This weekend was really exhausting! I completed the Technical Licensing Course held by Mr. LeGrow. The purpose of the course was to train the black belts how to be consistent in their teaching for dojangs in Ontario. It’s important to have a standardization for all the schools to improve the level of Taekwon-do.
It was a three day course on learning the materiel that each belt level is required to know. It was a great opportunity to brush up on some important information and also it was really helpful because we were put in the position of roll playing. We had go through the steps of how to teach someone a specific piece of information.
The first part of the course was on Friday night from 6pm to 9:30pm. Mr. Legrow introduced the concept of the course and what he was aiming to accomplish by the end of the weekend. Friday night was based strictly on how to do a proper warm-up and the white belt material. The warm-up was pretty straight forward so it didn’t take long before moving onto the white belt materiel. We used the whole night because white belt takes the longest. We learned how to start off with a new student and how to teach them.
Saturday was from 8:30am to 5:45pm with a lunch break. During the day we made our way up to green belt-blue stripe. We continued going through the material and teaching teaching each other. This course was also a good time to be corrected on the beginner and simple movements. The beginner movements are actually the hardest to perfect because they are the easiest to spot out a mistake. Mr. Lim was also there to share some of his knowledge so it was an extra bonus.
Sunday was the last day of the course and by then everyone was absolutely beyond tired and sore. We started at 9am and we ended up finishing at about 1:30pm. When we finished I thought my legs were going to collapse. The difference in between TKD and other sports is that you are literally working every muscle in your body as opposed to working isolated muscles. I could not wait to just have a hot shower when I got home each day.
This course was extremely important in my point of view because all the coaches and instructors should be on the same page so when September comes, all of the students will be learning the same thing so everyone will benefit.
I was really tired after all the training and I was really nervous because Sunday night I had a semi-final soccer game. How was I supposed to exert even more energy? I was even worried about getting my bruised and achy feet into uncomfortably hard cleats!