Master Hal Lipscombe was promoted to 7th Degree Black Belt at the International Instructors Course held in the Dominican Republic during the weekend of September 7-9, 2012 by the International Taekwon-Do Technical Committee headed by Grand Master Marano and member Grand Master Ung.
Master Lipscombe has been training in Taekwon-Do for 31 years and also studied Hapkido for 2 years.
He has taught ITF Taekwon-Do since 1985 in Port Coquitlam B.C. through Parks and Recreation Department. The School started out very small and over the years has remained in the 40 to 50 student range by design. The philosophy of Master Lipscombe has always been “Quality” vs. “Quantity” thus the reason for small classes.
Upon receiving his 4th Degree Black Belt in 1998 he became an International Instructor and trained under the mentorship of Master Andre Blake, 8th Degree Master until Master Blake’s untimely death in May of 2001. In 2003 Master Lipscombe started his association with Grand Master Trân Triêu Quân and continued to training under the instruction of Grand Master Tran until Grand Master Tran’s passing in January 2010.
Though the years Master Lipscombe has attended 10 International Instructor Courses, 4 conducted by the late General Choi Hong Hi, and the balance under the direction of the ITF Technical Committee. He was promoted to 5th Degree Black Belt in 2002 and to 6th Degree Black Belt in 2006.
Master Lipscombe has been a Director of the International Taekwon-Do Federation of B.C. since it’s’ inception in 1987 and has held the position of President numerous time, including (at the time of writing this Bio) the past 6 years. He also holds a Directorship with the Canadian Taekwon-Do Federation, International.
Over the years Master Lipscombe has helped to develop many first class Black Belts and has the honor to still have many of them still training with him even as they have reached the level of 4th, 5th, and 6th Dan.
Master Lipscombe is married and has four daughters and two grandsons. He continues in his day to day working life as a Commercial Banker, a field he has been in for over 40 years.