Taekwondo White-Belt Instruction
Thursday, June 21st, 2001
UC Martial Arts
Recreational Sports Facility

Berkeley, CA
  
All Photos © 2001 Ting Vogel
 
 

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Master Yoon had asked me to teach White Belts for the Summer Semester. I do not mind teaching Summer Semester because the classes are always much smaller than Fall or Spring Semesters, thus allowing me to give more personal attention to my students. The one disadvantage to teaching White Belts is that the class overlaps the Advanced Class, so I miss my own workout. I have five TAs, not including Sally and Clarence, who drop by frequently to help me out. Sally is a fourth-degree Black-Belt in Taekwondo and Clarence is a first-degree. Since three of my TAs are Red-Belts (Pam, Romy, and Tiffany), they have to leave after an hour to attend the Advanced Class. The other TAs, Steve and Sam, are Blue-Belt and Green-Belt respectively. This works out well as they take over the "second-shift" when Pam, Romy, and Tiffany have to leave. Given the ratio of TAs to students, the students in my class are given very personal attention indeed!

Today, we warmed up with "circle drills" (which means everything is done in a circle) followed by stretching: running; running crossing legs; running in fighting stance; running with high knees; running with heels back; running backwards; 20 sit-ups and 15 push-ups; 20 hip lifts and 15 judo push-ups; 20 leg lifts and 15 knuckle push-ups; 20 crunches and 15 reverse crunches. My curriculum includes three practice tests. Today we had the first one.
The test included various combination line drills, attack and defense drills, and questions which tested the students' knowledge of their techniques. Here is a link to today's class notes.

There is a picture of Delon doing a Butterfly Kick. A Butterfly Kick is not a Taekwondo kick. Delon had a background of eight years of Kung Fu. He is from Hong Kong and is a visiting student at Berkeley for the summer.