I've never blogged before but after chief instructor (Scott McMillan) of the Phoenix TaeKwonDo club I now train at asked me to do a monthly roundup of info for the club, I thought it might be an idea to share some of my own martial arts training history and get a feel for all this blogging business.
As this will be a personal journey from when I started with martial arts to where I am now its probably best if I do some background.... I've been involved with martial arts since 1980 when I started shukokai karate at a club in Prestwick under Sensei Jim Hepburn. I trained with this club two nights a week for 4 years, getting to green belt before youthful misadventure on bicycle cause me to have a compound fracture of my arm which ended my sparring career early. I also had to stop training for nearly 2 years while the arm healed and when I did go back for some reason my heart wasn't really in it. My last and only competition was in 1982, no sparring equipment used and I didnt win... but it was fun competing.
Skip forward a "few" years and I decided to start back at karate again, this time with a different club doing shotokai karate. Most of the movements and execution of blocks, kicks and punches were similar but the main zenkutsu dachi (front stance) was longer than I remember, and also very painful to stand it for any length of time. This was also a more traditional style of karate than what I was used to, there was more emphasis on form (which I like anyway) and application of katas in different attacks and defence. I again, achieved green belt with this style, I enjoyed my time with this club and if it wasnt for a change in working hours, I might still be there. I manage to picked up a back injury (too low stances I think) which means regular trips to physio to have it manipulated.... not much fun!
My wife, daughter and son were training at a Phoenix TaeKwonDo club in Prestwick while I was doing the karate. I'd been along to the club a few times to see the kids train and to grade and I got to know some of the students there. When I stopped karate, both my wife and a couple of guys at the club suggested I came and train with them... now... my first night I'll remember probably for as long as I live as I nearly killed myself trying to keep up (well I hadn't done any training in about 8 months!)... but next week I was back and the next and the next. 3 months later I was doing my first grading! Incidentally I still try and kill myself most training sessions but at least I now do it with a smile on my face :)
A year since starting with Phoenix I've achieve a green belt (does anyone see a pattern here???) but I dont intend to stop there! My instructor, Kulwant Chahal, makes the training interesting, fun and in the process hes become a good friend and the people in my own clubs at Ayr and Prestwick are great and its fun to train with them. Have to have a shout out to the other students and instructors from the other Phoenix clubs as well, great bunch of people and its always a pleasure to catch up with them at gradings and the occasional club night out.
OK... I think enough is enough on this, I've given Kuli enough to slag me off about for the next week or so.. next post should be on official club information I hope but I will have a sort of training dairy on sessions thrown in here now and then. Meantime please check out the Phoenix TaeKwonDo official website for more information about the club.
Charyot! Kyong Ye! Haessan...
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