Newsletter 1/2011 Christmas and Year-ending Activities
The end of the year, especially Christmas, is a very special time and a great occasion for recapitulation, rewards and having fun. In the spirit of this great atmosphere, some of the European Taekwon-Do clubs would like to share with us their experiences.
Mr Michael Leuenberger (Secretary General) and Jorge Züger (President Taekwon-Do School Rüti Switzerland) commented about Christmas in their club - Taekwon-Do School Rüti Switzerland:
‘Like each year, shortly before Christmas, we organized a dinner in our School. And what is a typical meal in Switzerland? Yep, cheese, but not only cheese, it's a speciality from our country and it's called ‘Fondue’. It's melted cheese with garlic, pepper, paprika and a shot of white wine. We dip bread in the Fondue, that's it.
At our event in 2010 were invited all adult students and children with the highest colour belts. On the same day was an exam for the next level of colour and black belts.
We were with our School at the European Open Cup in Bratislava and we were watching several videos from our participants but the main thing is to talk, we don't have a program, because there is enough to talk from our family, job, vacation and of course our passion Taekwon-Do.’
Docklands Taekwon-Do School in London, England assembled their students, parents and friends for the Christmas Party and Awards Night. This year ‘Docklands’ invited Mr Janitzio Moreno (VI Degree) and Mrs Lisa Dennis (V Degree) to help with giving out the Student Awards and celebrate Christmas together and the end of the year.
The first awards were given out to four people as an appreciation for their help during the past year. They were: Miss Julie Fagg, Mr Peter Capaja, Mrs Graham and Suzanne Patterson. After these special prizes it was the turn for the Students to be awarded. First Student presentation – Participation Awards - was for all the Tigers who have attended the sessions over the year. Next awards were Most Promising people in groups of: Tigers, juniors (age 7-13) and seniors.
The most prestigious awards – Student of The Year 2010 – went to Toren Moore (Tigers Student of the Year 2010) and Sebastian Mahsoudi in a junior group (Student of the Year 2010). In seniors, Paweł Mastalski (3rd Kup), who trains regularly, takes part successfully in many competitions in England and abroad, and always is a great partner to train with (helpful, smiley and hard-working) was the only choice to be a Student of the Year 2010.
Besides these main awards there were three other categories: the ‘Most Improved’ (Seniors), ‘The quiet as a mouse’ (Tigers) and ‘The Stupidest Comment of The Year’.
After all the awards were given out, the party started with lovely food and Karaoke. The Christmas Party is the only occasion when students from all different classes can meet at the same place at the same time. So, it wasn’t a surprise that the last people left the party almost at midnight!
In Poland there were two clubs – MKS Sląsk Swiętochłowice and MKS Lewart Lubartów - which were happy to share their really active ways to celebrate the end of the year and Christmas Time.
Mr Krzysztof Książek’s school MKS Sląsk Swiętochłowice practiced a very active, full of fun celebration to finish the year. He said: ‘We celebrate the end of the year and Christmas time organising a ‘Promoting Days of Sport’ in co-operation with other sport clubs in our town. We meet up with common ideas and organise a lots of activities on weekends before Christmas for our members. So, thanks these inspirations we managed to arrange TKD training with handball players or ‘training TKD in aerobics’ rhythm’. Nevertheless, the most important fact is, that we invite parents for our session before Christmas to enjoy us. That is time to train, play, compete between children and parents and have lots of fun. Parents have a great opportunity to spend some time with their children in a very busy period before Christmas when everyone is actually running all day, and they can see how hard their children work over the year. Children are also curious to see how parents can manage to survive training sessions. They are proud of themselves at the end, happy and... wet.’
One very active and demanding club is MKS Lewart Lubartów from Poland. Master Jerzy Jedut from Lewart commented on Christmas activities in his club: ‘There are two ways we celebrate Christmas time in our school. First one is a tournament for not experienced athletes in all ages called ‘Santa Clause TKD Tournament’. The last (13th) edition was held in December 19th. There were 110 participants taking part in patterns and special techniques with the presence of Santa Clause of course. As this red hat gentleman knows TKD and our school for a long time, he was very generous and bestowed all participants with a huge bag of sweets. Elder and younger, all were happy with such a tasty gift. The best four competitors in 13 patterns and 7 special techniques categories were awarded with really beautiful and… heavy medals. More than 200 mums, dads, friends and simple fans cheered on participants with their efforts during the competition. It is worth mentioning that the tournament which has been going for 13 years has a new and very important part. We decided that from the year 2010 we would begin to award special students and people with a very particular prize called ‘Super Yopek’, and its ‘little brother, Yopek’.
The award ceremony was held between pattern and special techniques competition. The winners of Super Yopek 2010 were: ‘Technician of The Year’- Jarosław Suska (VI Degree), ‘Success of The Year’ - Bartosz Guz (I Degree), ‘Perseverance’ - Krzysztof Witek (11 years old, 6th Kup, 5 years experience in TKD), ‘Diligence’ - Jakub Gadzała (13 years old, 5th Kup, 3,5 year experience in TKD), ‘Friend of TKD’ - Tomasz Nowakowski (our school former member, presently chief of polish brand of German GECA Software Company) who is always ready to help and support our club both ways - organizationally and financially. Another 10 students were awarded with ‘Yopek 2010’. All of them deserved much to get the ‘younger brother of Super Yopek’. We believe that the 14th edition of the ‘Santa Clause Tournament’ will bring lots of smiles and even more joy than the current one.
The second way we celebrate Xmas time is the so called ‘last class before Xmas’. All students must wear Santa Clause’s red long hats during the class session. They play games, perform funny exercises, do spectacular acrobatics and spend time in the way they don’t usually do. The instructor’s duty is not only to conduct the class but also actively take part in it and… take photos (especially those funny ones). Usually, after these so called ‘last classes’ we have very many strange and unusual pics that we watch with ‘huge bananas on our faces’.
Mr Michael Leuenberger and Jorge Züger (Taekwon-Do School Rüti, Switzerland), Mr Krzysztof Książek (MKS Sląsk Swiętochłowice, Poland) and Master Jerzy Jedut (MKS Lewart Lubartów, Poland), they all wish you a great 2011.
More photos on http://picasaweb.google.com/Angoo.Kasia.Photo/ChristmasAndYearEndingTKDActivities#.
