We left sunny Camborne at around half eight and met up with the rest of the team at Chiverton and then Fraddon, taking a convoy of four cars and a minibus which included a staggering twenty seven competitors! The journey up was surprisingly flawless as we had anticipated the traffic to be a lot worse due to the bank holiday weekend. In the end the only real snag was that the ‘fun bus’ was restricted to sixty miles an hour so it took a little longer than normal to reach Bedford and the service stations were absolutely stacked out. When we arrived we had a quick drink at the bar and had a meal in the restaurant before retiring to our rooms.
Day One – Hyungs
I didn’t sleep very well and subsequently woke up on the first day of the tournament feeling very tired and groggy. I had been lying in bed going through my forms over and over in my head which also meant that I was suitably nervous about the day ahead and wasn’t really in the correct frame of mind. Up until the Friday I thought that the competition was being held in the private school where the British championships were hosted last year, so I must have missed the venue change somewhere along the line and had to adapt to a completely new venue. It was quite a big hall and had a large tier for spectators, which obviously adds to the pressure and as the various teams entered the building the place really started to fill up.
The line up at the start was amazing and it is a humbling experience being stood beside martial artists from all over Europe. There were speeches from Kwan Jang Nim Salm, Sa Bam Nim Kumar and also a representative of the mayor of Bedford who seemed to struggle quite a bit with the pronunciation of our art! We were then treated to a display from an Indian martial art called ‘Gatka’ including various weapon displays, open hand self defence techniques, a rather disturbing ‘knife in the eye’ demonstration, and their Master (?) pouring salt into his open eyes, blindfolding himself and then cutting various fruits and vegetables off five of our volunteer Sa Bom Nim’s body parts with a large sword. All accompanied by a drum beat performed on what appeared to be a double skinned djembe or darbouka and hit with about a ten inch thin beater, similar to a bodhran beater.
The day followed the same format as normal which means the Masters perform their Hyungs to everyone on one mat, followed by the dan grades on all of the various other mats which then frees them up to referee for the rest of the day. The highlight of all tournaments is watching your own instructor performing on the biggest stage, and as expected he secured our first medals of the day, albeit with a torn chest muscle against the advice of his doctor, very naughty. We also managed to claim medals from our dan grades and then my category was called a little earlier than I had expected. As I have mentioned before in my last two updates I have been apprehensive about performing my two hyungs as they are the most challenging forms I have learnt yet. The one I was most concerned with though was Bassai as there are so many mistakes that you have to watch out for when performing it and I have only been practicing it for the last six months which might seem like a long time but is absolutely nothing when it comes to martial art forms! It was certainly not my best performance of the form and I know I can do it so much better, but this is generally the case at big tournaments so I was more than happy to claim a bronze afterwards. Bassai is a really nice form and I think it will be my chosen tournament form for a while but it definitely needs a lot more work yet!
My second category was called about an hour later and I was a little more relaxed having already been on the mat in front of the judges and knew what to expect. Chil Sung Sam Ro is one of my favourite forms at the moment and I was looking forward to performing it although I have a sneaky suspicion that I would have been preferred to do a form down, which is probably right from what actually transpired. Chil Sung Sam Ro’s movements cover an imaginary ‘T’ shape which means that you have to start the form at the front of the mat otherwise you will end up walking off the mat if you start from the normal central position. To begin the form I walked to the normal place I would start from which was at the front, but was told to move back to the centre. I looked nervously at my team mate and gingerly took about two steps backwards but was told to move further back again. It was at this point that the judges started to debate between themselves (obviously spotting the problem) and we were eventually told to stand where we would normally stand when performing the form.
The problem was that the centre judge doesn’t teach Chil Sung Sam Ro at his school so obviously didn’t spot the issue with the positioning, secondly he also queried that the form might be a little high for a first gup grade (something I thought might happen) but eventually we were allowed to perform it. I wont go into to much detail as it is done now but the scoring was in my opinion a bit muddled and on another day I might have scored a little higher but again, I was extremely happy to claim my second bronze medal and ultimately another for the Cornish team. That meant I was then free to watch the lower grades perform their forms and offer any help or advice if needed. I was very impressed with our team and our technical ability was clear to see. We were definitely the best team there from a Tang Soo Do view point and this was also mentioned by a number of senior grades throughout the day which was a testament to all of our hard work and effort in the months leading up to the event. That evening we had a drink or two at the bar and headed out for some food before again retiring back to the hotel rooms.
Day Two – Sparring
I woke up on Sunday feeling considerably better than the morning before and was nowhere near as nervous as the previous day. I think this is mainly down to the fact you realistically only have a couple of rounds of sparring and that’s it which means it’s not as hard as one of our Viper Squad sessions by a west country mile. That said, I knew that I would probably be up against some very tough opposition and I have an uncanny ability to predict who I will have in my first fight, which I managed to do again this time round. The day started in the same way as before with the Masters showing us all how it should be done and then filtering down through the various ranks. As before we had already harvested a lot more silverware before it came to my category with my instructor and seniors all claiming medals.
Somehow I always seem to be up first in my sparring category and this was the case again. As mentioned I had already predicted who my fighter was going to be and have trained with him before at a mixed styles seminar last year. The overall team instructions were to immediately score the first point within seconds using a blitz combination to instantly put yourself in the lead and to unnerve your opponent. This worked perfectly for me and I scored literally within seconds. My mistake was that I went for exactly the same technique again and took an extremely hard kick to my weak left side ribcage. I was told that the kick was thrown blind and with far too much force, but I didn’t see it and was foolish to use the same combination twice. I knew it was pretty bad as I have broken ribs in the same place before and couldn’t breathe properly and was in lots of pain. The people from the St Johns Ambulance were amazing and I am very thankful for all their help but at the time all I wanted to do was finish the fight as I was in the lead. Unfortunately I was told I was not permitted to continue and that was my tournament over.
I was extremely disappointed as looking back I think I would have done quite well, and it took me a long time to bring myself up again and join the rest of the group. It’s just one of those things I guess and I am now gunning for the British Championships later in the year to put it right. After the final line up and bow out we rushed back to the hotel for a very quick shower and then back out again for the banquet and after party. As soon as we got there the drinks were flowing and before any food was even served people were on the dance floor and partying hard. It was very bizarre but we all had a fantastic night and everyone all through the ranks let their hair down in style. The party continued long into the night culminating in the entire Cornish team back in our hotel room. Awesome!
It was an amazing weekend and has completely inspired me to improve myself and work towards the British Championships and then the World Championships in Florida which were announced to take place on the 15th August 2011. I always dread tournaments, but nothing else fills you with such pride afterwards and the feeling of being part of such an amazing team is an honour. I would like to thank my instructor and all of my team mates for being extremely awesome people, I admire each and everyone of you.
Tang Soo!!
