3rd World Youth Taekwondo Camp – Report by Michelle Chan

3^rd World Youth Taekwondo Camp Report

Place: Muju and Seoul, Korea

Date: 1^st – 6^th August 2011

The 3^rd World Youth Taekwondo camp was organized by Taekwondo Promotion Foundation (TPF) and World Taekwondo Federation (WTF). It was a 6 days camp participated by 215 practitioners and 39 officials from all around the world. Countries such as Thailand, Canada, United States of America(U.S.A.), Hong Kong and of course, the host country, Korea has sent their representatives to this international camp.

The camp was saturated with action-packed training and activities that aim to teach the practitioners further about Taekwondo and to encourage us to mix around with one another from different countries.

TRAINING

The training was much tougher and was a totally new gear. Different exercises and type of training were used to toughen ourselves. Thank goodness I was fit enough to train! Until today, I’m still amazed that one of the masters who trains us kyorugi, was 50 years old, and he could show us various exercises himself that actually requires strong upper-body strength!

In poomsae, we had to learn Taejuk 4 and brush up our basics from punch to kick.

In kyukpa, we wrote down our bad habits on the plank and break it with techniques requested by the master. Some of us are asked to use punch, front kick but some of us got the more difficult stuff such as jumping turning kick and backswing.

ENVIRONMENT

The resort that we stay for 4 nights before we shift to Seoul (for our last night) was located at the top of the hill of Muju Resort. The dining area was located at the lower part of the hill, so all of us had to walk approximately 1km downhill from our rooms for breakfast and dinner. After dinner, we had to walk back uphill to go back to our rooms. We had to walk a total of 3km in one day because we have 3 trips. We have definitely achieved our 10,000 steps in per day goal!

The food there was amazing. They have prepared a huge variety of food such as Korean and western. To those of you who are carnivores, you would have to tie your stomach because most of the foods they serve are vegetables! Overall, it was the cleanest, most organized and exciting camp that I have ever attended. Unfortunately, we had to do everything ourselves from washing our clothes to making up our bed. No room service!

I would like to thank Mr. and Mrs. Leong for giving me the opportunity to participate in the camp! Thank you so much! 🙂