2009 World Taekwondo Championships – Copenhagen, Denmark

The 2009 World Championships was held in the beautiful city of Copenhagen, Denmark during the Year of Sport celebrations in this peaceful country in the Scandik peninsular on the top end of Europe.  This would have been the biggest world championships held with more than 1,000 players assembling in this bi-annual event from 142 member countries.  This event followed the IOC annual congress that retained taekwondo as one of the 26 sports for the 2016 Olympics, which was awarded to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Kim Seng, ATA Peel region Master Instructor and 1st class International Referee was one of the selected referees to officate at this 18th edition of the World Championships.  85 International Referees were selected across the world to officiate at this important event.

The LaJust ebp’s (electronic body protectors) were used successfully at this event and results of the matches were more evenly spread.  However, officiating was still very much managed and controlled by the International Referees.  Follow the discussions and comments on this Referee forum. 

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2009 April Black Belt Graders

I provide a short highlight video footage for the students going for black belt on April 5, 2009.

Since hosting the video file on this website can be slow – I have chosen to place the video onto youtube

I am still figuring out the best format to upload the video in. I also want to get an HD format up too, but my video camera only does 720×576 pixels, which is not HD. So I uploaded a "fake" HD format resolution of 960×720 pixels (upscaled of course) and the file to download ended up being over 118MB from youtube.

In the end, I uploaded a 720×576 file that was around 56MB to upload to youtube. Although, when you watch it, the "normal" quality is a 18.2MB download while the "Higher" quality (the HQ icon) is 18.6MB. So, if it plays smoothly – watch the HQ version.

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ATA member Cameo Rascale nails it at the Grand Final of Australia’s Got Talent 2009

The Capener family acrobatic troupe, performing as Cameo Rascale nails another great performance at the Grand Final of Australia’s Got Talent 2009.  Their performance was sharp and crisp and demonstrated a multitude of skills and techniques that mesmerized the audience and judges.  I have watched all their shows in this AGT series and each time they rotated their star showing, in the end all 4 are equally as good and each with their own specialty skill sets.  They have flexibility, balance, strength, timing, showmanship, flair, poise and great co-ordination and rhythm – all great attributes for taekwondo.

Red Symons said "It is a privilege to see the skills are not lost and are being passed down from the parents down to the children".  Tom Burlinson thought they were like the Incredibles (superhero family) and that they that did a wonderful performance despite the injury to Steve (the father and anchor of the troupe) before the show.  Danii Minogue chipped in commenting what an amazing performance and great to see tricks that was nail biting and thought the acting and presentation was fantastic.  Grant Denyer, the host of the show thought the family did a dynamic job.  The ending of the act was exciting and nail biting when Gayle (all curled up) slid down Steve (standing up) but stopped just short of hitting the floor.

I think the family showed great determination and I know they spent hours and hours in practice honing their skills and their act to top their last act.  Said Steve "I thought we would have great difficulty to top the semi-final act, but we were glad this one came off".  Nicole recently did her grading 10 days previously and she performed her bend back flexibility after the grading to the delight of the members at the grading.

There were 8 acts in this Grand Final and if you enjoy their act, I encourage you to vote for them by calling the following number 1902 55 33 33 or SMS "Cameo" on 199 77 77 2.  Either method will do.  Make sure you do it before the deadline of 12 noon on Saturday 18th April 2009.  The result will be broadcast on Wednesday 22nd April – don’t miss it!  Just to prove to you how good they are, here is a link to their act.  Click here and have another look-see.

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Peel Region Grading – 5 April 2009

Spectators and participants alike sat through a longer than usual taekwondo grading this Sunday April 5, 2009. Scheduled start time was 13:00 hours in the afternoon and we all got in shortly after and the grading concluded just before 17:00 hours.

There were two students (one from Mandurah-Falcon and one from Coolbellup) going for their black belts. As expected, their grading was the longest and occupied a substantial amount of time. It provided a great opportunity for the lower ranks and new members to watch and observe the requirements to reach black belt standards.

Quite a number of graders succumbed to the pressure of it all and performed beneath their ability – forgetting steps in poomsae (patterns) here and there (remember the IQ article?), freezing up and uncertainty showing up in their faces at other times. That’s the beauty of having gradings. It creates a more anxious environment for the practitioner to PERFORM! Much like a heightened, escalated tension that may arise if an "incident" were ever to occur.

Hopefully, from watching some of the higher belts go through their motions, you can realise that reaching that goal (of getting your black belt) is not going to be a breeze. Sure, on paper, it appears to be straight-forward and simple, just not necessarily easy. 

Congratulations to those who received awards on the grading day:

Senior grading: Best – Olivia Cable (Mandurah-Falcon); Encouragement – Neb Meletovic (Rockingham) and Marcus Hegedus (Mandurah)

Junior grading: Best – Amira Ahmad Niza (Coolbellup); Encourgament – Finley Edgar (Mandruah)

Book prizes: Skip Sommerville (senior, Mandurah); Nicole Capener (junior, Halls Head) 

For those of you wanting to find out the results of your grading, you will need to wait and find out from your club instructor. Remember, if you have the Taekwondo Australia Grading Book, you can find out immediately after the grading if you had brought in and submitted the book to the examiner on the day. Remember it for next time.

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ATA member wins spot in the Grand Final of Australia’s Got Talent 2009

The family acrobatic team performing as the Cameo Rascale makes it into the Grand Final of Australia’s Got Talent show on 18th March 2009.  They were the first act up in the semi-finals and it is always a tough act to start the show, but they nailed it.

They wowed the judges and the audience.  The family is an all round acrobatic act and contained many different skills ranging from strength (Steve Capener, the father), grace and poise (Gayle, the mother), great flexibility (Nicole, the daughter),  balance and guile (James, the son). All the judges gave them the thumbs up.

Danni thought they were fantastic, while Tom marvelled with the precision and commented that they were well prepared and fun to watch.  Even Red Symons was impressed with this family working in sync, it is great.

The other contestants were very good too, especially the 2 little kids in the Australian Martial Arts team and their instructor (Hakan) who just kept on spinning and flipping like the kung fu masters in the movies.  I remember in 1998 when the Australian national junior taekwondo team were in Istanbul for the world junior championships and we took Hakan and members of the team to be interviewed on Turkish TV and he performed on Turkish television with an impromptu demonstration, he was 10 years old then.  11 years on, and he is still performing, this time as an adult.

Now we just have to wait for the big Grand Final and hope our member and her family get to win the $250,000 1st prize money.  Come on Cameo Rascale. Click here to watch the winning semi-final act – Cameo Rascale.

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