Newsletter 1/2007 Visit in Korea
Newsletter 1/2007 Visit in Korea
Mr. Tadeusz Loboda, The President of Polish Taekwon-do Association, Mr. Jerzy Jedut the PTA Vice president and Mr. Jaroslaw Suska twice World Champion and 15 times European Champion in pattern accepted the invitation from Mr. Kim Beom Suk – the President of ITF Korea. On January 11th, 2007 we went to South Korea for three days with return visit.
The trip took together 27 hours from its beginning at 10 am on January 11th to the arriving at the Pheonix Hotel in Pusan on January 12th at 7 pm. But it was not as exhausting as we thought it might be.
Mr. Kim Jong Hoe welcomed us on the Seoul Airport. He brought us by bus to the central station and accompanied us in our further trip by train to Pusan. The journey by KTX train was surprisingly short. We covered the distance of about 500km by less then three hours. The train ran sometimes at incredible speed - 300km per hour. The delegation headed by Mr. Kim Beom Suk welcomed us at the city central station in Pusan. Next we went to the hotel to left our luggage. After that we had dinner in one of the Korean restaurants. During the meal we found out the schedule of our visit. We have also discussed the international situation in ITF, the achievements of ITF Korea and the plans about Taekwon-do in Europe and Poland. The dinner was traditional Korean and really exotic meal. Therefore we had to imitate some habits of our hosts to appreciate the value of great Korean cooking.
On the next morning we had sightseeing tour in Pusan. We had lunch with representatives of ITF Korea and then went to the city of Gimhae where the new big dojang will be soon finished.
We met there some instructors and competitors of ITF Korea. After many pictures that were taken in Gimhae we went back to Pusan.
Our hosts showed us a beautiful situated city beach called Haeundae and park which adjoin to the beach as well as the world famous stately congress centre and hotels. We finished the day with the dinner in another restaurant with another Korean dishes.
On Sunday morning we had free time which we spent at sightseeing again. At 1pm we went to the training hall which was situated in the city centre. We met there some instructors, competitors and other participants. There were students from white to black belt (about 30 people). We were introduced to Mr. Van Tea Kwon, the 67 years old professor of law at the University in Pusan. He practices Taekwon-do ITF and makes a lot of efforts to bring in Taekwon-do ITF at the university as a choice subject.
The class started at 2 pm. At the request of our hosts it was conducted by Mr. Jerzy Jedut assisted by Mr. Jaroslaw Suska. The training lasted just above 3 hours. It contained the ways of building the power of legs with using Taekwon-do techniques, the warming up exercises. Mr. Suska demonstrated many times his impressive technical skills. During the class there were a lot of opportunities to discuss about different aspects of training and teaching methods.
The participants could compare their own trainings with the way of training in Poland.
After the class we and other participants with higher ranks were invited to the dinner. Also Mr. Kim Tae Wan – the Treasurer of ITF Korea, who just arrived, joined us. After dinner we went with Mr. Kim Beom Suk, Mr. Kim Tae Wan and Mr. Kim Jong Hoe to the exclusive cafe. While eating delicious deserts we were talking about the proposal of cooperation between Korea and Poland and possibly other European Countries.
To sum up our trip was really fruitful. Both sides declared to intensify communication in the future. We hope it will bring measurable benefits for both sides very soon.
See more pictures on the ITF Korea website: www.itfkorea.net/bbs/zboard.php?id=newsin&no=24ea.net and also very soon on MKS Lewart Lubartow website: www.lewart.pl.
