Belt Test
3 months have passed, what time is it? It is time for the belt test! The last Sunday of March, June, September and December is the belt test. The grandmaster will arrive to oversee the test to see if the students can pass his high standards.
Korea Summer Camp
Cheung Do Kwan hosts a summer camp trip to Korea for the world taekwondo culture expo in the Taekwondowon in Muju where is the heart of taekwondo. This year's trip included a poomsae seminar, a sparring seminar, sparring and poomsae competition, culture tour to a traditional Korean village and a 3 hour training with the person who made the rules about poomase master Ik Pill Kang and how could we forget sparring training with the Gimpo sparring team.
Day 1 - On the first day we met up for the first time as a team at Hong Kong int’l airport. I did not know my new teammates so they were new to me. We were flying to Korea ICN airport. Once we arrived, we had dinner at the airport and it was very tasty! I had pork cutlet rice while others had more Korean style foods. At about 8 o'clock, we departed on a bus bound for Muju Gun in the middle of Korea. We traveled for 3 hours then reached the Taekwondowon, the heart of Taekwondo. The place was so big and so luxurious. I was so SLEEPY that night.
Day 2 - Today was seminar day! We got up and walked slowly to breakfast. Since we were at a world taekwondo expo, there were teams from all around the world. We took a bus with a few other teams from different countries to the T1 arena. We first did the poomsae seminar then we did the sparring seminar. We did the poomsae seminar in the morning for 2 hours and the sparring one in the afternoon for another 2 hours. Both were fun but I enjoyed the sparring seminar more. Then we did training for the poomsae competition happening tomorrow.
Day 3 - Today was the poomsae competition and the opening ceremony. We were at the arena to watch the demonstration team perform. There was a lot of talent in the opening ceremony such as breaking and freestyle poomsae. Then the poomsae competition started. My opponents were both from Korea so when I was waiting I got a little spooked. I was a little bit surprised when I won the gold medal. Overall, Cheung Do Kwan won 7 gold medals, 2 silver medals and 2 bronze medals.Today was a very amazing and fun day.
Day 4 - Today was the sparring match. After breakfast, we went to the arena to warm up. This was my first time competing in an international sparring match and we had to wear mouthguards. It was the first match of the day and I won gold against a person from China. I felt very excited and it was so fun. I was proud of myself. After a quick lunch at the stadium, we watched the professionals playing A-match sparring competition.
Day 5 - Today was a culture tour in the Hanok village. We took a bus to a traditional Korean village. We explored the village and did some shopping and had lunch at a noodle store. Throughout the whole of this camp, there was a person in our team who ate cup noodles for breakfast every day and earned the nickname ms cup noodles. After lunch, we did more shopping and had team training.
Day 6 - Today we travelled from Muju to Gimpo city where the grandmaster lives. Gimpo is 1.5 hours of travel from Seoul. The grandmaster brought us to his friends dojang Ik Pill Kang taekwondo academy for a special poomsae seminar. Grandmaster Kang is an iconic master who wrote the poomsae rules for Kukkiwon. We were taught the basic stances and movements. Then we did a sparring seminar with the best junior sparring team in Korea.
Kick And Shoot Photo Competition
