It has been a busy end to the year for East Coast Taekwon-Do Sport with a calendar packed full of events ensuring our continuous growth and improvement.

On November 9th, we flew to Spain with a large contingent of competitors for the 9th Challenger Cup Tournament hosted by Master Perez in Sitges.

We provided coaches, umpires and challenging competition to this international event attended by many countries. As always, this was a very well run competition with opportunities for old friends and new to catch up after a long period away from competing due to the pandemic.

Senior Grading & Seminar

On November 20th, East Coast Taekwon-Do Sport welcomed GM Nicholls and Mr. Reece Nicholls to our Newtownmountkennedy, Co. Wicklow training halls. The day began with a senior degree grading seeing Mr. James Whelan promoted to VII Degree Master and Ms. Clare Harney promoted to IV Degree after a comprehensive test across all aspects of Taekwon-Do.

Following the grading, GM Nicholls and Mr. Reece Nicholls conducted a seminar on sparring techniques.

The seminar was well attended by Taekwon-Do practitioners from around the country and included deep insights into attacking and defensive sparring with excellent training and demonstration of techniques from both GM Nicholls and Mr. Reece Nicholls. Those in attendance improved their sparring techniques significantly at this excellent opportunity to learn from internationally successful competitors, a day to remember!

End of Year Gradings

Finally, on December 4th, we hosted our annual black belt grading which saw a number of our members graduate to I, II and III Degree status, the results of which are available through the ITF website.

Pictured are some of our East Coast TaekwonDo Sport Group black belts.

We also hosted a large colour belt grading later the same day which saw many of our members, including some of our Adaptive Taekwon-Do members advance to the next grade after working hard all year. Members were tested on all physical and theory aspects of Taekwon-Do relative to their grade at a challenging grading test enabling all to demonstrate their improvements as they advance on their Taekwon-Do journey.

Well done to all for giving your best on the day. Pictured also is Cian Kelly, our World Adaptive Championships silver medallist being awarded his 1st Kup certificate and a group photo of all colour belts who graded successfully.

We look forward to 2023 with a calendar filled with tournaments, seminars and consistent training for all our members across our group!

Taekwon,

Master James Whelan VII, Mr. Michael Whelan V and Ms. Clare Harney IV