Nottingham Summer School 2015

The 18th annual TTA Summer School was held in Nottingham from the 6th to the 12th September 2015, hosted by GrandMaster Loh, and instructed by Master Jeon. It was a particular honour to be taught by Master Jeon as he was visiting from Korea and brought a wealth of international standard experience and knowledge that he shared with us.

Chantal Lew Kum Hoi, Chris Gilmartin, Dayo Ajibade, Charlotte Foong, Anthony Cornwell, Lennon Chirebvu, Marie Eve Menger, Louise Mayor, Sylvian Lew Kum Hoi and Mariline Khieu attended from TTA London Barbican, TTA London Southwark and TTA Sussex.

Louise’s Summer School Reflection:

“Each day was split in half with one part focused on poomsae and the other on sparring. This summer school was particularly mentally taxing as Master Jeon taught us poomsae over and above that which we were practicing for our next grading, but the new techniques in the patterns fed into our sparring training and really elevated our practice to a new level.

The Nottingham club were really welcoming and made us all feel quite at home, organising some great social activities in the evenings. We also enjoyed making use of the apartments we were staying in to talk about the day’s training and watch some martial arts films in the evening. Something, I’m told, that is a bit of a right-of-passage on all summer schools!

This year there were so many black belts present that the kup grades such as myself really felt an improvement in our own standards as we strove to better ourselves and emulate them. That, together with Master Jeon and GrandMaster Loh’s teaching and wisdom has certainly inspired those of us that attended to practice harder, and reach further to achieve our Taekwondo goals.”

Mariline’s Summer School Highlights:

“One of my highlights during Summer School was when I was incredibly lucky to be paired with Grandmaster Loh himself to practice exercises and receive feedback while training. A second highlight was during a fitness focused paddle kicking circuit. We each had to do a specific kicks 10 times at each stage of seven different stations, finishing with power turning kicks.. It was a very challenging exercise, but paddle holders were very encouraging players and we all ended up noisily cheering for the last person kicking. It was quite a magical moment, and I felt we were all there for the same reason.

Summer School was a great opportunity to get to know the members of the club a lot better. During classes, I did not necessarily break the ice and socialize. But it was a real pleasure and a lot of fun to chat around dinners and watch movies altogether.

I am very pleased to have signed up for Summer School and I was quite sad when the course was over. I felt my confidence in my capabilities was boosted and made me want to practice taekwondo even more.”