The 2018 P.U.M.A. Winter Camp was held at Warmwell Holiday Park in Dorset on 10th and 11th November. The camp was attended by around 30 students from across P.U.M.A. ranging from Green Belt all the way to 6th Degree Black Belt!  Including Mr and Mrs Swain, and Mrs Coles returning to Camp after a few years break.

The weekend began with a welcome meeting on the Friday evening, some socialising and being assigned to our lodges for the weekend. Despite the mixed weather forecast we got very lucky; both morning training sessions (outside at the Holiday Park) were in the sunshine, and warm for the time of year. The afternoon sessions were in a nearby leisure centre just in case.

Most of the training was led by Master Gayle (8th Degree & Chairman of P.U.M.A.) and Master Ogborne (7th Degree & Vice Chairman of P.U.M.A.). They were supported by Mr Tettmar, Mr Lammin (both 6th degrees), Mr Pixton and Mr Evans (both 5th Degrees).  Throughout the weekend we covered patterns, line work, set sparring, some free sparring movement work as well as board breaking, self defence, weapons training and a few games of 5-aside football!

We also had a charity cake morning, which was a great opportunity to socialise and raise money for a worthy cause - whilst recharging with lots of tasty cake.  Mrs Swain also took the opportunity to socialise with some of the friendly locals too!

Winter Camp is one of our most local P.U.M.A. events, and always held near the beginning of November. There is no minimum grade or fitness level required to attend - everyone can take something from the weekend. It would be great to see some more Swain Taekwon-Do faces there next year!

More photo's from the weekend can be found on the P.U.M.A. Facebook Page.

Today was the penultimate P.U.M.A. National squad training session of 2018!  And it was great to be joined by some of our students for the session!  It was really useful preparation for the P.U.M.A. British Championships coming up in a few weeks, and just a good, fun training session.  Well done to the Rosie family for coming along; hopefully we'll see more of you there at the next one on December 2nd, and in the New Year!


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What was the session like?

There were 40-45 students in attendance, from across the country. Yellow belts to 4th Degree Black Belts. Under 10s to over 50's! There really was something for everyone.

The session started with a quick photo (Mr & Mrs Swain, and Mr Lammin showing off their Holland Cup ambassador T-Shirts) then on to the warm up, led by our own Mrs Swain!  We then spent about 45 minutes working on patterns; practising some basic ones individually then working up to patterns of grade watched by a partner providing feedback.

After patterns Mr Lammin took us through some padwork in small groups. Today's focus was side kicks and back kicks on the kick shields, working across the hall. This was followed by getting the safety equipment on, ready for some more drills and combinations led by Mr Whitlock before splitting into similar size groups to work on free sparring.  After all that there was time for a bit of stretching before finishing for the day.

I'm sure the Rosie's would be glad to share their experience of the day, and it would be fantastic to see more of you all at the next session!!
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