News 2007

Visiting Nokia Taekwon-Do club
News 2007 >>

Don't mix the Nokia town with the world famous cellular phone company. Actually the name of the company originates from this town, but originally (and still today) it made rubber boots. Never mind phones or boots, Taekwon-Do is in young, but good hands at Nokia. Before the club training I had a session of sparring with the highest belts of the club, Joonas Helassalo (1.dan), Jukka Vaimare (1.gup) and Saara Paunila (2.gup). The theme of the day was varying the rhythm of the fight and this was worked on with different kinds of excercises. In the end the idea was tried to put into practice by sparring a few rounds.

After this 1,5-hour training I conducted a training for the club's practitioners. There were all together 19 people participating, which is a good amount in a rather small town with many martial arts available. Most of the group was yellow belts. We concentrated especially on getting power into fundamental techniques through a natural way of movement. This was first experienced by testing with focus mits and then trying to transfer this "raw power" into controlled, correct basic techniques. The group got the idea amazingly fast and the banging sound of the focus mits being punished sounded occasionally very nicely around the hall. I was happy to see that the increase in power and attitude could also be seen in many cases in the basic techniques done in lines. We didn't have the time to "close the case" but I hope that the assistant instructors of the club would maybe have found some view for future club trainings as well as their own training. I managed to go through only a small part of everything I had planned, so there's something in stock for future if I'll be invited over again. Thanks to the higher belts for the sparring training and to the whole group of great enthusiasm! It's obvious that the young assistants have done a great job along with sabumnim Erkka Keinänen (4th degree).

As a small anecdote in the end: I represented Nokia club in the Finnish Championships at 2002. Since the Vammala club was in an inactive state I wasn't allowed to represent my own town's club. At that time I promised ms. Heli Lähteenmäki (1.dan) to conduct training at Nokia club for compensation of their kindness. I hadn't kept my promise untill this weekend, but hey, it's only 5 years. Better late than never... Greetings and thanks to Heli L. once more