Successful Year Has Sport Going Forward

Successful Year Has Sport Going Forward

It might not have numbers as high at rugby or netball, but the sport of International Taekwon-Do New Zealand is making steady increases with its active members and the place it has as in Kiwisport and in the community overall.

Through Kiwisport, Taekwon-Do has already commenced programmes across 18 schools in the Counties Manukau and Waitakere schools teaching over 2000 children self-defence and flexibility. The sport is also involved in some schools on the North Shore of Auckland with the project coming fully on line in the new year.

At the end of September 2015 the sport had 3280 active members, compared with 3022 at the same time last year, which is an 8% increase and in the past two and a half months number have slowly increased again. There have been a total of 1010 are new registrations including 40 Kubz (under five years) and 822 minikids (a slightly easier format of Taekwon-Do for kids)

Kubz is an education programme for pre-school children which contains a fun and vibrant Taekwon-Do element and from there they go into our NZ developed kids programme which is part of the formal Taekwon-Do syllabus but still designed with this age group in mind. Kubz teaches child protection against adults, known and unknown, dealing with bulling, verbal and non-verbal, health and fitness and the benefits of working together and the fun of sharing.

Overall there are currently 79 registered Taekwon-Do clubs around the country with the largest at the Warrior Club in Ellerslie, Auckland run by Master Paul McPhail which has 276 members. The other club with over 200 members is PM Papakura, also with Master Paul McPhail as the chief instructor.

There are five other clubs in New Zealand boasting well over 100 members each ranging from Tauranga, Manawatu, Horowhenua and other locations around the country.

Additionally the sport is gaining respect and kudos in various places in the community. Melissa Timperley won 2015 Blues AUT Sportsperson of the Year of the year and MPhail was the coach of the year at the Counties Manukau Sporting Excellence Awards this year and Frances Lloyd a Junior World Champion was awarded an AMP Scholarship. Many other Taekwon-Do athletes made the finals of sports awards or were winners around New Zealand in 2015.

The New Zealand team was also the overall best team at the Taekwon-Do world championships in Jesolo, Italy with a number of athletes winning individual world titles. The teams performance at the world champs has seen them make the finalist of the Halberg Team Of The Year for 2015 alongside some illustrious company.

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