LBTKD 20th Anniversary Seminar
To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Master Owen’s LBTKD school’s first opening, a seminar for all UTA students was held on Saturday 30th September. The seminar was led by Master Horan and Master Owen, and supported by instructors from the UTA executive.
We saw 85 students from the various UTA schools packed into the gym at Highfield School in Letchworth for 3 hours of learning and training. It was a great opportunity to get together with like minded people in the name of Taekwon-Do. The seminar began with Master Owen recounting his Taekwon-Do journey and the opening of his first school 20 years ago. Some of his original students are still training and were actually at the seminar. The theme of the first group session was to look back at how techniques were originally performed, which included a lot of isolated hip twist and not much sine wave. Most students struggled with these alien movements as the modern technique is much more natural. Master Horan then talked about the development of Taekwon-Do and how the last few years of General Choi’s life were spent trying to bring back the power and reduce the excessive hip twist. This also passed into President Choi’s goal with the reintroduction of the kihap shouts in our patterns. With everyone warmed up and engaged, the group practised fundamental movements in rapid succession with very little time in between movements, reflecting the old school style of “hard and fast” technique.
Following a quick break, the session was broken up into three group sessions led by the UTA Executive members. These small group sessions offered a snapshot into some different parts of Taekwon-Do training, including kicking techniques, free sparring movement and self defence releases. Mr Marshall and Mr O’Brien led some kicking drills on pads, keeping the idea of creating power by utilising the body. Mrs Rose and Mr Callahan took the free sparring movement section, focusing on being light on our feet and how we can effectively move around our opponents techniques. The final group session was taught by Mrs Owen and Mrs Judge, centering around self defence techniques and how to release from a variety of grabs from one or multiple attackers. After around 20 minutes at each station the groups rotated. This was a good experience for the participants who were able to train under different instructors and gain some new ideas for their own training.
Finally, everyone joined together for a final group session taught by Master Owen around conditioning. Master Owen recounted how conditioning was a staple of training in the past and talked about how we can condition our body in a safe way for all students. The conditioning focused on our attacking and blocking tools of the knuckles, forearms and knife hands. The importance of safe conditioning with a partner was stressed, ensuring everyone was comfortable and able to develop their tool strength.
Congratulations to Master Owen on the 20th Anniversary of his school, and thank you to all the students who attended. All the proceeds raised from the seminar will go to the UTA fundraising pot.
