The Estevan Taekwon-Do Association had a phased-in start to their year, but now they’re able to have practices for all of their members.
Head instructor Wayne Brown, who is a sixth degree black belt, said they held their first full practice Oct. 15.
The senior black belt instructors and the black belts started training in mid-September.
“We wanted to get the opportunity to train together and work on some of the different practices and the different things we would have to implement in order to get ready for the regular classes,” he said.
They trained for about four weeks, and studied different ways to manage the small group of black belts and instructors before regular classes began.
The association has about 30 returning students and six new beginners. Some were unable to make the first few sessions, and they accepted a few more after the initial gatherings.
Numbers are down, but they’re happy to have about 36 members this year, and to have some new students.
“Everyone is a little tentative in the current situation,” said Brown.
Practice sessions are held Mondays and Thursdays from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at the Estevan Church of God. They had to find a new location, since they couldn’t practise in schools, so the executive spent the summer looking for a new home.
A number of protocols have been established for the practices. There’s a screening process when a member walks in the building to undergo questions and to make sure a student or an instructor isn’t feeling well, because they don’t want an illness brought into the building.
Spots are marked on the floor to keep the two-metre distancing and for training.
“It’s hard when you can only have 30 people in a room, but we are doing our best to maintain that social distancing. The students are coming to class all dressed in their doboks, and they’re bringing their own water and equipment,” said Brown.
“Right now we’re just working through this slowly, and as things change, we’re always continuing to look for better ways, and to implement some closer contact training and shield work, but we have to look at what we can implement that will be safer for everybody.”
Members have done a good job of handling the challenges.
“Of course we’re following the guidelines that the Saskatchewan Health Authority established, and we had to in order to make sure we could open up safely,” said Brown.
The club doesn’t want to encounter a situation that would force them to suspend their practices again.
The association’s annual meet would typically happen in November, but that can’t happen, as there aren’t any tournaments happening in the province, and they want to keep the same cohort or bubble of people training together.
