Over the August bank holiday weekend Alex and I attended a TaeKwon-Do training camp in Ireland put on by Senior Master Paul Cutler VIII degree. I should say that there is only one IX degree in the UKTA (our association), Grandmaster Rhee Ki Ha, and he is pictured in the bottom right of this image. The founder of TaeKwon-Do General Choi Hong Hi is pictured above him and Senior Master Paul Culter is the President of the UKTA and he shared many fascinating stories over the weekend.
The weekend included a lot of different types of training and you can see some of what we did in the pictures that I have included on this blog below. It was attended by adults and some children but not that many. Mostly black belts but a few colour belts too. It was a deeply inspiring experience.
This image captures a lot of things that are symbolic in TaeKwon-Do. What is not obvious however is that practitioners of the art view themselves to be part of a large family. Here we see someone from Nepal (with his back to the camera) with Mike Carr (III degree) and Senior Master Culter. Mike is not UKTA but he is ITF. Whilst there have been political issues all of us here train from what is written in the TaeKwon-Do Encyclopaedia through our instructors. Master Cutler's knowledge comes from the words written there and his conversations with Grandmaster Rhee. It really doesn't get much more authentic than that.
I love this picture; apart from all of the symbolic information if you look closely you can clearly see the teacher student relationship between Mike and Master Cutler. He is someone who cares a great deal about the generations who will carry the standard of TaeKwon-Do in to the future.
I hope you enjoy the images. If you train ITF style TaeKwon-Do I think that you should seriously consider attending one of his courses.
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