On Sunday 9th February five members of Swain Taekwon-Do set off to Tonbridge to train with Master Jaroslaw Suska. And all with fresh aches from competing, coaching and refereeing at the International Open the day before!

Another busy weekend for Swain Taekwon-Do saw Mr Swain and Mr Bailey junior head to Eindhoven, The Netherlands for the 2020 Open Dutch Championships while Mrs Swain put some students through their paces with an extra sparring session!

The weekend of the 18th and 19th January was a very busy weekend for Swain Taekwon-Do students.  On the Saturday some of our members went to Swindon for National Squad training, and then on Sunday we had Red and Black belt training in Yate with Master Gayle and Master Ogborne.

P.U.M.A. Winter Camp was held at Warmwell Holiday Park between 8th and 11th November. Mr and Mrs Swain were joined by Mrs Hallett, Mrs Rosie, Miss Rosie and Ben Rosie for the weekend. It is our nearest P.U.M.A.-wide event, and I'd encourage everyone to do their best to get there at least once.  Many thanks to Mrs Hallett for the review of the weekend below!

On Saturday 11th May P.U.M.A. hosted a sparring seminar with multiple time World Champion and New Zealand coach Mr Carl van Roon.

​Six members of Swain Taekwon-Do took the opportunity to enhance their skills, alongside around 90 other students from P.U.M.A. and other associations. The seminar covered some basic footwork drills (which Mr van Roon made look effortless but took a lot of coordination), some timing and reaction drills, ideas on how to control an opponent when sparring. There was also a brief question and answer session to dig into Mr van Roon's sparring and instructing philosophies even more.

Photos of the event can be found in this P.U.M.A. Facebook album. 

Mr and Mrs Swain were also invited to an additional session for senior squad members on the Friday night getting some personal guidance from Mr van Roon.

Everyone really enjoyed the session, and there are plenty of things we can bring back to classes and our own training.

Keep your eyes open for exciting opportunities to expand your training by signing up to the P.U.M.A. events mailing list on the right of this page: https://puma-uk-events.com/contact/. You get a free National Squad training session for signing up!

On Saturday 21st January, Mr Swain, Mrs Swain and Miss Scott attended a breaking and special technique seminar taught by ITF Breaking World Champion and New Zealand Coach - Mr Brendan Doogan.

It was a fantastic session, Mr Doogan's passion for the art and knowledge came through easily. We learnt lots that we can put into practice while teaching for those of you who want to get improve their breaking and jumping. We also had a lot of fun jumping onto crash mats... anyone know where I can get (and store) some of those cheaply?

Mrs Swain has written a full report of the session for the PUMA Events Website, to give it a read, click here.

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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Every year Mr Lammin hosts a number of beach training sessions on the lovely Bournemouth beach.  These sessions are a great chance for our students to train with others from locals classes, as well as having some fun on the sand and in the sea!

This time round, with Mr Swain still recovering from injury he was asked to help run the session, which he really enjoyed.  It was great to see a good turn out from Swain Taekwon-Do Students - who all thoroughly enjoyed it. Fingers crossed we can have even more next time!

The session this time covered a bit of fitness, patterns (testing the memory and balance) as well as some kicking and sparring in the sea!