ScotiaTKD

By David Condie IV, Goodwill host

The Global Taekwon-Do Scotland were very proud to host our Goodwill Invitational over the weekending, Friday 14^th May – Sunday 16^th May.  After month’s of hard work and preparation, our event was finally upon us.

Friday 14^th May, Grand Master Kong had arrived the previous day and was feeling fresh, up steps our vice president and a goodwill “ golf “ game was now on the cards!  Everyone can ask Mr Archer who won?  Master Oldham and myself were then seting up the arena and meeting different guests at the airport.  After a quick meal it was off to the arena for the first attraction of the weekend.

Grand Master Kong and Master Oldham conducted a seminar.  The students on the seminar could not believe how well, fit and strong Grand Master Kong looked.  Grand Master Kong started of warming everyone up and the demonstrated how practical blocking and kicking should be applied.  GM Kong then went into great detail teaching us of his own sparring/Self defence kick that he devised years ago and demonstrated the application of the kick.  GM Kong then instructed lots of different sparring drills for us to try and was always willing to spend time with everyone to explain any questions.  The seminar time had flew by and a good time was had by all.  Grand Master Kong then spent time signing autographs and posing for pictures with all different TKD groups.

Saturday 15^th May. Our Blackbelt event was underway at 9am sharp.  The day started by welcoming our guests of honour.  Our Masters were first introduced into the arena, Master Campbell ITF, Master Hutton ITF, Master Wallace ITF, Master Oliver TAGB, Master Sergiew TAGB, Master Walton TAGB, Master Dosoo ITF .  Mr Alistair Baillie of the Edinburgh Lord Provosts was the accompanied by our vice president Mr Archer and then shortly by Master Nam and his demonstration team from Korea.

Now it was time for our guests of honour.  The GTUK were honoured to have such great leaders and pioneers of tkd at our championships.  Master Oldham VIII, Grand Master MacCallum IX and Grand Master Kong IX then entered the arena to a great applause.  Every could feel that something special was happening this weekend.  All 3 ITF groups and the TAGB were all competing along side our GTUK in harmony and goodwill.  After I had given a short welcoming speech, Master Oldham then gave a heart warming introduction to our event and presented all our guest with special goodwill awards.  Grand Master Kong then gave an opening speech and as usual talked with great wisdom.  Our guest promoting Edinburgh then welcomed all travelling countries to our beautiful City before all master gave a few goodwill words.

It was now time for our opening ceremony.  A local Scottish dance group supplied some delicate Scottish Highland Dancing led by a piper.  It was then the juniors of Scotland who took centre stage and performed a musical THRILLER team pattern, both demonstrations went down well.  Amy Jackson, Megan Smille and Amy Thomson were the three scary girls!!  The main event of the demonstration was ofcourse the WTF demonstration team.  Their display was second to none and left everyone in the arena excited and in true amazement.  Their accuracy, timing and high level of TKD demonstration was a must see.  Everyone commented on how brilliant they were and the display will stay in peoples memory for a long time to come.

Now it was time for the individual Black belt events.  All junior Black belts competed in Patterns, Sparring and 5 special technique events, all adult competed in Patterns, Sparring, 5 Special Technique events and 5 Power breaking events.  I am very pleased to report that all the medals and awards were evenly spread amongst the Countries and different groups, this proves that our event was fairly judged and the standard was very high across all categories.

There were 246 competitors in the Black belt divisions alone and the competition was covered by BBC Scotland.  The BBC was doing a documentary on the GTUK’s Olympic hope Miss India Isles and also filmimg our event.  Interviews were given by GM Kong, Master Oldham, GM MacCallum, David Condie and India Isles.  We will keep you posted on the date that the show will be aired.

Sunday 16^th May

The day started sharp at 9am with the rainbow and coloured belt junior divisions.  There were no fewer than 467 competitors in this second day bonanza.  Once again every event was well contested and a true goodwill spirit shone through.  I would like at this point to make a special thank you to all officials who worked nonstop throughout the two days, without their commitment our event could not be possible.  After all the categories had been decided it was time for the International teams to prepare and in this time the Korean demonstration team once more took centre stage and performed an amazing demo.  I actually thought that the team was better on the secnd day than the previous day.  Kicking apples in mid air, kicking apples off swords whilst blind folded, doing 6 air breaks and much more.  Grand Master Kong then arrived with hid dobok on and performed a couple of hand technique breaks and then performed Choon Jang tul.  A true Grand Master.

Finally it was time for our team event.  The countries in attendance were:

GTUK Scotland Female Junior,

GTUK England Female Junior,

GTUK Male junior,

GTUK England Male Junior,

GTUK Scotland Female Adult,

GTUK England Female Adult,

USA Female Adult,

TAGB Wales Female Adult,

TAGB England Female Adult,

GTUK Scotland Male Adult,

GTUK England Adult Male,

Hong Kong Adult Male,

TAGB Wales Adult Male,

TAGB England Adult Male,

TAGB Scotland Adult Male

This event was electric. Different groups won different events with 6pts for a win, 4 pts for Silver and 2 pts for Bronze.

The results were as follows:

1^st Place Goodwill Champions  GTUK England

2^nd Place                                    GTUK Scotland

3^rd Place                                     TAGB England

Everyone left the sports centre with little voice and full hearts!  All that was left to do was party!!!

Everyone arrived at the party venue and danced into the wee small hours.

Organising this event took a lot of hours and dedication, however, seeing the results and the companionships at the end of day was priceless.  We have made a lot of good friends and hopefully brought a lot of people together.  I would like to thank all competitors who attended these championships and wish them the very best of luck in the future.  I thank all officials, parents and staff.  A special thanks to Master Oldham, GM Kong, GM MacCallum and all Masters and guests who made my weekend special and look forward to working with everyone in the future.  We all should be very proud of our Global Taekwon-Do United Kingdom.

Regards

David Condie IV

Host