The INTA Tournament committee consisting of Nigel Stobie, Dave Elson and Mike O’Keeffe hosted their second National Umpire’s Course on Sat/ Sun 17th-18th February. The venue was Portarlington Taekwon-Do’s new fulltime dojang, which offered an ideal location, central to those coming from the various INTA clubs. Twenty eight were in attendance, ten of who were doing a refresher course. This was well timed to prepare both experienced and new umpires for the upcoming INTA Open tournament.

Day one consisted of an overview of the ITF Tournament Rules, this is important to ensure everyone fully understands the competition rules. Based on feedback from last year’s course, we included videos of recent international competition, which complimented the theory. In the afternoon, the practical session started. The T&U Committee are strongly focussed on the practical applications of the rules and they encouraged and supported the attendees to learn and apply what was covered in the morning session. The atmosphere was relaxed with a focus on engagement and inclusion for all in attendance. The group was split into four ring councils and each took turns learning how to score patterns with the paper based scoring and then the electronic scoring. More experienced umpires were shown how to operate the electronic scoring software. The next practical session was sparring. Again the use of video was a great benefit showing world class umpires such as Mr Harry Van Schaik and Ms Annick Van Driessche in action. Similarly both paper based and electronic scorings were practiced. New umpires were encouraged and coached as they tried their hands as centre referees.

Day two began with a feedback session from day one and we again broke into groups but this time to rehearse the sequence for delivering warnings and fouls. This really boosted confidence and encouraged precision and professionalism for those acting as centre referees. Next we covered ‘power’ and special technique and again lots of opportunity for applying the leanings and asking questions.

The course concluded with a multiple choice exam for all participants, and each person filled out a feedback form to help the T&U Committee judge the success of the course and get suggestions for improving it.

Thanks to all who attended the course and making it a great success. Special thanks to Mr Stobie for the use of his new dojang and to Portarlington Taekwon-Do students Donnchadh Stobie, Jay Keogh-Grincell, Sean Keogh-Grincell and Deaglan Allan for being our energetic competitors all weekend!