So we are one week back today (Wednesday) and the thoughts of Korea are still very vivid. What an incredible experience. The championships, the festival, the cultural experience, just incredible. To be apart of team Ireland for this trip is something that can't be forgotten easily. Obviously it was a great trip for a number of reasons, my test, the students performance at the tournament, the experience of coaching at that level, being around some great people from across the globe and spending time with Master Choi and Master Dalton.

All the tough training certainly paid off, it was well worth all that effort. All that extra time on the mat, all those early mornings, the diet plans, the weight cutting, the hard slog of fundraising and the team building wasn't lost on everyone, and the results speak for themselves.

The World Taekwon-Do Festival was the first of the events to happen. This event saw both fighters from the WTF and the ITF compete along side each other in an amazing display of sport Taekwon-Do. Some of these WTF guys are savage kickers, explosive. Competing in the Festival for us was Lauren, Erika and Donna in the colour belt sections, Neidin and Alvy competed in the black belt sections.

The sections were huge, filled with competitors from Russia, Argentina, Uzbekistan, England, Korea and many more nations, all expecting the big G.O.L.D.
After the coaches meeting the draws were issued and for the first time we were able to see who faced who. The two girls, Erika and Lauren weren't phased by having to face some countries who boast the best TKD fighters in the world, if they were, they didn't show it!

They were first up to perform and boy did they perform, winning gold in their sparring sections and in patterns, Lauren took silver and Erika bronze. Erika looked very nervous in the patterns division, there was big expectations on her to perform well as she has medalled in every home tournament to date in patterns. She did a great Do San but she was the lowest ranking belt in the division so was up against some superb performances of Joong Gun and Yul Gok where beautiful side kicks will always score good marks. Never the less, she did us proud. As did Lauren who had to battle her way through a large section to meet an Argentinean girl in the final of the patterns, the girl did a near perfect Hwa Rang, technically very good, she had great acceleration and sine wave, she deserved the gold but Lauren was in great form winning the silver. I told you all many moons ago when she was an 8 year old white belt to watch out for her on the world stage. Told you so :)

Donna also competed very well in the patterns making her way to the final also. To think all of our competitors made it to the finals is mind blowing. She faced Russia in the final of her patterns and the final of her sparring she met Argentina. Tactically in the final of her sparring if she had have used her straight right a bit more she would have taken the girl, but it was a great performance a great result again on the international stage. She has the right attitude when it comes to competing, just get in and do it!

The black belts were another ball game altogether, the standard at that level was second to none and the contact was very hard, which suits the Irish. Neidin was performing the best she's ever performed in my opinion and she took a gold in sparring, Alvy was in a different league facing opposition like he's never faced before and got a rude awakening when he went out in the first round against Russia. However he was slotted onto the Irish men's team for the festival as Leon Brydon had to pull out due to an eye injury he was protecting. He redeemed himself on the team winning his fights and helping the team push through to the final where they met Greece and beat them easily, Alvy's inexperience in terms of ring craft caused him a loss as one final warning for exiting the area made it three warnings and a minus point which caused the scroll on the computer scoring to move over to his Greek opponent in the last ten seconds. Never the less it was a gold medal for team sparring in the festival so it was a great result. Neidin also won herself a gold medal in power breaking, smashing 7 boards with the side kick, which raised a bow from Master Choi up in the VIP section.

Master Dalton asked me to coach the team for the festival, this was a huge honour for me. It was a great learning experience and our tactics worked well.

World Championships

The Worlds were next, and the festival proved a useful warm up for the championships. There were over 2000 competitors altogether and the coaches meeting went on into the night as the draws were scrutinised. Competitors came from all over the globe to compete in Korea, and why wouldn't they, it's the chance of a life time.

It was great for our competitors to see such a standard, it's a standard to aspire to and very much achievable. The approach we've taken over the last few years to up our standard has worked well, but we must keep training and aspiring to that level. The level the Argentineans reach all the time.

The medals weren't as free flowing at the worlds! To earn a medal in this tournament you had to fight through sections with up to 40 in them over 5 and 6 pools. None the less, Neidin proved her worth as she battled through countries such as USA, Canada and Australia to meet the current world champ in the semi where after a very tough battle she lost out to Kimberley Bradshaw from England. The high point was the New York state trooper breaking her hand off Neidin's forehead! This was Neidin's debut as a senior too, some step up isn't it? To go from junior to senior at the worlds, nearly unfair, but she rose to the challenge in fairness to her winning three bronze in the championships, the only black belt to do so.

Alvy had a fierce battle in his first round against Canada which went over four rounds before Alvy stole the winning point with a well placed jumping punch. This fight took the steam out of him as he struggled against the US in his next fight but he took the win. In the next round awaited Jemaine Hemmings, current WAKO world champion. Getting past Jemaine was going to take a miracle at this stage as Alvy was shattered. As predicted Jemaine took the win and went on to face Christian Oriolani from Spain in the next round with Christian winning, only to be put out by Argentina in the next round, what happened after that I can't remember, the section went on for hours and there was no chance of us medalling there, not this time anyway. Maybe in the future, but that's up to Alvy.

For myself I also had the opportunity of participating in the first ever International seminar held at the World Taekwon-Do Education Centre in South Korea. You can keep your TKD palace Kim :) this place was great with some super instruction from international masters, including our very own Master Dalton and of course Master Choi Jung Hwa who taught patterns and theory of power to both ITF and WTF black belts.

The cultural experience however was the best part for me. The Koreans are beautiful people, very courteous and extremely helpful. The food was unreal and I got used to the kim chi after a few portions of it. The trip to the Buddhist temple was a great experience also, this is where we spent time with Master Choi who was in great form throughout the two weeks while we were there. Meeting him in the hotel lift he was in a buoyant mood as he told us the the ITF finals were carried on the main news network as well as live on Korea's sports channel. He told us that some Korean people were concerned initially as they thought it was some trick being played by North Korea on South Korean TV!

There are so many great memories about this trip, it was a valuable learning experience for us all on many levels, it was an opportunity to see the good aspects of some people and learn about their way of life.

I hope to return to Korea someday, and learn more about its people and its culture.

I couldn't finish this blog without mentioning our guide over the course of ten days, Eui Tae Jeong was one of the nicest guys you could meet. He was very helpful to us all and in a way he automatically became part of the Red Star team, it was sad to say goodbye to Eui Tae but hopefully we will meet him again sometime.

감사합니다 Eui Tae.