Wexford Seminar and Grading with GM Nicholls

Grand Master Nicholls flew into Dublin the night before the seminar and grading and was met by Master Flaherty (President of AITF) and driven to his hotel in Wexford. Next morning Master Flaherty, Master McCarthy (Treasurer) and Ms Galinski (Secretary) met GM Nicholls to finalise the schedule for the day. GM Nicholls welcomed all those who travelled to attend the seminar and reassured all the students that no one was being judged for their effort and that we can all improve our Taekwon-Do skills by training hard in Taekwon-Do classes.

The weather was really nice in Wexford and it was a lovely warm spring morning in the modern training hall so the seminar started with gentle warm up and stretching exercises which settled everyones nerves. Building on the warm up, the class practised multiple punching techniques in both stationary and moving versions.From there GM Nicholls demonstrated with a student how they can improve their techniques with the help of a partner. Next we moved to single kicks and then kicking combinations using air shields. We finished with GM Nicholls explaining the subtle but important differences between one legged stance and bending ready stance A and B. Photos of the seminar can be found at http://aitf.ie/2019/04/01/gm-nicholls-seminar-march-2019/ 

The seminar was followed by a short lunch and then the black belt grading began where seven students were tested for first dan and second dan black belt. All the students were tested across a range of requirements which covered colour belt tuls, black belt tuls, three/two/one step sparring, free sparring, two versus one sparring, foot sparring, self defense and destruction using a variety of standing/jumping/hand techniques. Photos from the grading can be found at http://aitf.ie/2019/04/01/aitf-grading-march-2019/