tall chap from Leicester Uni with neon pink hair! Fabian made the fight seem effortless but after two minutes of entertainment (Fabian chose to stop fighting every time his opponent started machine gun punching due to sheer boredom, much to the amusement of all spectating) the corner judges decided it was a draw. An extra 30 seconds was added and hope dwindled as we noticed that the corner judges were clicking for every little tap that touched Fab as opposed to one click per volley! A defeat for Fab saw Portsmouth clock up another well deserved silver medal. Oh well you can’t win ‘em all.

With the tournament coming to an end we all started getting into the party mood in anticipation of the Saturday night piss up with the Leeds team, always very enjoyable loud and messy. A few team photos later we headed to the Leeds Student’s Union guided by the gorgeous Natalie, couple of pints and back to the Lodge. After the inevitable three hours of getting ready to go out (Females in the team too x) we returned to the centre of Leeds for dinner in a Chinese buffet (Gotta love ‘em) with red bull in hand and beer in our bellies (bellies for the men only). Then we ‘proceeded on foot’ to where we were meeting the Leeds team outside of Hi-Fi, an exclusive jazz club apparently but we couldn’t just walk away now – not after the pissing 20 minute walk across town to get there!

After waiting 40 minutes in the cold the other team turned up piece by piece and somehow the first piece included Simon (Not ours) – oh yeah you know what you did! He turned up and instead of helping give out the tickets we were offered he explained to everyone in half a mile radius that we were not in fact Taekwondo fighters, which was news to us. He also added that the tickets should not be given to fake Taekwondo wanna-bees like us! Gee thanks mate.

When we eventually got into the club (Thank you Jenny you are great at what you do honey) we found ourselves a bit disorientated by the music, atmosphere (very relaxed and slightly too formal) and the £3.40 per pint rates (it was around this point that Simon came and apologised). We managed to ease into it however, slightly due to the large amounts of fine ass females which dominate Leeds’ weekend streets, and evidently Hi-Fi in particular (Female to Male ratio: 3-1 ;) So the drink starts flowing and the company was awesome so spirits are high after a day of kicking each other (got to be tried trust me!). A good night all round so thanks to the Leeds team for accommodating us and congratulations are also due to James ‘Brummy’ Hardy for landing himself with an extended kiss with the lovely Liz (Nice one mate, get in there! – sorry Liz) which looks like developing into marriage with baby Brummies /Brums hehe.

The morning after was short and slightly sore for most of us – made even worse for me due to Steve’s master plan of waking me up by arranging a group to hit me repeatedly with any protective gear they had to hand so thanks a fucking bunch guys!

So we all cleared out and much to Steve’s dismay the Lodge’s comfy chairs would not fit in his kit bag meaning that the bugger had to sit on the comfy-as-a-hedgehog-in-my-ass minibus seating like the rest of us. The six hour journey back being the usual boring wind down ride home except for an attempt at learning a game called ghost which provided a great amount of amusement to all as half the bus started arguing about the existence of certain words and how to spell them.

A damn good weekend all round and well done to all who took part for putting in the effort to represent their University in a world renowned sport. A lot of effort from the team but most impressive was the performance of all the first time fighters like Ken, keep it up guys.

Thank to Lee ‘I brush my teeth walking down Leeds high street’ Mason for driving us EVERYWHERE and for putting up with us, you are a driving genius.

MOTM: Goes to Simon Jell for winning a gold medal at his first tournament.

DOTD: Goes to me due to the fact that I must have pissed everyone off at some point over the weekend, be it my shit jokes or equally shit singing and so me putting anyone else here would possible lead to more group beatings via not so soft protective kit.

Medals tally

Fabian ‘I may look big, but I move like a bolt of lightning’ Bong – Silver & Bronze

Stephen ‘The unbeatable’ Burt – Gold

Ben ‘Swiftfoot’ Causbrook – Gold

Simon ‘I fight like a dirty boxer’ Jell – Gold

Adam ‘Frontal attack master’ Thomas – Silver

Chris ‘I am a boxer’ Wright – Silver

Joe ‘Take on the world’ Bruce – Bronze

Nathan ‘Six foot five’ Gajewski – Bronze

Colin ‘Should have worn your nut cup’ Ang - Bronze

Thanks to our long time instructor Fabian for all of your hard work and patience. You will be greatly missed when you head back to Singapore at Christmas.

A Final Thought: Some how on Saturday night just before lights the conversation in my room slipped into that men only not-very-funny-to-women kind of talk, (would you ever pay for sex? And the answer was a big NO!) when Steve hypothesised that at the end of the day all women are metaphorically prostitutes (Wait! Ladies don’t get pissed off it was a HUGE joke, nothing even remotely serious at all). It works thus; we don’t pay for our girlfriends to have sex with us directly but there is a much greater chance of getting ‘belts’ if we buy them stuff. You know ‘stuff’ ie. Shoes and you women know that bit’s true too hehe x. An intriguing thought and so I reasoned that any man, who’s girlfriend cheats on them (Poor bloody guys) Metaphorically becomes a PIMP!!!

Click here for vids.

More pics up by thurs.

Adam

Leeds 12/05

2005-12-01T23:49:00.000Z

Adam2vsSimon2 (10.8mb)

Ben1vsKen1 (13.2mb)

Ben2vsChris2 (15.6mb)

Chris1vsNathan2 (14.2mb)

Colin1vsSimon1 (15.7mb)

Colin2vsAdam1 (15.6mb)

Joe (15.9mb)

Joe2 (16.2mb)

Ken2vsNathan3 (14.1mb)

Fab (28.1mb)

Nathan (14.2mb)

Steve1 (14.5mb)

Steve2 (14.2mb)

Southampton Grading (27/11/05)

2005-11-27T22:31:00.000Z

Southhampton Grading 27/11/05

Second grading for the club! (Ever I think? Or at least since I’ve been with it) and it went gggrreat. We arrived at Southampton at about 3ish thanks to Alan (the STRAND driver) - Matt + Nat tells me he smelt a bit, but who doesn’t like the smell of old man I ask myself? Anyway, so we arrived at 3pm and went into the grading arena and then straight into a queue. After queuing for a bit we decided that it wasn’t that good queuing so went into the hall where it was freezing and my feet did actually fall off. The room though was packed full of Taekwondo students all ready to grade, Master Pat Donnelly did a short warm up with the whole room (one of the kids made a horrific noise when doing a lunge) and then the pee-wee’s stepped up for some white belt grading. It was ridiculously cute, I couldn’t stop laughing, I felt so bad – one of the kids (he must have been about 6) did the same motion for every kick which was a very slight raise of one leg. Nat insisted that he should pass cos he was so cute, but I begged to differ. Anyway some discussions about Brian Anderson’s name (It’s inevitable) and then we were up next. They had some problems calling Charlee’s name (as per) and the nerves struck in. I have to admit, I did awful: I did a high block when I was supposed to do a middle block and in the next stage (where we did one-for-one non-contact sparring) I nearly kicked the person in the face, although it was actually their fault. Afterwards we went outside for a group picture (which will be on the website soon), and headed back home to Portsmouth. Nat and Nat failed miserably in skanking a lighter of random Southamptoner’s and Alex led everyone back to the minibus (good job he did as well cos I was actually lost), where reliable Alan took us back to Portsmouth and we all headed home for some food, which was awesome – I love food. I ears dropped Colin and Kofi’s conversation about computers and would like to report that he illegally downloads software!

Anyway, I think everyone passed the grading, so are all now yellow tags and we had a great time, many thanks go to Fab and Master Pat Donnelly (our instructors) and I hope we have many more gradings in the future.

Aylesbury (20/11/05)

2005-11-20T22:29:00.000Z

Taekwondo Tournament in Aylesbury - ChungDoKwan Nationals 20/11/05

Fabian's Point of View

What started off as a very early morning start 0550hrs, so we would have loads of time to spare soon turned into a nightmare when we went to pick up Mr Wright who lived down a dead-end street. After spending a stupid amount of time trying to turn the bus around, we rushed about like crazy idiots picking up the leftovers, oops, remaining members of the group, including Mucky Duck Gal and made our way up north to Aylesbury. The trip up was pretty uneventful, save for a few funny bits like Paul getting groped and molested whilst asleep by Laura.

Got to the sports centre with a bit of time to spare, thanks to Carol from Kayaking Club, who drove like a maniac and made me car sick throughout the journey which resulted in me burping every 15 minutes. Anyway, went to get the fighters weighed in and guess what? 2 people were over their category’s allowed weight limit. Bunch of FAT BASTARDS! Therefore, had to come up with lose weight quick schemes, like run with 3 layers on, take a piss and shit and dun come back unless you’re only wearing your boxers etc. Apparently, I hear Dowdy went swimming and took a piss and shit at the same time… who knows?

First up to fight was Mr Ben Causbrook, aka, Social Sex. Mr Causbrook went in fighting like a headless chicken, ie. He threw kicks in almost every direction he could irregardless of whether if it was directed at the opponent, referee, judge or just empty space. After what was like one of the most painful bouts I’d ever had to sit through, I gave up and threw the towel in.

Mr Paul Favill, who went in fighting like a hesitant warrior, waited too much and failed to follow up on many opportunities he created. The match ended in a defeat for him in this final match but I’m sure Mr Favill will be back after gaining the necessary experience from this bout. Next up was Miss Laura Dadd, who seemed more interested in flirting with her opponent than actually hitting her. Result was a defeat in the semi finals thereby clinching the Bronze.

Then we had the honour of witnessing the Fury of The Hamster in action. Miss Lisa Henley charged her opponent like she’d just found a mouse running on her wheel. Her opponent was however no ordinary mouse and managed to fend the hamster paws off herself while running around the cage, kicking sawdust in Lisa’s face and attain the final victory.

Mr Stephen Burt, aka, Mr President made quick work of his opponent with a stunning display of what was also agreed by his opponent’s coach as “some of the best Taekwondo I’ve ever seen by a novice, sure you’re a white belt?” A couple of kicks to the head and body and the match was done with before the 1 st round was even over. Mr Burt then went on to face Mr Michael Dowd, aka, Rowdy Dowdy. So it was 2 Purple blood warriors in the finals then. Mr Burt’s flexibility and experience was no match for Mr Rowdy Dowdy’s sheer determination to win as well as him just being a general nutter. Dowdy charged Burt time and time again, gaining many points despite Mr Burt kicking him in the head. Maniac! End result, Gold for Dowdy and Silver for Burt. Excellent fight though lads!

Mr Charlee, who’s name was declared unpronounceable by the tournament directors, was next. What’s so hard about saying Chatzikonstantinou Efstratios? By the way, they thought he was Irish as well, hahaha. Anyway, Charlee, who’s had a disappointing start to the year did good in this bout. Threw accurate kicks and showed true fighting spirit. After some extremely dodgy refereeing, she took points off him for fouls made by his opponent! WTF? This semi final match ended in a 3-3 draw. They then had to go into sudden death, meaning whoever made the 1 st point wins. Both of them kicked each other at the same time, however, Charlee’s opponent made contact with his left elbow (not a valid target area) while Charlee’s kick hit the chest guard (valid target area). However, the point was given to the opponent and so Charlee had to make do with a Bronze. But nonetheless, keep your head up mate, you did good in that bout and I’d expect to see similar if not better results from you in the near future.

Finally, Mr Arjang Khayyam went into his bout with an opponent who seemed intent on hurting Arj’s foot with his face. After 2 kicks to the face among many others to the body, one of which had Arj’s heel in his mouth, bleah, yuck! The referee gave the match to Mr Khayyam after 48secs declaring a mis-match, nice one dude! His next fight wasn’t so easy, Arj was up against a national squad contender who had cool nerves and extremely good flexibility. Mr Khayyam held his own for the 1 st round but failed to gain enough points in the 2nd round to clinch the gold. Keep up the good work though! Very proud of you.

While I did not compete, I was busy refereeing and one match which amused me pretty much was between the Irish and this London club. The Irish fighter injured his foot during the fight and wanted to stop as he was in too much pain to continue, his coach however was having none of it and literally kicked him in the bum and pushed him back onto the mat shouting, “Stop pretending and get your ass back in there!” I decided to stop the match finally much to the chagrin of his coach who stood there screaming, “You’re a f*cking disgrace, you’re f*ckin’ useless! Dun you f*cking look at me!”

And some of you guys in the club think I’m too harsh on you lot eh? Meow…

Steve's Point of View

5:50am - me, Carol and Fabian met outside the union and it was freezing cold! Everything was good though and we were off by 5:55am to pick up our first victim Chris, who lived on the stupidest road and it took us 15 minutes just to turn the minibus back round after picking him up (I basically told Carol to drive into another car when helping her turn around). No other problems after that though (although I did wake up all Dowdy’s housemates by ringing his doorbell eheh) and so we were soon on our way, the minibus was awful as per (thanks Union), the windscreen was filthy and the lady ‘shi-bus’ (the nickname we gave the minibus, basically s**t bus) struggled at anything that resembled a hill. But everyone was cheerful and looking forward to an exciting day. About 10 minutes later and everyone was asleep, lots of photos were taken by Ben (which will be on the website soon) and without getting lost once we got to the venue in good time (about 9am). Apologises go to Nat for being stuck next to me the whole journey. When we arrived we all weighed in and Arj and Dowdy were both overweight by a couple of kg. One hardcore run and a trip to the sauna later (Dowdy doing jumping jacks in his boxers in the sauna, go on picture it) and the weight’s are sorted. Dowdy also cheekily went for a swim in his boxer shorts, much to the life guard’s approval.

We then went to the local spar where Paul somehow got confused between what a chicken tikka masala is and what a sausage roll is, obviously he’s been kicked in the head way to many times and Lisa/Ben/Nat/Amee showed me how to properly dance like a woman (cos apparently I just slant my head from side to side), which was educational (Ben’s actually really good). On the way back from the spar I fell over cos it was so slippery (due to the frost) and landed on my bum, which hurt! Anyway, so Ben was up straight away in the first fight of the day and lost in an epic battle (well it wasn’t epic but it was a battle), after that we didn’t have another person fighting until 3pm!

At about 2pm I met Joe and Nat in the cafeteria getting what could be called ‘lunch’, which looked like (and probably tasted like) a rat burger. But Joe loved it cos he’s filthy like that.

Later Paul, Lisa and Laura all lost their fights although they did have pretty tough opponents. After them it was me and I won my fight pretty easily, but then straight after had to fight Dowdy (in the rematch from 2 weeks ago) and the rotter beat me although I did get nice headshots on him, muha (good job though to Dowdy, thanks go to Paul for throwing water all over me at the half way break). Next Charlee had a great fight and was unfortunate enough to lose in a very close sudden death 3 rd round. Incredibly Fab was actually happy with Charlee’s performance for the first time in 3 years, so gj Charlee?

Finally the last fight was Arj who put on an awesome performance and wasted his first guy with some awesome headshots and fast kicks, but then lost in the final – but it was a superb match, be sure to download it from the website (www.portsmouthunitkd.co.uk) .

After that we headed home and a few of us went to the Farmhouse for some Steak! (I love steak) which was gorgeous,

Thanks go to Fab (our instructor), Carol (our driver) and all our spectators for coming along.

So till next time

Steve

Click here for vids

Aylesbury 11/05

2005-11-01T23:48:00.000Z

Arj (7.8mb)

Arj2 (28.8mb)

Ben (19.8mb)

Charlee (16.5mb)

Lisa (14mb)

Laura (19.9mb)

Paul (15.2mb)

Steve (8.1mb)

Steve2vsDowdy1 (24.5mb)

Some fights might be missing because we only have one video recorder and can't record two fights if they are on at the same time!

Dorset Open 30/10/05

2005-10-30T23:47:00.000Z

Amee 25.3mb

Ben 12.9mb

Charlee 20.4mb

Laura1 34mb

Laura2 19.5mb

Lisa 26mb

Dowdy2vsAdam1 20.2mb

Oz 16.9mb

Paul2 15.5mb

Steve1 21.9mb

Dowdy3vsSteve2 15.5mb

Dowdy3vsSteve2 (Part 2) 1.9mb

Some fights might be missing because we only have one video recorder and can't record two fights if they are on at the same time!

Dorset (30/10/05)

2005-10-30T22:28:00.000Z

Taekwondo Tournament in Bournemouth 30/10/05

Ahhh first tournament of the year and everyone’s ready for some action. We had picked everyone up by about 8am and only stopped off to get some munch from the co-op (where Paul stuffed his face and left his jammy dodgers all over the bus!) before starting the journey. The journey was only 1 and ½ hours so didn’t seem to long and after an appalling effort by Ken on a random crossword puzzle that we found, we were there sooner than we knew.

At Bournemouth it was raining pretty hard so we all ran in to get ourselves changed and weighed in and apart from Adam’s wet hair which meant he had put on 5kg and was now in a heavier category, there were no surprises at the weigh in. So, we all went to get some brekkie at the local café, which was scrumdillyumptious.

Later after wandering off and leaving us for dead, Fab returned with news on our matches (hurray) – first up was fresher Rowdy Dowdy in the featherweight category. This was Dowdy’s first tournament so no one knew what to expect of him and he pulled off a great performance beating his opponent quite comfortably. This meant he would fight Adam in the next round, oooo~.

Next up was Matthew Gold, it was also his first tournament – but he is no fresher I’ll have you know. Although Matt constantly pumped kicks out on his opponent, he was unable to clench the necessary points and found that fatigue got the better off him by the end of the fight and lost in a close battle. Good effort for his first tournament though, and lets hope he can take the experience with him to future ones.

Social Sex Ben’s fight followed shortly after and one struggle of a fight later Ben sadly came out with a loss, it was also his first tournament and hopefully next time we’ll see more high kicks from him that we know he’s capable of!

Laura’s fight was also around this time (ok I got the order mixed up a little but I can’t remember everything can I? ehy?) and after a surprise appearance by her folks, she beat her enemy by kicking her and getting loads of points! As you do.

Amee’s fight I think was also around this time (oh god I’m way off now) and she lost in a distant battle (distant being that I didn’t see it cos I was in the cafeteria) and didn’t progress to the next round. But I’m sure she did well.

By now Fab was pretty annoyed, which is not like him at all! And after lots of shouting he lost his voice, which proved beneficial ehehe.

Anyway next fight was Paul and his experience obviously showed through because he played a very tactical fight and won quite comfortably. Good job to him. His opponent was very fast and flexible as well.

Somewhere after this (OK I’ve completely lost the timeframe [and probably the plot], but I just want to get onto my first fight) was Steve (aka me) and after a ‘heroic’ struggle and against all the odds (ehehehe) Steve put up an incredible performance and won! OK it wasn’t that good but I did win.

Before my (Steve’s) fight though, was Adam vs. Dowdy in the semi’s, Adam started off well and chased Rowdy Dowdy around the ring, but Dowdy put up a great performance and his quick movement and sharp kicks led to an impressive win for him, putting him into the finals vs. me (Steve, in case you forgot already who’s writing this).

Seeing as my memory is terrible (obviously one to many kicks to the head) and I can’t remember who’s fight was next we’ll just go onto Oz’s. Oz is in the heavyweight category and put up a good performance but kept moving into the guys kicks rather than away from them! And after a few headshots to Oz he finished with a loss, although his opponent was very fast and flexible for his size. Hopefully this was a good experience for Oz though that he can take to future tournaments.

Next was Lisa and after loads of high kicks being thrown at her opponent she was unable to actually get many points and hence didn’t win. But she didn’t break her nose again, which was good so hopefully she’ll be well prepared for the next tournament.

Charlee’s fight was next and from working on the pads with him he had some awesome power and high kicks but it didn’t show in his fight and he disappointingly lost, although put up a good fight (and I know he can do better).

Later in the day now, about 3-4pm and Paul stepped up to fight a pretty damn good black belt in the finals, after a worrying start he pulled off some wicked moves but was unable to get enough points to secure the victory, good job to him anyway (impressive performance).

Last two fights now, Laura was fighting some hardcore Welsh woman black belt in the final and she got beat pretty bad, but it was a good experience! And hopefully she’ll be taking home some more medals later on in the year.

And finally the last fight was the final between Steve and Dowdy in the featherweight division (should be lightweight as in I can’t handle my drink) and the extremely close match came down to the last second where Steve (me) sneaked in a headshot to put the scores back to 5-5 on the buzzer! This meant golden point (i.e. like golden goal in football, first point wins) and about 2 seconds into the round Steve caught Dowdy on the head and claimed the win. An awesome performance for Dowdy though, especially as it was his first tournament and it was basically only due to last second luck that Steve won.

So after all the fights we bought some photo’s of us kicking for ludicrous amounts of dollar and headed back to the minibus. To mine and Fab’s dissent people were playing the name game in the back of the minibus, at this point it should be mentioned that last year on our way to Leeds, Man played that game for 5 hours straight and I just can’t bear to hear any more celebrities names. Anyway, we stopped off at Fratton and dropped off the sissy’s who wouldn’t come for a meal and then headed down to a place (which I can’t remember the name of but later found out was The Farmhouse) where they serve enormous portions and got ourselves some Steak; very good choice by our driver Lee. The meal was yummy and everyone had a great time, discussing their fights and munching their food, Fab made a toast and where as everyone had massive portions, Eve had a tiny little plate with some skanky scampi on it which no one would eat and she didn’t even finish it. Rubbish.

After, we dropped everyone off at their homes (Matt Gold lives in the dodgiest part of Portsmouth) and as soon as my head hit the pillow I fell asleep (much to my woman’s disapproval).

Thanks go to Fabian (our instructor), Lee (our driver), Eve, Joe and Ken (the spectators and cameramen/woman) and all the tournament squad for coming.

Hope to see you all soon and will look forward to the next tournament in 2 weeks in Aylesbury,

So till next time

- Steve

Click here for the videos

MOTM – Dowdy for his awesome performance

DOTD – Laura for putting her helmet on backwards

Medals Tally:

Stephen Burt – Gold

Paul Favill - Silver

Laura Dadd - Silver

Mike Dowdy (Rowdy Dowdy) - Silver

Efstratios Chatzikonstantinov (Charlee) - Silver

Amee Plumb - Silver

Lisa Henley - Silver

Paul Bishop (Oz) - Bronze

Ben Causbrook (Social Sex) - Bronze

Adam Thomas - Bronze

Leeds 03/05 (ITF Sat, WTF Sun)

2005-03-01T23:45:00.000Z

WTF Style (Sunday)

Steve1 26.1mb

Steve2 9.3mb

Steve3 21.5mb

ITF Style (Saturday)

Man1 10.6mb

Man2 19.5mb

Man3 12.6mb

Oz1 16.1mb

Oz2 14mb

Oz3 13.2mb

Steve1 11.6mb

Steve2 12.3mb

Warwick (19/02/05)

2005-02-19T22:24:00.000Z

Warwick Write-Up

First tournament of the year (hopefully first of many) and everything is good, we left the union Saturday afternoon about 2ish and then 10 minutes later returned to the union to pick up our kit, but this didn’t affect the high morale and although Charlee was an absolute nightmare (trust me he was, I was sitting next to him the whole journey and he would not shut up for about two hours and then he fell asleep on my shoulder ‘wtf’!) the journey still was good fun.

After 2-3 hours and a few service stops we arrived in Warwick, Hurray! A few minor glitches at the motel (Fabian was billed twice on his card!) and some unpacking later, we decided to head into the Warwick University Campus to check out the place and grab some munch. After a nice slice of cardboard pizza we headed back to the motel to sort everything out for the upcoming tournament the next day.

On return to the motel everyone went back to their rooms to get ready for the tournament Sunday. My room (Me, Adam and Man) decided to stay up until about 2am talking about completely random stuff and then just as we were falling to sleep, Fabian turns up and turns all the lights on! Lee’s snoring meant Fab couldn’t sleep, so we carried on talking about random stuff until about 3am and then I finally fell asleep, so I dunno what happened after that.

Next day and all was well, everyone was ready on time except for Arj who is always late, but the general morale was high. We got to the University in good time and weighed in, somehow Nick was middleweight! and had lost 10kg somewhere.

The tournament started with the white belt categories and Man and Dimitri both beat their first opponents comfortably in the first round with some nice kicks and quick jabs to the head, but Adam who was also in their category, failed to beat his first opponent; although he did pull of some nice kicks and a very nice, but useless, spin (ballerina). In the next round both Dimitri and Man were very unlucky and lost 4-5, which meant that they had to spar each other for bronze! So after 2 minutes of shouting ‘come on guys’ (because we didn’t know who to cheer for), Dimitri beat Man 6-5 in a very close match and took Bronze, good job fella.

Next up was our sexy ladies and Lily (with her unlimited flexibility) took silver after beating two opponents with some nice high kicks and aggressive punching! It didn’t quite go as well for Lisa who after losing her first fight, got kicked in the nose during her second fight and had to go to hospital (she was winning 6-2). Rest assured though, she’s OK and is still as pretty as ever.

The next category was blue belt, Steve was up first and without quite comfortably beat his first two opponents but then lost in the final despite a good effort and came home with silver.

Charlee, who was also in the same category, took the bronze medal home accompanied by about 50 excessive contact warnings.

After me and Charlee it was Nick and Arj that stepped up and because of the unlikely twist of events where Nick had somehow lost 10kg, they had to fight each other in the final (this is of course, after they had defeated their earlier opponents without too much hassle) and one very impressive fight later, Arj came home with a gold medal and Nick silver. Good job to both of you guys!

We then had to wait around for about two hours for the black belt sparring to start! Paul and Jack both beat their first opponents comfortably; Paul was obviously motivated by his 3 year old niece who was screaming “KICK HIM PAUL!!!” at the top of her voice! How cute. The next round though, Jack and Paul were both unlucky and were defeated and so had to fight each other for bronze! It was a great fight, but in the end Jack’s punches conquered over Paul’s kicks (although they both ran out of stamina after like 10 seconds!) and Jack came home with a bronze medal.

Jack also took part in the patterns and destruction part of the competition but didn’t do too well (even after showing the judges his Taekwondo Encyclopedia!) and came home with only sore knuckles, so I’m not going to mention it!

Overall it was a great weekend, which was loads of fun and hopefully there will be plenty more in the future! Thanks a lot to Fabian (our instructor) and Lee (our driver) for their help over the weekend.

Click here for the videos

Medals:

Arjang Khayyam (Arj) – Gold

Shao Chen Li (Nick) – Silver

Stephen Burt – Silver

Tian Ying (Lily) – Silver

Jack Miles – Bronze

Dimitri Batrouri – Bronze

Efstratios Chatzikonstatino (Charlee) – Bronze

Warwick (x/02/05)

2005-02-01T23:43:00.000Z

Adam 13.5mb

Arj1 16.1mb

Arj2vsNick3 16.7mb

Charlee1 25.5mb

Charlee2 10.7mb

Charlee3 13.8mb

Dimitri1 10.4mb

Dimitri2 14.3mb

Dimitri3vsMan3 15.0mb

Lily1 17.7mb

Lily3 11.6mb

Lisa 13.2mb

Man1 15.3mb

Man2 15.0mb

Nick1 24.6mb

Nick2 15.3mb

Paul1 15.0mb

Paul2 18.4mb

Steve1 17.2mb

Steve2 15.8mb

Some fights might be missing because we only have one video recorder and can't record two fights if they are on at the same time!

Cambridge (x/11/04)

2004-11-01T23:39:00.000Z

Steve1 18.5mb

Steve2 18.4mb

Cambridge (x/11/04)

2004-11-01T22:22:00.000Z

Taekwondo Tournament in Cambridge

It was one of those days where you have this weird feeling that things were not going to be working all right. We were meant to have left at 1700hrs to make the 3-hour trip up to Cambridge where one of my fighters was meant to be taking part in this full contact tournament. When we were still in Portsmouth at 1830hrs and Lee still had not turned up, I had a feeling it was going to be a long evening.

Lee finally turns up and turns out the delivery people couldn’t find his house after driving past it 3 times. Idiots. Anyway, so there we were in the car, Steve and myself, Lee and a mystery person who was hitching a ride. I’m not going to state his name, but he’s from the Octopush Club and he’s got a fit younger sister with whom he is very close. The type of relationship that sounded very dodgy and very wrong. More on that later.

When we got to Cambridge, it was dark but good ol’ Steve’s Mum had made us dinner. Woohoo! Steve’s parents were a kindly folk but Steve’s dad looked kinda worried to see me. Turns out Steve had told him I was from North Korea and his poor dad believed that I was gonna eat his 2 pets, a dog and a cat for supper. Nice one Steve, have you never noticed that it says Singapore Taekwondo Federation on the back of my uniform?

After clarifying that I wasn’t some commie bastard and more importantly, I wasn’t into pooch pasties, Steve’s dad took me on a kindly tour of the house and explained how it was all my bloody fault that in parts of the house, there are marks on the walls. Apparently, someone, aka Steve Burt has been practicing his Axe kicks against the walls. My fault? WTF??

The next morning, we were off to a start, Steve’s Mum was gonna make me a fry up for breakfast, but she had to go for her morning run, so Steve was assigned to make my breakfast. Sigh, breakfast turned out to be…… er, don’t ask.

When we got to the tournament site, turns out they had quite a crowd. Lee managed to steal a couple of tables and chairs from the St John’s Ambulance Brigade and plonks himself comfortably right in the middle of the human traffic and proceeds to teach nearby victims the complexities of Hiragana and Kanji. Mr Burt got off to a pretty good start, landing some pretty impressive Axe kicks and nearly knocked his opponent unconscious at one stage with a well-placed Turning Kick to the side of the face.

Steve’s opponent in the final match of the day turned out to be some weirdo from Cambridge University who stuck to him like snot, throwing pathetic looking punches. Steve, meanwhile was having a bit of a problem dealing with him, you couldn’t really blame the poor guy though. There I was on the side, screaming my head off telling him to get in there and kick the other guy, while Mr Burt senior was stood next to me shouting, “Run away Steve, he doesn’t like that Steven, run away!”

At the end of the day, Steve was awarded the gold medal based on more points scored after 2 rounds of 2 minutes each. After the tournament, we were joined by our mystery hitchhiker, who had brought his family along to give him the send off. Before we set off, him and his sister “who were very close” had a very dodgy looking intimate hug and a goodbye kiss which sounded like it involved a bit of tongue action. Yes, I was stood that close, and it also disturbed me that she had her hands on his ass and vice versa.

In the car on the way home, I couldn’t take the suspense and started pumping our mystery hitchhiker for more gossip. Turns out they really are siblings and that I’m just jealous. The story gets even more twisted, apparently the house was under renovation and so was his room. So he slept in the same bed as his sister over the weekend. Now that’s gotta be WRONG!

Well, what can I say, it was overall a pretty good weekend, we came, we saw, we took the gold home. On a bonus side, I learnt a bit more about the local customs and ways to forge closer relationships with members of the family, what with me being a foreigner and all. Of course a big thank you to Steve’s Mommy and Daddy, our driver Lee, our mystery hitchhiker for teaching me about the Facts of Life and Steve for doing such a fine job.

Click here for the videos

Dorset Open (30/10/04)

2004-10-30T22:19:00.000Z

Gold To Be Found In Bournemouth!

It was a very early morning start, too early in fact, when I got a call from Lee saying that he was at my door. 0700hrs was just too early a start, considering I didn’t get to bed till about 0300hrs. Anyway, so around Portsmouth we went for about 20 mins, picking up the rest of the boys and gals until we came to James Watson Hall to pick up our last member, Phil. Damn, his intercom doesn’t work and he hasn’t got a mobile phone. After getting the Lodge security out and waking the porters up, got into Phil’s flat and found the ass was in the kitchen stuffing his face with chocolate cookies.

Finally got into Bournemouth at about 0930hrs, about 1/2hr late, got the admin stuff out of the way and went off to Burger King for some healthy well-deserved breakfast. The mood was generally tense, as this was the first tournament for the year and a few of the guys were taking part for the first time. Not Nick however, who went and practically bought all the fries in the shop and sat down cheerfully digging in with ketchup and mayonnaise.

Got back to the Sports Centre and got smacked with some bad news… some really bad news. Contrary to what was the usual practice of letting the kids go first and the adults don’t start fighting till after what would normally be about 1300hrs, the organising committee decided this year, they’d let the adults go first. That meant we had less than 30mins to warm up and stretch. And we had to do it on a full stomach… I hope they’ve got barf bags in the Centre.

Our boys in the Featherweight division (no they don’t weigh as light as feathers) were off to a roaring start. Stephen and Dimitri took the fights very well, considering they were first timers. Took out their victims.. er opponents until they’d both reached the Finals. It was then down to strategy with the stronger Dimitri cheekily requesting for a “no headshot rule” against a much more flexible Stephen. Sod.

The other boys, though initially thought to be medal contenders, went down quickly against their much weaker opponents due to various whatever fatigue reasons. I don’t really wanna be a nag with “I told you sos” but Nick, I told you so that sex the night before the fight was a bad idea….

Arj, who was one of the top fighters in the club made quick work of his opponent in the first match, impressing the judges with his spectacular spinning kicks. However, as luck would have had it, he twists his ankle towards the end of the match and has to sit out for the rest of the day.

Overall, I would say it was a pretty good day, tiring but good. We managed to clinch one Gold, one Silver and 2 Bronzes but we’ll be aiming for higher goals in the tournaments to come. Many thanks to Lee, for driving us and to Lily and Lucy, our club groupies who came to support us.

MOM: Stephen, who though lost the Gold to Dimitri, fought very well and caught the attention of the National Coach.

DOD: Phil, who made me run around in circles and had to get the Lodge Security out to let me into his flat.

- Fabian

Introduction to Taekwondo

1999-10-01T00:00:00.000Z

Definition

Taekwondo is a modern martial art derived from Korea. It is characterized by its fast, high and spinning kicks. Literally translated, tae means ‘foot’, kwon means ‘fist’ and do means ‘way’. Therefore, Taekwondo means The Way of the Foot and Fist, an effective form of unarmed combat. However, it is more than just a fancy form of kicking and punching. It is designed to cultivate a person into having a strong moral conscience through physical training, mental guidance and philosophical values. It is more than a system of bodily exercise. Taekwondo is also a way of life.

Brief History

Martial arts have existed since ancient times as a means of self defense, recreation and complete body and mind exercise. Archaeological sites throughout Asia boast the important historical context of martial arts through numerous cave paintings that illustrate and document the heritage. Korea is rich in such historical sites, over the last century numerous murals depicting ancient warriors in typical martial-art posture have been found decorating caves and tombs.

The earliest martial art forms in Korea were named according to the various regions that existed at the time. The names were handed down through generations to modern times. It was not until Korea’s liberation from Japanese rule in 1945 that these arts, practiced largely in secret during this period, were to enjoy a revival as the people sought to reaffirm their national identity. Through the popularity of the respective disciplines, the different skills of the various styles rapidly became more widely known and practiced. This, together with the cooperation of the Masters of these arts, paved the way for the collective name of ‘Taekwondo’ to be adopted formally in 1955.

The Taekwondo Tenets

Through regular and sustained practice, the Taekwondo student can develop many physical attributes that will prove useful in everyday life. Benefits often include better coordination, increased flexibility, improved cardiovascular conditioning and added strength. In addition to the pursuance of physical mastery of these techniques, positive mental disciplines are also developed along the way. Through its practice, one will learn the most important tenets of Taekwondo:

Etiquette
Modesty
Perseverance
Self Control
Indomitable Spirit

By living these tenets, one will grow to become strong in character, gentle in temperament, modest in victory and humble in defeat.

Tournaments

Taekwondo is organized around a tournament structure with more established clubs organizing events. Other clubs consider it a great honour to be invited to such gatherings where their exponents spar or exchange pointers with other competitors.

The most common method of competing is a sparring match. Conducted between 2 individuals of about the same grade and weight category, it is closely judged to ensure fair play. The contest area is an 8m x 8m square (normally coloured blue) with a ring of width 2m encircling it (normally coloured red). The 2 contestants wear body armour of 2 colours, ‘Chung’ for Blue and ‘Hung’ for Red. Only punches with a tightly clenched fist or kicks are allowed. Punches to the face or hits below the lower abdomen are strictly forbidden. All vulnerable parts of the body are covered with padded protectors, for e.g. Shins, head, groin, etc.

One match consists of 3 rounds of 3 minutes each with a 1-minute recess between rounds. A referee, a time-keeper and 3 judges observe a match. Points are considered to be valid only when 2 or more judges award an effective hit.

An effective attack to the body obtains 1 point and an effective kick to the head gains 2 points. An attack that fazes the opponent gains an extra point. Points are also deducted based on penalties made depending on the seriousness of the act. The referee may deduct a point based on a prohibited act committed such as an accidental punch to the head while a more severe act like a deliberate kick to the groin may result in an instant disqualification.

The winner is determined by the most number of points scored at the end of the 3 rounds or a knockout by one of the contestants. In the event of a tie, a decision will be made by the judges based on the initiative shown by the individuals during the match.

Basic Korean Terms

1999-09-01T00:01:00.000Z

Commands

Attention - Charyeot
Bow - Kyong Ye
Ready - Chum Bi
Begin - Shi Jak
Stop - Ku Man
Break - Kal Yeo
Continue - Kae Sok

Counting

Hanna
Dool
Set
Net
Daseul
Yaseul
Ilgop
Yeodul
Ahop
Yeol

Stances

Walking Stance - Ap Seogi
Forward Stance - Ap Koobi
Back Stance - Dwit Koobi
Horse-riding Stance - Joochum Seogi

Kicks

Front Kick - Ap Chagi
Turning Kick - Dollyo Chagi
Side Kick - Yeop Chagi
Back Kick - Dwit Chagi
Axe Kick - Naeryu Chagi
Back Hook Kick - Huryeo Chagi