3.2.2019 / Czech national championship

How great it went at Nationals

You probably understand from title, that I really enjoyed what we did at Czech national championship 2018 this weekend and I believe I am not only one from Sonkal.

Few things were different this year. First our preparation – we focused autumn trainig camp on competitors (nearly) only. So we have enough place, time and focus to really do advanced things. Second – Nationals were only for red belts and above with blue allowed to compete if they´ve accepted rules for „A group“. Third all sparring matches were for 2 two minutes rounds with 30 second break. I was a bit afraid from point of view of instructor and coach, because of (often problematic) cardio, but we changed our trainings and did the same or better than our opponents.
Training camp went well, everyone trained hard and with good mood so I think nearly everyone look forward Championship itself. And who did not was motivated by possibility to leave car on highway so after all everyone was looking forward :o)

This year´s Nationals were at Vodova hall in Brno, we were accomodated in nice hotel Prometheus. Friday evening got colourful also because of possibility to watch first full thaiboxing rules match of Jan Mraček. Jan is chief national team coach and sport Taekwon-do legend. I came on time from coaches meeting, looking forward to it, I just ordered beer. Beer was poured in quickly, but Honza was quicker. I saw just last punches and slow motion as Jan Mraček finished his fight in about 90 seconds. Despite of this it was nice adrenalin motivation for upcoming competing, seeing such an experienced fighter to still strive for improvement.

Good sleep, early wake up and at 8 AM we were in sports hall warming up, correcting slight mistakes, motivating each other. I don´t want to list all achievments, if you are interested you may check it on website „successes“ or you already know. We got many cups – Jan Veškrna, Karolína Chmelíková and Terka Štekerová got one for the best competitors of their age group. And there were more of us not achieving such a title, but being near to it. Nice surprise was cup for second most succesful school on tournament, with only GBHS in front of us (with nearly 100 competitors, Sonkal had 24!!) and very sport progressive Karviná behind us.

I have nice overview of how we did as I spent most of weekend on chair shouting, advicing, showing kicks and combinations (still seated) and cheering. Everyone did well, everyone may be proud of themselves. Both the ones with cups/medals and ones without. As blue belt being able to did well against black belt is worth of respect as the one who is able to beat everyone and shows how universal warrior he/she is winning patterns, sparring and breaking.

Two round sparring brought suprising change for me. Normally we fight for one 3-minute round with tiredness at the end that often lead to fact that people are not able to „listen“ to the coach. Now I had 30 seconds what is not enought to speak a lot, but is enought to say important. And in second rounds it looked like different fight even like different people fighting. I think we also need to train this way. After one round of sparring reflect on it, choose mistake or focus („I cannot reach with hands“ or „lets try multiple kicks as we train them“ or „what about dolmyo chagi“..) and try to change my fighting in next round. So not to try to win in all training matches, but to improve in all. We showed that we are able to win in everything or at least to be good rivals in everything. We did well where we had no chance few years ago. And last but not least, taking care of camera, shouting, cheering, helping was natural and noone had to remind it. So we worked as great group of friends that has to be counted with.

So I have just two „problems“ I want to mention and with mentioning it I want to bring positive changes in future. First – we still have problem with front leg kicks. We kick well generally, but are not able to consecutively kick with power with front leg. I have to mention Věra Vomáčková, experienced competitor and national team member from Hwa-rang school. She is in age where we may understand decreasing kicking ability, but I haven´t seen better front leg kicker through this competition. Second is philosophic problem. We often decide not to train high heights special techniques, because „I don´t have chance against him and him“ or I don´t train power breaking becuase „I am small“ or „They will do it in team so it is unreasonable to try“. But this thinking approach leads to state of things where I don´t allow myself to improve genereally and colourfully. If I don´t train things that other people are better in, I wouldn´t train anything. To be honest there would even be people better in doing nothing. And speaking about tournaments and medals – one who is better than me may stop his traning, injure, change age cathegory and that will be time when I become best through tranining. Same counts for team competition. When we have three people able to break three techniques it is possible to win, but also to become team with not to be counted with next year. If we all train power breaking for example, we may come to situation where two team members are able to break everything, one most of techniques and rest of people are able to break (or jump to) at least one. And then it is hard not to win :o)

And that is all from me. I hope we will cotinue enjoying Taekwon-do in future.

Mgr. Martin Svitek, V. Dan, Sonkal Praha