Day 1 - Arrivals

This part of Egypt is peaceful in such a way that you feel instantly still the moment you’re submerged in her warm rich air. Especially in the middle of the night. The man who greeted us in arrivals was Bedouin. I greeted him with ‘Salaam’ rather than a Westerner’s ‘Hi’ :). He bowed his head, gently thumping his chest twice in respect,  and what I now suspect to be sincere gratitude. I’m fairly certain that we didn’t make eye contact again afterwards. He drove us the hour (or so) trip through miles of what look like dark silhouetted quarries, back to Dahab, and my full memory of our last visit returned. It was dark, in its own way this may be a beautiful place (to me it feels as if all the life and colour were washed into the Red Sea as these mounds of rock are pretty barren), so memory came through my other senses this morning. The smell and feel of the air, and then the sounds... it isn’t ever noisy, certainly not at 4am but it is never completely silent here either. To help you to imagine, it reminds me of the opening moments in a film called ‘The English Patient’. There is a collage that includes the most beautifully sung voice against suggestions of bells, movements, memories. I’m always reminded of the mood of that sequence when I travel here; that mystery, suggestions of another world I know is beyond my own life. So we sat in the car as we had done during Ramadan the year before, listening again to the sung prayers mixed with layers of static and talk, not bothering to compete for attention. And with this opening soundtrack we passed slowly through several poorly lit dissinterested checkponts and between the craggy silouettes, and finally arrived at the familiar town and cheap divers hotel that will become our home. Now, after roughly 4 hours of sleep I’ve watched the 9am diving group load tanks for their underwater safari, and imagine that we never actually left this enchanting place at all. 

A beautiful statue

Gran Canaria

Writer's block brought me here.

21 pages of Chapter 1

Feeling extremely encouraged today. I've just finished the penultimate edit for the first draft of the first 21 pages of Chapter 1 (grin). Had some extremely positive feedback about the analysis and feel that there is some momentum gathering now (grin again).

Finally!

Intermental Development Zone

Following Vygotsky's concept of Zone of Proximal development [ZPD], Fernandez, Wegerif, Mercer and Rojas-Drummond introduce the concept of the Intermental Development Zone [IDZ]. 

ZPD - When a non-expert works with an expert (so a child with a teacher), this concept refers to the zone in which the non-expert can achieve more with help from the expert than they could have without it. Often accompanied by the concept of Scaffolding; a teacher may set up a frame in which a child can lead and progress their cognitive development.

4 stages of ZPD (From Mercer and Littleton... I can provide full references if anyone is interested)
1 capable other scaffolds for the student
2 the student takes over scaffolding
3 task activity becomes automatic
4 can return to previous stages 1 or 2

The emphasis however is on cognitive development

‘…The zpd is now seen as providing a way of conceptualizing the many ways in which an individual’s development may be assisted by other members of a culture, both in face-to-face interaction and through the legacy of artefacts that they have created.’ (Gordon Wells in Dialogic Inquiry in Education: Building on the Legacy of Vygotsky

But ZPD as a concept is too static. The expert and non-expert create a space for communication (Mercer and Littleton) IDZ embraces how teacher and learner embrace changing states. It focusses on the nature of communicative processes.


IDZ - '...is represented in talk by references to shared experience, but can also be sustained by tacit invocations of common knowledge.' (Littleton & Mercer)

TaeKwon-Do info about belts

If you read the posts about the TaeKwon-Do summer camp (below) and you don't do TaeKwon-Do here is some information about the belt system following sensible feedback from a good friend :-)

The colour belt students have to progress through a sequence of Kups in their training towards black belt. There are practical applications:
- the instructor can see from your belt colour what you should know and what you should be able to do at your level, helpful in larger classes or when attending seminars in other locations)
- you line up in the Dojang (training room) in belt order with white belts at the back and seniors in front of them. This means that you are able to see more experienced practitioners performing techniques.

I'm sure there are more but I'm supposed to be working on my PhD!

I am not sure about the following points so I hope that someone will post the correct information below.
White belt signifies the beginner and no previous knowledge of TaeKwon-Do. I'm not sure if there was always a belt system, it just became darker (you should never wash your belt) until you'd been training for so long it became black.

Now the system is as follows

White
Yellow tag
Yellow
Green tag
Green
Blue tag
Blue
Red tag
Red
Black tag 
Black

You are permitted to take a grading after 3 months with your instructor's permission. If you manage to pass with a strong pass then you can do your next grading sooner than that with permission. I'm not sure but I think that the waiting time get's a little longer after blue belt anyway. It is possible for someone to reach blackbelt in 2 years or even less time however I personally plan to consolidate now and take my time. I have trained for 18 months and plan on taking at least 2 years before grading for a black belt. It is a motivating and very well structured system however as you progress through the beginner grades it becomes clear that TaeKwon-Do is fosters personal feeling and understanding about movement. There is a lot of conditioning and my view is that it should be enjoyed in the moment, not as ambition for achievement; there is always something to work on.

Once you have reached Black you are considered first degree, or first dan as it is often called.
If you are below the age of 13 and a half your belt has a white stripe running its length which is removed at that age.

The black belt has a lot of things written on it. The tenets of TaeKwon-Do, your name, the signature of our first Grandmaster Rhee Ki Ha. Anything else anyone? I'm not a black belt yet so I'm not sure.

After a year, if you are considered ready, you can take your second degree grading.
2 years your 3rd degree
3 years your 4th degree (4th degree means international instructor)
4 years 5th degree
5 years 6th degree
6 years 7th degree (and become a Master)
7 years 8th degree (and become a Senior Master)

There is only ever one 9th degree and that is our Grandmaster Rhee Ki Ha

Please correct me if any of this is not right. Also if you know of a good website that explains the system please post it so that others can look at that for reference.

Senior Master Paul Cutler has been training for 36 years (if I heard him correctly at the weekend)

Grading

I've posted lots of information about the summer camp below but missed out the grading. Yesterday I was tested for promotion to blue belt. I performed the pattern Yul-gok (not without a wobble in bending stance still) but with snappier kicks and reasonable height I think. Pauline also performed her red belt pattern, very snappy and smart it was. We did some two step and one step sparring and then free sparring and then finished with theory and breaking.

Despite working on my breaking all weekend I failed to brake with either turning kicks and reverse turning kick. I was given the opportunity to choose my technique and broke with a side kick. I chose a hand technique (elbow strike) and broke a green board with that too and then the examining instructor suddenly left the room. He returned with a pile of wooden boards which were brought down onto the top of the breaking horse with a dramatic force that threw out a cloud of wood dust into the faces of the two assisting blackbelts. One board was fitted to the holder and Master Cutler simply said 'reverse turning kick, your choice of leg'. So I lined up and smashed right through it... phew! Three breaks = good result.

The grading examiner was Senior Master Paul Cutler VIII degree.

Blue belt is a time when I'm told that many people give up training. I'm going to put on the breaks and focus on conditioning and technique now and not grading for a while so that everything feels really solid before putting red on the belt.

TaeKwon-Do summer camp with Senior Master Paul Cutler

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.

TaeKwon-Do summer camp with Senior Master Paul Cutler

Senior Master Paul Cutler demonstrating a high section twisting kick. This was not posed for my camera incidentally, it was extremely fast and you can see how accurate too. 

TaeKwon-Do summer camp with Senior Master Paul Cutler

IV Degree black belts working on patterns.

I was given permission to stay and photograph this black belt seminar. It was a very special opportunity to see teaching at such a high level and I learned quite a bit whilst trying to get some snaps that express the sense of atmosphere in the room at this time. You have to imagine the sound of training I'm afraid but if you are familiar with ITF TKD then you will have idea. Very inspiring.

TaeKwon-Do summer camp with Senior Master Paul Cutler

Senior Master Cutler 

TaeKwon-Do summer camp with Senior Master Paul Cutler

Our Dojang and most of the students with Senior Master Cutler.

TaeKwon-Do summer camp with Senior Master Paul Cutler

One of the guys from Nepal spent an enthusiastic hour breaking in the air so I tried to get a few snaps.

TaeKwon-Do summer camp with Senior Master Paul Cutler

Bang!

TaeKwon-Do summer camp with Senior Master Paul Cutler

The breaking equipment. This is one of the red belts preparing two boards for breaking.

TaeKwon-Do summer camp with Senior Master Paul Cutler

Party time

TaeKwon-Do summer camp with Senior Master Paul Cutler

We were given other activities to do over the weekend. Rock climbing (unfortunately in heavy rain) and an assault course. We stayed with the same team of people for everything and it was wonderful getting to meet and know them. This is a picture of the people in my team working together. 

TaeKwon-Do summer camp with Senior Master Paul Cutler

 

We were joined by 3 people from Nepal. They threw themselves into everything and demonstrated some impressive kicking (as you will have seen already from previous images). It was exciting to have them around. 

Senior Master Cutler inspecting the schedule before our 'show'

You'll see from the next post what is happening here. I've posted this because it seems like a good natural picture.

TaeKwon-Do summer camp with Senior Master Paul Cutler

In our teams we were asked to choose a film... then given the task of presenting it or a scene from it with a TaeKwon Do twist. This is just one of the many very silly pictures I have. Can you guess what the film is? I'll tell you in a moment. I should say that you can see me here with Lucy on my back. Lucy is almost 14 and already a blackbelt (there is a picture of her kicking in the sea later). 

Ok so our film was The Blues Brothers and we were performing car chases! Hilarious though.