On Sunday 2 March, students from Taekwon-Do UK attended our first Umpires Course of the year at the Trident Academy at Sale Rugby Club. The course was run by Master Ian Ridley VII, Mr Jonathan Emm V and Mr Alan Smith V, three of our most experienced Umpires who have excellent reputations here and on the international stage. Students from across the North West were in attendance as well as some who had made the journey up from Stratford. It’s always nice to see some of our International Instructors attending the course to refresh their skills and share their experiences as well as students attending for the first time. I would say this course is just as important for competitors as it is for people interested in umpiring as it can help make competitors better if they understand what the Umpires are looking out for.
We started promptly at 9:30am in a bit of a classroom set up with Master Ridley leading the presentation of the protocols, point scoring, warnings and where deductions are made for patterns. The students in attendance were really engaged with the material and we had some very astute questions from attendees helping to ensure that everyone fully understood the material before we headed down to the dojang to put some of the theory into practice.
The practical session started with us splitting into groups and taking it in turns at getting up to perform patterns so that we could look at how to score the different elements in patterns; breaking it down to looking at each element in isolation before looking at the pattern as a whole. Patterns judging is a skill that takes time to fully develop and needs to be practiced regularly, just like any other part of taekwon-do. You don’t necessarily have to wait for the next tournament or Umpire course to practice this skill, take some time in class sometimes to look at a friend’s pattern and judge it as an Umpire and let them know where you marked deductions or if there is a squad session in your area you could ask if you could attend to practice your umpiring.
We then moved on to sparring and had some students practicing their corner judge skills and others working on centre refereeing. This is always a fun part of the course with people really bringing some amateur dramatics to it.
Lastly, we wrapped up the session by going over the protocols for destruction and special technique.
Overall the course covers a lot but does it in such a fun and engaging way that students really seem to get a lot out of attending and even some of the younger students seemed to really stay focused throughout.
A huge thanks goes to Master Ridley, Mr Emm and Mr Smith for taking the time to put on such a well run course and share their knowledge and experience with everyone. Secondly, thank you to Master Miley for hosting the course at the Academy, the set up there really works well for this type of course with the separate room for the classroom session in the morning and the dojang layout makes it easy to split into groups in the afternoon. Lastly, thank you to the students who gave their best all day and stayed focused as well as to the parents for bringing them out on a Sunday morning.
Miss Jayne Heywood IV
Publicity Officer for the Northern Region
