The Midwest Regional Team Championships took place in Shannon, Co. Clare on Sunday June 12th 2011. This event is run for the ITA (Irish Taekwon-Do Association) schools in the Midwest region on an annual basis, with a focus on team building, fun and skill development. 150 local children took part in team pattern, team sparring and special technique events over 3 rings.

The team patterns were the first event of the day and the children showed a high level of preparation, with well practiced routines. As the focus of the event was on participation and getting everyone involved in competition in an enjoyable way, divisions were set up to match children by age, size and grade, and teams were allowed to be mixed male and female. In sparring the rules were modified for the younger competitors so that all levels of skill could compete on as even a playing field as possible. For example under 8 divisions wore hogus (body armour) and there was no head contact. Under 10 divisions had the option of the body armour and with only light head contact. The older divisions competed in full AETF rules. In this way all competitors enjoyed taking part in the sparring. Even those who because of lack of confidence or fear of getting hurt would normally take a lot of persuasion to take part in the sparring had big smiles on their faces, because of the modified rules and because they really enjoyed the team atmosphere.

The final event of the day was special technique. This was again done in a novel way. Competitors were divided by age group once more and competed in the high jump event. This was done on an elimination basis and the obstacle got higher each round until there was only one person left. This ended the day with a great atmosphere in the hall as all competitors cheered each other on.

Photos of the event can be viewed here: https://picasaweb.google.com/quin.tkd/MidwestRegionalTeamChampionships.

Regards,
Stephen Ryan
Secretary General
Irish Taekwon-Do Association