Red and Black belt training – 20th Jan

Written by Mr Adam Swain (4th Degree – Bournemouth)

The latest red and black belt training was on Sunday 20^th January, straight after a 3 hour squad training session!

Master Gayle took the training session, and managed to cover most elements of the Taekwon-Do syllabus in two hours. The warm-up started with a good pulse raiser, working on reactions and kicking leading into some relay races with different exercises – including the “duck walk” to get the hips working (which Master Gayle made look effortless when demonstrating!)

The first topic we covered was freestyle 1-step sparring, with all grades looking at defences to a swung overhand punch. Mr Pixton was called upon to share his wisdom and experience from years training in multiple martial arts. His main advice was to play to your strengths, which for most of us is striking – although he did show us a very simple way to deflect the attack and reposition your opponent.

After a quick drink we were told to put our gloves on to practice some sparring drills.  These were nice and simple drills to improve our reaction speed and distancing.  They also gave us the opportunity to partner lots of people, mixing the black belts in with the red belts – it’s always great to work with new people; make new friends and share experiences.

To finish we did a couple of patterns in our own time – lined up facing the opposite direction to our usual facing at squad which added a level of confusion for the regular squad attendees.  To give us space in the hall the black belts performed first with the red belts watching and then we swapped over. The two hours flew by far too quickly, although as it was the end of 10 hours of training over two days there was a slight sigh of relief from my legs, and feet.

The photo album from the event can be found on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/pg/ProfessionalUnificationOfMartialArts/photos/?tab=album&album_id=977235915807946

The next session is on 17^th March, at Yate Academy from 11am until 1pm – make a note of the date, and I’ll look forward to seeing you there. You can check out the Facebook event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/231959234399829/