Mr Mark Skyrme, Miss Catherine Divine and Mr Matthew Brunger travelled to the US to support Master Nicholls Seminar in Philadelphia.

Report by: Mr John Szostek USITF

The weekends Masters Seminar was a tremendous success on many levels. The seminar and testing were jam pack with great technique, superior power, and a whole lot of fun.

Friday evening brought about a Black Belt testing with a panel of Master that would make any student, Instructor or even Master nervous. The testing panel consisted of Master Trevor Nicholls, Master Robert Wheatley, Master Bill Lees, Master Gordon Jue and Mr. Parm Rai. Three Instructors were successfully promoted to there next level after the extensive and may I say very comprehensive grading. The standard of grading for the ITF is second to none.

Saturday morning brought a jam packed hall with a 100 plus Instructor waiting for Master Wheatleys morning seminar session. Master Wheatley began by covering the technical aspect of TaeKwon-do. Master Wheatley started by going over the body lines diagram to make sure every practitioner would understand all his commands, and be able to perform the technique correctly without too much demonstration. He further went on to cover some pattern work and power development in patterns. He also covered Dodging and its application to tournament sparring. He demonstrated the purpose and effectiveness of this technique.

ITF President, Grand Master Choi Jung Hwa paid everyone a much appreciated visit at around 11:00Am. President Choi stayed and had lunch with everyone and answered many questions for instructors of the ITF. Its was a great honour to have President Choi come and observe everyone working hard to maintain and preserve the Art that his father created for the world.

The afternoon session was instructed by Master Trevor Nicholls. For us here in the USA this was an opportunity to train with one of the United Kingdoms Greatest Masters, and his teaching was everything and more then was expected. Master Nicholls covered the natural kinetic linking of body musculature and its application to maximizing power of technique in a natural motion. Master Nicholls lesson we punctuate at the end when he added a little fun to the seminar. All instructor who wanted to apply the learning from the afternoons session were ask to a breaking challenge. The instructor who felt the were good power breaker paid $5 to see how many boards they could break with any kick, and winner taking all the money. The catch was it started with 10 boards. After all the instructors pounded away. The top break was 5 broken out of the 10 boards. But before the money was collected Master Nicholls himself stepped up to the 10 boards and with one back kick demolished all 10 boards. Master Nicholls still let the student with the 5 Boards collect the winnings. But this was a great treat at the end of a fantastic day.

Mr. Rai also spent some time going over proper sine wave, some conditioning exercises and finish with a talk on the Do of TaeKwon-Do. It was great to have Mr. Rai with us for most of the seminar training. We usually see him teaching with President Choi, But having him right next to us training was another great treat.

I would like to thank Master Nicholls and Master Wheatley for a great weekend, and all the Instructor and students in attendance for making this event a tremendous success.