I went along to a WTF seminar on Saturday with Paul Green who is European champion, World silver medalist and Athens Olympic quarter finalist. It lasted for 3 hours and i can honestly say that it is the hardest tkd session i've ever done. I thought i was pretty fit but these guys who compete at olympic standard are at a much higher level and i found the experience has inspired me to train harder. There were times when i thought i was going to be sick and wondered what i'd paid my money for but when the session finished i felt such a buzz and so relaxed that it all seemed worth it!! The thing that pleased me most about the day was to see people from different tkd styles training together and learning from each other. Maybe it's the shape of things to come?
i'm glad you enjoyed it so much, but i think we'd all appreciate more details on what exactly was done at the seminar.
Sorry A lot of this may be pretty basic to you wtf players but here goes We began with a warm up and some stretching and then partnered up. We then practised different kicking combinations against each other. He reminded us to keep our feet the same distance away from each other at all times by shuffling forwards and backwards and not crossing the feet over.This was so that you are always in a position to kick. We practised combinations like a side kick to the mid section followed by what he called a chop kick (but i know it as an axe kick or downward kick) with the same leg to the head. Then we introduced hooking kicks,back kicks and spin kicks (which looked like reverse turning kicks) as counter attacks to half turning kicks. He emphasised the importance of commiting yourself when you kick as well. After many different kicking drills we got the paddle pads out which are my favourite (i don't know why but i love the feeling when you kick them - maybe i've got a paddle pad fetish ) We had a row of 12 people holding the pads and had to go up the room doing turning kicks and sprint back (we had to do this 5 times with each leg) After that the pad holders lined up diagonally and we did chop/axe/downward kicks across the room using alternate legs (we did this 5 times too) The next time the pad holders were staggered and we started off with 3 mid section half tuning kicks (side stepping from one to the other) then the other pads were held high section and it was basically do whatever you feel like doing. We were then split up into groups of 6 with a pad holder taking each person for 30 seconds at a time. The aim of the game was speed and they would be changing the pad positions all the time while moving around at the same time.We each did this about 4 times. Then it was time to get the hogus (i hope i spelt it right) on and have a few rounds of sparring. After the warm down we each received a certficate of attendance and Mr Green explained that he'd given us a taster of how he trains and told us all that the only way to get the most out of taekwondo is to train,train,train. Looking back at what i've written it seems easy now and sorry if i've forgotten anything but i was probably too busy getting my breath back to remember!
