Black Belt International Seminar hosted by USTC
(United States Taekwon-do Council)
23 – 26 February 2012
(Reported by SM Augustus Mitchell)

I accepted an invitation to attend an International Black Belt Seminar hosted by the US Taekwon-do Council in Elizabeth City, North Carolina and organised by Master Orlando Vega, President of USTC.

The seminar was conducted by Grand Master Desimone ITF EB Member from Argentina and ran from Friday 23 February to Sunday 26 February.

People arrived from across the US, Central America and across the Caribbean on Thursday when enrolment was organised.

Friday was entirely classroom based and included discussion about theory of power and understanding the technique. Discussion proved fruitful and informative with lots of clarification from the Grand Master.

After introductions everyone made notes and began to get a flavour of how the seminar was going to be conducted. Also there were views expressed from different instructors and who has been out of the original Taekwon-do for a while.

Friday night was an opportunity for everyone to have a social, with dinner arranged and a general get-together.

Saturday was the physical and practical aspects of seminar where the previous day’s theory was put into practise. The seminar was conducted in a very similar style to that of General Choi with approximately 50 people attending from 1st Gup up to Black Belt instructors who all participated.

GM Desimone used a method similar to that of the seminar in Beijing 2010 and the method was to update technique and he used this approach throughout the whole of the seminar.

Saturday night was also sociable with lots of different discussions and questions to GM Desimone and USTC from other members groups.
Sunday was Black Belts only and covered self defence, different types of sparring, application of techniques and more questions, answers and clarification.

Lots of people appeared to be looking for a direction with Taekwon-do, which came out at the social and were seeking advice from the Grand Master about the original TKD as there were people from other groups there. There were political discussions and it became clear the people were looking for direction both within and outside of ITF and turning to the original ITF.

Seminar was informative, educative and productive and people in general seemed to enjoy it. I think more seminars like this could bring people together.