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:

Similar Articles

• Poomsae judging and scoring criteria reforms January 14, 2009
• WTF Competition Rules changes – to be implemented from June 2009 April 26, 2009
• Referee Selection training camp for the Beijing 2008 Olympics August 10, 2007
• Everybody wins at 2008 WA State Taekwondo Poomsae Championships June 7, 2008
• WA Technical Poomsae Seminar July 22, 2008