The Technical Director, Nigeria Taekwondo Federation, Osita Egwim, has said the ongoing International Poomsae Seminar and Dan Grading at the Indoor Sports Hall, National Stadium, Lagos has helped tremendously in improving the country’s taekwondo practitioners’ knowledge of the sport.
The seminar commenced on Thursday morning with global taekwondo practitioners in attendance. The Poomsae ended on Friday, with Dan Grading scheduled for Saturday (today) and Sunday.
Over 100 taekwondo athletes were taught about striking poses, stances, proper form, rules of taekwondo and defence stances.
Egwim said the seminar would help in taekwondo development in Nigeria.
“It’s going to help mend a lot of issues and it’s going to help solidify our Poomsae. Bringing people from outside to come and help us do it means that some are seeing what we haven’t seen before,” Egwim told Saturday PUNCH
“Definitely the participants are improving, practice makes perfect, the more you do it, the more you get better. They made some mistakes on Thursday, but today (Friday), they didn’t make as many.”
Chairman, Lagos State Taekwondo Association, Jimi Ogunowon, said the training was organised to help the athletes with the sport’s fundamentals.
“What we are doing is the foundational martial arts; so you have to ensure that you have these foundational skills. They help you as a beginner and also as a veteran,” Ogunowon said.
“The Kukkiwon grading is done from Korea, the headquarters. Before now, you will be told to come to Korea for the grading. But since a lot of practitioners don’t have the funds, what Kukkiwon has decided to do is to send a representative, with the mandate to go to continents and nations, where people are ready, so you prepare, you go through the syllabus and do the grading.
“This is a crash course for the grading and it has been very intense. Some things have been modified, since some of us learnt them, so this standardises you with international regulations.”
Grandmaster Pius Ilukhor, the 1987 African taekwondo champion, who was in charge of the training, said he was impressed with the development of the athletes at the seminar.
“There’s a lot of improvement in their Poomsaes, in their forms and fundamentals, which is the bedrock of taekwondo: self defence.
“Taekwondo is an art and a sport, but this aspect is the art, it’s for everyone and human development in general. The Dan test will be done tomorrow (today), I’m the examiner and we have a foreigner coming in for the test.”
Fourth-degree Kukkiwon black belt holder and former national champion, Blessing Nwakanma, also lauded the Poomsae seminar.
“The workshop has been amazing, we don’t get much of this and it is required for every taekwondo practitioner to get updates on the standard of our forms and taekwondo in general. A lot of people are going to take the Kukkiwon testing on Saturday and this seminar is one of the trainings they need to be able to pass that test,” she said.
