June 2003 Newsletter
Hosted by Bethel Blue Wave
 GM Lee watching/coaching two men sparring in the late 1960's Dear Blue Waver's, Several weeks ago I asked my students to answer 2 questions, (in writing); they were:
I did not give much in the way of information prior to asking the question. The Black belts and higher gup ranks have been around long enough to hear me rant about "traditional" Taekwondo, but many students were not quite sure what I was after. I was really excited about the answers that were sent to me, here are a couple of excerpts: Primarily, (Taekwondo) has taken its place alongside other forms of ritualized combat, which we refer to as "sport." From Meso-American ball matches and North American Indian "baggataway" (which we know as "lacrosse"), to more modern incarnations (such as baseball, basketball, soccer, or hockey), competitive sport is an important forum for the use of physical skills, learned from years of study and practice, to defeat an opponent "according to the strict code." (Dan Cole – Yellow Belt) Following tradition is not the practice of consistent and unchanging rituals throughout history. All traditional bodies see their practices grow and evolve over time—think of the Orthodox Church or Baseball’s World Series. Tradition is carried out through two ways: lineage and love of the practice itself. (Peter Espenshade – Yellow Belt) Traditional Taekwondo in my view is "art" aspect of Taekwondo. It involves knowledge and practices that have been passed from generation to generation. To me this knowledge is ever changing and evolving....Thankfully Taekwondo has evolved to what we practice today...what some would call "modern Taekwondo". Being able to change and adapt to change is a tradition in of itself. (Todd Sayles – 2nd dan) There are at least 8 full time Taekwondo schools with in a 15 minute drive of the Burlington Blue Wave. I can confirm that at least 6 of them claim to teach “Traditional” Taekwondo. This causes a lot of confusion in the Taekwondo community. To bring attention to the fact that you teach Traditional Taekwondo would imply that some others do not. So exactly what IS Traditional Taekwondo? If you compare what the Blue Wave is doing today, to what it was doing 20 years ago, you would see a dramatic change in the technical aspects of our style of Taekwondo. We are doing a different set of forms, we are sparring differently with different rules, our basics are different, our stances are different, in fact, there is more different then there is the same. Many of these changes came about because of the Blue Wave’s shift to Kukki-Taekwondo, but even within the Kukkiwon style, Taekwondo has evolved dramatically over the last 20 years. However if you look a little deeper at the Blue Wave you will see many things have not changed. Summer Camp, Red Belts doing push ups, showing respect to your instructor, bowing to the flags, the Blue Wave logo, goal sheets, testings. The most import Blue Wave Tradition to Grandmaster Twing was that "The Blue Wave will be a positive influence in people lives." Many of my students wrote that basics, forms and one steps were "Traditional" Taekwondo, and sparring and paddle kicking was "sport" Taekwondo. This is a common misconception. Taekwondo, from its inception, was developed as a multi-faceted activity. Fitness, Self Defense, and Sport; competitive Taekwondo is as traditional as any of the other aspects. Many Taekwondo "Traditionalists" claim that sport Taekwondo is not only "non-traditional" but that it is only for young athletic individuals and leaves out everyone else. I like the Basketball analogy. Just because I don’t play for the NBA, doesn’t mean I can’t go to the school play ground and play in a pick up game...an American tradition, no matter what age or ability.  Ms. Lesley Hubert at 2002 U.S. Nationals I am looking forward to seeing everyone at Summer Camp; a Blue Wave event FULL of tradition, especially if you have never been before! Sincerely, |
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On Saturday May 31st. the annual Grand Master Bruce V. Twing Memorial Juniors Tournament was held at Whitcomb High School in Bethel Vt. All was set up and ready to go at the appointed start time of 11:00. As usual there were the familiar faces there to assist in setting up the chairs and tables, putting the mats together and registering the incoming contestants. Mr. King and Penny King set up a refreshments table in the lobby, which was a new addition this year that was much appreciated also. Many thanks go out for all the help getting set up. This year there were about 60 competitors between the ages of 6 and 17. Fighting was a double elimination so everyone got plenty of opportunity to fight. There were also opportunities to fight exhibition rounds. Poomse showed that all instructors are doing a great job with their students instructing Poomse. I like to judge, and this has impressed on me how many quality juniors the Blue Wave has coming along and are a real credit in every way to our Blue Wave association. This year there were many more Black Belts in attendance, so we had enough people to man the three matted rings. There was electronic scoring in all three rings, so this gave Black Belts good opportunity to use and practice their scoring skills. It does take a little getting used to, so the more you do it, the more comfortable you will be doing it. Each year we do this, we seem to get better at doing it. Of course we could not do it without the help of those that show up early to set things up. I am certain that as word gets out that this is really a quality tournament and a very much affordable tournament, that the number of competitors will go up. |
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Blue Wave had 11 competitors travel to New Orleans Louisiana for the 29th US Nationals Championships, Color Belt Extravaganza, ULTRA Championships and Junior Black Belt festival. Participants were:
Our Senior Black Belts, Ms. Hubert and Mr. Sayles won their first round fights.
Both of them drew previous national team members their second fight. After beating her first opponent 3 to 1, Ms. Hubert lost a tie to the eventual winner of her division. The final score was 5 to 4, with her opponent having 5 points, but 3 Kyungos. (1/2 point deductions) Because the tie was created due to deductions the competitor with the most points wins the match. Definitely a tough break. Mr. Sayles confidently won his first match. His second fight was Against Greg Cocci. (Some of you know Mr. Cocci, He is a national and team trial medalist from CT.) Mr. Sayles took a hard clash to the hip flexor in the first round which slowed him down a bit, but he continued to press the rest fight, unfortunately it was not quite enough. Bob "Terminator" Kline DOMINATED his sparring Division, shutting out his first opponent. Mr. Kline impressed the crowd scoring with body and head shots with true champion form to take gold in ULTA 52 and up Division. The entire team did extremely well; they all did VT and the Blue Wave proud! View the pictures from U.S. Nationals 2003. |
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Kevin Shangraw, Sanford 3rd Dan Steven Gadapee, East Haven David Elder, Woodsville Mike Livingston, Sanford Jordana Ramini, Sanford 2nd Dan Will Schild, Beverly Matt Elliott, Bradford 1st Dan Decided Sandra Pavlo, Burlington Ben Pierce, Kennebunk Quinn Ramini, Sanford 1st Dan Recommended Sue Cronin, Burlington Robert Olson, East Haven Kerry Robinson, Sanford |
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Friday night testing went well, starting almost on time 6:45 and ending at 9:30. The new format in which all ranks testing for 2nd degree and higher to be all testing in the same group shortens the night without removing content. Great Grandmaster Tae Sung Lee from Korea was in attendance for the successful promotion of all of the testing candidates. Saturday Morning began with introductions of the Visitors and masters. All late registrants were call up front and did pushups while Miss MaHoney talked about the merits of sending in the paperwork by the deadline. Awarded a new Blue Wave sweat shirt for being the first participant to register for the weekend went to Conner Williams from the Bradford DoJang. The award for being the last to register was Vincent Cassarino and he had to wear a yellow jersey and an orange jesters hat until Saturday night entertainment! Master Chuong from Maryland brought four students, Master Barber from Hanscom TKD brought eleven and Connecticut CDK came with fifteen. Burlington was recognized for having the largest number of participants (22). The Children were then split up from the adults, and the Lebanon DoJang brought them to the upstairs room for a morning workout session which included beach balls for part of their training. The adults remained in the main room to work on footwork drills with Master White. The second session had Great Grand Master Tae Sung Lee teaching Tae Guek poomse to the junior ranks with adult 2nd and 3rd Dans assisting. As the lower ranks got beyond their poomse level, adult black belts took the groups to other rooms to work with the individual levels on their poomse. The afternoon sessions had the junior ranks working with the Beverly DoJang on high kicking drills followed by a high kick completion. The adults worked with Master Anthony and Master Rathbun on the new modified self defense techniques. Several bruises were created. Afternoon Juniors match games gave the juniors a chance to spar against other dojangs, and gave 2nd and 3rd dans a chance to referee. There were many entertaining matches. In the afternoon session, the Juniors were set free while Black Belt forms (yudanga) were gone over with Grand Master Lee. Saturday night entertainment began with the Ice Cream Social. Red belts served the attendees with many different flavors. The Ice Cream Social has been a tradition of Blue Wave Summer and Winter Camps since the passing of Grand Master Twing in 1999. Master Twing was well know as a Ice Cream lover. We then gathered for a group photo with over 140 participants in it! Later a game of charades pitting dojangs against each other for a championship. Participants had to guess: Spiderman, cow eating grass, Lord of the Rings, Hosing down summer campers, One man baseball team and many others. The Woodsville dojang soundly beat all other dojangs and celebrated by going outside in their bare feet to run in the snow. Sunday morning began once again with the juniors leaving the main room to train with the Bradford DoJang. Mr. Emerson brought the kids down to the resorts swimming pool to do a Taekwondo related workout in the water. It was said to be very cold water! Master Blais did a morning workout with emphasis on strengthening techniques for TKD. Master Reed talked with us about first aid. He went over the basics of what to do when an injury occurs. He gave us a check list of what to do; Airway, Breathing and Circulation! He emphasized the need to get information ready for when rescue people arrive. Name, DOB, Address, allergies, history, medications etc. The last session of Winter Camp 2003 was adult match games. Many good matches were fought between the different dojangs. Closing ceremonies saw the presentations of dan certificates for candidates from previous testings. They were presented by Master White and Grand Master Lee. View the pictures from Winter Camp 2003. |
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The Blue Wave association recently purchased a second Ringmaster setup which was used at the Blue Wave Juniors tournament. Ringmaster is hardware and software used to score sparring and forms competition electronically. At the end of last year, the Blue Wave Association invested $1500 in the training and certification of 2 Blue Wave instructors in the SPEAR self defense system. This system will be implemented into the Blue Wave curriculum gradually, starting with the black belt work out in June. The Blue Wave Association will be providing 2 coaches with some financial support to attend the USTU Junior Olympics and coach 8 Blue Wave athletes that will be participating. |
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On Saturday May 17th, the Blue Wave Taekwondo School of Burlington VT participated in the Burlington Kids day parade. This is an annual event which brings dozens of local clubs and youth centered organizations together to march in a parade down Main Street. Blue Wave had a great group of participants; over 20 students marched, kicked, sparred and handed out over 500 brochures! Following the parade everyone headed back to the dojang for a juniors rank promotion testing. The following students were promoted:
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The Berlin Blue Wave organized a kick-a-thon to help raise money for the Bruce V. Twing Scholarship fund. They invited all the other Blue Wave gym to participate as well. So far, Berlin and Lebanon have had their Kick-a-thons, Lebanon raised $210 and Berlin raised $288! Here are the total number of kicks from the students in Berlin - each kick was waist height or higher, done in a 30 minute time frame:
Burlington Blue Wave emptied its "Gatorade Change Bucket" and came up with $125 to donate to the BVT fund. A kick-a-thon will take place in the fall. The Bruce V. Twing scholarship fund was set up in Grandmaster Twings memory to help Blue Wave students with the financial burden of tournaments, seminars and even monthly dues. |
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Winter Camp is long over... But it is now time to dust off the tent and camp stove! Summer Camp 2003 is right around the corner. WHEN: August 1 - 3 2003 WHERE: Tunbridge Fairgrounds VT WHAT: Black Belt testing, seminars, games, tons of FUN!! |