News 2007

6th national team camp
News 2007 >>

The youth center of Marttinen served the national team of Finnish ITF Taekwon-Do very well again during the camp that lasted from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon. There were six trainings at the camp, from which I missed the first one because I gave a ride to Pekka and Risto who came from Oulu by train to Tampere and Saara who came from Riihimäki. Luckily I had the time to do my own speed training earlier. The first evening we settled in with the guys and of course heated up the sauna. After a couple of bad stories we got to sleep to be well rested for Saturday's trainings.

Saturday's first training was as usual: pattern group trained techniques with Mariusz and sparring group with Pekka. Again I was in the first mentioned. This time we consentrated on the height where the hands start in certain blocks and aimed to accent the whip-like movement. Good points rose up and as the camp went on at least I felt that this exercise started to feel in the pattern. At the end of the training the female team did some better team pattern as the rest of us did our own stuff. After the training we had a very good lunch and before the second training we had the chance to relax and watch the first period of ice-hockey world championship game Finland-Russia.

The second training was sparring. We worked on some tools with kicking pads and drove in combinations. Keeping distance appropriate was emphasized. One of the themes of the camp was strong side-kick, which seemengly was used a lot in the Euros. With the current point system you can do a lot with that.

After the training to dinner and only an hour later began the evening shift, where the coaches were available according to each individual's needs for consultation. The female team naturally worked on the team patterns. My patterns felt pretty good in this training and the feeling in them gets better and better. So it doesn't look too bad at this stage.

After the training we took a short break at the accommodation, Matti went over to the beach cottage to heat up the sauna and within an hour we all went there to spend the evening together. It was a very nice evening and went by smoothly with sauna and snacks. Cold-warm treatment is known to be good for recovering from training and many of us went in the rather cold lake several times. Personally I hate cold but could, however force myself in the water three times. Actually wasn't that bad at all. When people had had enough of sausages and flamed bread we dragged our tired bodies back to accommodation. Some Eurovision song contest fans (all the men) stayd up and wondered the bad quality of the music for a while, I went in bed. One can't stay up that late in this age... Having got wiser since last night I took a pillow next to my bed and when Vesku started to put up his snoring solo I had something to throw at my fluey roommate. Luckily the concert ended with that, the next object to throw would have been a book.

Sunday morning came sunny as the days before and the feeling was very good.  The first training was patterns and felt pretty much good. At the end of the training the female teem gave a demonstration of their skills and I must say that the chicks are in a hot streak. The level in the Championships will be high for sure, but I can't imagine that many teams could challenge the Finnish ladies. Poland, Canada and Argentina maybe... However, there's no room for any mistakes, of course. After the training we had a very good lunch, gathered our stuff from accommodation and cleaned up the mess. After this short break we collected our bones and the last fighting spirit for the last sparring training of the camp.

In the last training we still consentrated on faking and breaking the sparring rhythm. We also trained throwing kicks in between of punches and corner situations. We didn't take actual rounds this time, which probably was clever. The worst injures usually accure when people are tired and start throwing techniques around. In the very end the camp was finished by talks and everyone started their way back home. Having got wiser from last time I did pretty good cool-up and stretching, for one gets pretty badly stiff when one jumps behind the wheel straight from training for a couple of hours. The trip home went smoothly with Joonas (Juutas) and Nyyti. The camp left once again a very good taste in my mouth. The team gets tighter all the time and in many cases it looks to get better when we get closer to the World Champs. I hope that everyone stays healthy (or at least get better) and the top conditions are found at the right time. Next weekend (the weekend I'm writing this) we have the last camp at Tampere and next week we already take off for Canada. SO SEE YOU THERE, FRIENDS!