The Estevan Taekwon-Do Association welcomed over 100 athletes from a variety of martial arts disciplines to its annual invitational tournament at Estevan Comprehensive School on Saturday.
Wayne Brown, head instructor of the Estevan Taekwon-Do Association, said their tournament is the first of three Saskatchewan Global Taekwon-Do Association competitions that are held throughout the sport’s September to June season. He said that does put a bit of pressure on the club, but there are also some positives to hosting an event so early in the year.
“We’ve got two months to get back in shape, so it does give the group a goal to try and work hard and to get at it right away,” said Brown. “It allows people to get going and shake off some of the rust.”
Eight different clubs representing communities from Osler, Saskatoon, Lampman, Weyburn, Hague, Warman and Estevan took part in the day-long tournament that began with a patterns competition, moved on to board breaking and finished with sparring. Athletes in the disciplines of karate and jujitsu were among the competitors in these events.
“They abide by our taekwon-do rules, which makes it interesting,” said Brown. “We’ve always enjoyed them and they’ve always been great coming. (It’s difficult trying) to judge different patterns (with) different styles, but we’re so accustomed to it now we understand it, so it’s good for our competitors. It’s good for our students to see something different too.”
Brown said hosting duties kept him busy throughout the day checking and making sure everything was running smoothly, such as dividing the divisions to ensure the competition was fair. He said that made it hard trying to figure out how the Estevan Taekwon-Do Association athletes were doing, but the expectation of the home side holding their own was met.
“I heard lots of Estevan taekwon-do names, so I think we did okay,” he said. “We usually do well at our home tournament.”
