We were very lucky to host a Seminar with Master Ian Lawes VII Dan, who has 40 years of TaeKwon-Do knowledge to his name. We welcomed Master Lawes and guests from Blue Dragon TKD (Mr A Walkinshaw and Miss L Walkinshaw) before getting the day started with a black belt seminar.

Master Lawes worked through how the feet should move in sparring and then gave us a variety of drills to improve our speed and agility, particularly when kicking. The drills were then applied as we practised on kick shields, after 45 minutes of getting a sweat on the focus was moved onto fundamental movements and Master Lawes managed to cover everybody''s individual patterns before it was time to start the colour belt lesson.

We were introduced to a fun warm up with plenty of new ideas/challenges for the juniors to try,  these worked very well and everybody was enjoying the approach Master Lawes was using. Next we split off into 3 groups to practise consecutive kicking, with the adult group trying out the hardest combinations. Since it was remembrance Sunday, Shaftesbury Youth Club had arranged a remembrance service, in true TaeKwon-Do spirit we paused the lesson and took ourselves outside to take part in the service, this was accepted very well by the veterans and organisers. The seminar was resumed soon after, and finished by covering individual patterns.

The colour belt grading began in the afternoon, results will be posted shortly.

Shaftesbury TKD wishes to express our thanks to Master Lawes, and his wife, for travelling up to conduct the seminar. It was an excellent learning experience and overall a fantastic day for those who attended.