Newsletter Newsletter 4/2007 T. H. Sports Personality of the Year

   

When The Canary Wharf Group plc kindly sponsored the 7th Docklands Summer Camp, an agreement was made that three renown TaeKwon-Do practitioners, namely AETF Secretary General Jerzy Jedut VI degree, Jaroslaw Suska V degree (15 times European and 3 times World Champion) and Marcin Wronowski I degree (2 times European Champion) would come over and put on a demonstration at the annual award ceremony.

Saturday 1st December saw the cream of local sporting talent meet up at East Wintergarden, a new venue in the heart of London’s Docklands area. A member of the England TaeKwon-Do team was in the running for Sports Person of the year, Soyfur Rahman, current Junior World Champion -58kg, who has been getting an extra lesson each week with the Docklands school. On the evening, each person or team up for nomination was presented with a commerative plaque, and the winners of each category were to be announced at the end of the evening.

   

About an hour into the ceremony, Mr Jedut was called upon to introduce the two Polish Team members. They came on wearing jacket, shirt, tie, trousers and shoes, leaving the audience wondering what was about to happen, as their previous experience (if any at all) of martial arts was the white uniforms. As the operatic music of Carl Orf (Carmina Burana) sounded, the athletes began to perform. As the music reached its climax, the crowd burst into rapturous applause, as they had been treated to something they had never witnessed before. To be able to see incredible techniques performed slowly with pure control, then at the correct speed, made them appreciate the skill level of the TaeKwon-Do practitioners even more.

An hour later Jarek and Marcin came on stage again to demonstrate power breaking and kicking. A brave member of the audience had to be tricked into joining them on stage as most of the audience had been scared by what they had seen earlier! Different kicks were performed, both slow and fast, against the volunteer, as well as kicking a bottle off the top of his head whilst blindfolded. The last part of the demonstration was kicking an apple from an extremely large and sharp knife. Once again thunderous applause bellowed round the room.

The evening ceremony ended with Soyfur Rahman winning the Sports personality of the year award, which was a great achievement for both him and Docklands.

Docklands TaeKwon-Do school would like to thank the Canary Wharf Group plc and Polish TKD Association for allowing two of their senior team and Mr Jedut to attend the function and put on a memorable demonstration.