Archived News - January/February 2009

21st February 2009

NZ Visit In The Local Papers

Welcome To The Family

We would like to welcome Chris and Renae Perkins from Queensland to our ever growing academy.

Training Camp Part 2

By Ondrej, Nadine, Jasmine & Chad

Heading into our second week of our training in Korean we were more settled and had a clearer understanding of the training schedule. We also knew that the end was in sight for 3 of us as Ondrej was staying an extra 4 days alone.

(Lining up for our daily fix of rice, fish soup & kim chi - yummy)

Training was the same but we got to corner judge a few times when the high school came to the University to do some sparring practice. The set up was very professional with 4 full courts and electronic scoring system. We even saw one young man walk up to his coach after loosing and the coach “lightly” hit him on the legs with a wooden stick (don’t get any ideas Mr. Rawlins).

(Daily training that lasted for 3 hours)

We made good friends, attended English lessons and even sat in on an English exam, we won’t say whether we completed the exam but we certainly did pass a few correct answers around.

We were taken to a Korean show called JUMP and afterwards we were called back stage to meet the entire cast and crew. It was an honor and we got to take some good photos with them.

We went into Seoul City which was very clean and with all the snow and lights it felt so unreal. The people were all friendly and we were sitting in Burger King when an African American came up to us and introduced himself as LITTLE MIKE. He is an American rap artist and told us he was in Korea doing a video clip.

By now the food was really getting to all of us. We had had enough and hopefully rice is not on the home menu for the next couple of months!!!

While we were in Korea they were celebrating their Chinese New Year and we had to leave the University when it was closed for the festival. We were placed in home stay with “Lee” and his family and the food was so YUM. They were very hospitable towards us, helped us and took us out and about. They live on the 15th floor of their apartment building and the apartment was very neat, very clean (we think they vacuum every 15 minutes) and very compact but it was homely and this is when we started to feel the end is near. Here we got to have snow ball fights and Chad made snow angles.

(The group with the Lee family having dinner)

(Snow filled playground)

Ondrej and Chad were invited out to meet Korea’s top 3 coaches at the local pub. The girls had to stay home as it was a “men’s” thing. One of the coaches was our coach at the university and he coached the Beijing Gold Medalist who is a student at Dan Kook University. We were informed that we missed meeting him by one day. The evening went well and a good night was had by all.

The journey home was long and the plane was full. Saying goodbye to Ondrej was NOT hard – as we were coming home…....and that was all that mattered at that stage.

We flew into Singapore, slept over at the Ambassador Transit hotel, flew home the next morning and the sunshine and warm weather was most welcome.

Ondrej returned to the Uni, ate fish and rice, trained and longed for English companionship. On the Friday he came home to 40 degree’s and had 1 day to recover before starting school.

(Ondrej with new Korean friends)

The trip was a life time experience and one we probably would do again BUT we would take loads of food from home and a language translator.

We have made good friends who we chat to on MSN and we had crossed that bridge – the bridge between us and them. We are no where near as militant, commanding or disciplined as the Koreans BUT we have the drive, ambition and love for the sport which is just as important.

We would like to thank the following people who made this trip real:

Our parents for their sacrifice to fundraising

Mr. Taeho Umh who made this possible and the constant communication between Australia and Korea

Mr. Rawlins for advising us on this camp, we learnt a lot and we enjoyed it

Dankook University for the “warm” accommodation and generous helpings of fish, rice and kim chi.

Our Coaches in Korea for your patience and guidance

The Lee family for taking us in, your kindness and generosity

20th January 2009

Training Camp Part 1

By Ondrej, Nadine, Chad & Jasmine

We left Perth all excited and eager to start our Korean training adventure. Mr. Rawlins asked us to please wear our club shirts so that our coach would be able to spot us when we arrived in Seoul. It sounded like a good idea at the time but on arrival we were wondering whether Mr. Rawlins realised that we were going to temperatures of minus 6 degrees. We braved the cold and wore our shirts and were very quick to rug up after being spotted by our coach.

(The gang with their new Korean coach for the next 3 weeks at Incheon Airport)

We had a pleasant 3 hour trip back to the Dankook University where we settled in comfortably. Our rooms were neat and tidy and we unpacked quickly as we were eager to take a look around. Our first lesson in culture & tradition started early as Chad & Ondrej found out. They wore their shoes into their room and within minutes they had students trying to gesture “no no no” who they then came in and cleaned the whole room. Shoes were left outside after that. Ondrej liked the idea and said “maybe we should wear our shoes in our room everyday and that way our rooms will get cleaned”.

(Nadine, Jasmine & Ondrej, thinking about what their are in for, outside the university)

Our first week was a major cultural shock and we struggled with the language barrier but we managed and made a few friends. We knew early on that we were in for a hard time as we had no Australian coach, no one spoke English and for the first time we had to fend for ourselves and make decisions that would affect the 4 of us during our stay. We had to work together as a little team to make our stay enjoyable.

We were given a training program and our first reaction was “we are not machines”

The Koreans we stayed with at the university are full time taekwondo athletes who live, train and practice taekwondo 365 days a year. Their training is not measure on how many hours a week they train but on how many kicks a day they do. We found out that they were averaging 2500 – 3000 kicks a day. It was a huge shock to the system when we were woken up at 6am on our first official training day to do a 6km run in the snow. The boys managed to keep up with Jasmine & Nadine going at their own pace. After the run we were sent back to bed then woken for breakfast with another training sessions consisting of pad work and that’s when the kicks started. After lunch we had another training session followed by dinner and then weight training. We paced ourselves as we were in constant communication with Mr. Rawlins & our families with regards to our training limits.

(Ondrej & Chad checking out the frozen lake that they will be doing some of the training on)

We have over the past 8 days been able to adjust to the training schedule, the food and the people. We quickly made plans to find a take away that could provide us with a greasy meal just to give our stomachs a change from all the rice we had been given to eat. We never want to eat rice again!

So far we have had sparring sessions with both the university & local high school students. The sparing is great. You spar until you loose and then you sit out. When everyone had finished their rounds you start again. In the beginning the boys would avoid Chad & Ondrej but it did not take long for the coach to click what was happening and made the Korean boys team up with our boys. The 4 of us can confidently say that we have achieved so much more in the training side of taekwondo. We have learnt a lot about life as a permanent taekwondo student, the tremendous amount of training discipline and about sticking to a plan.

We are heading into our final week and there is still alot for us to do. We will be celebrating Chinese New Year in style followed by a visit to Kukkiwon & Lotte World.

Part 2 will follow shortly with more on our training and some of the fun and highlights of our stay.

Welcome To The Family

(The Perkins family at the Commonwealth Championships in chilly Canada)

As the reputation and standard of our centres grow, more and more people are joining our Centre. Chris and Renae Perkins are two such members. They have made the transfer from their original club in Queensland to develop and learn more under the guidence of Mr. Rawlins.

Chris will also be teaching and running his own club in Queensland under our banner and with his expertise in Team Management, Coaching & Referring, Chris will be a great assets to our centres (he was the National Team Manager for the 2008 Australian Team that participated in Canada at the Commonwealth Championships as well as Manager for the Queensland Team on many occasions). He is also on the Queensland Coaching Board.

Renae even though still a junior has a bright future ahead of her. She is currently the 2008 National Junior Champion in her division (46 - 49kg). She also represented Australia this year in Canada at the Commonwealth Championships and has won 7 National Titles in every year that she has competed in.

Our new Queensland club will be family-run club with Chris being assisted by his older daughter Lauren (a past National Champion & National Team Member) along with Renae and keeping a close eye over everything will be Karen (Chris's wife and mother bear) who was also the National Team Chaperone in Canada.

As you can see, it is a great team, and we welcome the whole Perkins family to our family.

11th January 2009

Special Training Camp

Four of our members have taken the brave step to travel to Korea during their January break to live and train in the home land of Taekwondo.

Jasmine & Chad Cross, Nadine & Ondrej Venter have our best wishes and admiration as they will be training for 3 weeks in Korea while the rest of us are still enjoying our break.

These 4 young and dedicated students will be no doubt be training hard, with other Taekwondo enthusiasts from 10 other countries at a special training camp in Korea.

9th January 2009

Oh The Fun...

More than 300 members, their friends and their families turned up for our annual Adventure World Christmas fun day. The weather was teasing with the chance of a few showers but no one was worried as they were going to get wet anyway (everyone except Mr. Edwards that is).

(What is Mrs Edwards doing?? Oh he has made himself a little tent to keep the rain out)

After some bagging from Mr. Rawlins and the rest of the people he decided to get right into it by challenging every and anyone on the speed slide and he beat everyone.

Mr Rawlins said that it was the way you are built that gives you the speed.

After beating everyone on the speed slide there was no stopping him as everyone was fair game for him as he kept the fun and games coming. Enjoy the photos.

Everyone that attended had a great day and all went home with fond memories and I'm sure some sun burnt bodies. It was a tremendous way to see the year off. See you all in 2009.