HITCHIN TAEKWON-DO CLUB 1987-2017

This year marked the 30th anniversary of the Hitchin TKD club. To celebrate this Master Horan invited his Instructor Grand Master Nicholls to conduct a 3-hour training session at the Hitchin dojang on the 18th November 2017.

The idea was to look at the last 30 years of teaching and training methods, touching on past training ideas and training like the old days. It started with an introduction about the change in teaching methods and how in the early years Taekwon-Do was practiced by a certain group of people, being mainly young male students.

Grand Master Nicholls then went on to teach a typical warm up from 30-46 years ago, the funny thing though is as all the students participating were black belts they really enjoyed it and gave the impression they would like this all the time.  This lasted for an hour or so which again was typical for then, he then went on to pushing fundamentals hard and in a repetitive manner until the students could be confident in the practice of technique. With this idea of power and forceful delivery of each technique Chon-ji, Dan-gun and Do-san were performed over and over until a real understanding of delivery and application was understood.

The next item was kicking, how to deliver a strong and decisive side kick and turning kick, looking at the different idea of technique from then and now. The interesting aspect was how the two, the old and new complimented each other in performing a better technique with power and accuracy. 

The three hours went by so fast but the students probably couldn’t have done any more as they put so much effort and enthusiasm into every part of the training. Grand Master Nicholls concluded with an informative speech about how times have changed in the last 30 years and shared some of his memories of when he was training in his early years 46 years ago. Great stories.

The day was concluded with a senior dan grading in the afternoon and congratulations to Mrs Gloria Williams who was promoted 6th Dan, Mr Mike Owen who was promoted to 6th Dan, and Mrs Kirsty Owen who was promoted to 5th Dan.  Well done all.

The evening was spent at the local Chinese restaurant in the centre of Hitchin with a lovely meal and a chance to chat and catch up on the days training.