The Blue Wave Taekwondo School

WhistleKick Martial Arts Radio Podcast

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 26 Oct 2015 14:52:00 +0000

I had a great time on the WhistleKick Martial Arts Radio Podcast. Thanks for having me! If you are a martial arts enthusiast, I highly recommend checking out Podcast, currently at over 30 episodes with a wide range of excellent martial arts practitioners and teachers.

Korea Trip 2013, and an iPad Raffle!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 20:09:00 +0000

I am so excited to be writing about the upcoming trip to Korea! There are about a dozen Blue Wave students, from three different dojangs planning on traveling to Korea in April 2013.

We will be visiting Grandmaster Lee's family, touring the sites of Korea, and of course practicing Taekwondo. I have been fortunate enough to visit Korea several times over the years, but this time, I am especially excited to be bringing Juniors and Teenagers with me. They are in for an awesome experience. This is the kind of trip that takes Taekwondo practitioners to the next level.

Over the next several weeks, we will put up posts, pictures, and video to share with our Taekwondo friends,family, and supporters, as we prepare for the trip. To follow along, please visit:

The World and Adventures of Blue Wave Taekwondo

Of course, financing is our biggest challenge. To get the fund raising started, The Bruce V. Twing Scholarship Fund is raffling off an iPad Mini! To Enter,

CLICK the DONATE button to buy an entry ($10) or Two ($15).

The winning entry will be drawn on Saturday Night at Blue Wave Winter Camp, March 2nd, 2013. (Any amount donated over $15 is tax deductible.) Entries must be received by Thursday February 28th. You do not need to be present to win.

UPDATE: Some people are asking about donating more then $15. If you do this, I will contact you, you can convert the amount above $15 into entries, (2 for every $15, Seven entries for $100) Or, you can take a tax deduction for any amount over $15.

Here are some photos from past trips to Korea:

Michigan Trip - Taekwondo Seminar with Coach Sherman Nelson jr.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 14 May 2010 02:09:00 +0000

I will be in Michigan visiting Russ Gale and Tanya Panizzo at Mid West / Milan Taekwondo and attending a seminar with four of my students. I will take some photos and post them to the album running below!

Highlight Video of Blue Wave Winter Camp

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 14:57:00 +0000

Winter Camp 2010 was a huge success. Our biggest Blue Wave Event ever with over 200 participants. Over 30 testing candidates promoted to 1st dan and higher.

Here is a quick Video with some highlights!

Find more videos like this on The Blue Wave Taekwondo Association

Blue Wave Winter Camp 2010

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 18:40:00 +0000

Blue Wave Winter Camp 2010 is coming up March 5th, 6th, and 7th.

What: The Blue Wave Taekwondo Association annual Winter Camp and biannual Black Belt Testing

Where: The Sheraton, Burlington VT

When: March 5th, 6th and 7th, 2010

Winter Camp starts on Friday night with a black belt testing. This year we have almost 30 people testing for 1st through 7th degree black belt, Grandmaster Lee will be visiting from Korea. Testing is open to the public and will begin around 6:00pm. It will also be web cast, check back here for a link.

We continue Saturday morning with seminars covering a wide range of Taekwondo topics. Saturday evening is a banquet dinner, followed by social time. Sunday morning we are back in

Dobak until about 11:00am.

Registration for the event is now closed, but the schedule can be seen here:

The Winter Camp Schedule can be seen here

Please visit our photo section of our web site and take a look at past winter camp photos.

2009 Blue Wave Black Belt Conference

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:07:00 +0000

Find more photos like this on The Blue Wave Taekwondo Association

Killington Grand Resort was the host of our Black Belt Conference, as it has been for many years. We had a great turn out of almost 70 Black Belts ranging from 1st - 7th dan, ages 10 and up.

We covered a lot of ground - topics including:
1. Kicking combinations, Speed Kicking and timing Paddle Kicking Drills
2. Sparring rounds with and with out Scoring. Sudden Death Drills with scoring
3. Referee and Corner Judge Training
4. Poomsae - Kukkiwon standards review of Stance and Basics
5. Competitive Poomsae Training drills
6. P.D.R. (Personal Defense Readiness)
7. Variations of Warm up routines
8. Trick Kicking
9. Black Belt poomsae

Blue Wave Winter Camp 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 16:12:00 +0000

an update! I know its been a LOOOOONG time. A lot has been going on, tournaments, testings, seminars, we had a great Co-oP work out with Pil-Sung Taekwondo of Troy NY. Unfortunately, I have been so busy, I have been neglecting updating the blog.

We recently had our Blue Wave Winter Camp. It was outstanding. Here are the highlights:

175 Participants
Black Belt testing included the following promotions: Eleven 1st Dan, eight 2nd, One 5th, four 6th and two 7th.
In addition to Blue Wave Master insturctors, our guest instructors included Master(s) Gale and Panizzo of Midwest/Milan Taekwondo. Master Ron Southwick of MSU Taekwondo, and Master David Turgeon of CT Chung do kwan. Master Southwick and Turgeon are members of the US National Poomsae team.
Grandmaster Tae Sung Lee taught several semars on both days, working everyone hard and having a good time.

Match Games

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 02:31:00 +0000

We had about 25 people participate in match games on November 13th. (Match Games are like a "scrimmage" for Taekwondo competitors)

We set up two rings with Electronic scoring. The matches started at 5:45, there were about 15 juniors (11 and younger) most of them had 3 matches by 6:45. The 12 - 17 year olds and adults started around 7, and wrapped up by 8:00.

I think that Tournaments provide a fantastic learning experience for Taekwondo students. The problem is Tournaments often do not provide enough ring time, especially in single elimination. By throwing out the strict divisions, we simply lined the competitors up and matched them by Size (weight), Age and Rank - in that order. We had green and black belts fighting, yellow and red belts - no one cared because it was not about winning or losing, it was about learning and Having fun. The focus was on Performance, not Results. This is such an important concept for younger competitors.

Other then Blue Wave students, a near by school ( American Martial Arts and Fitness )brought some students to join in the fun as well.

Here is a short video of some match highlights.

I hope to do another match games soon, I will keep you posted, and hope we get even more interest. A big thank you to everyone that came and participated, helped run rings and officiate. We had some parents scoring matches which is great. Thank you to Master Robinson who traveled all the way from East haven to help us run things.

The Convocation of Combat Arts

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 14:25:00 +0000

I have not reported on the Ky Tu Dang Poomsae seminar yet, I will when I have a little more time, but in short it was awesome.

In the meantime I wanted to encourage you to visit a new and improved Convocation of Combat Arts Site. Once a google group, and now a NING site the Convocation is growing quickly with quite a few martial arts bloggers (and their readers) from all over the geographic and style map. Click the Image below to check it out!

Poomse Seminar with Ky Tu Dang

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 17:41:00 +0000

This weekend on November 2nd, 8 Blue Wave black belts (including myself) will be attending a competition poomse Seminar hosted by Master David Turgeon of CT. Chung Do Kwan. The seminar will be taught by Master Ky Tu Dang of Denmark. Master Dang won his division at the World Poomse Championship this past year, and placed 2nd the year before. He is widely considered one of the best forms competitors in the world. Here is a clip from YouTube of his division from 2006, he is the second competitor in the clip. (Sorry I could not find one from the 2007)

The World Taekwondo Federation (WTF) has been working very hard to develop the World Taekwondo Poomse Championships. They have done a nice job at creating very clear, rules, guidelines, and scoring criteria. USA Taekwondo (USAT) is on board and are including forms competition at their national events, and has named a National Team.

Ky Tu Dang begins around the 3 minute and 10 second mark

I will be sure to post again next week and report on the seminar, and hopefully post some pictures and Video.

Taekwondo Times article: SCORE!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 20:29:00 +0000

Taekwondo Times September 2008 issue should be on the magazine racks now. This issue is about the US Olympic Taekwondo Team, and (almost exclusively) Olympic Style Taekwondo topics.

Long time Taekwondo web author Rhonda Sweet of Sport Taekwondo Today wrote an article about the evolution of Taekwondo as well.

My article (which they called "SCORE") includes 4 different common sparring exchanges, I had sent in 7, knowing they would not put them all in, however I hope to upload video the different exchanges to the blog.

If you have seen the article, let me know what you think! If you are still interested in subscribing to Taekwondo Times and get 20% off, you can click the picture of the cover, and use the promo code bwtkd11

Taekwondo Times 20% off Offer

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 01:23:00 +0000

Taekwondo Times magazine allowed me to offer this coupon to my readers. Anyone who would like to subscribe to Taekwondo Times can use this code "bwtkd11" (one, one at the end) and get 20% off the subscription.

Click Image to be redirected to subscription page.

The Olympic issue should be out in a couple of weeks!

Taekwondo Shoes - More than you ever wanted to know!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 19:12:00 +0000

My first pair of "Martial Arts" shoes were a pair of Kung Fu Slippers. If you ever questioned my geeky martial arts beginning, the fact that I used to wear these things around, surely will put any doubts you had to rest.

Luckily for you, (and my image), the world of Martial Arts Shoes has come a LONG way since then. With many out door Summer Camps coming up, you may want to have some shoes that you are comfortable practicing Taekwondo in. Martial Arts Shoes (Commonly known as "kicking shoes, or kickers") are readily available in numerous colors and styles, from several different companies. The most prominent being Adidas, who offers more styles of Kickers then you can keep track off.

If you decide to purchase some kickers, here are some things to keep in mind.

PRICE: Less expensive kicking shoes, are less expensive for a reason. They are typically heavier, have a lower quality sole, dont fit as snug to your foot, and don't last as long.

SOLE Rubber Soled kicking shoes work well on Grass, Wood, Tile, or other hard type surfaces, however they tend to stick a bit when kicking on the interlocking mats, (some worse then others). This can put additional stress on your ankles and knees. Some of the better kicking shoes have a hard(er) rubber sole, and split the front and back of the shoe with a lifted arch area. These tend to work better on the mats as there is less friction. (see below for examples)

FIT Kickers should be snug. If you are between sizes, lean towards the smaller. Well worn kickers tend to stretch a little. You will see below, that you can pick from Slip on, or laces. This is personal preference, but for me, I like the laces. While the Slip ons can give a good fit, it will depend on how big your ankles are.

STYLE Face it, no one wants to be caught dead wearing these. Get some shoes that Look good. ;-)

Below is an overview of some of the more common styles of Kickers available (click photos for larger size).

Adidas Original These are a little hard to find as they have not been manufactured in several years. Lace up, full rubber sole (not great for mats). The sole is connected with a stitch that runs along the outside edge and has a tendency to come undone.

Adidas SM II This shoe is nearly identical to Original Adidas Kicker. An aesthetic stripe has been added, but the rubber sole and laces are the same.

Adidas AdiKee: This is the replacement for the SM II, which is no longer manufactured. It is one of the less expensive Adidas Kicking shoes, but using the same "sticky" rubber sole. They have changed the shoe stistitching so that is runs across the top of the shoe rather then the bottom.

Personal Experience - I have owned all 3 of these shoes. The original and SM II are decent, but not a good shoe for the long haul. The rubber sole peeled off on my first pair, the stitching came out on the second pair, each after about a year of moderate use. The AdiKee was so uncomfortable that I couldn't wear them. The stitching gave the shoe a strange fit. It uses the same sole as the other two shoes, which is not great for working on mats. Prices Range on these from $35 - $55

Adidas Adilux Who comes up with these names? This is a slip on shoe. It is much higher quality then the SMII and AdiKee. It uses the harder rubber "split" sole for lighter treading on the mats, and the sole does not use the stitching that came undone in the cheaper SM II and AdiKee shoes. This sole is used in all the higher end Adidas shoes.

Adidas Tornado These are some of the best Taekwondo shoes that Adidas makes. It uses the harder split sole, (even though its white, not black like the others) and a more advanced lace up system that gives you more control of the fit. Also an instep flap attaches with velcro to cover the laces. Nice for kicking paddles.

Adidas Ultra III This shoe is the Top of the line, and has replaced the Tornado. (The Tornado is not being made any longer, but you can still find them). The Ultra III has a more advanced lacing system, but does not have the lace cover that The Tornado does. The sole appears to be the same.

Personal Experience - I have the AdiLux slip on, and the The Tornados. I like both of these shoes, but prefer the tornado for training (better fit). If I wear shoes when teaching, I like the AdiLux. The Tornado has been replaced by the Ultra III, but you can still find it on line. I have not tried the Ultra III's, as they are a bit expensive, and I just got the The Tornados. Retail for Adilux is around $70, Tornado around $80, and the Ultra III around $100. I did see prices much lower than this on some discount Web Sites.

Adidas Delta X This shoe has a different lace up system, but uses the old rubber sole. I don't have any experience with these shoes.

Nike Taekwondo Shoes I have not tried these shoes, but they look to have a decent sole, and good lace system, with an instep cover. I believe some of the folks that went to Korea last summer purchased them, maybe they can chime in on how they work.

Pine Tree Martial Arts Shoes These are a "generic" kicking shoe that is re-branded by several companies. They are heavy, have a stiff sole, and make a better Lite Sneaker then a kicking shoe.

MOOTO- Wings MOOTO has several versions of their kicking shoe as well. They appear to all be slip on. GM Lee has a pair I think, but I have not tried them. They seem like decent quality.

Adidas has the market for Kicking shoes, and it can be confusing, many of the exact same shoes have different names simply because they are a different color. Keep the Slip on vs. Lace, and the solid rubber sole, vs the Split Sole in mind when deciding on a pair. If you have used any of the shoes discussed here, or others, please chime in.

Taekwondo Times Article

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 17:33:00 +0000

After some prodding from family, friends and fellow Taekwondo instructors, I have written an article for Taekwondo times Magazine. It will be published in the September 2008 issue, which hits newsstands the end of July.

The issue theme is (appropriately) The Olympics. My article is a description of how Taekwondo is played in the Olympics, including an overview of equipment, rules, scoring and techniques. There are some examples of commonly scored techniques illustrated with sequential photos.

Here are a few pictures from the Photo shoot. Many thanks to Rajan Chawla Photography for taking the pictures and to Glenn Xiques for being my sparring partner.

A Second article I submitted will be published in the Online version of Taekwondo Times in December 2008. This articles covers the Korea Trip and Kukkiwon Instructors course I attended with some other Blue Wave Black Belts last summer. You can read about the trip Here.

Spring Black Belt Work Out 2008!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 21 May 2008 17:56:00 +0000

Find more photos like this on The Blue Wave Taekwondo Association

About three months ago, I realized that this month, (May) would be my 25th year as a Taekwondo practitioner. I understand that this may not be significant to anyone other then myself, after all, I know many people with at least 25 years, if not 35. Still, I wanted to have a party, so I decided to have a "Spring Black Belt Work Out" and do a dinner afterwards. I figured a good work out and chance to socialize afterwards would be all it would take to get a bunch of Blue Waver's together, I was right.

Since the Blue Wave Taekwondo School is above Nectars Restaurant, and Nectars is under new management with an awesome new Menu featuring Vermont Products, I decided we should do it there. They were very accommodating, giving us the entire upstairs (The Metronome Dance Club) set up a buffet style table with ribs, pulled pork, veggie burgers salad, etc.

We had nearly 40 people come and join in the Work out, and about 55 (including my parents and wife and daughter)at the dinner. Rather then waiting another 25 years, I would love for this to be an annual thing! It was a lot of fun.

Nathan Visits from TDA Training

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 13 May 2008 01:39:00 +0000

Nathan from TDA Training stopped by the Burlington Blue Wave Last week! It was really great to meet him after all this time of reading his blog, and participating in the convocation of Combat Arts group.

Nathan was in Burlington on Business. (To sum up, he works for a company the designs and sells all the computer stuff inside of Police cars...very cool) He stopped by the gym and watched some of class, then we went out to the Vermont Pub and brewery and had a nice time talking about our similar addictions with the martial arts.

Thanks for coming by Nathan - looking forward to meeting up again!

Nathan posted about his visit to Burlington Blue Wave Here.

Tournament Photos - Saturday May 3

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 05 May 2008 10:30:00 +0000

This past Saturday we attended the USSSA Regional Taekwondo Championship in Montpelier. See my previous post for an explaination of the various Taekwondo organizations.

The tournament had about 130 competitors, including forms, Olympic Sparring, and Continuous point sparring. This was the first USSSA event in the area that had more Olympic Style competitors then Continuous point, which is GREAT! The goal with these events is to build local Olympic style sparring particpation.

Here are some photos from the event.

Find more photos like this on The Blue Wave Taekwondo Association

Officials Training and Match Games

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 15:05:00 +0000

Find more photos like this on The Blue Wave Taekwondo Association

From the first year I started to teach Taekwondo in Burlington Vermont, getting my students (and other Blue Wave Students) to tournaments has been a problem. We host one tournament a year, all the rest of our tournaments are several hours away, and typically a night in a hotel room. Most families are not interested in making this kind of commitment.

A few years ago, several Vermont Taekwondo schools joined the USSSA (U Triple S, A) A multi-sport organizations with over 5 million athletes combined. Similar to the AAU, they offer both Olympic Style Sparring and (continuous) point sparring. Initially the USSSA tournaments in this area were all point sparring, which meant if we attended these tournamets the divisions would be thin. However a couple of schools have now switched over to Olympic, and there is now some additional competition for us.

For our recreational students who want to try out competition, this is a great fit. For our more serious athletes, we continue to attend AAU events (including nationals) as well as USAT events when possible. Being involved with 3 different organizations is a hassle, but necessary given where we live, and various needs of the students.

This last Saturday we held an officials seminar with Master Steve Barrett of the USSSA, and followed it up with match games. This let the officials get some practice in, and the athletes get some matches with the electronic scoring.

There were about 20 participants in the officials seminar, and about 30 in the match games. The photos above were taken by one of my students fathers.

2008 USA Olympic Taekwondo Team

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 18:17:00 +0000

After the final phase of the Olympic Trial process, the 2008 USA Olympic Taekwondo Team has been selected. Two men, and Two women comprise the team, and also an interesting point, 3 of the team members are siblings.

The Lopez family has been known in the Taekwondo world for several years now, especially after Diana, Mark, and two time Olympic Gold Medal Winner Steven; all won Gold in their respective divisions at the 2005 World Championships.

The final member of the team is Charlotte Craig, a Bronze medalist at last years World Championships.

The team trials were not with out controversy. Diana Lopez needed to beat second seed, Olympic Silver medalist Nia Abdallah. The fight was scoreless going into Overtime. Diana scored a round house kick with 29 seconds left to win the match.

The match was posted on YouTube for a few days before being pulled for copyright infringement. I watched the match (several times), it was from some distance away, (too far for audio) and unclear as to what kicks were kitting hard enough to score.

It did appear that both players had kicks that looked like points that did not go up on the board. Given the fact that 3 out of 4 corners were needed to confirm a point, missing points is not uncommon. Nia kicked more often, and was the aggressor, but I trust the 4 corners scoring the match. In addition I watched the other matches (Mark Lopez Vs. Chris Martinez and Charlotte Craig Vs. Anees Hasnain) and these matches were scored with similarly high expectations for what was considered a point.

Visit USA Taekwondo for more informtion. I have also provided links to each of the team members bios below.

Charlotte Craig
Diana Lopez
Mark Lopez
Steven Lopez

Grandmaster Lee March 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 13:14:00 +0000

Grandmaster Tae Sung Lee is back in town! We have been getting some great training sessions in with Grandmaster Lee. He attended Winter Camp and taught several seminars there, and has been touring the different Blue Wave Schools. It is a fantastic opportunity for all the students to train with with him.

Grandmaster Lee is an inspiration. (At least) 75 years old, he can still crank off 50 push ups, kick above his head, and perform forms with grace and power. Something to strive for!

After Burlington Class on Saturday March 8th, 2008

Some Video Clips

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 03:17:00 +0000

Things are going very well over at NING! It is a Blue Wave members only site for now, which makes it hard when friends from the blogging community want to join in, we are looking at ways to open it up eventually.

For now, here are 2 video clips from the NING site, one old and one new.

Firt the old one - this is taken from a video project I did when I tested for 3rd dan. I made Taekwondo Music video of sorts. I won't bore you with the entire thing, but here is the grand finale (no music) with a bunch of breaks and points from "early days" (1987 - 1990).

Find more videos like this on The Blue Wave Taekwondo Association

Next is a new clip. I have been wanting some forms video to use as tutorials. There are much better professional DVDs out there, but recreational students typically don't want to spend the money on these, so I am making some using Adobe premiere Elements. Here is TaeGuek Oh Jang. (Taeguek 5)

Find more videos like this on The Blue Wave Taekwondo Association

Thats all for now. I will try to do better with updating this blog with information from the NING site until we make it more public.

A lack of time....not interest...

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 03:00:00 +0000

I am finding it more and more difficult to find the time to put into my blog. There is only one thing to blame....NING!

NING is a service that allows you to create a "facebook" style site specific to your organization, group, club, whatever, I have done this with the Blue Wave Taekwondo Association and it is really becoming a powerful tool for us.

I started this blog with the goal of using it to convey interesting information and technical knowledge to my fellow Blue Wave instructors, and really anyone that was interested in participating. I made some great friends from the blogging community.

However, with my schedule, (family, job, dojang) I need to pick where I put my energy, and my priority is working for the Blue Wave Association. NING lets me do that in a more efficient way then my blog can.

So Blue Wave Members - if you have not joined up - please visit: http://bluewavetkd.ning.com

All my other online martial arts friends - I may still post once in a while, and I will certainly continue to visit your sites. Thanks for all the great tips and discussion.

Best Regards,
Gordon White

Fall Report, and the next big thing?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 14:50:00 +0000

The 3rd Annual Blue Wave Black Belt conference was held this past weekend at Killington Ski resort. It was a fantastic weekend. With over 50 participating black belts, we had a lot fun, learned a lot, trained a lot, and even had a chance to use the very heated outdoor pool. We will be back in this location next year, same time.

The Kukkiwon recently announced two new Poomsae created specifically for Competition. One of them is geared at younger practitioners, with a lot of jumping, spinning and double kicks. The second is geared at more mature practitioners, is still very technical, but a bit less bone jarring. Master Tom Chase, head instructor for the Randolph Blue Wave has a video link posted on his blog showing the two forms if you want to check it out.

Also, take a look at the Bradford Blue Wave blog. They recently added an interesting post on Ki and Taekwondo.

My blogging has taken a back seat to some other priorities lately. I hope that I am working on the next step in taking the Blue Wave Community online. Interested in helping? Email Me.

Lastly, the Blue Wave Taekwondo School Blog has turned 1 year old! October 30th, 2006 was my first post, and now 12 months and 75 posts later, its Happy Birthday to us!

Defense vs. Offense

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 13:38:00 +0000

Here is a great match between Turkey and Italy. Italy is ahead for much of the match playing straight defense to the Turkey's offense. As soon as the Italian player changes to offense, he loses is lead and the match goes into over time.

It looks like this is from a European championship. A nice broadcast with slow motion of the points between rounds.

note: If you follow the link to YouTube rather then watching it here, be aware that YouTube comments are not moderated.

Seminar Season!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 14:52:00 +0000

Sorry for the lack of posts! I have been very busy the last couple of weeks.

Seminar Weekend in Michigan

I flew out to Michigan the Weekend of October 6/7 and taught two sparring seminars for Midwest Taekwondo. If you read the Korea Trip posts, you know who Master Gale and Master Panizzo are of Milan Taekwondo / Mid West Taekwondo. They were kind enough to invite me out to teach a seminar.

A bonus of the trip of course was that I got to hang out with Masters Gale and Panizzo. They showed me a bit of Plymouth MI on Saturday night, and Sunday before I flew home Master Gale and I took in the new Resident Evil movie. Honestly, can you ever get enough of Human Eating Zombies?

The first seminar was with 13 and under. We had about 20 kids. The seminar covered "run, jump, skip" style warm up, and covered basic kicking and steps, as well as free kicking, then we moved into paddle drills, and ended with some sparring.

The second seminar was for 14 years and older, and was 4 hours long. We had about 15 participants, almost all black belts. We did a quick warm up, some basic kicking, and jumped right into paddle kicking. We covered forward and back drills, offensive combinations. We took a 45 minute break to eat, and get suited up. The second half we did hogoo Drills (attack/Counter sequences) and finished up with some sparring.

Master Gale had a few other instructors participating, Master John Vasquez of Supreme Taekwondo, Mark Kanaar, (sorry didn't get the school name) and Erin Hoard of Infinity Taekwondo. It was really nice meeting and working with these other instructors.

Seminar II

This past Sunday I traveled to Feeding Hills MA where I taught an Olympic Style Sparring seminar at Shugarts Martial Arts. Master Shugart has been including Olympic Style Sparring at his school for almost 2 years now, and it is gaining popularity. We had a group of about 25 participants. We covered basic Warms ups that emphasize proper body mechanics for kicking, Full, Skipping, backward steps and 4 Basic Round house kicks. Offensive Rear and Front leg, and Defensive Rear and Front leg. The we continue with these techniques on kicking paddles and finished with some sparring. The seminar was about 3 hours long.

Other News...
The Burlington School is doing well. Our family classes have been pretty full lately, and the Saturday morning kids class is typically bustling with 5 - 9 year white and yellow belts.

Our next big association event is the Blue Wave Black belt Conference, which is being held the first weekend in November in Killington at the Grand Mountain Resort.