Carrick on Suir Taekwon-Do

At 6.00am on Saturday morning, 17 July 2010, 15 bleary eyed Carrick-on-Suir Taekwon-Do students, 4 equally bleary eyed parents and a wide awake, cheerful Mr Tobin, met the minibus outside The Davin Park to take us on our journey to the UK to compete in the London Open Taekwon-Do Championships 2010. The juniors soon forgot their tiredness and not long into the journey the level of noise on the bus got louder and louder. Their enthusiasm was infectious and before long the seniors and parents also came to life. With chatter and laughter ringing out we boarded the ferry and crossed the Irish Sea to Pembroke.
At around 6pm Saturday evening it was with relief that we reached our hotel. With bellys rumbling we sat down to our dinner in the Comfort Hotel near Reading. After dinner, Mr Tobin brought us outside to the car park of the hotel where we did some light training in preparation for the next day’s competition. Underneath the flickering hotel lights, with cars and lorries flying past on the road, we did some patterns and stretching. Then it was to our beds to try and catch a good nights sleep.

At 6am on Sunday morning, outside to the car park we went again for an hours training before breakfast. During training we did some pad work, stretches, sparring techniques and patterns. Mr Tobin then gave us some words of wisdom and the motivation to go to this competition, compete to the very best of our ability and have no regrets. Whether we won, or lost, as long as we did the very best we could, we could hold our heads up high.

With this in mind we boarded the bus and headed to Guildford to the impressive Spectrum Leisure Centre. We walked into the big arena where in front of us the hall was laid out with 6 matted rings and hundreds of competitors, families, and Taekwon-Do coaches and umpires. Before the competition officially started, Ms McEneany got us together in a huddle, and told us to do our best for Mr Tobin, Carrick, Kilmacow and ourselves. We let a roar out of us “Go Carrick, Go Kilmacow”. The other competitors then realised we had arrived!!

The competition started off for Carrick when the junior green belts were called out for their patterns. Then it was the blue and red belts turn. The patterns were of a high standard but we held our own and Carrick showed that technically we are up there with the best of them. This was even more obvious when our black belts took to the floor. They did us proud!! The medals started appearing fairly quickly with cheers from those in the stands. Those that didn’t get medals in the patterns section didn’t let the disappointment get them down and vowed to get one in the sparring section. They didn’t disappoint!!

The sparring proved to be very competitive on the day. It was fast and hard hitting, especially in the red and black belt sections, and more than one person came out of the arena covered in bruises. There was even the odd bloody nose! There were many OOH’s and AAH’s from those watching. Some people had their eyes closed, afraid of seeing competitors getting hurt. But the Carrick and Kilmacow students showed spirit, not giving up. A special mention has to go to Brian Cusack who showed tremendous courage against a very strong opponent. He earned a lot of respect on the day.

Mr Tobin, helped by Ms McEneany and Ms Tobin, was very busy going from ring to ring coaching all his students and those of Kilmacow TKD, motivating us and encouraging us not to let our opponents intimidate us. The water and lucozade sport was being handed out to stop people getting dehydrated in the heat of the arena. It was good to have someone there by ringside to help you. Even though they couldn’t physically come into the ring (more’s the pity), having them at ringside helped calm the nerves.

At the end of a long day, Carrick were once again one of the last groups to leave the arena. A mixture of emotions was evident - we were equally tired, excited, relieved and very very proud of our schools. We did a medal count on the bus, and realised that every competitor from Carrick and Kilmacow had won a medal, some had won two and Ms McEneany three!! The total number of medals won by 15 competitors was 23. There were 7 gold, 7 silver and 9 bronze.

When we got back to the hotel, we ate all around us, the nerves were gone and everyone cleared their plates. We relaxed and chatted about all that had happened that day. We arrived back in Carrick on Monday evening tired but happy. There were shouts on the bus of “three cheers for Mr Tobin”. Without his dedication and encouragement, we would never have experienced anything even remotely like this. We could nearly read Mr Tobin’s mind, knowing that he was already thinking and planning ahead to our next challenge!!!!!
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Sandra Regan
6^th Kup
Carrick-on-Suir Taekwon-Do School