Taekwondo Poomsae seminar – photos

To view the article on the Poomsae seminar, click here:

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Taekwondo poomsae seminar – Melbourne, Vic, Australia

Technical Directors, state poomsae coaches and a selection of elite poomsae players from across Australia assembled in Melbourne during mid January 2010 to receive specialist instructions from Master Hyung Kook Kang, the Australian National Poomsae coach.  The main objectives for the weekend was to standardize poomsae technique, receive the latest amendments to poomsae competition and judging to disseminate to each state as a strategy to advance the development of poomsae in Australia.

Taekwondo is essentially a martial art but its globalization has made it more popular as a martial art sport with the kyorugi (sparring) aspect becoming an Olympic Sport and now the Poomsae aspect is truly gaining momentum as equally popular.  The World Poomsae championships have now been held 4 times since its inaugural introduction in 2006.  The Hanmading taekwondo festival (all aspects of taekwondo excluding sparring) preceded the world championships and had been held pre 2000 years and is very popular especially in Korea and especially with Poomsae.

Technical excellence in poomsae starts with a firm foundation of basic skills.  There must be a starting point in the execution of techniques and there must be an ending point in each movement.  The body and each movement must be balanced and delivery must be exacting with perfect harmony of um and yang.  As each starting point is um (as in soft), and delivery must be rhythmic in sequential formation (as in 1-2-3-4 beats) with the final concluding action strong and hard (as in yang).  To perform poomsae without balance, rhythm or harmony as in um and yang, then poomsae is imperfect.  Poomsae is not just going through the motions, it is a form that has meaning that must display um and yang in its movements and demonstration of taekwondo spirit.

As in sparring precision of technique is important as a point is scored by landing a kick precisely on a designated target and with the correct amount of power, so poomsae technique has to be precise to get that maximus of balance, harmony, rhythm, power and balance.  There is much more art and science to poomsae than there is to sparring.  In sparring a mistake could cost a point being scored against you and similarly in poomsae a mistake means a deduction point against you.

Master Kang is a very passionate man filled with knowledge of many years of practice in taekwondo.  His credentials include stints in the Korean army teaching taekwondo to his many soldier and officer students alike.  He was the man responsible for co-ordinating the 1,000 man taekwondo demonstration at the 1988 Seoul Olympics opening ceremony.  He had also had stints working with the kukkiwon taekwondo academy before setting up home in Sydney some 12 years ago.  He is part of Australia now and his love for poomsae means he is now dedicated to pass on his immense knowledge to Australians.  The weekend’s seminar is such an event gathering of those responsible for helping Master Kang develop and standardize taekwondo poomsae and technique to our players, the elite and the ordinary and the young.  Says Master Kang, "We must start from the beginning, we must establish the firm foundation, there is no short cut, and only then we can develop our skills and perform poomsae with high standard.  At the 1st and 2nd world championships in 2006 and 2007, Australia was up there ranking highly in the world (silver and bronze medals won and players in the finals), but since then (2008 and 2009) we have dropped in standards and ranking.  We must reach out and grow once again.  Taekwondo Australia has the right attitude and strategy with this weekend as a re-start to reach excellence again.  I am sure of that."  Such inspirational words imparted confidence to the attendees.

Attendees to this poomsae seminar included high ranking instructors up to 7th dan ranking, and some Australian player representatives.  All had to go through all the basic movements and paces in the Taegeuk range of poomsae ironing out bad habits and incorrect movements or execution of um and yang movements.  We were all counting "one-two", "one-two"  and sometimes "three-four" (in rythmic timing) as we go through each pace.  It was like re-learning poomsae but now doing it right but more importantly doing it the standard way.  Once we have established standardization (across Australia), we can then move towards excellent presentation and mastery of skills.  It is not to be an overnight project, but it is a start and with a plan in mind, Master Kang, now the new Taekwondo Australia National Technical Director will build the strategies and development plan (with the assistance of the National Technical Committee) that will get Australia into the top level of world rankings once again.

Key point areas of movements were covered and demonstrated.  Master Kang had two of his students in Kyung Eun Yang and Brendon Moore demonstrate those significant key point areas from each poomsae.  Every mistake or deviation from displaying correct technique would be a minus 0.1 deduction, and of course a major mistake or deviation from standard technique would be a minus 0.5 point deduction.

The second day, it was the black belts range of poomsae from Koryo to Hansu (we ran out of time on Ilyeo).  Master Kang introduced the basics of Dan-Jun breathing exercise and training.  The flow of energy, as in power and ki energy is essential to excellent performance in true poomsae.  The central point of Dan-jun energy comes form a point approximately 5 cm below the naval, it involves slow and controlled breathing to this central point and the concentrated focus of this central dan-jun area in final delivery execution of technique can deliver that ki energy.

Master Kang gave a lecture on the history of modern poomsae and how taekwondo was unified from those 1940’s years and the kwan days. (kwan means club or school as in Chung Do Kwan – youngsters spirit school; Ji Do Kwan – wisdom way school; Moo Duk Kwan – the railroad station school; and others).  It was interesting to know and understand the kwan history.

We watched videos of the 4th World Championships held in Egypt (Nov-Dec 2009) and observed the evolving style and delivery of poomsae techniques including higher kicks and "holding" at the impact point; faster motions in straight line sequential movements, rhythmic and free flowing motions as like free flowing water and unlike stiff and robotic movements.  The current WTF poomsae judging is based on 50% on accuracy of motions, 30% on mastery and 20% on presentation.  As the gap difference in skills around the world are getting closer, it is getting difficult to separate the top players, so any mistake in any of the above judging criteria can affect score marks quite easily.  The Korea Taekwondo Association is moving away from this set of judging criteria and have introduced a new judging format that allocates only 30% to accuracy and 70% to mastery, presentation, experience and expressivity. (you can link to the post or forum of this website to view comments and discussions on this form of judging – click here: Poomsae judging and scoring criteria reforms.  This forum has a post on the criteria for deducting 0.5 points for 6 instances of accuracy errors and 6 presentation errors.

We also viewed videos on the 2008 and 2009 Hanmadang, in particular to the demonstration competition teams and also the 9-man poomsae teams.  The WTF is considering introducing the creative to music poomsae and the demonstration teams events at future world championships.  This will further enhance the value of taekwondo the martial art sport.  Incidentally the pioneers of this form of poomsae and demonstration competitions is led by the Kukkiwon in the Hanmadang concept.

There is a push to re-introduce breaking (gyokpa) competition in Australia, and these can be very spectacular as seen in the Hanmadang demonstration competitions.  I remember the Taekwondo Australia current President telling me how he had competed and won in the breaking competitions in the early days of Hanmadang and then there was the New Zealand player (now coach) using his bare hands to crack open coconuts continuously (with knife hand strikes) as his specialty skill in the Hanmadang breaking competitions.  Technical poomsae and technical events for competition in the Taekwondo Australia Nationals are huge and ever growing.  It started as a mere low hundred contestants at the TA nationals in the early 2000 years, growing to 400 in 2003, then 700 in 2004 and 900 in 2005.  Since 2006 technical poomsae events are held over 2 days with well over 1,200 plus contestants.  At this growth rate, we can expect to run the technical and poomsae nationals like a mini Hanmadang and cover at least 3 days of competition with well over 1,500 and growing up to 2,000 technical and poomsae competitors alone.

The weekend seminar was most enjoyable, refreshing and graded a roaring success.  The organisation for the weekend was put together by Greg Butterworth, Taekwondo Victoria’s Technical Director and the venue (in Narre Warren) was offered by Jodi Brown, Taekwondo Australia’s National Sports Committee chairperson.  Taekwondo Victoria President, Barry Akehurst welcomed all participants to the seminar and was pleased that all states and territories of Australia have come together under one roof to learn and practice taekwondo like one big family.

Everybody learned and got something out of it.  The next step will be to transfer and diseminate the learnings and standardization of poomsae to each state.  Master Kang will be visiting each state at least once a year and each state Technical Director will have to show the results at Master Kang’s next visit.

To see more photos showing attendees going through their poomsae paces, click onto this link:

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A better way to improve and practise

Those of you who know me may well know that I enjoy playing golf, a lot. Golf, like Taekwondo, requires a high level of technical ability and to be good in either – that technique must be kept consistent to be able to produce successful results.

In my email inbox, today, I usually skip through and delete many of my golf emails – but this one definitely caught my eye. I am grateful I stopped to read it.

It concerns the theory of "Primacy and Recency" in the way we remember things – and how it applies to the way we may use this to learn new habits.

The idea is that we can easily remember the first time and the last time we do something. But it is difficult to remember one in between – say the 3rd, 5th or the 28th time – unless it was a memorable result of some kind.

For example: most adults will remember (quite vividly) their first kiss, even though it happened years ago. Going to the other end – most adults will also remember their last kiss – their most recent one. But try to remember one in between and it may be a bit more challenging.

If you find this interesting so far, then I recommend you click this link to get to the original article that I read myself. Although it goes through an example for golf, just rearrange things to apply it to Taekwondo – or any other technique or habits you want to re-learn.

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Taekwondo helps to improve IQ and mental capacity

This is an observation rather than being of any scientific study (at this point in time). There’s also a game at the end of this article to help those of you who are injured and sidelined from physical activity.

As a parent, would you agree that you would want your children to excel to the best that they can be? Do you want your kids to be the smartest in the classroom? Apart from enrolling them into an educational institution (ie. school) there are several other ways to get your children "thinking". One of them being the obvious private tuition. However, did you know that other extra curricular activities such as sports and music can give the brain a workout?

I think that most parents may already be aware of the benefit of playing a musical instrument has. Many kids are enrolled for piano lessons, whether that choice was made by the child is highly doubtful. Yet, for those who pursue and continue to learn and play the piano, the benefits are outstanding. Not only do they learn a skill of playing music, their academic ability improves. They generally do better at school! Why is that?

Now, I cannot say there are the same level of benefits (intellectually) for those who play sports. In particular, different sports will provide different benefits. What I am trying to convey is that sports can improve your mental capacity to some point also – maybe not as well as playing that piano though. Some sports can also provide negative impact too, I’m thinking of those that are full contact that have direct physical injuries towards the head. Luckily for us (Taekwondo), in Australia at least, head contact is off-limits for under 14 year olds.

Why do I say this and how have I observed it? Well, I must say that it is not a definitive "Yes, Taekwondo improves your Intelligence Quotient!" I am merely saying it "helps". I have noticed that those who practise Taekwondo martial arts (and are generally good at it) are also generally good at their academic abilities also. Those who also continue to practise Taekwondo continue to improve academically also. I believe, it has something to do with memory.

To progress to a new belt level, there is a new poomsae (or pattern of techniques) to learn. It is a particular sequence of actions that needs to be remembered and executed properly. Similarly, with playing a musical instrument to play a piece of music, you need to be able to read the notes and transfer that across to your fingers, arms, lungs, body posture and whatever else is needed for that particular instrument. To play it seamlessly, memory is also utilised so that there’s no pause when turning pages. Passion and feeling can only be conveyed when the sheet music is memorised also. It’s the same with Taekwondo patterns. When you learn a new poomsae, you generally follow step-by-step (that’s reading the music note-by-note). As you get better, you memorise and perform it yourself without assistance (without the sheet music). This may be the stage where the pattern may look a bit robotic and sometimes with a few pauses while you "think and try to remember the next step". Then after many, many numerous repetitions of that particular pattern, you may start to develop a different tempo to personalise it a bit. It’s this memorisation that helps with improving your IQ and mental capacity.

I’ve recently had a friend throw a rubik’s cube at me. This fad/craze seems to come and go, a bit like the yo-yo. Having the mixed up coloured squares in front of me, I tried numerous turns, twists and rotations to get the colours lined up. Unfortunately, I did not complete it. However, in observing how my friend solved it – I noticed something (I thought was) quite unusual. There were times when my friend did not even look at the cube and just started twisting things all over the place. Why? Because there was a particular sequence of rotations (they call it an algorithm) to get from Point A to Point B. I found out that it wasn’t just the one sequence, there were several different "patterns" to memorise. Each pattern to be utilised at different times depending on the colour/square formation. Now, I’m not sure about you – though I am thoroughly impressed every time that rubik’s cube is solved; and I attribute a lot of that to being "smart". More

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WTF Taekwondo one of the safer martial art sports around

I was browsing through some news feeds on the web, found this article entitled Concussion effect ’spans decades’ and immediately thought about all the possible concussions suffered (or delivered) by players in the sparring ring.

The previously concussed volunteers had poorer performance in the memory tests, delayed responses to unpredictable events, and were unable to complete the hand control tests as quickly.

That’s the bottom line for those 40 former athletes aged between 50 and 60 who were tested. The article didn’t really go into which specific sports that these former athletes played in – although it does mention football (soccer) and there’s also a photo of ice-hockey players also.

The soccer concussions came about from repetitive headers of the old-style heavier balls and you can just imagine all the hard knocks being dished out on the hockey rink – and that’s not even including the punch ups they occasionally engage in.

Now, those are just "normal" sports. What about our sport? What about all the combat sports out there? I can’t say that we definitely repeatedly get hit in the head, but I’m pretty sure we aim to do that to the other person! I can name an obvious combat sport that their athletes are in a high risk of getting concussions – and therefore the possible long term effects that the article was writing about; BOXING!

They love their KO’s and it’s always a great spectacle to see it happen. They pretty much aim for the head more than half the time and I wouldn’t be surprised if this earns the number 1 sport for athlete concussions. Albeit, professional boxing and amateur boxing is quite different with respect to protective equipment, they’re all still hammering to slog one square in the face of their opponent. With head gear or not, it’s still gonna hurt and repeated actions aren’t going to help, either.

Then, I’m grateful that in our discipline we have restrictions on punching to the face/head. Yes, we do wear head protective gear but then again, so do those amateur boxers. Luckily, in Australia at least, we also have restrictions on kicking to the head for those young children under 14 years of age.

All these add up to the safety and well-being of the players choosing to engage in the sporting side of WTF Taekwondo.

I don’t claim to know ALL or even a few of the combat sports out there. Though I had trained in Muay Thai for a year and I can tell you that we got smashed in the face plenty and the only thing that softened the blow was the cushioning in the boxing gloves we wore. We were really unlucky if we got hit in the head by a foot, a leg (shin), a knee or an elbow! So I’m glad that WTF Taekwondo has all the protective equipment and rules and regulations that we do.

Are there other combat sports that you know of that you’d like to share? In particular, their ability to hand out a concussion.

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