Members of a local martial arts club gathered together to celebrate a prestigious milestone late last month.
The community based and non-profit Estevan Taekwon-Do Association reached its 30th year this spring of helping provide volunteer administrative and financial support to keep the local chapter of the Global Taekwon-Do Federation (GTF) club running. To mark this occasion, members of the club staged a weekend-long testing and skills development event at their Pleasantdale School training ground from May 27 to 29.
Wayne Brown, head instructor of the Estevan Taekwon-Do club, said the sport originally came to the Energy City in the fall of 1985 with the association forming early the next year. He said the two head instructors at that time were Washington Celis and Master Vlado Brcic, who has remained involved with the local club throughout the years despite changing residences among the western provinces during that time.
"It's not an easy journey so people come and go, but there are a handful who will stick around and make their way to a black belt." -Wayne Brown, Estevan Taekwon-Do club head instructor
Brown said the anniversary celebration began with the club flying Brcic back to Estevan to witness Anusha Conquergood, Beckey Franke and Kari Paxman testing for their second-, third- and fourth-degree black belts, respectively, on Friday. Along with local senior instructors Don Dechief and Warren Morrical, Brcic then took in the testing events for the colour belts before attending an anniversary dinner and awards presentation on Saturday. Brcic followed that on the next day by giving a four-hour seminar on strikes, sparring techniques, patterns and exercises.
Since joining the club in the fall of 1986 as a favour to his brother Randy who wanted a second adult around to train with, Brown said he’s seen probably 1,000 people pass through its doors. He said that first year there were about 15-20 students in the club, which practised at Hillside School at the time, but it kept growing to where they now enjoy an average of 70 participants during each session.
“It’s not an easy journey so people come and go, but there are a handful who will stick around and make their way to a black belt,” said Brown. “It’s a very disciplined martial arts, a traditional martial arts, and we teach the spiritual side of it or the spiritual discipline as well as the technical profession, so it does take a lot of training.”
During the past three decades the Estevan Taekwon-Do club has remained an involved member of the community by performing demonstrations of the art of fist and foot at fairs and home and garden shows as well as giving self-defence lessons to area kids during school phys-ed classes and air cadet meetings. The club has also sent their members across Canada, the United States and abroad to compete at tournaments and participate in seminars, but Brown said these achievements aren’t what made the biggest impact on him.
“I think the highlight of the club is the positive impact it’s had on students both physically and mentally in the tenants of courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self-control and indomitable spirit,” he said. “It’s kind of like a family with our senior black belts who we’ve trained with over the last 25 years, Mr. Dechief and Mr. Morrical. It’s hard training and you go through lots of ups and downs and so the bond that you make with your fellow instructors is pretty strong.”
The next big event the club is planning to participate in is the 2018 GTF World Championships in South Korea. Brown said they’ll be intensifying their training in the lead-up to the competition while also staging a variety of fundraising events to try and give as many students as possible an opportunity to attend. He said it is the Estevan Taekwon-Do Association which is making and have made these experiences possible, noting this volunteer group of adult taekwon-do students and parents of its younger members have continually devoted their time and energy to make sure the club persevered and strived.
“It was great to celebrate 30 years in Estevan,” said Brown. “There were a few times in our history that you never knew if it was going to continue, so we’re very happy to be where we are now.”
