Mikey: 6 Months of Tae Kwon Do/ SE Open Results

In this blog, we will go over everything that has happened over the last month from how the SE Open tournament went to our gradings. So let’s dive right into it.

The SE Open Tournament:

The SE Open Tournament has arrived and it went rather well, while mainly being a learning event for me to dip my toes into what it was like to go to a bigger tournament. I only entered myself into patterns as that was what I was most interested in as it was the first one I wanted to do something I was confident in.

The Other Options Were:

• Sparring
• High-Kick
• Patterns
• Special Technique

As I’m now in the adult category I expected to lose most of my Patterns but I wasn’t there to win I was there to learn, to see what I could improve on If I won as a result of that then it was just a bonus. I ended up winning bronze and I got a trophy for my place in patterns. While I’m proud that my efforts so far got me a bronze I recognise that I still have a long journey ahead of me and I still have plenty of time that I could be utilising to further increase my studies.

What I Noticed:

Throughout the Event, I made an effort to see who I lost to, not because I didn’t want to lose but because they did something that the judges liked that I didn’t, I then made an effort to watch them do their next patterns to see how I could improve my technique. Luckily for me, this strategy of analysing others was made easier with how the scoring was done. As I was the first one up I was the benchmark so anyone who got more than 15 points in total from 3 judges ultimately did something better than me allowing me to analyse what they did and try and bring it into what I did, whether it was precision, power, technique, or confidence I was determined to make the most of the people around me.

The Overall Points of Improvement:

• Speed: I tended to rush certain parts of the pattern to make up for my lack of power and technique, however, it was this speed that can be seen as a lack of confidence.
• Technique: There were certain things that I needed to work on technique whether that was how I transitioned from each stance or to how I crossed my arms.
• Power: From how you block to how you stick you can see power in every move you make: From how you insert speed into power in the very moment of impact – like a non-Newtonian fluid.
• Flow: There was something about one other person there, the movements were fluid and yet sharp at the instance of a block or attack, If I can that’s where I want to be soon.

From this tournament I had grabbed concepts that I hadn’t picked up on during class time or independent study time, in fact even writing this blog is helping me remember to watch these things and practice them.

“Mistakes Are Simply, lesson waiting to be learnt”

The Lessons of Tae Kwon Do:

Week One:

Week one was mainly spent asking our Sabom (teacher) the little things from how I cross my arms to how I can implement signwave into every transition. Over this week I spent my time attempting to break into my mind that speed isn’t a measurement for success, it’s how well you know the basics.

“Speed isn’t a measurment for success, quality is”

Week Two:

This week was spent learning my new pattern. When learning a new pattern I like to break down each section and work out my stances and how to get from point A to point B. Within a few minutes, I had worked out the entire pattern and could perform it on the spot if needed.

Week Three:

This week was spent learning our new 3-step-sparing we already knew 1-2 so we had to learn 3-4, it was a bit different from what I was learning but I got the fundamentals of it so I’ve been practicing in my own time.

Week Four:

This week was spent putting it all together, we went through everything as if it was a grading and our patterns were done as if it was a competition and we were given pointers as to what we could improve on. Overall I think that this month was a highly productive one and offered lots of opportunities to learn more about how I can improve not only at Tae Kwon Do but also as a person.