My annual trip to South Africa in January and February this year was quite a blessed one. Apart from spending some quality time with family and friends, I also had the opportunity to visit several martial art schools and friends.
In Cape Town, I visited the Instructor Jaren Philips' ITF Taekwon-Do school in Green Point, where I shared some thoughts on Korean body culture and the overlap between Taekkyeon and ITF Taekwon-Do.
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With black belts at the Green Point Dojang.
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In Kwa-Zulu Natal I visited my friends at the Pinetown Stingers Dojang where we practiced some of break-falling and joint-manipulation techniques.
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| With some members of the Pinetown Stingers Club. |
In Centurion I presented an ITF principles seminar with participants attending from the greater Pretoria region, Potchefstroom, and the Vaal Triangle. The workshop centered on re-thinking how we apply fundamental motions in a practical manner that makes full use of different possibilities presented to us within the context of the Theory of Power.
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| WIth some participants at the workshop in Centurion. |
I was delighted to be able to visit the Potcheftroom Taekwon-Do school this year. I started this dojang exactly 20 years ago and couldn't have imagined that it would continue to exist for such a long time. The school have always been relatively small, but the quality is consistent and under instructor Philip's care, I am happy say that the Potchefstroom Dojang is doing very well.
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| With some students at the Potchefstroom Taekwon-Do Club. |
Apart from my Taekwon-Do adventures, I also gave an introductory Hapkido seminar in Cape Town. There are hopes that from a small Hapkido training group a Hapkido school will open in the Mother City.
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With Anthony Lapperts
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I also introduced, for the first time in South Africa,
hopaesul -- the study of a Korean weapon known as
hopae. The introduction was presented to some higher level black belts as an addendum to the Centurion workshop.
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| With the Korean weapon, hopae. |
