10.8.2012 / Summer Taekwon-do camp with Grand Master Hwang Ho-yong, VIII. dan

Summer camp with GM Hwang Ho Yong

My plan was not to write article from summer camp, not to make you bored and because my creativity is a bit drained. Finally I got kissed by muse a bi
t, so let me share few thoughts and photos. Camp traditionally took place in Sklárna naer Žihle which is an old and unattractive accommodation, with strange food, nearly no mobile signal and wifi connection that is even slower than my computer. Last two things are enjoyed only by backers of my kind.
One would anticipate that 10th camp will be special - VIP guests, many people, something more and sparkling, like when you celebrate your 18. birthday and want to make it legendary. But who says 10th should be better than eighth or first. Noone of Hwang Su Il or Kim Ung Chol´s caliber came, but I still enjoyed whole event a lot. I had my second opportunity in life to practice under national team coaches Jan Mraček and Jan Klaška, who are able to connect inteligent training with theory and lot of fun. I´ll definitely bring some stuff to my trainings.
I again had the pleasure to train under Paul Dekker (VI. Dan from Holland) and it was again original training, we did various special techniques for more than hour and when III. and IV. Dans from whole republic (and abroad) motivate each other (often nonverbally) it si just fun, no training. But our legs were sore for few next days :o)
Paul Knighton, VI. Dan from UK promised us, that training will be easy, so about half of our group were heavy breathing bended forward holding their knees during every break.
New experience was training with Alexandr (VI. Dan from Russia) - hard training, russian style, fast, sharp, but still clever. I was suprised that what they consider as basics, we do not know, for exaple how to start punching combination in sparring (hard to explain, may show you in reality).
Training with Martin Zámečník was interesting as always, I´ll remember forever "warm-up" sparring in groups of 6, when you had to fight everyone for about minute. Without protective gear with names like Kind, Kuba, Kolář, Komrska, Regan it was very motivating, just 3 KO strikes happened.
Kolář´s (Radek Kolář) rule of "every other camp" showed itself as correct, so also evenings were full of fun, but I consider it as part of Taekwondo as my best friendships in this art were always created upon hard training and nice evenings with both fun and serious talks.

So there were nothing really special at the camp, but despite of this, maybe it became legendary in minds of few. Maybe one have to learn how to enjoy things that come, despite of what he anticipate.

Thanks for the camp, few photos, mostly from trips will be available soon. Plenty of tobok photos are available on www.taekwondo.cz

Carpe diem

Martin Svitek