On March 6th-8th, 2015, Mr. LeGrow and Team Blackburn hosted a two-day Pattern and Sparring Seminar in Ottawa, led by Master Ruben Suarez (8th Dan and member of the ITF Umpire Committee). There was a special guest, Master Scott Downey (8th Degree) from Newfoundland, Canada, who is the Eastern Vice-President of the Canadian Taekwon-Do Federation International.
Also in attendance were a few current and former ITF World Champions/World Cup Champions. We had Maxime Bujold, Kayla Maduk, David Lim and Miro Mostovac, who are current medallists/champions. Most of these athletes and others who were present are also preparing for the World Championships in Italy in a few weeks!
The Seminar started on Friday, March 6 with Patterns. The warm-up was led by Master Downey, which was exciting and upbeat. People loved Master Downey’s drills based on movement, agility and cardio. After the warm up, Master Suarez took over and began leading us through some pattern drills.
Master Suarez’s pattern workshop was fantastic. He brought new methods of training the muscles of the body into getting acceleration, increasing the level of power as well as improving the shaping the stances. Many people were already sore and found it hard to move on day one but were loving every minute of it and would not miss day 2.
Day 2 was the Sparring day. Master Suarez has a unique insight into free sparring which is more movement based that technique based. While most fighters focus on which technique they want to perfect, Master Suarez has us moving in various directions. Movement drills involved skipping, shifting, stepping, sliding and switching. The method of which Master Suarez teaches is breaking the exercises down, making them incredibly natural for everyone to do.
The first half of the day was strictly movement-based drills, adding techniques toward the end of the session. After the break, sparring simulation drills involving the movement drills from the morning with some attacks, defensive drills and counter attacks kept things interesting.
After a few hours of drills, it was time to do some free sparring. Perseverance and resilience carried some athletes into some additional sparring where Master Suarez was gracious to coach them.
We would like to thank Master Downey for sharing this experience with us, and, of course, to thank Master Sua
On March 6th-8th, 2015, Mr. LeGrow and Team Blackburn hosted a two-day Pattern and Sparring Seminar in Ottawa, led by Master Ruben Suarez (8th Dan and member of the ITF Umpire Committee). There was a special guest, Master Scott Downey (8th Degree) from Newfoundland, Canada, who is the Eastern Vice-President of the Canadian Taekwon-Do Federation International.
Also in attendance were a few current and former ITF World Champions/World Cup Champions. We had Maxime Bujold, Kayla Maduk, David Lim and Miro Mostovac, who are current medallists/champions. Most of these athletes and others who were present are also preparing for the World Championships in Italy in a few weeks!
The Seminar started on Friday, March 6 with Patterns. The warm-up was led by Master Downey, which was exciting and upbeat. People loved Master Downey’s drills based on movement, agility and cardio. After the warm up, Master Suarez took over and began leading us through some pattern drills.
Master Suarez’s pattern workshop was fantastic. He brought new methods of training the muscles of the body into getting acceleration, increasing the level of power as well as improving the shaping the stances. Many people were already sore and found it hard to move on day one but were loving every minute of it and would not miss day 2.
Day 2 was the Sparring day. Master Suarez has a unique insight into free sparring which is more movement based that technique based. While most fighters focus on which technique they want to perfect, Master Suarez has us moving in various directions. Movement drills involved skipping, shifting, stepping, sliding and switching. The method of which Master Suarez teaches is breaking the exercises down, making them incredibly natural for everyone to do.
The first half of the day was strictly movement-based drills, adding techniques toward the end of the session. After the break, sparring simulation drills involving the movement drills from the morning with some attacks, defensive drills and counter attacks kept things interesting.
After a few hours of drills, it was time to do some free sparring. Perseverance and resilience carried some athletes into some additional sparring where Master Suarez was gracious to coach them.
We would like to thank Master Downey for sharing this experience with us, and, of course, to thank Master Suarez for your continued dedication to ITF and the promotion of Taekwon-Do around North and South America.
By Mr. Steven LeGrow – 6th Dan
(host of the event)