On Saturday 27 January 2018 students from Taekwondo clubs all over the Wellington region attended this year’s regional camp at El Rancho retreat in Waikanae on the Kapiti coast. Here are some Junior student attendees perspectives of the weekend in which fun was had by all…and we were blessed by yet another perfect sunny Wellington spell of weather…
Training by By Tommy Saba
After sorting out our cabin groups, we got changed into our Doboks for our first of 3 training sessions at 10:30am. We got to the hall and we were greeted by Dr Jake Pearson (camp organiser) who introduced the lady that owned El rancho, and after some house rules, training started. Master Patterson took the warm up, then we got split into ranks and groups, break falling, stick self defence, candle blowing, belt techniques, and tile breaking. The black belts did their own training… or did they? I guess the only one way to find out is to become a black belt!
Activities by Elie Saba
The TKD camp was not just about doing Taekwon-do, because we also did activities like water slide, escape chapel, kayaking, go-karting, rock climbing and soft archery. Each martial artist got to pick three activities, and they got put into two of them. The activities I got put into were escape chapel and water slide. My favourite was the water slide because you go zooming down to the bottom of the slide and there was a record that you had to beat, which I did beat. The whole camp was really fun and I would definitely do it again.
War Games by Alex McKeown
War games at the camp was a team game held in a large field. Everyone was split into three teams; the black belts also known as Goguryeo, the blue-red belts as Baekje, and the white-green belts as Silla. Every team had a hat and the aim of the game was to collect all hats. It was like a huge sparring match. When you came within two metres from another player on a different team you could go into a guarding block as a way of asking to fight. If you won the match the loser would join your team. Each player had a way of displaying their team. e.g the junior belts would turn their belts around. In the end, the black belts won every match.
Morning swim by Mario Basile
At the TKD camp we loved exercise so in the morning when we all woke up around 7:00 am we went for a walk. We came across a river. We were all super hot and sweaty and ready for a swim, but of course, it is never that easy, before we could even put our feet in we got told that we are going for a run! So we start the run it was hard to get tired when you are so concentrated on the beautiful scenery around you, the songs the birds were chirping, everything was perfect until we stopped and got told to do push-ups on the gravel with our knuckles. Finally, we made it back to the river, but its still not over. We still had to do pushups and situps this time round, not on the ground but in the water!!! After this, It was finally time to swim!
After all, it was an amazing experience that gave us the opportunity to come together as a region, and have the pleasure to train with all the skilled instructors, and meet other club members.
Last but not least, our sincere appreciation to Dr Jake Pearson for organising this event, and we hope the tradition will carry on Sir.
Photo credits: Natasha Larsen and Nick Lourantos